Innocent language that's actually quite painful

One day I came across a headline that irritated me a little. It read “Doctor says robber is a nutcase”.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind after reading a headline like that? The first thing that came to my mind was anger, sadness, irritation. I was angry because the media is very instrumental in shaping perceptions, and when they stigmatize through their use of language, society might think it’s OK to act likewise. The media’s mandate is to educate, inform and entertain the populace, so what do people learn from such negative use of language? Do not mistake me, I have no mercy for robbers, but I hold sufferers of neurological or mental conditions near and dear to my heart and get very hot under the collar when people make fun of their conditions. These are conditions that affect families in a way anyone who knows nothing about them can even begin to imagine. Only someone who has never loved anyone with a mental condition can call someone living with it “a nutcase”.

People with psychological conditions aren’t nutcases. They are people who either have shattered dreams because of how their conditions have affected them, or are still living their dreams regardless of the conditions. They don’t need people who have total disregard of their plight and go on to call them names that try to exclude them from society.

Many a time I’ve had to bite my tongue to avoid biting people’s heads off when they make certain statements lightly, yet the statements are pregnant with meaning for people in certain circumstances. Statements like:

 “He was drooling like an idiot”,

“There she was, laughing like a brain damaged child”,

“He refused to talk to me and I thought, lol what a retard!”

These are examples of really bad use of language that’s probably worse than the f-word. My son is autistic and he drools because he has low muscle tone, which his therapists are working on rectifying. He’s certainly not an idiot. People who have suffered strokes, or have other medical afflictions can also drool.

I have seen a few brain-damaged children, and when they laugh, it’s the most beautiful music to their parents and caregivers because it’s one of the few indicators that the children are happy, as they have no other way of expressing their joy. This can’t be equated to diabolical laughing, or any laughter that sounds indecorous.

I have observed how some people call someone who is being nasty a retard. Retardation simply describes a situation where there’s developmental delay in a person, and it’s not remotely funny when people throw that word around. Retard is a derogatory term for the developmentally challenged. Those living with individuals with retarded growth or development have very difficult lives trying to make the best out of their loved one’s lives. It’s an insult to people who have any form of retarding condition to be likened to obnoxious people.

On the same day that I saw the headline, I was actually going to the newspaper that published it for a job interview. Somewhere along the way, one of the panelists asked what I would do to change the paper if I joined their team. I said I would start by doing away with the kind of headlines like the one I referred to above, because many of the paper’s readers are probably living with mental illnesses. It won’t sit well with them to be categorized as nutcases. By all means let’s be irate with robbers, but let’s not poke fun at medical conditions that people did not bring upon themselves. I just wonder what kind of doctor would go around granting interviews to journalists about the medical history of his patients, even if they are alleged robbers. What happened to doctor/patient confidentiality?

I pray that everyone who passes by this post will be more mindful of what they churn out of their mouths. Let’s all be sensitive to those around us and what they might be going through. It might not just be about mental or medical conditions. It might be about someone who just had heartbreak or has some form of turmoil in their life and you just eject something that sends them off the edge or worsens how they are feeling.

And by the way, the newspaper never got in touch with me after the interview. I hope it had nothing to do with what I said about the nasty little headline with big effect on people suffering from mental conditions.

Different Strokes

I have a very funny uncle that I haven’t seen in a very long time! He told me a story of how he went drinking with some friends in rural Mutare, Zimbabwe. On his return home, he found the river he wanted to cross in order to get there flooded. Aided by his Dutch courage, he told himself he could easily swim across. Midway, the tide overpowered him and he was swept away. Fortunately for him, there were people around and they managed to rescue him and took him home. The next day, when he was sober, they came to ask him why he had concentrated on raising his hand above the water to avoid water getting into his beer bottle instead of freeing that arm to swim to safety. He only laughed foolishly.

What reminded me of this story was something that happened to a friend’s brother. A gas stove exploded and his dreadlocks and shorts somehow caught fire. While his head was up in flames, he was more worried about extinguishing the fire on his shorts because he was petrified of the thought of the family jewels getting roasted. I would have been more worried about protecting my face and most importantly my brain!

Well, different strokes for different folks :).

Furry Feral Frenemy

Not the culprit in the article. Pic by Susan

One day as I was coming down the stairs into the lounge, a black cat leaped from the room and dashed outside. It startled me out of my skin. I love animals a lot, but certainly not cats. I don’t like the creepy way they just sit there and watch you like they know your deepest, darkest secrets.I’m more of a dog person. When I was young, we used to have a cat called Pussy (back then minds were cleaner and that was the most popular name for cats). I used to share a bedroom with my sisters, and if one of them went out and left the door ajar, I would wake up to the purring of the cat as it rubbed itself on my head. Regardless of the years we spent with Pussy, I never really got used to it.

As days went by, I realised the black cat I saw in the house had become a permanent resident in our garden. It would just spend the whole day sitting there. We tried to shoo it away and it would snarl at us.That’s when I realised we had a feral cat in our midst. I called Randburg SPCA to come and get it because I was afraid it would hurt us one day as there was very little chance of it being vaccinated, and since it didn’t come into the house, it would die from exposure to the elements. The SPCA demanded an outrageous amount of money for the cat trap, which they would repossess after capturing the cat. I questioned why I had to pay to save a cat’s life. I actually assumed they would go out of their way to get the cat off my hands since they are in the business of taking care of unwanted animals. The person I spoke to actually arrogantly said they would be doing me a favour if they came to get that cat because I was the one who needed help getting rid of a problem. I was quite shocked to noted these animal welfare organisations aren’t really what they tout themselves to be.  I wasn’t prepared to part with any money, so I let the matter rest. But the cat was still there, and when my son tried to play with it or when I got too close to it, it just continued to snarl.

I couldn’t let it starve, so I started feeding it our leftovers. My son decided to call it Trixie from a puppet show on TV. Trixie and I would play a cat and mouse game when it came to feeding it. I would peep to see if he/she was anywhere near the place I placed the food first before venturing out. I was terrified of that cat. I am terrified of all cats. If Trixie wasn’t there, I’d quickly dash out, drop the bowl of food, and dash back into the house. We would always find the dish empty without ever seeing Trixie eat. I eventually discovered that Trixie used to watch me as I delivered food. No sooner had I closed the door than she would emerge from the overgrowth in the garden with the stealthiness of a cat and quickly devour the food. I felt a bit stupid knowing the cat had always been watching as I darted in and out of the house with its food.

With time, Trixie started coming to sit by the French door when hungry. We would immediately sort his food out. We never got close enough to the cat to see if it was male or female, but I will refer to Trixie as male. Just as we approached the door with the food, Trixie would sprint to a safe distance and would only run to the food bowl after the door was closed. One day as I was hanging the clothes on the washing line, Trixie came and sat next to my bucket, very close to me. I was heavily pregnant and afraid at first, wondering how I’d make my getaway if Trixie lost his cool. I considered leaving the hanging for later, but I realised Trixie meant no harm. He was just offering an olive branch in a cat kind of way.

Sometimes we would buy takeaways, like pizza, and there would be no leftovers for Trixie. I started buying cat food from the supermarket. Who would have thought! And when we went out to eat, we would never throw away our leftovers. We always asked for a doggy bag. Trixie was now like a child that I was responsible for. At first my husband wasn’t very receptive to the idea of feeding the cat, let alone buy food for it. He would always say, “Let that cat go and hunt for rats”.

I was pleasantly surprised one day when I came home late from work to find he had already fed the cat. During the course of my pregnancy, he continued feeding it.  I also found it hilarious that when my father visited, he also announced he had fed Trixie in my absence, even as he insisted there was nothing domestic about the cat. “I saw it in its eyes,” he said.

One day Trixie didn’t emerge from the bushes to eat. I only noticed it the next day. I put fresher food in the bowl. Still Trixie didn’t come to eat. I was really worried and knew something had happened. My husband said maybe the cat was eating somewhere else. I was afraid Trixie had been hit by a car or mauled by dogs. Them Trixie crawled home and sat behind a tree in the garden. His coat was dull and the eyes were sunken and gooey. That broke my heart. The cat was sick as a dog :(. I put some water and more food for it, and it didn’t even move. It just seemed to have come home to die. I kept monitoring it, and it just stayed in the same place.

Against my better judgment, I called SPCA again to let them know the cat was sick. They said I should take it to the vet. I had no way of taking it to the vet, because even though we had become friends, catching that cat was out of the question. It was still wild. So the SPCA said if they came to get it and got it treated by their own vet, then I would never get it back. They would give it up for adoption. They said that cat was my responsibility if I had spent more than a month feeding it; I was now its owner. With a lump in my throat I asked them to come and get it so it could be treated. I could not believe myself when I felt tears streaming down my face when I was telling my helper that we were losing the cat.

Trixie sick as a dog. I had to zoom in a lot as I was afraid to get too close

Two men came from SPCA, armed to the teeth with combat boots and a cat trap. Trixie was still lying in the same place, almost half dead, or so I thought. Upon seeing those men, he sprung and dashed out of the yard like a bat out of hell. “I thought you said the cat wasn’t moving?” said one of the men. I explained that he really hadn’t moved for days. The men waited for his return for about an hour but eventually gave up and left. We didn’t see Trixie for about three days after that. I resigned myself to the thought that he had gone somewhere else to die, and it made me sad that he would be all alone, far from family.

One morning as I drew the curtains, there he was sitting by the French door waiting for his food like he had never left. He looked fresh as a daisy. What elation I felt!! So we resumed our routine.

Shortly after that, we had to move to Swaziland. Apart from fear of the unknown and getting a good school for Victor, my biggest worry was Trixie. Taking a feral cat with us on such a long road trip would never work, not to mention the paperwork that would be required even if it had been a domesticated one. I had sleepless nights wondering what would happen to the cat, who would feed it. My heart bled thinking of Trixie coming to stand by the French door to wait for food, only to find hostile new residents who would chase him away. Then he would probably come a few more times expecting to see us, only to discover we would never be back. Then he would eventually slink away to die of hunger somewhere.

Fortunately, the people who took over the house, a young couple with two daughters, were cat lovers. I explained the cat situation to them and they said they would gladly feed it. I hear the father is always the first one to check if the cat has been fed :). The mother told me she suspected Trixie was pregnant at some point, but later noted that she or he had just gained weight. I sleep easy knowing Trixie is just fine. I still do not like cats.

Knowing where to draw the line

Picture Source Unknown

Someone I love came to me with a sob story of how someone else was mistreating her. It became her only song. Every other day, I’d get a dose of the same, to a point where I struggled to sleep or eat while carrying her anguish.

When she came up with a plan to mitigate the situation, she asked for my help and I agreed in a heartbeat. I’d never have forgiven myself if something bad happened to her and I didn’t help when I could. To cut a long story short, I later realised that I had been used as the cat’s paw by someone who didn’t want to deal with her own issues and was avoiding getting her hands dirty. Needless to say, I got my fingers burned and learned my first serious lesson about where to draw the line.

Usually I’m a peace-loving person who steers clear from other people’s business as I also expect the same attitude from others. But in the instance I mentioned above, my help was requested and I thought I couldn’t say no. When I took the requested action, the situation blew up in my face and the person I thought I was helping started also acting like I was victimising her, for reasons best known to her. That was like a slap in the face while anticipating a pat on the back.

I had to admit that sometimes we have to draw the line to how far we can go in involving ourselves in other people’s lives, regardless of how dire the state of affairs appears to be and how much we love the people involved. With egg oozing down my face, I later realised that I had acted without full knowledge of the story behind. I had been used. I take full responsibility for what happened because I wasn’t forced at gunpoint to do what I did, I was just shortsighted.  The victim presented her case to me in a way that emphasized her ‘victim-hood’, and when stuff hit the fan, she also went to other people and spun another tale of how I was also part of the problem. It was painful, but that’s usually how most of life’s lessons are.

Now I know that in everything that I do, I should observe boundaries. I have also noticed people who are in the habit of crossing boundaries in other people’s lives. They just want their fingerprints on everyone’s life just so they can validate their idea of their own self-importance. That’s so unnecessary. Sometimes you can see a person whose life is in shambles being a busybody in other people’s business, trying to impose an idea here, fix a life there, and sticking a dirty nose all around. You ask yourself; don’t they see that their lives are falling apart while they are busy playing fixers?

I have had my moments of weakness when I have over-shared details of my life because of sadness or desperation, then afterwards I ask myself, “What in the world was I thinking letting my guard down like that!?”. We should draw the line at how much we allow other people into our lives because not everyone has good intentions. Some people act all sweet and helpful and want to be in our inner circle so that, with the precision of termites, they can slowly devour us from within. In the same way, we should also draw the line to how deep we can go into other people’s lives. We have our own crosses to carry, so why concentrate on the fire at our neighbour’s house while ours burns down? Helping is good. But being too intrusive is totally uncool. People should be given a chance to solve their own problems because they are usually the only ones that know the full story of how they got there in the first place.  

Damn the news!

Article from The Times of Swaziland

My friend Hazel used to keep her TV switched off on the basis that the news was very depressing.  I remember her specifically saying, “You switch on the TV and all you hear is Boko Haram this Boko Haram that…” That left me rather perplexed because I thought everyone wanted to know what was going on in the world. I always want to be on top of things, first with the news. Lately, though, Hazel’s attitude seems to have rubbed on to me.

The death of Top Billing presenter Simba Mhere ruined my whole day. Although I only saw him on TV, he was so young, infectious, and had a brilliant career ahead of him I felt as if a friend had passed away. Before hearing about it, I had just read online about the suicides of five young Zimbabweans, one of them just 12 years old. Just as I was processing the tragic news, I heard of the beheading of Japanese war reporter Kenji Goto, one of many beheadings lately, then the Jordanian pilot who was burned alive by ISIS.

I really hate how I feel after watching the news or reading the papers. There’s just too much doom and gloom overload on my brain… talk about Taliban and Boko Haram killings, the Stellenbosch killings in South Africa, the recent Australian hostage drama, the political squabbling
in Zimbabwe, disappearing passenger planes, and the Charlie Hebdon gun killings in France. Here in Swaziland there appears to be a suicide being reported on every other day, a businessman was recently murdered by his wife and their kids, and a mini bus with more than 13 people was washed away by a flooded river. There were no survivors.

Article on Stellenbosch killings:The Sunday Times

The news just raises awareness about how unsafe the world is. We begin to be afraid of our own shadows. But I know for a fact that there are a lot of other beautiful things happening in the world, but no, the bloodthirsty media doesn’t want to focus on those. They are obsessed with the macabre, shocking, and tear-jerking stuff.

When we were still resident in Joburg, I started booby-trapping the door just before bed. One day my former colleague, Nontobeko, came home and when I told her why there was a bottle by the door side, she said, “One day that bottle is going to just fall in the middle of the night, just nje. What are you going to do?” I had no idea what I was going to do in the event of that happening.  Maybe I’d have got time to call for help, bring my son to my room, barricade the bedroom door and say my prayers. All that madness and paranoia started when I began practicing as a journalist, especially when I got involved in court reporting. Sometimes I’d sit in court from 8am to 3pm waiting for a case I was covering to be heard, and while waiting I’d hear all manner of depraved human beings talk about what bad things they did to innocent, law-abiding citizens. To actually see and hear a person who looks ordinary talk about such things made me want to jump out of my skin at the slightest bump in the night. One alleged criminal actually winked and leered at me while being tried for murder and I was sitting directly behind him so that I could clearly hear all the proceedings. I was traumatised for days.  I used to be very obsessed with court dramas like Law & Order, and thought being a court reporter would really be glamorous. There’s actually nothing sexy about it at all and I stopped watching Law & Order from the time I started court reporting.

Yes, it’s really a gory and debauched world out there, but we don’t need to have that shoved into our faces every day. We could do with some pick-me-up type of stories too. There are there, but beautiful and heartwarming stories rarely make it to the front pages.

Article obtained from The Sunday Times

But will I stop watching the news because it scares me? No. Better the devil you know. If there’s a serial killer in my area, I will be scared out of my skin but I want to know about it so that I can take precautions. If a plane has disappeared in Asia, I will feel very sad and depressed, but I want to know about it so that I can remember to thank God for each and every day that I see the sun rise and set together with my family, every long trip that we’ve embarked on and come back home safely, every outing we’ve had and weren’t accosted by some gun-toting extremist.  That should never be taken for granted.