Knowledge is power (aka Wissen ist Macht)

Some of you might be wondering why my blog title is what it is and to be honest, I don't remember who exactly gave me that nickname but it was before I got my teaching certificate at some point...

People were telling me I was like Wikipedia, just in human form. I had a lot of knowledge, sometimes random or useless knowledge, sometimes useful. It's always been a thing for me, to accumulate knowledge, to try and keep myself informed. Some people saw it as showing off (aka "Klugscheisser" in German) and others appreciated it. (This post contains thoughts on mental health issues. If that's something you might not want to read, please do not continue beyond this point).

I often think of myself as a Jack of all trades but a master of none... I know many things about many subjects but I do not have in depth knowledge about any one subject,  I guess.

On some days, I think it's a good thing - I can talk to many people about a variety of subjects, which comes in handy in my job because there is lots of small talk and the like.

On other days, I think it's a terrible thing because I'm not good at anything at all. I guess it's the inferiority complex and depression talking on those days (which I can say objectively now but can never convince myself of when I am in the middle of it, ofc).

I had a spiral of 'it's good!' 'no, it sucks' again a few days ago.

At the school I was working at at the time, the other teachers would always comment on the fact that I "knew everything!" when I was talking to students and relating to their various interests. 

To be honest, small talk and talking to new people and all that does not come easy to me and it took me a long time to get used to it and even now, it can sometimes tire me out a whole lot. But I've somewhat embraced it. When I tell students that I learn as much from them as they (hopefully) learn from me or maybe even more, I mean it. I love listening to people and hearing about their interests and I love sharing things with other people as well. 

I know I talk a lot and sometimes I don't shut up... because I kind of have this internal imbalance when it comes to talking/listening. I go through periods of not talking at all and being fine with it and then I have periods where I just cannot stop talking.

Again, my therapist says that it comes with my inferiority complex that I developed as a child. The urge to 'show off' or to show that you are competent and capable takes over and you go overboard. Which then leads into a downward spiral of 'oh god no I am so stupid, I should not do anything'.

Part of the therapy process is to be aware more. To really force yourself to listen, to actively listen. Some of my friends might have noticed that I go on talking and talk and then maybe all of a sudden I stop and apologize and let them talk as well or change the topic to something different that is more like common ground and that we can both talk about. I'll try to get better at that. I'm sorry if I've been talking your ears off and didn't listen to what you had to say. I'm trying.

How did I develop an inferiority complex and get depression?

There were several factors at work here but the main ones were "growing up in an Asian family" and "being the younger sibling". The first one might sound very stereotypical but you know, those stereotypes have to come from somewhere. My family isn't as extreme as some of the ones you hear about sometimes but traces of that thinking were very much present.

What I mean by that is the pressure to succeed and the expectations you have to meet. And then, discrimination - okay, racism. Let's just put it as it is.

My parents, being Asian parents, had high expectations regarding my academic achievements. This was made even worse by the fact that my sister had excelled - just as 'expected'. So yeah, double the pressure.

When my elementary school report card came back with funky grades in 'German' shit kind of went down.

Had it not been for my sister, I think things would have gotten out of hand. My sister took me under her wing and protection and helped me to figure out my weaknesses but we both discovered quickly hat I didn't have that many weaknesses, so what had been wrong?

And that's when I became aware of racism for the first time in my life. As a child, you don't really notice or pay much attention to it. You're a kid, there are other kids, you're friends, you do the same thing etc.

But suddenly, I became aware of the fact that I was the only person in my entire year, who looked, well, different. I was the only Asian kid among all the Caucasian kids. Yikes. This was a situation my parents hadn't experienced before. They moved to a new place before I entered elementary school, so since Germany does school districts, I had to go to a school closer to the new house. Instead of the school my sister went to, which was closer to our old place.

The big difference, the new house was in a more 'upscale' area if you want to call it that. So most kids who went to the school were from better off, German families. The area very close to the school is notorious for being very exclusive when it comes to deciding who 'gets to live there' and if neighbours etc. oppose, there is no chance for you to ever get a room there. It's also where some of the top brass of the city council etc. live.

So...my parents went in to talk to the teacher who had done the evaluation. It went as far up as the headmistress of the school, who, maybe luckily, turned out to be an acquaintance of my mum's (the headmistress' daughter went to the same school as my sister, so they had met at parent meetings etc.). The headmistress was also a very liberal and fair lady. She looked at my stuff and evaluated it and decided to change the score on my report card.

But even so, the damage had already been done. Being told that the grades you got were unacceptable and that you should better put in more work and effort had left a big scar on my psyche.

This eventually lead to my bad performance in Math, I think. Again, downward spiral, reinforced by negative feedback. It was the perfect shitstorm really. A bad teacher -> cannot understand the material, no fun in class -> bad exam results -> dad getting angry, putting on pressure -> feeling the intense need to study because of the pressure and getting scared of not being able to live up to expectations -> extreme nervous breakdown during exam -> bad results ... and the cycle continues.

It wasn't until I got a new Math teacher that things started to change a bit. He noticed that I was struggling somehow - and in a way that was different from 'normal' students who struggled with Math.

Germany has written marks and oral marks which together make up your final grade in a subject. Oral marks are based on class participation and homework, written marks are your tests and exam scores.

My oral marks were 100% for almost all of my classes, Math being no exception. I always did my homework and I could always answer questions whenever they were asked. But my exam performance in Math was below average most of the time an sometimes even beyond that.

So my new teacher noticed that something was 'up' here. He sat me down in private and talked to me and asked me why my exams were so different from my oral performance like "you know all of this, why?"

I told him. It was good to talk to someone, I felt. I had become unable to talk to my family about it for a long time. My sister was barely home anymore (we have an 11 year gap between us, so by the time I entered secondary school, she was already half-way through uni) and then she went to study abroad, too and was not home at all for a long time.

It was a time when I was in an increasingly bad condition, both physically and mentally.

I had been a skinny kid up until I entered secondary school. That's when I started to put on weight. Of course that also didn't help my psyche... but that'll be something for another day.

Due to the pressure of school and some other things in life that weren't going so great, I had already attempted to commit suicide a few times but had never had enough courage to go all the way through with it, chickening out in the last minute.

So... we decided to get me some help. Without my parents knowing about it - and they still do not know until this day. Nobody in my family knows, some of my closest friends know, though. But nobody else knew at the time.

And...things got better. My grades had been good in all other subjects already (above average, as was 'expected' of me) and then Math started to pick up and the school thus offered me to skip a grade. I refused and instead said I'd rather go and study abroad for a year. The request was approved.

Going abroad to study was what really changed things for the better for me, though. Being away from home and everything for a while had been what had desperately needed.

I was able to turn my life around again.

I still suck at math but now that school and uni are over and done with, hey, nobody cares.

So for a few years, I was in a good place again.

But then the end of uni rolled around and with it, trying to find a job.

I'll keep it short here but after writing well over 400 job applications and only getting 3, maybe 4 job interviews that led to nowhere brought back all the feelings of "you can't do shit and are a useless piece of garbage that takes up space and oxygen" came rushing back.

I fell back into a severe depression but after having gone through stuff as a pre-teen and teenager, I saw some of the warning signs when it got too bad and immediately got in touch with my therapist again when I saw that things were starting to get out of control (...very late but hey, better late than never).

Then, I got a job offer from a Japanese company. Long story short, it's been on the shitlist of companies aka the list that ranks the "blackest" companies in Japan for a few years now... not at that time but now it's a permanent resident there. So that experience dealt me another blow to the psyche.

I returned home, vowing never to work for a Japanese company ever again.

Another 300 unsuccessful job applications later... found me back at square one again. But this time, before things could spiral too much out of hand again I got my shit back together after taking a BREAK from everything (went traveling around Europe, immersed myself more in fandom) and decided to change directions. I remembered what my high school English teacher had said about me to a friend.

"If Kira were to become an English teacher, he'd be very happy" she told me.

So I became an English teacher. And I have not regretted it. (The 'WTF' was real, though... so with a Master's Degree in Economics and Business, I had been unable to find a job even after 700 applications... but ONE DAY after I received my teaching certificate, I had my first job offer for a freelance teaching job).

Well, my only regret might have been to not do it sooner. I was unable to tell my teacher about it and thank him for saving my ass because by the time I held my teaching certificate in my hand, Mr. S was sadly no longer with us. But I will be forever grateful to him. He's saved my life, in a way.

 

Thank you, Mr. S. You're a most awesome guy and I respect and admire you.

Also thank you Mr. P for turning my life around and for being an awesome teacher. Still sad we lost the 'best teacher' contest against the guy with the gummy bears (BRIBES!!).