Breaking Free: A Journey of Self Discovery

by Chett Vosloo

  Not long after I’d gone to see the priest a friend of mine happened to ask me whether I’d like to go with him to his church for the Sunday night service. I figured, why not? Perhaps I would be more open to religion now than I had been in the past. The church he took me to was one of those very active ones in which there was lots of singing, clapping and waving of arms. It was clearly obvious how much joy many of the people were getting from being there, but it was equally clear to me that this wasn’t for me. It didn’t feel right at all. Had I kept going to church it would have been for all the wrong reasons. It would have been nothing but a crutch, a support to lean on now that my life was in a mess.

  ***

  I’m not sure whether it was the panic attacks I was having that trigged my skin problems, but one day I noticed that there were little brown pigmentation spots underneath both my arms. Some of them were light in colour and quite unnoticeable, whereas others were more pronounced and looked like small hives that were ever so slightly raised. I ignored them at first, thinking that it was nothing and that they would go away. This seemed to be something I was good at: Pretending that a problem wasn’t there in the hope that it would fix itself, but the opposite, in fact, happened. The brown spots started to spread; first to my chest and stomach area, then to my back and feet. When I did eventually go to see a dermatologist, I was told that what I had was called urticaria pigmentosa. This was all very well that he knew what it was, but what I really wanted was for him to tell me how I could get rid of it, and here was the bad news.

  “Unfortunately, there’s still no known cure for urticaria pigmentosa at this stage,” he said sympathetically, gently shaking his head from side to side. I went to see a second dermatologist, hoping that the first one had made a mistake, but all he needed was to take one look at the pigmentation marks on my body to confirm that what I had was urticaria pigmentosa for sure.

  Things had now gone from bad to worse. I not only had panic attacks and the demons in my head to fight against, but I was also faced with an incurable skin disorder. The final blow came when the dermatologist opened his medical book to show me pictures of people suffering from the same skin disorder that I had. I was absolutely horrified to see people with literally their entire upper bodies covered in hives. Is this how bad it is going to get for me as well? Is this what I am going to look like in a few years time? I couldn’t help but wonder. What on Earth will I do then? During my three and a half years of backpacking, I was having such a good time that I was able, for the most part anyway, to ignore my skin problems. What also made it that much easier for me was that I had a nice tan, so the pigmentation on my body didn’t look nearly as prominent, but now that I had returned home and lost my golden tan, the pigmentation seemed to be so much more noticeable than it had before.

  One of the things that I had discovered about my condition was that my skin was very sensitive to extreme weather conditions, sunlight, and even seawater. When I was either too hot or too cold, or my skin was exposed to the sun for too long, the pigmentation would very often flare up and in no time a rash of hives would break out all over my body, particularly my upper body. I was shocked the first time it happened, as I didn’t know what was happening to me, but then my skin flaring up became a fairly regular occurrence. The rash would only fade away once my skin had gone back to normal temperature. It was one thing when this happened when I was alone, but then it started to happen while I was having sex with my girlfriend who I was dating at the time. This wasn’t fun, so of course it wasn’t long before sex had become more of a stressful situation for me than anything else. During these intimate moments I couldn’t help but keep looking down at my skin to see if the rash had broken out. It was a viscous circle as the more I stressed about it, the worse the pigmentation seemed to get, and the worse the pigmentation got, the more I stressed about it.

  CHAPTER 10

  It had been four years since I had been living with my skin condition, yet I still wasn’t ready to accept it. I still felt that there must be something that I could do. After going to see another dermatologist to find out whether they had discovered anything new about urticaria pigmentosa since I had last been to see a dermatologist a few years before, and being told that they hadn’t, I decided that it was now time for me to start looking into other ways of healing my skin disorder. Maybe there was no known cure for urticaria pigmentosa with traditional medicine, but surely there had to be some other way for me to heal myself.

  Via the grapevine I then heard about a special cream that was said to work wonders for people with skin problems. I tried using it for a while, but after a few months without any success I eventually gave up on the cream. Not long after, a friend of mine told me about a mind power course that he and his wife had recently been on. They both loved it and said it was well worth it. I had nothing to lose and decided to sign up for the next course.

  The mind power course ran over a few weeks and taught techniques such as visualisation, affirmation and seeding. Visualisation is the practice of picturing in your mind exactly what it is that you want, be it a new job, more money, or a bigger house. Affirmation is the process of then making the declaration that you already have what you want. If your desire is to have greater wealth, a suitable affirmation could be, I have an abundance of money. If you want a better house, then the affirmation, I have the perfect house for me, could be used. Seeding is the practice of getting rid of all thoughts that run counter to what you want. If you want a better job, a thought such as, I’m never going to find the right job, will work against you and needs to be seeded out.

  With the techniques that I had learnt on the course, I was determined to apply them and to put them into practice. If I didn’t have time in the morning before work each day, I would sit in my car during my lunch break and practice the techniques then. For me it wasn’t more money that I wanted, or a bigger house; my only wish was for my skin problems to go away. All my energy, therefore, went into visualising and affirming that I had perfect health. Despite the effort I put in over the next few months, I didn’t notice any changes to my skin condition and so I stopped using the techniques altogether.

  ***

  It had been six months since I had started working for the project management company. Nothing had changed. I still hated my job and felt as if I was in prison. My co-workers in the office found it amusing to see how excited I got every day when the clock struck five and I could go home.

  “If the corporate world isn’t for you, then why not give teaching a go, Jed?” my father suggested one evening around the dinner table. For many years I had been entertaining the thought of teaching, but had never thought that seriously about it as my degree at university had been in business. However now that I’d become disillusioned with the corporate world, teaching seemed to be a far better bet. I mulled it over for a few days and finally decided to go for it. I handed in my resignation the next day and was out of there not long after.

  Shortly after leaving the corporate world, I was offered a job as an intern teacher at a school in a rural part of South Africa. How wonderful it felt to be out of the city and back in nature. Being an intern teacher meant that my duties were relatively light and so whenever I had some free time I would take long walks through the farms that surrounded the school property. My spirits immediately improved and in no time at all, I was feeling my old self again. Of course my skin was still bothering me, but not nearly as much as it was when I was stuck in the rat race of city life.

  ***

  The next two years were happy years for me. I kept my life as simple as I could, which is just the way I liked it. Now a qualified teacher, I sent out my resume and was soon offered a job at a private school in Cape Town. At this stage things were looking great. I enjoyed the school, the students, and I also enjoyed the area I lived in. However, as good as it was in the beginning, it didn’t seem as though settling down in one place was what life had in store for me, at least not for now anyway, as it wasn’t long before I starte
d feeling restless. I couldn’t understand why, as I had all the things that most people were chasing after, a nice house, a decent car, a good job – yet still I felt restless. The big house that I was living in was no longer the novelty it had been in the beginning. In fact, in many ways, it was becoming more of an inconvenience than anything else, as not only did a bigger house mean more for me to look after and maintain, but a bigger house also meant a heavier chain tying me down. How I missed the freedom and simplicity of working as an intern teacher out in the countryside. I tried my best to ignore these feelings by keeping myself busy and planning things to look forward to. I ran my first marathon, entered the iron man triathlon (a sporting event consisting of a 3.8 kilometre swim, a 180 kilometre bicycle ride and a 42 kilometre run), and spent my summer vacation riding an Enfield motorbike through India with Matt. As awesome as the iron man and the biking adventure in India was, no sooner had they passed by than I was sitting at my desk dreaming of what I would do next. Something was clearly missing in my life. I knew that I wasn’t fulfilled and that this wasn’t where I wanted to be.

  This was the start of a difficult few months for me, and yet again the tide was turning in my life. At school things were quite divided between my role on the sports field, and my role in the classroom. On the sport side I was enjoying myself and performing well. Having played provincial squash for several years during high school, I was quick to recruit a few students into our team who I thought had talent. Four of the students whom I coached went on to represent the provincial side later on in the year. One of the boys would, in a few years, become not only the South African junior squash champion, which was a massive feat in itself, but would join a select few South Africans to be awarded a sports scholarship to attend Harvard University in the States.

  As good as my involvement on the squash court was, my performance in the classroom was a different story. To put it simply, I just didn’t have the passion or the maturity to teach high school students. However, even more concerning was the fact that I didn’t quite know who I was anymore, or where I fitted in. In the past I had always been outgoing and would love to go to a bar or a restaurant with a group of friends, but not anymore. I felt out of place and uncomfortable in the same places that I had loved so much before. I started to see less of my friends, preferring instead to spend my free time in my own company. It was during this period that I started to think more about how good it would be to be back on the road. How nice it would be to have that simple life again, to feel free, to have that same feeling of aliveness that I had felt when I was travelling.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ever since my cycle trip across Canada, I had never forgotten about Terry Fox and how one day I hoped to undertake a similar adventure to what he had done. Perhaps this was the right time. The one big thing that was stopping me from packing up and taking off right away was not my job, but rather my house. My parents had bought the house partly as an investment, but more so because they had wanted to help me out and to give me a start in life. What a kick in the teeth it would be if I turned around now and said thanks, but no thanks, I don’t want it anymore. Still, the thought of me selling everything and going travelling again kept eating away at me. When I couldn’t keep my feelings in any longer, one day it all came out and I told my parents the truth about how I was feeling and that I wanted to travel again. I was amazed at how understanding and supportive they were, considering the hassles they had gone through in buying the house in the first place. If there was one thing that I did have in my life, it was great parents. I had a father that I looked up to and respected enormously, and my mother was one of those women who would have done just about anything for her family. Still, I was surprised when they told me that if my heart wasn’t in staying in South Africa anymore, then I should live my dreams and go for it. The one condition, however, was that we sell the house. Like me, my father was one for simplifying his life and therefore he didn’t want the house hanging over him while I was gone.

  Getting the okay from my parents was all I needed. From then on everything seemed to fall into place perfectly. I gave notice at my school and started the process of getting rid of the things that I didn’t need. Other than the small area of cupboard space that my parents had kept for me at their home, I had nowhere else to store my things and so the car, the furniture, the house, all my excess clothing – it all had to go. At first it was not that easy letting go of my things, as I had naturally become attached to them, especially my car, but with each possession that went I felt lighter and freer. I didn’t realise it at the time, but this bold and daring decision of mine to let go of my possessions and security, and to follow my dream instead, would turn out to be the best decision that I had ever made in my life.

  Now that I had got the ball rolling, the next question was where to go for my adventure. At first I thought about how awesome it would be for me to run through Europe, but then the idea struck me that maybe I should run through India. I had already been to India twice before, yet still I felt drawn to go back and to explore more of the country. Of course, as I’d come to know quite well by now, travelling through third world countries was far more exciting for me than to travel through a place in which everything worked. When I took out a map of India to have a closer look, I noticed that there was a road hugging the coastline from Goa, a small province in the southwest of India, all the way down south to Kanyakumari, a town at the southern tip of India. I felt a rush of adrenaline when I saw this and I knew right away that this was it. This was where I had to go for my adventure. I was going to run from Goa to Kanyakumari, a distance of roughly 1 300 kilometres. Maybe this was jumping the gun a little, as at this point I still didn’t even know whether it was possible for me to take this route through India, but I was filled with so much excitement and felt sure that this was the trip for me.

  On our bike trip across Canada, Jerome and I had spoken about how great it would have been for us to raise money for a charity. Although nothing had ever come of it at the time, perhaps this adventure would give me another chance to do something for a cause. I had no real preference as to which charity to support. The only thing that was important to me was that all the money raised went to where it was supposed to go and didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

  After school one day, I went to see the principal of a small African school built on a nearby farm. When I told Neville, the principal of the elementary school, what I was planning to do, he told me that their schools greatest wish was to have another classroom. Due to lack of facilities and money, the school only went up to Grade 6, and not Grade 7, as is the norm for elementary schools in South Africa. With an extra classroom they would be able to offer Grade 7 and, therefore, complete their elementary school. As sure as I was that I wanted to run along the coastline in India, so was I also convinced that this elementary school would be my cause. I had a website made and sent off the details to as many people as I could to see if anybody wanted to contribute towards the cause, either by making a donation, or by sponsoring me a certain amount of money for every kilometre that I ran. Terry fox had called his adventure across Canada, The Marathon of Hope, and I would call mine, Striding for Education. My friends made generous donations and within no time at all over $1 000 had been raised. This was only the start of things, as one day I got a lucky break and bumped into an old university friend of mine on the golf course. When I told him about my run through India, he got excited and said that the company he worked for, NOSA (National Occupational Safety Association), would throw some money into the cause. He ran things by his boss at work and later that evening got back to me to say that if I made it to Kanyakumari, NOSA would sponsor me the equivalent of over $3 000. All I had to worry about now was to make sure that I got to the end.

  ***

  Not long before I was set to leave for India, I got a phone call out of the blue from Jade, a friend of my sister, to ask whether I wanted to watch a documentary of a living Indian saint. Despite the fact that my thoughts about r
eligion had not changed, I had become far more interested in spirituality over the past few months and so I was only too happy to go along.

  The documentary I saw was the life story of a woman by the name of Amma, or more affectionately known as the Hugging Saint. Having grown up in a small fishing village in Kerala, Amma was recognised from a young age to be a saint, but this didn’t make things easy for her, as there were many people in her village who were adamantly opposed, believing that she was a fraud. One day a big gathering of people surrounded Amma and demanded that if she was a sage, a living saint, then she should perform a miracle to prove it. Amma kept saying, “No.” She told them that if she performed one miracle then they’d only want more. As time passed by the crowd got more and more rowdy. They refused to let up. Eventually someone in the crowd brought forward a brass bowl of water and said that either she does a miracle, or they would know that she was a fraud. Having resisted for a while, Amma then lent forward and gently stirred the water with her finger. Right before the eyes of all those watching, the water turned into a milk pudding. From then on a growing number of people started arriving in the small village to get a glimpse of this young Indian saint, who was but a teenager at the time. Amma said that people didn’t get much consolation from her words only, so instead of merely speaking to those wanting to see her, Amma would take them into her arms and shower them with unconditional love. I was amazed to hear that over the past 30 years Amma is believed to have hugged more than 27 million people. This works out at an average of around 3 000 people per day. I couldn’t even comprehend what it must be like to sit in one place and hug this number of people for one day, let alone doing it for 30 years. Where on earth did she get the energy, I wondered?