Thursday, July 16, 2009

disabled

I feel extremely disabled. My state of health hampers what I am able, or unable, to do. And the 'unable' list is long.

Instead of thinking of what I like to do, I think of what I am able to do.

Like, I teach because I used to be able to do it. I don't like it. I was just able to do it, except that for the last few weeks, I have been unable to do so because my mental health fails me, terribly.

Instead, I became able to do household chores.

Now I am also not very able to do housework, the degrading skin on my fingers makes me think twice about doing any kind of washing with detergents, and I no longer feel like doing much housework.

I have been enjoying writing again. Nothing profitable, just here, and my cat blog, which has been helping homeless animals find a new home, and bringing some business to our neighbourhood pet shop which rescues and fosters these animals.

But if I think of expanding my work opportunities from freelance teaching to include freelance writing, I fear I might let people down again, like I have my students and their parents in the past few weeks.

So the only option I can think of is to do things that I like, and not try to make them into work. Because pleasure and enjoyment is part of the cure, and is the present part that I need to work on.

I will give it a try.

Sounds easy, to just do what I like, but actually, it really isn't that easy.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:26 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Dear Elaine

You have been ill for a very long time. You need to stay strong to fulfill your recovery.

Take things slowly and easily. You make your fears into phobias if you push too hard; these unpleasant panic attacks etch themselves with their triggers into your memory, and in future what were once only fears will become phobias that hinder you.

Be spontaneous. That is what your doctor told you. If you feel like doing something, do it. You need to rediscover the pleasure of small spontaneities so that these become part of your positive experience memory bank.

Write to me.

Yours truly.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:21 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

triggers

I am trying desperately to find a way to counter and neutralise my stress about working. (Even though I am not working very much lately, if ever in these past two years.)

My doc advises that I need to take things slowly. I need to focus on things that I enjoy and not pressure myself over things that induce my panic attacks. If thinking about and preparing to go out for my teaching assignments stress me out, then I need to find out what is it that stresses me. Do I not enjoy teaching?

I don't really enjoy teaching per se. I enjoy art, I also enjoy being with teenagers. I am somehow good at teaching, my students enjoy it, and it is an accessible form of work for me, that is why I do it.

I tried to think again about what stresses me about teaching, and all I could come with was that I didn't know. All I could think of was that when teaching some of my students, it means that I have to put on a whole other persona, the educator's persona, which needs to be strictly donned especially when with younger kids.

When I was asked recently, "What makes you get up in the morning?" I could only think of the answer, "To feed my cats." It is not that I would enjoy working in the animal or pet industry, it is that I am motivated by need. I enjoy feeding my cats, preparing their food, cleaning up after them, because these are simple tasks. These tasks help my inertia going, escalating me into tasks like cleaning the house, doing the laundry. These things were hard for me before, until recently.

Everything revolves about my being at home - I feel safest and most functional when I am at home.

Maybe I am simply not ready to do complex, people-oriented work. Maybe I should do isolationist type of work, like writing. I update my cat blog everyday, and I enjoy it. I enjoy writing, and I have a crazy retention rate of what I read, to the point where I can write about anything that I learn with just a short frame of information absorption. Writing does not make me ecstatic, as I am unable to feel ecstacy, but I do recognise that what I feel when I write is probably enjoyment.

Either way, I feel terrible, about letting my students down, and their parents. About letting so many people down because I am unable. I don't know how I can get my income, I don't know when I can be fully rehabilitated to the point I am functional and able to work.

Even right now, my brain feels fuzzy. Things that were usually easy and fun for me because they were complex, are now, just too complex. My heart races when I try to think straight. My logical processes are minimal when I am in a state of panic, which is often.

The things that I want to do, that would fulfill me, working in missions or in an NGO, I will not be able to do still, for some time. It will take a long time. My intelligence is in cold storage.

I am at a loss. As to finding my work stress triggers and countering them. As to finding alternative means of function apart from playing house. As to finding alternative means of work if teaching is too stressful.

Teaching used to destress me, especially when I was tutoring as a sideline; spending time with my beloved students helped me forget the real world.

But not anymore. I panic in anticipation of my teaching days, the scheduled hours, to the point I am incapacitated in panic, to the point I cannot speak nor respond nor move, to the point where I break down and cry.

Am I well? No. I try to celebrate small successes, like being able to care for my cats, like being able to do household chores again, by being able to take the bus (with J) sometimes, by being able to tolerate crowds better now even if not completely. But small successes are nothing when I am financially unsafe, when I am unable to provide for myself, when I am constantly letting people down, when I am still having breakdowns and panic attacks.

I have come far in my recovery, even if slowly. But my livelihood is hanging by a thread, my brain is in shreds and I cannot function as well as I could, my body is in an aberrant state of betrayal against my will to be normal.

What is the next step from here? Buy flowers and clean the house? Find some other, easier forms of work? The former option needs money, the latter is too complex for me to figure out on my own. It is 6 o' clock: time for the cats' dinners.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:27 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

waiting

Like a cat's cradle string
pulling frown lines
reversing my idyll
sinking my cheeks
My facial muscles tire
from wearing a frown
but nothing erases it.

I am waiting
paralysed:
patience is not my virtue

I am petrified.
Invisible jowls
sink to my ribcage
asphyxiating my heart,
Silence is a commercial break
that never ends.

I hate waiting
and knock-knock jokes
They suffocate me.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:50 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

enjoy beauty...

Some people say that life is meaningless without beauty. I try to think of creating beauty in words, in art, and I find myself uninspired to do so. I have lost interest. These days I can only do small functional things, like writing about my cats. I am not inspired to beauty, and pleasure derived from it is elusive to me.

In my afternoons there are gaps of time which are deafeningly silent; I fill these by watching TV on my computer. Sometimes I clean the house, but like yesterday, today hasn't been a cleaning day for me. I am supposed to be spontaneous about the things I do, the things I feel, so that I can enjoy life. Spontaneous is easy, enjoyment is a challenge. I am supposed to take things easy. Right.

Filling my life with beauty and enjoyable, small things: right now, I think I would like a red-bean potong ice-cream. Perhaps that.

And then? Nothing. I will just eat the ice cream and allow myself to feel whatever little I am able to feel.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:58 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

in all fatness.,..

I always say, that it is better to be fat and happy than to be thin and sad. I am positively round, I hardly recognise myself in the mirror. Now all I need are big glasses, because my face is finally big enough to wear them. I should get myself one of those oldskool plastic frames, like this:














I could probably get them in my neighbourhood spectacle shop, the kind that sells mostly reading glasses for old folks.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:26 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Happy Birthday J

Thanks for a great year, here's the rest of our lives <3

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:26 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

alert beyond response

I am severely sick, have been having attacks of panic throughout most of the days past recently. I am sick, I feel sick.

I want to just stay home and do household chores and chill out with the cats. My cats comfort me, just as cooking or cleaning lately calms me too. Home is solace, solitude is peace.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:15 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Feeling stressed, in a panic over nothing. An eruption of palpitations pulse from my chest, my breathing is laboured.

As antidotes I dole myself medication to tide over the arrest, I also create an assault on my senses through calming music, rose and lavender oils burning, a comfy sleeping gown, flowers, juices and teas. Prescribing pleasure is not fun when it is in alleviation of pain.

The thought of challenging scenarios sets me off: that's my trigger: anything from teaching to social situations. I prefer household work more to these, and I find myself occupationally more able to do them recently. Sewing calms me, even folding the laundry and doing the dishes, things which I have not been able to bring myself to do for a long time. But these activities don't bring me any income.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:17 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

-

Recently I have been rising early, not because of health reasons per se. It is more because a boredom I feel the nights before makes me medicate early to sleep, and I wake early because the cats are most awake at dawn, moving around the room, or knocking on the door, or purring on our chests.

This morning I woke up again early. After feeding the cats, taking my meds, having my coffee and smokes, I just felt despondent. The prospect of having work to do today scares me. Recently the prospect of going anywhere out of home to do anything social scares me more than usual. I can go to Parkway to shop with J, but that is the most comfortable ordeal I can take.

In fact I feel anhedonic in general. I have lost interest in reading. It takes extreme flavours to give me an appetite to eat. I drink lots of juice. I try to make my home into a spa haven with aromatherapy oils. I try to allow myself to just feel and sense, and not think. But all I sense is weariness and despondency, and very little pleasure.

If I try to free-flow what I feel, the bunds that keep my sadness at bay overflow, and I feel reminiscent sadness, sadness that I have been a slave to for most of my life, sadness that has crippled me and paralysed me beyond this before, sadness that makes me, well, sad. But it seems that I have to give in in order not to give up.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

madnessmadnessmadness

I am forgetful. Enough to forget my medication sometimes. Maybe that's why I feel like shit right now.
But I have remembered them all these few days. I should be all right by now.
Yet, I am not all right. And I don't feel like talking about it. Talking is confrontational. I hate confrontation more than some people hate change.
My cats have lost all sensitivity to human emotion. Slinky no longer comforts me when I cry because she is used to my depressed moments.
I know I should try to let myself feel, or in my doctor's words, enjoy simple things like flowers and drinks and music. But nothing I can think of will cheer me up now. Not even ice-cream or chocolate or flowers. If I were to take out my paints and brushes and paint now, I will cry as I paint; it is too painful, painting is too lyrical, too emotive, even if it is just simple drawings.
Primary processing, primary processing. All I can spontaneously feel is pain and sadness. I am suppose to enjoy the sensory things. Smell, taste, all except touch, because I hate being touched.
I turned on music. I am not enjoying anything, music is so empty even if it is superbly performed.
I wish I still drank. Inebriation and pleasure. But I can no longer drink as much as I used to, neither should I be able to in fact.
I should let the trembling and muteness take over. Physical manifestations of sadness. Also sensory anyway.
I wonder if I hug one of my cats and rock myself in sadness how they will feel.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:12 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

primary processing

Lucidness eludes me. I often feel detached from reality yet I don't have enough will to get back into it. I want to be clear-headed, but I cannot really do it: I end up distracted, having to do more than one thing at any one time otherwise I cannot concentrate. Packets of my memory seem to be beyond the grasp of my consciousness. I cannot remember what happened to my first dog Rocky whom I had when I was a kid.

I feel as detached from my feelings as I do when I was young. I don't remember much of my childhood, except times which were sad or lonely. I do not at all remember any time at all in my growing up that can be classified as happy. Any form of pleasure from playing felt more like a relief from having nothing to do. A relief that feels much like applied pressure on a wound to stop it from bleeding.

I have been trying to write about my memories, or talk about them. But they only make me realise that there are lapses in time I don't remember anything except poignant sadness or silent loneliness.

I try to allow myself to feel, spontaneously, instead of rationally - primary processing it is termed, by Freud. But I cannot get out of the clockwork of rationalising my sadness away. Because sadness scares me, and when I try to feel, that is all I seem to feel at all. I try to administer myself simple pleasures, but nothing tempts me, I enjoy nothing, I am still anhedonic. Any activity is only a distraction to keep me sane.

I have been watching TV drama series on the internet, medical ones included. When the story involves a person 'going to crash', I wish sometimes that they would defillibrate my heart and mind instead to shock it into life once again, before I 'crash'.

I cannot do socialising. I tried to return to my social circle via the phone and the internet but I don't feel up to it, like as if turning on MSN takes so much energy, even more than it does to make a cup of coffee.

If I try to relax, I started to crumble, even physiologically: I find myself rocking or shaking, I feel like I can no longer utter a word out of my mouth. If spontaneous feeling is the antidote to anhedonia, then it is as good as saying allowing my depression to take over is the key to treating my depression.

I am tired. Of this journey. Of not being able to work. Of not being much more well and functional than is ideal. This year I will be thirty. I don't know when I will recover. All I want to do now is cry. That is the outward sign of the only emotion I ever really knew.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:07 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

inertia and momentum

I just finished typing the first of Enid's art history books and am feeling a little lost at sea. Starting on the second has not really helped so far. I feel disjointed because I have been typing in a frenzy and momentum has built up within me for productive things. I feel like I should go out but I should also save money. Yet I have no mood to do things at home such as cooking or cleaning.

I just bought a piece of cardboard on which I would like to paint a bigger picture, about 2 feet by 2 feet. At present I have not yet visualised what I will eventually paint on it. I also have a lack of space, and my easel is in Indonesia. I will also need some new brushes, a few large ones, preferably a flat one and a filbert. Perhaps I might paint it in mixed media, which means I would need to get glue and texture gel.

Maybe I ought to head to Bras Basah today. It would be therapeutic to buy my art materials, browse at Basheer. My only worry is that I would be spending money that should be saved for emergencies. I guess I had better not, I need to see the doctor tomorrow.

I could just shower, and read and snack in bed for the rest of the afternoon. It would be just as therapeutic as shopping.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:12 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

what do I want to do?

Eventually, I want to go back into working for missions.

I want to go back to PLM Indonesia. I want to set up a Singapore office which will manage the two key functions - recruiting volunteers and missionaries; fund-raising and marketing communications.

I don't know how I am going to be able to do these things, but right now, I need to get better. When I am fully recovered I will be able to do it. This is the goal, I will not deviate.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:25 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

I just got up and realised it was only 4 am. J woke up and that stirred me awake; he wasn't feeling well. The cats got up too, wondering what was wrong. Now I have just re-medicated and am trying to get back to sleep. Perhaps a game of Scrabble.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:35 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

back to reality

I need to reintegrate. MSN, the phone, people. I need to reintegrate. I will try.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:06 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

crisis

I don't think I can do this.

Going to church still scares me: the crowd, the close proximity of seats and rows, the long line in and out of the church - what if a fire breaks out? It feels like Mecca, where people might die in a stampede.

But yesterday I went to another church and it felt so much better: spacious, more than one exit. The only problem was waking up early to go, though we can always go to another service in the evening.

I don't think I can do this.

I need to find more work to cover my medical costs, and the bills. But I cannot fathom doing any more than I already am. Every expedition out the house requires medicating on my part, and a lot of psyching up. I can tolerate private teaching like I am doing now, but any sort of reintegration into society will leave me helpless like a deer caught in headlights. Already the thought of it leaves me faint - I literally feel the blood leave and shrink back from my head and my fingers and legs...

I cannot do this -

Psycho-social rehabilitation, or getting back into society.

Getting my brain to work again. I seem to have lost some of my cognitive skills, short-term memory, ability to multi-task.

Stabilising my mood. I am still irritable at times, and prone to feeling intense bouts of anger or sadness. Either that or I am so mellow I am hardly present.

Disconnecting the triggers to panic attacks - like now, writing this makes me extremely ill.

When am I ever to get well?

I still need my parents' financial support - damn the whole 'insurance doesn't cover psychiatric services' thing. They are not well-off, and I obviously have no savings, only debts. Welcome to the credit crunch. I know God will provide, but in the meantime I feel terrible.

Not only am I unable to work properly, I still find basic responsibilities like replying messages, household chores and admin much more troublesome and difficult than it ought to be. Even getting dressed is difficult.

-

Medication helps.
I feel better already.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:25 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

to buy, to shop

I have a craving to go out shopping. I would like to buy a nice new water bowl for the cats (the current one often spills over because the base is not flat). I would like to go to Ikea to buy something for my mom and to stock up on candles. I would like to go to Page One even though I recently already shopped at Basheer (bought a fabulous pictorial book on the artists I usually teach, only $22.50). I need to stock up on more art materials for my students, they go through them really fast. I have run out of cleansing oil for my face, such that washing my mascara off now hurts my eyes without it. I need to buy a new electric kettle.

But I am too sedentary, too poor and unable to make simple decisions. So, I will just stay home and type...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:37 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

grow

Been typing my best friend E's art history texts into MS Word, and learned that Gauguin (French post-Impressionist) became an artist in his thirties, being only a hobby painter before that.

While I do not aspire to become an artist, art still feels a defining part of me. I get cravings to paint, only stopping myself sometimes because the light in my house is not suitable for night-time painting. Also, I am lazy to; art is too logistical and can be taxing. The joints in my hand hurt after a while, and cleaning up is troublesome.

I still don't understand why I have this interest and a decent measure of artistic intelligence. I am not crazy enough to live only for art, neither do I feel destined to teach it to kids, though art education has been a part of my life for much of this past decade, even now. Furthermore I am not technically qualified and have no huge desire to attain formal artistic training.

I am still floundering around, being able to do many things yet nothing all at the same time.

If I could sum up what I would like to do, it still comes to wanting to manage resources for worthy humanitarian objectives. I desire to paint, I desire to write, but I desire even more to be involved in serving communities in dire need. I desire to be busy, planning from a desk, as well as inspiring and enabling others to serve. All in all, my passion for art and writing also fits into the picture, giving me a chance to flair in directing visuals and communication. But just the thought of it all tires me out as well.

I want to start small, as I am now, and remain small, taking it slow. Which is why I am not advertising to do anything, nor am I committing to anything more at the moment. I am still at the stage where if I teach for half a day I need to rest for two days. I can barely take care of myself, let alone a man and two cats as well.

So, what I subsist now on are my interests and a hope. Necessity does not drive me, recovery does. Even if I am poor, I still need to recover. I will find out what to do along the way. It is frustrating, somewhat like watching a plant grow.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:42 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Margaret Atwood

Recently I have been chain-reading Margaret Atwood.

I first read her in Moral Disorders, a collage of short stories that centre around the same characters. It was insightful, but not extremely entertaining or inspiring.

Then I picked up Oryx and Crake, and went a little crazy about it. It reminded me of the crazy sci-fi that Murakami writes about in some of his books. Oryx and Crake is superb writing, in content and delivery alike.

I then went on to The Robber Bride, and found it amazing - the character development is excellent, so multi-facetious because the central character is a trickster who goes by many identities. By this time I realised that Atwood can write in such a wide variety, excellently. It is not easy for any writer to do such a thing, and yet she can.

Then I read Alias Grace. Also superb. Entertaining, well-written, captivating to the last paragraph. I am not usually into murder mysteries, but this one being based on a true story, and much more than just a story than it is about human behaviour.

So I went on, to Cat's Eye. Oh this book is lovely too, it is insightful like Moral Disorder, only more in-depth, and more entertaining because a novel is just so much more than short stories, which I do not like. The protagonist of Cat's Eye is an artist with my namesake; the artworks are described so perfectly I can imagine them and feel inspired as if I were walking through an art gallery.

Now I am reading The Blind Assassin, and I am not devouring it maniacally yet, but I probably will, when I can sit still enough to read it for long. I have to make this book stretch till my next shopping trip, budget allowing.

Atwood is like middle-of-the-road reading, in a good way. More entertaining than some historical fiction, more profound than most contemporary literature. She amazes with her depth and width - profound observations, genre-busting stories. If you tire of shallow books as well as difficult writing, Atwood likely has a perfect book as an in-between.

Labels: books

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:42 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

MIA

It has been a long while since I touched WoW, and I do miss it. But I have been unable to play because of the following reasons:

1. Because I have very little income and cannot support my WoW subscription
2. Because we have been very busy with our cats, as well as strays and abandoned kitties
3. Because I have been busy teaching
4. Because I have been busy I have to rest a lot more to recuperate
5. Because J is also no longer playing and in fact sold his account to a friend
6. Because I have also upped my commitment level to my other hobbies: reading, Scrabble, painting
7. Because I am often sick with something - allergies, panic attacks, UTI, etc.

The thing is, I miss the social aspect of it more than actually playing. Although it is fun to unleash my prowess and abilities on mobs and other players too. Maybe when finances get better I will start playing again, casually this time.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:36 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

sick sick sick

The past few days and nights of horrible sleep, coupled by my eczema (followed up from my rhinitis) and now also UTI, have made me extremely fragile. I could hardly clean up after the cats, let alone myself.

But today, armed with antibiotics from the doctor, and a whole lot of baths against the weather and the fever, I managed to do some cleaning up after them. Hopefully the kittens don't wreak too much havoc tonight.

However, I am still sick enough to have missed my doctor's appointment and out on my students. I feel bad for being ill.

And also incommunicado, because it is very tiring to reply messages.

Tonight, I hope I sleep properly.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:16 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

tether

Another sleepless night. I can't sleep, the bed looks ominous in the dark and silence. The silence is deafening.

I haven't taken my meds properly for a few days, partly because I have run out of some of them and am only filling my prescription tomorrow. I also can't seem to get myself to eat them when I wake up, because I wake up in a daze, having slept badly the night before, hence I never actually wake up proper. I tell myself, it's fine, a day or two.

But no, it's not fine. I break down and cry and shiver, and I cannot sleep. And the darkness deafens me. I took an anti-histamine and a tranquilizer but it is not working as well as my proper meds should. The end of my prescription is the end of my tether. I feel like that Dave character in Desperate Housewives. "I am not feeling so well," he says, as he lashes out at Edie.

And so I accompany myself through the night, waiting for sleep to happen.

I could read myself to sleep, but I have just run out of new books to read.

Or I could just keep sitting here in the dark.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:23 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

groan

I am a lump of lard
scratch-wounds all over
scalp in flakes
immobile, creaking

I don't feel like talking
replying messages etc.
social how-do-you-dos
tire me before I start

Teleconnectivity alienates
I sink into my books
and moon around in silence
sleeping or sleepless

I want to be alone
and rest forever
be still my nervy heart
don't die in lard.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:44 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

train wreck

I feel like a train wreck. I keep repeating to myself, 'train wreck, train wreck' and the the words become a poetic chant in my mouth. I really do feel like hell, for a number of reasons:

I haven't been sleeping well. Because I ran out of Remeron, mainly. I take just my regular sleeping pill, and anti-histamines even because of my recent allergies flare-up, and I still can't fall asleep until it is early morning.

Like last night, I fell asleep at some time past five a.m.

As such, I wake up feeling like half my body is creaking and rusting away, yet like a ship that has to set sail, I have to get out of bed. Creaking.

And then I head to the kitchen to find a mess there because of the cats. Crumbs, puke, fur, litter box sand.

So I tell myself, okay, I need a coffee. Makes the world seem better.

But there is no more coffee. No more coffee! Not even a sachet of instant crap that I can use as back-up when the real coffee runs out. I end up with hot chocolate.

I am also too tired, too disorganised to go to the doctor's today, which I was supposed to. I manage a postpone to tomorrow morning.

And I feel too much like a train wreck because of all this, so much so that I can hardly even rest properly for the day now that it is free.

Train wreck, train wreck.

Oh, and my eczema is still itching me.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:01 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

eww

Recently logged on to Facebook to get some word out there about the two kittens we need to find homes for, and found this thingie called 'notes' in which you can tag people, even more advanced than blog posts here. But I have no idea how to do it, so, I am old-fashioned, and like my six-year-old blog right here more.

99 things tagged by Cassandra
001. Real name → Elaine
002. Nickname(s)→ avalon, averlorn, abalone, chiam
004. Zodiac sign → Scorpio
006. Elementary School → Rosyth
007. Middle School → Ditto, Cedar
008. High School → Ditto, Anderson JC
010. Hair color → Brownish-black
011. Long or short → long
012. Loud or Quiet → depends... loud when I talk, quiet when I am not
013. Sweats or Jeans → both
014. Phone or Camera → phone = camera, but if I had to choose: camera. I hate the phone.
015. Health freak → not really
016. Drink or Smoke? → both
017. Do you have a crush on someone?→ duh
018. Eat or Drink → both
019. Piercings → none
020. Tattoos → none
FIRSTS:
023. First piercing → when I was ten. The holes have closed
024. First best friend → Huang Sijian, Joanna Tan, Julie Anne Chico
025. First award → First in English in Primary 1
026. First crush → Christopher
027. First pet → Rocky the Pomeranian
030. First big birthday → most memorable birthday as a kid was my eleventh birthday.

CURRENTLY:
049. Eating → chips
050. Drinking → orange juice
052. I'm about to → read
053. Listening to → the air con and the server - copied Cass's answer!
054. Plans for today → get money from Andy, see doctor
055. Waiting to → fall asleep, which won't be soon

YOUR FUTURE:
bleak.

WHICH IS BETTER?
068. Lips or eyes → both
070. Shorter or taller? → doesn't matter, but short is FTL
072. Romantic or spontaneous → neither
073. Nice stomach or nice arms → on a man? Arms.
074. Sensitive or loud → both
075. Hook-up or relationship → doesn't matter
076. Trouble maker or hesitant → troublemaker

HAVE YOU EVER:
080. Lost glasses/contacts → YES
081. Ran away from home → no
082. Held a gun/knife for self defense → army knife
083. Killed somebody → duh
084. Broken someone's heart → yes, and I'm sorry
085. Been arrested → no
087. Cried when someone died → yes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:
089. Yourself → not really
090. Miracles → yes
091. Love at first sight → no
092. Heaven → yes

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY:
097. Is there one person you want to be with right now → already with him, though he's asleep.
098. Are you seriously happy with where you are in life → no such thing as happy
099. Do you believe in God → yes
100. Post as 99 truths and tag 20 people → lazy to tag

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:37 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

cat blog

I have a new blog, to focus on the cat-affairs that happen in my neighbourhood. J dubs it the Ubi Kuching Project - things we do to help take care of the stray cats in our neighbourhood. It also offers adoption prospects, from our neighbourhood pet shop Angels Pet Shop. (Adopt animals! Don't buy!)

It also is a place for me to talk about the cat stories that spring up, be it from the two cats we now have, or the strays that visit us. I have always loved stray animals, and till today still miss my Dog who grew up with me during my teenage years. She was a stray that found me, just like Slinky who found me when I needed her most.

Let me know if you want a kitten, or if there are people you know who are looking for a new pet cat. Visit me at Ubi Kuching Project.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:30 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

musicshare

Absolutely LOVE this track:

John O'Callaghan feat. Sarah Howells - Find Yourself

I discovered it on Gareth Emery's Podcast Episode 77

Drawn into the backdrop here
You could fade, you could fade away
Bright lights on a starless night
Then a hole in the dying day

Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you'll find...

You'll find yourself, you'll find yourself alone...

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:13 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

somnolence and anhedonia are just excuses

I honestly feel terrible; I am guilt-wracked. I have almost no money and yet I am stuck, frozen, unable to get out and do things that I have to. Nothing gives me pleasure, everything is reduced to basal needs that need to be filled: thirst, hunger, a need for rest and energy. I try. I try to occupy myself with activity, I try to get things done. Most of the time I fail. It is as if my body conjures up excuses for irresponsibility in the form of panic attacks and sicknesses and severe needs for bed-rest. It would be much easier if I didn't have to get out of the house. I usually get stuck at getting washed and dressed to go out. Or at the lack of money to cab around because I cannot take public transport most of the time. I just want to stay at home.

Obligations slide off me like water off plastic. I cannot logically process - and act on - the steps toward doing simple things like sending an SMS, paying a bill. Sending an SMS means: (1) finding my phone (2) reading the text I have to reply (3) thinking up of what I need to say in an appropriate manner (4) finding the person's number and (5) sending the text. After which I need to reply. Before which I need to get out of my chair and find the phone. The thought of having to do that in itself fills me with anxiety. Freeze. And I cannot move.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:05 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

exercise 2 from "Writing For Your Life" by Deena Metzger

The Journal Transforms Itself into Poem, Story or Drama

Select one or a few of the images or phrases from your journal and make a poem of it:

• gnawing paralytic pain.
• a choked disused well filled with saltwater.
• a single-malt on the rocks.

alone in thoughts
aplenty; yet ceasing
as if unspeakable.
my mind a choked well

disused, covered -
never to be drawn from
as if dead, but alive.
my mind a choked well

barren of water,
flooded with salt
undrinkable,
my mind a choked well

filled with dread and
a gnawing paralytic pain
yet inexpressible
my mind a choked well

instead, my carcass
reacts summarily
in physical discomfort -

and pain -
served on the rocks,

as if I should enjoy it
like it was a single-malt
to be cherished

enjoy life
and all that is with it
even the saltwater -
undrinkable -
keeps us afloat.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:47 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

exercise 1 from "Writing For Your Life" by Deena Metzger

The Journal as a Dialogue with the Self

Write anything for five minutes, it doesn't matter what. Write as if you are walking in an unknown woods, attentive to anything you might see, or poking at an indistinct mass wondering what it is, whether it is alive or dead, whether it will snarl suddenly, turn and bite. Keep writing.

Let the writing feel welcome. Keep writing. Don't look back. Don't edit. Don't think of what it might be, could be. Only welcome it. Make a place for it to be.


1:39 pm

The air next to the left of my desktop computer is filled with trails of blue-grey smoke from a cigarette. Putting it out, the smoke dissipates, and instead the room is now noticeably noisy from the vehicles outside my flat, probably also trailing the air with diesel fumes, but I can only hear them now. I hear them, and feel the heat from the afternoon. I am only wearing a sarong made from a shawl, wrapped up like a halter-neck dress. It still feels hot. I hear the fan whirring next to me but its breath kisses my skin as if I were not in it, so alien I feel from this body. A body that fails me yet and again. Constantly acting up in anxiety, freezing me in place and not allowing me to move to do the things I have to do, like fulfilling my teaching commitments.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:35 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

today's activity log

Every activity of every one of my days requires effort more than should be necessary. There are some things I find myself unable to do, having to coax myself out of the stress of having to do something, and that itself takes up a lot of time.

So I am going to try and congratulate myself on small activities I manage to get myself to do. This is what I have done so far this morning:

Activity

This morning I managed to make myself a cup of coffee when I woke up.

Outcome

The coffee was nice and it took me less energy than it had for the past couple of days. I managed to make it without having to hesitate or lie in bed to psyche myself up for it. It came as second nature.

Activity

I made myself a simple lunch of eggs, ham and bread.

Outcome

It was nice and easy to make, I managed to do it without having to hesitate. But I still cannot bring myself to do the dishes nor clean up afterward. It seems so hard.

Here are the things I plan or need to do for the rest of today, and the stress and pleasure I perceive to gain from them.

Brushing my teeth
- Perceived stress 5/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10

Taking a shower, includes washing my hair
- Perceived stress 5/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10

Getting dressed, including skin care and make up
- Perceived stress 7/10
- Perceived pleasure 3/10

Teaching, includes packing bag, taking cab
- Perceived stress 10/10
- Perceived pleasure 5/10

Talking to my students and their parents
- Perceived stress 9/10
- Perceived pleasure 5/10

Hanging the laundry
- Perceived stress 10/10
- Perceived pleasure 0/10


As of now, I feel quite so frozen in place I cannot bring myself to do these things. Even though I have to and time is running out. I don't know how I am going to get through this day successfully.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:03 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

If I dislike most chick-lit, why then am I reading them?

If I end up with a successfully written book of chick-lit, I am usually immensely entertained by the lightness and frivolity of the genre. Chick-lit often examines issues close to a girl's heart: depression, relationships, family, friends, and career. It is also somewhat like a fashion magazine, talking about the places, food, drinks and clothes that we all want to enjoy.

I try to alternate my serious reading with chick-lit stories that lighten the mood - that is why I still insist on reading them. And I am still hoping to discover intelligent chick-lit.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:02 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

what I have been up to

For some reason I have been rather busy. I now have to teach up to 5 days a week, sharing my time between 2 secondary students, and 2 families of children whom I teach art to. It has been exhausting.

Which is why apart from teaching, I have been resting. My stamina is horrendously low: a half day of teaching and I have to rest at least the next whole day. If it is a morning, I end up needing to sleep (or try to) for the rest of the day leading up to the next afternoon. I sometimes get so tired I can hardly make myself a cup of coffee.

Also, with our new kitten, there seems to be more to do. Sayang is very attention-seeking, and needs to be cuddled and played with often.

We got Sayang from the pet shop near our place, Angels Pet Shop. The owner Aswat found Sayang the kitten half-dead, sick, alone without her mother, near a coffeeshop in the area. He brought her back to his shop, and to the vet, and told us about her. Our hearts melted when we saw her, and took her home. We have been spending a lot of time at the pet shop after our nightly dinners downstairs, playing with the current batch of abandoned kittens he is trying to find homes for. There is another kitten exactly like Sayang, black and white, and still homeless.

We have also been doing what J calls our Ubi Kuching Project, taking walks around the neighbourhood, looking for cats to feed and play with. Most of the cats around the area are well taken care of, but we found one cat (a likely sibling of Slinky) we call Spotty, who was sick. Her eyes were swollen, and she was coughing and sneezing and listless. We took her home (much to the consternation of our two cats) and nursed her back to health before returning her to her spot downstairs the next day. Spotty is now much better. Doing these things keep us busy most nights.

Which means we haven't really been gaming. Being busy, tired, sick, and occupied with kittens and cats pretty much take up all my time and energy. I end up wanting to do extremely solitary and therapeutic things when I do have the time, like painting and reading. Or spending time with my cats. Or even watching tv! I have truly changed, I actually hate tv. Sayang on the other hand, seems intrigued by the tv; she often sits in front of the screen and watches it curiously.

For today, I will be nursing my flu (developed since yesterday morning), admiring my cats, reading, possibly painting, and having dinner and other neighbourhood activities in the evening with J.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:16 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

about chick-lit and (other genres of) books

In general, I find chick-lit alluring but boring. Most of the time when I buy a book of chick-lit it disappoints. I recently bought Candace Bushnell's One Fifth Avenue; am now halfway through it and entirely bored. I am glad I waited for the smaller, post-new-release version of its paperback, and saved at least ten dollars, because it is not worth the money.

To date, my favourite chick-lit author is still Marian Keyes. I have also discovered Emily Giffin, and found her a good writer, if only a tad serious. All the other chick lit authoresses I have read to date are somewhat shallow and uninteresting. And I usually buy them one-off, meaning I hardly feel enticed to read their entire collection like I do Marian Keyes.

I like intelligent chick-lit. Unfortunately it is hard to come by.

I recently toyed with the idea of opening a bookshop in my neighbourhood. Alas rental on neighbourhood shop spaces is hugely expensive. For example, half a shop space costs nearly two thousand. The only thing I can possibly profit out of getting my own bookshop, is that I would save tons on books for my own reading. Not exactly a business idea.

I spend around $200 on books a month, thereabouts. Because I am a collector, the library does not have much appeal - I like seeing my shelves full of books. Which reminds me, I ought to go rearrange my shelves a bit, they are looking tardy...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

we have a new kitten!

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:44 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

I will recover eventually.

I have been this - second? third? - major depressive episode for at least one and a half years now, if I count the starting point of it being August 2007 thereabout when I could not get out of bed for two days. Seeing a psychiatrist definitely has kept the worst demons away for most of the time; instead of a constant stabbing pain of sadness, I feel more normal. Just not fully recovered. Yet.

I still get panic attacks. I still fear being out of doors too much, meeting people and crowded places. I still fall sick often. Doing anything occupational takes far too much work and energy than it should. I am too tired to do anything much. I forget things, like taking my withdrawn cash from the ATM slot, or whether I have taken my meds for the day. My sleep and appetite sucks from time to time. I gain almost nil pleasure from anything. In fact, I am grateful enough to keep the pain at bay, never mind happiness or pleasure, just the absence of pain is a feat in itself, every day.

But despite all that, I am slightly more occupied lately, and a bit more ambitious. I have taken on teaching my friend's kids art at their home (both kids have special learning needs). I am trying to get my volunteering at SANA up and running. I force myself to give private tuition lessons to (two) secondary school kids more regularly. I have taken up painting again. I managed to, with medicinal help, visit Sim Lim Square on a Saturday with J without getting anywhere near a panic attack from being in the throngs of people scouring for IT products and the like.

And tonight, I have taken on envisioning again what I want to do when I recover, and how I will go about it. I feel wistful thinking of all these skills, talents and experiences that I cannot put to use fully now because I am in a semi-incapacitated state most of the time. If I teach for half a day I have to rest for two full days, and even fun, recreational and sedentary things are tiring to me.

I have to keep my vision alive, but I have to be patient and recover fully. I still believe things will work out, I still believe I will recover eventually. I feel like a comatose or catatonic patient, not quite alive, but still able to feel or hear, just unable to respond properly. Eventually I will wake up proper from this coma, and through physiotherapy regain the use of my limbs and re-train my motor skills. Eventually, eventually.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:01 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

collection of poems written while I was not online

cul-de-sac

get high -
pills and malt whiskey
sleep unto oblivion
save death
death: cul-de-sac
: a gridlock
for I cannot choose it
even while pain consumes me
dessicates me
inside out
get painless -
at least this put
a mild smile on me.
get high or die
(cul-de-sac)

oblivion. pain. death
-



Wonderless words

I fill these pages
with wonderless words
activated by my pain
I have no control over.
(genius has no owner)

I want to pen my pain away
as if creating an
- antidote
for the cryptic suffering
manifested, emanated
through my body of ashes

Immortalise me, with
my wonderless words
Death is the greater relief
and this is the proof.




Release

Fire to phoenix
sadness to life
pain to revelation
death - to release.

I am a failed ambition

Trapped - in myself
in having to live
despite - this -

'Release my spirit'
or take away my pain




The price of living in a city

The work must go on
Drilling, hacking, dust creation
I am awakened by the noise
I close the windows and doors
Thin veils that they are;
Vibrations permeate through
the furniture and floor
the price of government
spending in construction
to stimulate the economy
Y = C + G + I + X - N
It is all about aesthetics
The price of living in a city
Rebuilding buildings
For perma-nice concrete

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:04 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

sorry for the hiatus

Apart from having a lack of motivation to write here, I have also been spending my time with my other hobbies, namely WoW and reading. As for what to report: nothing really, things have been the same. Lacklustre, anxious, unmotivated. As for the good things: I am alive.

I will post soon.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:30 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

january's 20 words of the day

haplessly daunted
by fear, beleaguering,
leaving me in
a narcoleptic daze.

I write, uninspired
my wanderlust obscured,
with xanthous sickness
as my only candour.

pain, gargantuan
remaining, in kinetic time
fastidious upon my chest
hurting,

like a iconoclastic yegg,
stealing my dreams,
jettisoning them
unto itself.

some days, relief
abstains from me;
others, sanity
comforts magnanimously

as if laissez-faire,
recovery comes and goes -
awakens in pandiculation,
or zealously absent.

I yearn for an eclectic
source of my verse,
but sorrow remains
my sole inspiration.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:46 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

group dynamics

I can't settle myself to sleep tonight; I have a vexing situation that I am still mulling over its hanging in mid-air, even though I have already done what I can for tonight to appease it.

Imagine yourself part of a social club, church group or maybe the ECA you were in at school, like I was in ODAC back in my JC days. In such a group, everyone is expected to perform to their official role, like say if you are in a dance club, you learn your skills and keep improving at it while working as a team. But outside the performances your dance group stages, or the events your church group hosts and so on, you guys are probably friends. Maybe not with all of the members, but there will be some of them who are your friends, or else you probably won't still be staying in said club or group. It is inevitable, in fact a by-product of the group's existence, that there will be some members you choose to call close friends. Yet there will also be some who remain to you merely professional club or group acquaintances, after all, we naturally gravitate towards some people and less to others. There might even be some members whose attitudes or skills hardly contribute to the club, and may in fact hamper the club or group's growth in some way, and perhaps if you are not one of them, you find their lack of positive attitude a tad irritating.

The thing is, it is a recreational community, even if it is for serious hobbyists who truly train themselves for their next rock-climbing competition or similar. It is still about a hobby, it is still about people gathering to indulge in a hobby in a dedicated way. It is not a business organisation that works in the evolutionary dog-eat-dog way, where merit is given more merit, and discredit is given aplenty.

So where do you draw the line where, say, you have a group mate who is seriously lacking in improving his skills in the hobby but yet is a good friend of yours? Or you have someone who has the skills but is a total pain-in-the-ass as a friend? Should friendship truimph, or should the skills truimph? If you needed to put together a team for a tournament, who would be in the first team, who would be reserves? Your friend or the pain-in-the-ass?

I am all for hobbying and socialising together. However, the recreational / social group dynamics are radically in between that of a family (stays together even through shitty behaviour and shirking of household chores) and that of a business organisation (reward the skilled, banish those with lack). Which means when it comes down to forming the first team for the big game, the lines are in varying shades of gray.

So, I am caught in a situation like this. In fact, it is worse: I cannot do anything much in terms of directing the group into a balance upon the family/business continuum. I am not the one picking the team for the tournament, in fact I am more like the water-boy or mascot. Where I don't do very much yet I hear all the conversations that take place in the locker room, on the benches and in the field.

Have I lost you in my essaying about being in a recreational club? It seems juvenile, but it really is about a group that I am in that I furiously love and hope to protect. This group has been there for me not only to help me pursue my hobby together with, but also through life's ups and downs outside the the hobby itself.

I want to do something about the upsetting things that happen in my beloved club. But I am just a water-boy or a mascot, and all I can do is probably call for a group hug for now. I hope it works.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:29 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

update

Doctor says I am a complex case, probably because of many traumatic (small 't') incidents in my past, including during infancy, which has shaped my emotional and physiological responses. Because talking is not helping - I am too emotionally clammed up, too repressive, and the probably traumatic memories are so far behind in my childhood (all conclusions mine) - we are launching me into EMDR. I bought a book and read about it. It simulates REM - rapid eye-movements - that occur during sleep, during which we retrieve and process information (hence dreams). During REM simulation, historical information that is wrongly processed causing my off-balance neurologic and thus my depression and panic disorder, can be re-engineered so that I can coax my brain into performing correctly. Sounds like psycho-babble, but those of you who read enough into psychological disorders will probably know what I mean.

Because of the skin rash I got from my mood-stabiliser I had been taken off from it, and went back in time. Depression is painful again and more so, sleep disturbed, appetite lost, energy even more far-gone, sadness a daily affair, and I hardly talk. I am now on an NaSSA alongside the 3-a-day SSRI I have been taking for more than a year now. I sleep better now. Hopefully my meds kick in soonish and I can progress in my EMDR therapy.

My dad wishes he has the money to send me for the magnetic version of ECT (article outdated) which currently is only approved in the US and some parts of Europe. It sounds less scary than therapy that would induce painful memories. But avoidance is part of the problem I guess, so I am bravely going into my second year of psychotherapy with hope that I will get better. Borrowed hope, in any case - from God himself, from J, from my mom and dad. It is far better for me to die, but for them, far better that I live and recover. So I am going on.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:41 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

This is what my disordered panic feels like.


Struck unenergetic,
Frozen in malfunctioned
evolutionary instinct.

Adrenalin pumping -
ward against danger -
Heart-stoppingly so.

Proned, hushed,
Then perhaps - safety
or lack thereof maintains

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:30 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

gibberish

I am in an extremely warped plane of reality, as if I have phased out of this plane yet I am still here, a stone marker to the location of me. Reality is gibberish to me, and I zone out and distance myself from everything just so the gibberish quietens. I lose myself through living vicariously in-game, or else I lay back in silence, reading. In any way, I tune out from this world.


The world has let me down, of course. I have no energy, am often frozen in fear, each task a weight. I have no desires save lately for a cup of coffee affogato. I have no feelings, else I feel so immensely pained and saddened. My daily objective is to try and get better. It has been a long time, and I am still trying, trying to allay my symptoms, think introspectively, allow my feelings blah blah blah I am tired of trying not to be tired and depressed. I am toeing the line the tide makes that threatens to sweep me away.


Everything just converts to gibberish because everything is meaningless. The Bell Jar. Hshouyre wyouhnpods tyounlsoptn yuo wyour opf suihrh xxxxxxxxxxxx.


Is life so bad that I have to feel this sad, this scared? No, my brain is just malfunctioned. If I lived in the seventies, I would be given ECT straightaway, no questions asked. Instead, now I have to figure out the gibberish while tuning it out, the touchy-feely way. Go through it, get through it.


It has been a long time, I am tired.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:26 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

(meanwhile)

My voice has gone.
The sky is total-black,
Starless, without hope.
Dreams are illusory
landmarks of a flat earth.

Everyday is a stride into
normalcy, for me an
endless recovery process.
Getting out of this paralysing
crevice of pain, pain, pain

Meanwhile gnawed away by
My Enemy, pain in its darkest

Ensuing pain. Pockets of light
Slightly but thankfully
alleviate. Hallelujah!
I subsist today and a
tomorrow (maybe).

Will you understand this
pain's grasp on me?
Or do you live idyllic
On a round earth
with mundane ambition.

My eyes are too dry
For welchschmertz,
My dreams I have left
(for now, save faith)
Meanwhile I just want

Release from this gripping pain.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:29 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

reappearing

Ardent apologies for having dropped off the map of the blogosphere for a moment.

I have been immersed in a few things, mainly, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Gaming takes up most of our evenings now, although now that we are max-level and pretty decently-geared with items from end-game content, we are slowing down just a little bit.

I am currently reading the beautifully-written "The Years With Laura Diaz" by Carlos Fuentes. Its language is musical, beautiful, evocative; the story captivates. Before this I was reading Orhan Pamuk's Snow, which while cleverly written, is darkly lit with shootings and an ongoing battle between secularism and fundamentalist religion. A bit heavy, a bit too academic. Both books are in the strain of my style of reading, that is of stories of different cultures in different times.

My depression symptoms have become worse lately. Hard to believe it is so because I am here writing, talking about gaming and books. But in little pockets of time I become once again gripped by the pain and physical grief almost close to what I felt the beginning of this year. I have lost my appetite. It takes me excessive amounts of energy to do anything. My sleep had deteriorated. All these are possibly for a number of reasons: Firstly, I am no longer on mood-stabilisers - they started to give me rashes. Secondly, I am no longer employed by PLM in Batam for the moment because they are having financial difficulties: yet another career movement failure for me. Also, talk-therapy has reached a dead-end with me, because I am so unable to feel, so overly academic about my emotions, that talking is not working. I am starting a new type of therapy next month, and am now on an additional antidepressant at night to treat my sleeplessness and the works. In the meantime I am distant, unenergetic, hardly hungry, sleeping away my pain.

As I write this I feel a physical pain in my chest again, like that of my recurring panic attacks. Lately these pains in the chest come alone with shivering and unstoppable tears, and an intense, heartbreaking sadness. The moment I start to feel at all, as I now write this, the pain that I push away daily with sleep and recreation resurges. Some say, don't brood, don't think of depressing things. I do precisely that, and it becomes my downfall. My indifference like a breaking dam to a river overflooding in the rain, I unknowingly take the advice of ignorant people of the 'Don't think sad things' breed, ignoring the water that is pushing against me, until I have no choice but to flood in pain every so often.

Now I need to do something about this pain in my chest that writing these words have caused me. But I will write, still write. To quote Fuentes in Laura: "Look, Laura, you write alone, but you use something that belongs to everyone, language. The world lends you language, and you return it to the world."

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:53 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

recentries

Some changes to my life just so you don't need to wonder what I have been up to:

Batam gig is temporarily RIP because they have financial problems keeping me. I would be focusing on my completing my TESOL course till the end of the year while still keeping in view my opportunities there.

Which means, I have more time to play World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion which was just in last Friday. J and I talk little else but about WoW now, unless we are not talking much, which is when we are playing side-by-side in my room. My room is now not a bedroom with computers but a LAN shop with a bed for occasional resting and a bathroom for occasional washing up.

I had a nice 29th birthday dinner today with my parents and J.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:21 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

headache

Like a semi-permanent hair dye, only it doesn't cover grey but rather makes my face turn a tad greyer. I have a headache almost everyday for a week now, it follows me on and off during and in between my daily activities. I vaguely remember GPs like to call some headaches 'tension-headaches'; I also get headaches as a symptom of my gastric problems. For whatever reason, Panadol is the current available, and affordable, answer.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:44 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

right

It is a recurring problem. Most people's efforts at trying to cheer up people suffering from depression, usually either not work, or make things worse. So, please stop. Until you understand what depression is about, really and truly. It is a medical condition which exists biologically in the brain, marked by chemical imbalances. It is not a moment of sadness when you fail your test / break up with your lover / your dog dies.

Telling us we are 'depressing' is not helping.

Asking us to do the usual cheery things - and firmly believing these will correct the brain dysfunction, sadly untrue - such as getting a pet, growing a garden, having reunions with friends, taking up a new hobby.

Your suggestions at cheery-uppiness may not be what makes sickness better.

You have failed. Try again.

Any wonder now why I keep some friends in close contact range and avoid others?

Then again, apart from flawed suggestions that make things worse, socialising does not make me happy. It in fact is an activity of great stress for me. Thinking of going to any place with a lot of people can generate a panic attack. (Last Saturday I had a major panic attack before going to church, to the point where I kept puking non-stop thereafter, and couldn't even get up to go have dinner with J's family). Ditto most other huge events. Being with the people I love the most in my life are already draining energy out of me like crazy, even though I love being with them. Having to oblige to spend time with people who I don't love as much will entirely exhaust and break me down.

This is also why I keep contact with only an intimate circle of friends I love. My lover, my closest friends, my parents, my gaming friends.

What will work: just accept that I will be like this for a while. If I could help it, I wouldn't choose to be sick now, would I? And if you care enough, please read up on the disease.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:23 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

memories with strangers

"It's funny how you spend so much of your life with one person, and after a breakup the person becomes like a total stranger to you." This said by my favourite Jap boy Kamenashi Kazuya, on their band's talk show.

I totally agree with what he said. Sometimes it still feels strange that the special ones I connected with so deeply and exclusively once, giving my all, my love, are all now complete strangers. Be just months, or precious years. Sometimes I still have residual imaginary conversations with C, or L, or even H. Things I should have said, or conversations that might have taken place if it was still us. I remember what was endearing to me about them, and as memories, they still are. Their names are still silently on my lips. All the memories, in a permanent repository until finally forgotten.

It breaks my heart just imagining if J ever became a total stranger to me in the future. All the shared tears and laughter, tenderness and comfort, made with him, suddenly disconnected. I know it is not likely to happen, but visualising its possibility wears me down. So I shan't think it.

That's the problem with falling in love voraciously like I do. Too many memories with too many different people. I am not a big enough repository for all of them. I regret everything I ever did to hurt the men in my past, and I carry this guilt with me still and ever.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:36 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

I hate birthdays. To me, they are cliched, pathetic attempts at being happy, but none of it is real. I thought about throwing my own 'Last of the Twenties' birthday party, seeing that I will only be turning twenty-nine once. But somehow the reverie that ought to come with celebrating seems to dissipate. I don't need an excuse to spend time with people I like to spend time with.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:31 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

2 a.m.

Not sleeping yet.


Not that I am not tired - I am always tired - but that little pocket of time between lying down on the bed and actually falling asleep, is a tad scary. Scary because I am alone, unactivated, and it becomes awfully quiet. Suddenly I have to face my ever-present horrifying fears and pains, which I successfully keep at bay until this pocket of time occurs, by then which I have no choice. And so I look at falling asleep at night, with disdain.


Last week I had a panic attack during this pocket of time. Because I had no choice but to feel, a culmination of my lifetime's emotions came into one explosive grip of panic. I froze, my heart pounding, my hands and feet clenched, and barely breathing, I couldn't move. Which meant I couldn't get myself my medication. J was already long asleep next to me. But it was in the middle of the night, and he had to work the next day. If it was C, waking him would cause more anger and pain than any comfort or help elicited. But I had to remember this was even-tempered J, who told me time and again to call him for help whenever.


After what seemed like a whole rotation of thoughts on whether to wake J for help, I decided to, but I couldn't make a sound, nor move. I summoned up all my energy to speak; it came in a few laboured whispers which finally woke him.


"I am having a panic attack..."


Jolted by the emergency, he got up and said, "I'll get you your medicine." I swallowed my tablets whole, just on my saliva alone. Shushing me to sleep and soaking up my tears in his arms, I felt better eventually, and yes, I suppose I finally managed to fall asleep.


It's 2 a.m. now. Let's see how tonight goes.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:51 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

bathrooms

Bathrooms are interesting places. Intimate, even, when you inspect a close one's bathroom to see what it's like. To know their habits: loo roll placed over or under the tube? What kind of toothpaste? Toothbrush overly worn and used, or an electric snazzy type? Does she shave or epilate or tweeze or wax or use hair-removal creams? Is she really into her hair (some bathrooms have a whole shelf rack of product meant only for hair)? Does he wash his face with a cleanser proper? And, when you open a bottle of shampoo that your lover uses, you realise, 'So this is why she smells so good.'

A guy I once knew noted that I was 'hygienic' (or similar word, cannot remember because it is years ago) because he noted my bottle of Vagisil. Feminine cleanser is interesting to talk about. Not every girl uses it (why?!) and those who do, seem to intrigue men, that we take care of our bits so delicately. I was amazed that, one day when J was clearing out my loot from my shopping bags that day, and automatically placed the newly-bought bottle of Vagisil in the bathroom where the old one used to be. 'How did you know this belongs here!' I gasped at him, shocked. He's a man! He is supposed to not know details! Men shower with a bar of soap, even for their bits! But, he knew. He said he knew that was what I used to wash myself. This guy amazes me with his attention to details about me.

I feel happy when I see a small collection of cleansers, soaps, shower gels, shampoos, dental care products, on my bathroom shelves. It feels so pampering to use Estee Lauder or similar to wash your face with. I am usually too lazy to condition my hair nowadays, but when I do, digging into my mini-tub of Pantene's hair mask feels luxurious when rubbed into my hair.

The presence of an extra toothbrush and shaver and a manly facial cleanser (Loreal) on the shelves also reminds me that I have a lover who spends a wonderful lot of time at my place. Looking at these things when I use the bathroom makes me think of him, whatever he may be doing outside the bathroom at the moment - gaming, sleeping, or et cetera manly activities.

Reading Prince Irwin's blog post on his bathroom made me pleasantly visualise what his bathroom is like. The products he uses, whether the toilet bowl is splattered with dried pee on the sides or whether it is spick-spankingly clean. (Sorry Irwin! Just wondering).

Most boys' bathrooms that I have visited are usually rather unsavoury, you see. Usually shared bathrooms, so the personality of the boy under inspection is really quite hard to tell from the bathroom. Shared bathrooms usually mean that the products used inside are often bought and replenished by the non-male users of the bathroom.

Do you also realise that everybody has different peeing rituals? A man friend of mine pees so softly, I wonder how he does it (sitting down?), even though I am right outside in the kitchen while he's in the bathroom. Some people wash their hands with the hand soap, others claim that a mere second spent under the tap means your hand (singular) is washed. I like to flush the loo with the seat cover down. I scrunch up my loo roll and use lots of it. And I buy three-ply embossed loo roll, nothing less will do.

And oh, reading material. C's bathroom had loads of in-loo reading material (mostly the sister's) and they ranged from Time to Reader's Digest. I love those loos with Archie's Comics! Ara has those in hers.

I trained J to conform to my bathroom-usage rules in my house. He already has some savoury habits, such as lifting up the seat before peeing. Actually that was his only good habit when he came. I have collected all the theorycraft of male toilet-usage rules and imbibed him with them. Wiping mis-cues off the bowl, wiping self so I don't have to wash pee-remnants off his boxers when I do the laundry, washing hands with soap etc. Sounds gross, but boys are hugely gross! They think they are clean when they actually aren't, most of the time!

Digressing from bathrooms there, apologies. But boys are really dirty, I sometimes wish I could date girls instead.

Shared girls' bathrooms are lovely. When I go on holiday with my best girlfriends Enid and Shuyi, we have a whole host of lovely cleansers, masks, perfumes, lotions, make-up etc etc that line our bathroom interior. It is just lovely lovely lovely. I feel so close to them when I know their favourite products.

Funny how I could actually write a whole post on just bathrooms. Inspired by Prince Irwin, really. And yes, I also scrimp on the toothpaste till I have no choice but to get a new one. Ditto the toilet paper.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:10 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

What Your Cute Monster Says About You

You are a vibrant, vivacious person. When you live, you live as wildly and loudly as possible. You are very bold. You are willing to stand up and be a leader. Your inner demon is intensity. You have a tendency to let your passions take over. People think you're cute because you're fiery. When you get worked up, it's charming.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:05 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

tuala artistik

So J brought back a grand bale of fresh green towels from his reservist training. To make them a little more feminine I decided to embroider some pastel flowers on them...

(Sorry I don't have a digi-cam, so these pics shall have to do):










Yes I actually have a sewing basket...













Close up of the flowers, pretty ain't it.












The towels are still too green IMO, as I have a colour scheme for the male-female towels in my bathroom. Mine are pinks, his are cool colours. This one shall be an anomaly.

Now what to do with the rest of the bale of SAF towels...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:36 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

anhedonia:

loss of joy or interest in activities

I gain very little satisfaction from things I supposedly like to do. If I don't do them I will be extremely despondent, like my work, or my hobbies, or spending time with J. But doing them does not make me extremely satisfied either, in fact, I hardly feel anything near satisfaction, joy, or whatever those positive emotions one should gain from doing something enjoyable.

While I am able to draw enough energy to do some of these supposed interests sometimes, other times they are extremely arduous even though I am meant to like these activities.

Hence there is very little emotional motivation to do them again. Or at all.

But I do try anyway. Like we do the things we all have to do, such as washing ourselves and brushing our teeth.

Just imagine though, if the activities that are meant to bring you extreme pleasure, feel like the washing up after dinner or clearing the trash.

I always thought anhedonia simply meant the lack of energy to do things that one loves. But even when you're med-up and energetic enough to wash yourself sometimes, pleasure might still feel like a chore - you just are more able to carry it out.

And that includes my work in Batam. No matter how long I have been desiring such an opportunity, no matter how much I love doing something this meaningful. In out, no pleasure. But not doing this would kill me eventually so I have to do it eventually, just like we all have to go to the toilet everyday.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:02 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

psychosmatic sleeplessness

I can't sleep because the upper right side of my back hurts when I lie down, either way. Even though I am exhausted and med-up. I also cannot help thinking too much when I lie down, of things exciting to come or of dreary trivia or of sweet things. I get worked up in my heart and mind and my body cannot rest as it should at this time of night. Yet I am really sleepy.

I have repeatedly rubbed my right shoulder and back with massage oil before bed but it is still there. Not a bruise, for it is uncoloured, not my lungs, for I am still breathing and regular breathing does not hurt it. Not a lump in my breast because I cannot detect any. This pain just remains, and hurts only when I sneeze, hiccup or lie down. If it is a muscular pain I have no idea how I strained it.

I read up on psychosomatic illnesses, and aches and pains are somewhat a symptom of depression. This sucks. I also hate the ever-present tiredness, and the fainting spells I get sometimes.

So many ailments I fear to resume my regular workouts, which strains on my physical stamina as a whole. I have to change tack, go swimming instead, with J. Out comes the anti-cellulite / firming gel I need to use to not cause disgust to the other pool-users when I disrobe.

I have always been sickly and I hate myself for that. For whatever I do it makes little difference to my health.

Later when I return to bed to once again try to sleep, the quiet will shrill itself into my head and keep me awake. That and all my thoughts. I just hope I don't wake J with my sleeplessness.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:59 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

excerpts

Inspired by The Golden Notebook, and partly obliged to update worldsuponwords more often, here are recent slips of writing from my notebook dated since end September.



Nowadays I hate to dream. Most of my dreams are manifestations of crude non-reality. Irksome and disturbing. Sometimes I get meaning and ideas from my dreams, but not lately. When I am awake these dreams are even scarier, like hallucinations waiting to happen. I lie down, unasleep, and they happen. While I am wide awake.

---

"Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation."
Oscar Wilde.

---

Everyone has a string of failed loves in their lives. I'm glad to know I am not the only one, an anomaly in the human trend.

---

I find myself having a lack of expression: where description should form, I am vague. Momentous pleasures become plain. Poetry disappears. Street language suffices -- I feel like fuck, damn.

With a lack of expression writing becomes boring for my potential reader, therefore I ache when I write. I foresee what I write here will be boring to the end. How I wish I were a filmmaker, it would be easier to convey in the instant what I mean to express.

I think of constantly reading - and I try to improve my fluidity of word-expression. It hardly helps. I fanatically assume that the books I read will sublimate naturally into improved writing of my own.

A writer probably ought to be a far deeper examiner of what she reads - or experiences - than that. I skim through my reading the same way I skim through how I feel. For years I suffered the self-tyranny of repressing my emotions, allowing them little audience in my life. Thus I fall sick with depression.

Right now I realise this, and so constantly try to allow myself to feel. I ask myself, How do I feel? Oftentimes it is nothing, as I am not used to this exercise. But when I really try to release the stranglehold of my will upon my feelings, I realise the emotions I feel.

Like right now:

I feel anger, one that transcends into sadness. And then since holding on to these feelings is unfruitful, I try to let them go.

---

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:23 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

gloomy late afternoon

It seems like I am reveling in the quiet of the late afternoon rain outside, but in fact I am simply in a daze. The quiet makes me lonesome, yet I am unable to keep myself occupied to the point of distraction. Every task seems to require more energy than I can conjure up, even reading, which I cannot sustain for more than a page or two.

I see Slinky curled in her basket, and I microwave some cat food to feed and keep her warm. While waiting for her food to cool, she sits before her bowl, staring out the kitchen window looking at the rain fall.

I make some hot chocolate in a bid to keep myself occupied, and I try to wake J for some too, so I would no longer feel lonely, but he remains asleep.

There are so many things I could do: some form of work, exercise, shower, ironing, cleaning, watching a DVD. But I can't bring myself to do any of them, it is pointless and too much to surmount even as single tasks, even if as recreational activities. I could go back to sleep but even that feels painful.

The rain has stopped. Dinner time approaches and thus a sense of forced normalcy returns. I push the gloom back with a cigarette and hopefully, find some energy to wash myself before dinner.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:41 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

books again!

A lot of you know I love collecting and reading books. Some of my most beloved books are outstation, meaning I have lent them out eagerly to friends, to share with them my loves. Sometimes I wonder if I should buy them again, to replace the books on my shelves, because it is hard to lend out books expecting they will eventually return.

This is a list of books that are currently outstation:

Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence

These books have been lent out because they are great enough to be shared, so much, that I often press books into the arms of guests at my flat. I know some will never return, and to have a piece of me in the lives of others who I might seldom, if ever, see again, it remains like a physical evidence of our lives being shared for a part. It comforts me that I will not totally be forgotten.

At present, I am actively reading Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, and Joyce Carol Oates' The Tattooed Girl.

I picked out Doris Lessing because this book of hers is award-winning, a must-read book of all times. I relate to it because her protagonist struggles with her intellectualism and her pro-communist affiliations. Her friend and her are also feminist, which makes it a trend before their time.

Joyce Carol Oates is a name I picked out on the back of another book I was reading, as she penned off one of those reviews other authors often do as part of the marketing of that book. The fact that we both at one time shared a common interest in the same book, endears me to her writing, that I believe I must also enjoy, since we both have something in common already.

Great way to find new authors to read, by the way: searching for names on reviews for the books you already like.

Labels: books

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:05 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

postmortem on second week of teaching

I'm back! As per my usual Batam-Singapore schedule, I spend Thursday night to Sunday at home in Singapore.

In Batam, I live in a house with my own room. Sparsely furnished with a mattress, a clothes stand, and a stool that makeshifts as a table. There are windows, and one ceiling light, and essentially needed air-conditioning. I have no internet, no TV, no refrigerator in the kitchen, and no hot water for showers. I live out of my backpack, with my things mostly on the floor (all over).

Spartan as it sounds, every time I reach my bed there on Monday night, I feel a peace and quiet as it were a sanatorium. There is nothing to do there in my room except read, work, drink coffee, smoke, write and sleep. It is all very peaceful.

Teaching in the school there is finally becoming easier. I am easing into their pace and standard. I pop some beta-blockers before I start my prep work and my teaching. The kids and the teachers are enjoying my lessons and my training respectively. Soon I will be teaching the Bible school students English too, and possibly pop by to the other centres on the other Indonesian islands for a visit some time soon, to see what else I can do.

The only thing hard about being there is being without J. I also fear that if I get a bout of serious depression or anxiety, no one there will know what to do. I am well and truly alone there. No internet means no Skype, and phone bills cost a bomb. SMS is cheaper on my Indonesian SIM card, but that means no J's voice, only his words. I am glad to come home to him every Thursday.

Today, I am going to do Singaporean things: shop, eat at nice cafes, drink coffee at Starbucks or similar, dress nicely (welcome home to sleeveless tops!), have dinner and drinks and nice restaurants and pubs with friends, and enjoy cool air-con wherever I go. Hurrah for Singapore! Now if only the streets would be less crowded...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:51 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

real me

You can only be yourself up to the point where the real you will hurt someone you love. After that, grace and basic courtesy steps in to make sure the relationship remains civil and alive.

The real me however is an angry cat. I am perpetually angry and upset, but behavioural standards and societal obligation makes me a different person than who I really am. Between the real me and the civil me, is a great disparity.

This is partly why it is so tiring for me to have to talk to people. Whether I am a good conversationalist or not, whether I am able to communicate to people from all walks of life or not. I may be able to charm and flirt with anyone and everyone, but that is probably not really me. Apart from inherently depleted energy levels because I am sick, being with people is so extremely tiring.

That it stresses me out. The prospect of an evening obliged to be spent schmoozing with groups of people, even friends, stresses me out that much, I have a panic attack, and I blame myself for being weak like that, which of course only accelerates the anxiety.

I have tried so hard to be an efficient networker, charming acquaintance, loving friend and adoring lover, and succeeded in most places. But the reason behind my being so, is because no one will accept me for who I really am, which really is quite otherwise from the above. I have lived concealing my anger and hurt for twenty-over years that I am sick from it now, bursting at my seams, and now you know.

But yesterday J wrote me the sweetest note ever in my notebook:

Jian <3 Elaine for what she is and not what she is trying to be.
This is the reason why we got together.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:15 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

restraint. resignation and formalities

Silent voices
in my head
Running in
all vectors.
Screams -
I can't let out
for too much
Restraint!


Eventually it all welled up in me, bounded by my restraint. Some time this week my pain let itself loose from within me and it hurt so much I started drinking from very early in the morning. After breakfast and meds I opened my bottle of scotch. It is sacrilege to mix single malt whiskey with anything other than ice or water but by lunchtime I had six glasses of Glenfiddich mixed with green tea to wash it all down. I just wanted to remove the pain so much. My body started to feel lighter from the tension I had been having since Monday's panic attack. I started dancing in my room to Giles Peterson, tossing my pain away. But it remained inside me, finally exploding from deep within the recesses of my soul in shouts and cries that I could no longer restrain. It hurt so much, so much, I took out my Swiss army knife and whipped out both the small and the big blades, and cut, cut, cut, to try and cut the pain out of my body. I never cut this hard before. I haven't screamed this much in a long while now.

Everyone keeps saying: two steps forward, one step back, but that is still progress. My steps forward are tiny. Like formalities I go through because I am obliged to try and recover. I cannot deny that I have a sense of resignation about this. Like Murakami says in his running journal: his body had reached a point where it became resigned to the weariness of the distance run, that each step forward and every swing of his arms became like formalities his body had to go through. That is me. In another analogy of taking steps, Dr. K said to me yesterday, 'Take small steps. Then when you feel comfortable with one step, move on to the next level of discomfort, try something else.' Sounds just like how Murakami trains for his marathons as a running novelist. But honestly, I feel that my depression-marathon may never end until I die. I will just keep going and on till then. Two steps forward, one step back.

This week is a series of related step-backs. I am thankful for Fluanxol (my short-term, tide-over medication), so that I can stop stepping back so much and hurting everyone around me. My body is tied to a buoy and a weight at the same time, this way I can continue showering myself, talking, eating, and do some non-strenuous hobbies, even though my depression is mightily weighty, seeping out of me like the blood from my cuts. (This is how resignation speaks for itself.)

I am thankful for J who is now asleep after a hard week of work and dealing with my crises. I was about to turn in tonight too, after reading. But I just felt like writing. Granted, I don't have much material to write about, save myself. Even with this limited material I still fill notebooks at the rate of about one in three weeks. I don't know why I have so much to write about.

If I really wanted to do my formalities justice, I should write about that one fact that my doctor keeps asking me to confront. As I open a new notebook, maybe tonight I finally shall be able to face this ghost of my life proper, resigned or not.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:15 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

voice

On Monday morning while I was preparing for my Tuesday classes before I had to leave for Batam that night, I had a major panic attack. It was catastrophic because my anxiety ended up lasting pretty much for two days or more. When it happened I tried not to hyperventilate, lest I faint, by doing some Mona-style deep breathing. I called J, who asked me to rest and not think about Batam for a while, to read a book instead. I picked up an Archie comic, took a X*anax, had a cig, and then when I calmed down, I realised I couldn't talk.

I would have called my doctor immediately but even if I did I wouldn't have any speech ability to explain anything over the phone.

I waited for J's meeting which was nearby to be over, and then he came over and called Dr. K for me, explaining the situation according to what I had written on paper. I was barely speaking above a whisper, which even then caused me great amount of effort. Dr. K prescribed me to take a dose of 2 X*anaxes. When I came to, I regained my voice.

Obviously, I couldn't make it to Batam this week.

J scheduled an outpatient appointment for me at the hospital the very next morning. By then, I was able to talk and move, but my chest hurt. Like it does after I strain my chest muscles after playing, say ball games or lifting too much weights.

I told Dr. that I suddenly had an information overload in my brain and then the attack just started. Even though I probably would have been able to do my work on time. Or even if I hadn't prepared myself up to the standards I wanted, I would have been able to do teach the classes okay if I had gone to teach just the same. Dr. gave me beta-blockers to help me function in doing my work so I wouldn't get an attack the next time I am trying to do my work.

While I am now resting, my depression has gone back to normal: I resumed my fits of crying for no reason or at the slightest emotional disturbance. I have become unsociable, cut myself off online communication, and resumed sleeping a lot. My room is in a mess. Last night I cried while watching OC online, not even because it was a sad episode; I was merely waiting for it to upload. J woke up and comforted me, but I was in a mildly catatonic state, not talking, only answering yes-and-no answers, filled with I-don't-knows. I felt like my tears were coming right from the depths of whatever is left of my soul. I took my usual nightly meds, and more X*anax, had a cigarette, and tried to sleep, crying onto J's face while he waited for me to calm down. Then the worst of the night was over.

I know I shouldn't think about giving up my career that has barely restarted, but while I am away out of the country, not being able to talk to J (phone bills hit the roof already, and no internet therefore no Skype), and my mom officially moving back to JB, it is too much loss to take, accompanied by my serious lack of incompetence at work. I feel loveless, alone, and hugely incompetent. I seriously don't think I can do this job, but I am trying anyway, every day, every week. Despite the fact that I truly believe I will not do an excellent job. I am like a machine that still tries to run even thought its internal system has already failed and is still undergoing inconclusive and extremely slow, possibly hopeless, repairs.

I am beginning to hear things in my head, not audible voices, more like whispers in winds of every direction. I say things like, I want to sleep on the outside of the bed near the door, so I know when people go out I will know, even though there is only J in the room. I feel like screaming so much, but restraint and concern for my neighbours stop me. I feel like dying because I will never get well, killing me would be an ease on everyone's time and finances.

I just want to rest. I don't know how long I will take.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:47 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

bland

Inspired by Irwin's comment on my previous post, I reread The Bell Jar yesterday. I remember how the first time I read the same book, I felt the protagonist to be really normal: her thoughts, actions and especially her feelings. They seemed to be perfectly bland, why would anyone feel it was an epitome of depression and sadness? Maybe Sylvia Plath wrote that way to mimic the 'sour air' she wanted to convey about the bell jar. Or maybe her thoughts to me were normal because I felt the same way and no one feels strange staring at themselves in the mirror, seeing the same image morning after morning.

Frustrated this morning because of my ongoing flu' symptoms and even more so my bad night's sleep (skipped my Lorazepam; bad idea) I lay in bed, dazed, feeling bland. I cannot answer questions like 'Why am I unhappy,' or 'What makes me happy, because my answers nowadays are exceedingly bland. If I could forever remain in my home which is my asylum, I would feel safe, but bland. However I could do things I liked, like writing, reading, watching films, and Jian: all doable in my own home. I would be in a state of equilibrium.

But happiness is an elusive feeling. Peace I know, excitement I know, safety I know, love I know, but happiness? I am supposed to be happy, being on meds, moving along nicely, having J as my companion, having my dream job. Sadness has eluded me nicely; happiness too. Hence the daze, the blandness, and the desire to just remain in my own asylum. It is tiring to live life in a daze, with trying sleep, drained of energy, easily stressed like a hamster loose on a city sidewalk, and clueless about what I can do to make me happy. Do do do do do dodiddonedodododo. I am tired!

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:19 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

boiling pot

Sometimes I feel that my medications are like a lid on a boiling pot, while my efforts and reinventing myself to disincline away from my depressive habits, are like blowing the fire on the gas stove that which this boiling pot sits on. The fire needs to be turned off, the pot cooled, washed and kept - Impossible.

While I feel some semblance of normality now and have been for a while, I still feel debilitated enough that any goal-orientated effort is extremely depressing and strenuous. I motivate myself somewhat by writing and praying copiously enough to expunge all my crazy thoughts, relevant or otherwise. It works! Like treading water in the sea during a storm, I manage to stay afloat from time to time. It is tiring, and feelings of death and hopelessness cannot help but float by sometimes, it is open sea after all, treading water for so long can make you delirious.

I have come to accept that I will always be sick. With that acceptance comes the fact that since I will always be this way, I should stop waiting and working so hard to recover before I make something out of this meagre life of mine. Since I may never recover I might as well restart my career fully, now, else it is never.

We all have to stop thinking I will necessarily get better. I have to accept my tears, I have to accept the numbness and pain, I have to accept my bouts of recluse, I have to accept that it will be harder and more effort some to do things than it would be for normal people, I have to accept that sleeping and waking will be difficult, I have to accept that I will feel sad for most things seen and unseen, I have to accept that I will always need to ask for help whenever I feel anguish enough to want to die.

A persistent boiling pot that cannot be shut down, I will just have to keep watch over it so it doesn't boil over.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:41 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

On the Threshold of Eternity

On the Threshold of Eternity.

In 1890, Vincent van Gogh painted this picture seen by some as symbolizing the despair and hopelessness felt in depression. Van Gogh himself suffered from depression and committed suicide later that same year.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:18 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

refuge, stress and a daze

Writing has become my source of earthly refuge because it is here that I can retreat into my world. Not even my closest loved ones can interrupt me safely from this haphazard ritual of mine, without being lashed out at by me for being taken out of the flow of words that come forth, be it on paper or on the computer. When I need safety from my crazy mind I write, as long as I can find the first words to form one phrase within me. When the words don't come I feel an anguish that translates into a need for a crutch in some kind of imbibed substance or in angered shouts. Sleep is probably about the only other activity that can provide a similar sense of safety; this probably explains why, apart from a true physiological lack of energy, depressed people sleep a lot when they finally can.

I feel anguish and therefore a need to write because even though my dream is finally coming true again - my going to Indonesia to work on my humanitarian career - it is fraught with fears and insecurities that stem from me and myself alone. It should finally make me happy, finally, after sabbaticals and rest from work that has not been satisfying because it is not what I truly want to do. I need to raise funds and while I have a salesperson's persona within me, she seems like a ghost of the past that hardly seems like me at all. I am also not the best Christian around to be raising funds for 'missionary work', because while my work is missionary, I am nothing close to what that term represents in terms of character and an image of being above-board. I am torn between two countries because my ties are still here, yet I want to be immersed in my work there. And my resilience to stress is still so low I cannot comprehend how I could have endured any form of work stress in the past. I should be able to do my job, because the Elaine that people have known all along will excel, even those who barely know me feel that way. But that Elaine feels like a shadow to me, running then on strength unknown and probably supernatural. Wrung to my depths as I am right now, I am a corpse with a weaker ghost within, seen by all as an Elaine at rest and able to rise up to become the best in her field once again. I have doubts of that so severe that I feel anguish.

I have always relished the challenge of stepping outside the 'comfort-zone' but right now instead of being excited by the challenge I feel a want for safety so much, even the thought of living in an asylum gives me comfort. I am far from having to live in one but my flat is like my asylum, with every comfort that I need here in material and in persons I love. The challenge to step outside my comfort nowadays, which I do try to, eventually and despite all, still brings about stress and I get upset enough to have to rely on my emergency Xa*nax, Slims, and alcohol where possible. All this for a little bit of stress. And as usual I am also sick (eczema and just the 'flu) which is how stress chooses to manifest itself in me. (Although probably the 'flu is more because I took the public bus that day, sick people everywhere in a contained, unhygienic space. Public transport makes me sick, literally. It also makes me very stressed but that is another story.)

I don't know how I can overcome this and this conflict within me is what drives me to seek refuge in my writing. My body is rejecting my fears by creating this anguish and this 'flu which goes against my primal and heavenly instinct to serve the poorest people who are in greater need than I am. I am a fusion of vision and fear, of a shadow of the past and a ghost of the present. I am able and unable. The greatest battles are fought in the mind. When I am weak then I am strong.

Conflicting states of being result in me being in a daze sometimes, like how aquatic confluences create silt and flotsam. I try to function as normally as possible socially, with my medication giving needed energy to. I know I will likely breakdown in embarking on this job in Indo but I am going to do it anyway. Thus the daze. I try to not be my past workaholic-perfectionist self which plans everything down to the T, but yet I feel that inadequate if I don't. Thus the daze.

Amidst all I guess I will keep writing.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:57 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

writer's agoraphobia

From reading Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace, I intrinsically realise a flaw in my writing. One of the book's characters mentions that she finds it hard to write of the world outside, having to exit her inner world to observe the workings of the world beyond. She finds it terrifying, intrusive, violating, to enter a house that is not hers, in a way that classical writers do, writing about streets and other public places beyond the domain of their private lives.

I suppose she means that it is scary to enter into a world that is not yours, that perhaps this world might reject you, or you might reject this same world you enter. How she feels parallels the way I live, subconciously, as I seem to only write of what is in me. I write based on internal inspiration, and while I can tweak my sensitivity to inspiration, I have yet to fully master 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' as it were in the book of the same name. I am not a master of my machine if I cannot take it further than my own neighbourhood.

I write observational accounts poorly, preferring to relate my response and thoughts to the event, rather than the sensoral details of the event itself. If I simulate the process right now of entering an event I would like to relate, and forgetting my own inner world for a moment, it feels as if I am losing my moorings and slowly am floating out into the open sea, to be lost until found again, if ever.

I used to think that the reason why I dislike writing reportorial accounts of events is because they are cliched and uninspiring. Like newspaper articles with staccato sentences reeking of a job merely needing to be done and nothing much else. My passionate opinion in me rules over the blatant facts of the world, for facts can be found on the bottom of any news channel, but opinion seeks to change and inspire, something of a higher intelligence.

Yet it is also true that I do indeed find it scary to write about an external collection of facts that have nothing to do with me, afraid that I might misrepresent it, or inadequately report it, denying the world of real, vanilla truth. I have to learn how to step out, eventually. Even the Impressionist artists once studied the Classical works of realistic representation, before they painted what themselves saw instead.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:24 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

dislike

J read my 49 dislikes and felt perturbed that many of his quirks are on that list (cannot find it in my blog archive, not sure where it is). Some of those things matter less to me now that I am less irritable and less angry. I cannot remember what was on that list but I am going to write a fresh one nonetheless. My dislikes are more like stress factors to me, small circumstances and traits about places and people that stress me out.

1. I don't like sick people coughing, sneezing, sniffing or blowing their nose in public places. I start to feel sick and wish I could Lysol them down.
   
2. I don't like taking public transport not only because of germs but because they smell weird and are crowded. People tend to look strange, wearing strange clothes, speaking in strange accents and language, and they tend to jostle into me and come too close such that if I move my arms just the slightest, I will come into - ugh - contact with them.
   
3. I don't like purple. It makes me feel sick.
   
4. I don't like people who share my table at public eating places to slurp their food. It is absolutely gross. Eat quietly FFS! No wonder no one is having their meal with you such that you have to share my table.
   
5. I don't like posers who think they are so glam so cool so hip when all they are are just actors.
   
6. I don't like civil servants unless they are my friends already in which case they are the clever exceptions to a profession fraught with stupidity.
   
7. I don't like Hong Kong drama serials and other similar Asian soaps - they absolutely make me upset and I could get a panic attack just be persisting at watching any.
8. I don't like matriarchal Cantonese aunties.
   
9. I don't like mainland Chinese. They disgrace they entire Chinese race. I would sooner visit India even though I don't like crowds.
   
10. I don't like public speakers who cannot speak proper English. Step off the rostrum and attend some toastmaster's classes please!
11. I don't like floaty animals in water known as aquatic life. I like to remain at sea level and not under... the thought of having floaty animals near me in the water creeps me out.
    
12. I don't like women who cannot even be bothered to put even a sliver of makeup when they go out, work or pleasure inclusive. It's utterly disrespectful for anyone who has to look at them.
13. I don't like eating leek, spring onion, lady's finger and brinjal.
    
14. I don't like replying text messages and answering the phone very much unless it is critical.
    
15. I don't like exercising in gyms; outdoors or in my own home is best. Gyms are crowded, unisex, and sweaty...
16. I don't like watching sports on TV very much except for soccer.
    
17. I don't like reading the local newspaper. In my own opinion it is not a complete accurate picture of the world. (To be honest it makes me angry to read or hear from it. I truly, truly believe we need independent journalism in this country but it is not to be.
18. I don't like fruit such as mangosteen and dragonfruit.
    

That's about it. I guess I am less irritable now, hence the supposedly shorter list. One day I shall be even more at peace with the world and its smelly public transport receptacles of coughing people...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

power

"Power unchecked leads to moral tyranny."

This statement, that I just read from the aforementioned novel, had me sit up, alert. It stirred up the political in me. I remember reading from George Orwell's Why I Write, saying that one of the four reasons why writers do what they do, is because of their political opinion. By political he did not mean necessarily partisan or political revolutionary, nor dissension of any kind. But he meant that all writers are political in their opinion, always taking a point of view, or the other point of view, or preferring to stand in the middle - that being in itself a point of view.

I am definitely political in Orwell's sense of the word. I respect democracy and the justice it represents. I abhor elitism and present-day aristocracies, disguised in forms that may no longer be recognisable. Working on closing the income gap is close to my heart, which is why I choose to work with the poor and serve them, for them to achieve their hierarchy of needs. Power should be checked by justice and the ongoing right for others to choose. I desire principle and character over the economical and the material. Tempting man with the material makes him selfish, inspiring him with your character makes him emulate your principles and follow you. All these statements of belief apply between people anywhere and everywhere: in business relationships, in our leadership of others, in our acquaintances with people, in our extended families, in our friendships. It doesn't even have to relate to the government. Being political can really mean nothing in one's take on partisan politics.

Which is why even though I just like to write a lot here, a political statement like Blake's, really made me sit up. It made me take out my pen. It made my heart beat faster. It made me think about the crazies in the French Revolution and how the people must have felt, both the royal family and the commoners alike. No one should be killing or imprisoning anyone just because they represent an ethos or an echelon of society abhorred. It would be similar to the Myanmar government house-arresting Aung San Suu Kyi simply because she stood for democracy, or the jihad-ists killing themselves and others along it simply because they needed to make an anti-American point to the world. Power unchecked leads to moral tyranny. Be it whether the power is held by the ruling party, the people, or terrorists. It is all one and the same.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:33 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

books!

The past couple of times I went into a bookstore to find materials for my teaching, I got hijacked by books on sale that I could devour myself. I have ended up taking entire duvet days just reading, and have already finished two books since Tuesday.

I remember when I stepped into Times at Marina Square, which I found after some calls to their office and some hobbling around, heavily laden with shopping, I felt such a surge of comfort. It was like an invisible air curtain that I stepped through at the bookshop's doorway, blowing comfort, safety and relief, telling me that I am in a safe haven now, at my favourite public place.

While bookshop aisles sometimes give me my claustrophobic stomachaches, stores these days are thankfully more spaced out, and a weekday crowd is less menacing, if not inviting for their shared love of books.

I intended, and successfully managed, to get some children's stories for my classes. After paying for them, at which I had happily flaunted my discount card, I got hijacked by the 3 for 2 book displayed, and promptly selected three books to pay for and bring home eagerly.

I am happy that my voracious reading appetite has returned.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:10 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

still scared

I am still scared, but moving along with shreds and bursts of my inner self that seems stronger than I think it to be. Sometimes my new work seems easy, my ideas and ability to work on them somewhat reminiscent of my former capabilities, even if the work is new and foreign. Other times I keep thinking of how I can postpone my going to Batam, how I can start later and do less, because I feel I am not going to make it in time.

Today my small burst of work came from seemingly nowhere: I thought of the two shirts I bought for my dad and how I will see him later today, and suddenly I felt happy at the prospect because I hope he will like them. Then I got going on my computer while sharing my chair with Slinky, simply typing away at my work. I am not one for forming analytic patterns but it seems I got today going because I thought of small things I will be doing with or for my loved ones. Small enjoyments.

I feel like I have spent most of my working life in a mental breakdown, being in this depressive episode since maybe late 2006/early 2007, till now. This episode seems so much worse than my first one, my first episode seems merely like a bad stomachache. I know I cannot break down again, which is why it is vitally important for me to get better, to deal with all of my residual emotional issues that stem from my childhood. Doc says we still have 'so much to work on', and though it has been more than half a year since I started psychotherapy, all we have been doing is 'moving from crisis to crisis'. (I agree).

I hope I work everything out, and these niggling fears I have of work will not hinder me from doing what I love, which is still first and foremost, serving the basic needs of those who need it most.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:28 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

I am now very fat E

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:50 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

takut

From being in a confused hardcore-recreationalist/workaholic state I am in a limbo they call procrastination. I have shit-loads of things to do before I leave for Batam again in September. But apart from dumping my clothes in the washing machine and taking out my notebook to plan my to-do list, I have done nothing. Na-da.

I am afraid of work. Takut. I am afraid I will not do well. So I procrastinate. Yet I know I should not be over-indulging in my gaming/sleeping/watching of films and playing with J. So this morning I sit stunned after I make him breakfast, while I smoke and write here. Stunned. No amount of coffee seems to jolt me into motivated action.

I have been having frustrating dreams of small irritating non-fictional events. Like yesterday, I dreamt of a room full of people talking at the same time, stressing me out. I scream and cry in my dream from the stress of a situation like that. I wake up feeling irritable, so much that I scream out loud, so much that I need a X*anax to calm me down. I sleep again after. Another day is gone, nearing my time towards 1 September.

I will be gone for three to four days a week by then, living in Indonesia. I need to get my lesson plans and classroom material ready by then, and yet while I know I can do it, I seem to also feel like I cannot. Hence my confused state.

Like Jesus said before he went to the cross, "Let this cup pass from me..." because he was sorrowful to the point of death for having to be betrayed and crucified. Yet he wanted Father God's will to be done. So he prayed

My work is my ministry, supernaturally fuelled, God-led. I shall go. Even if I am not fully recovered, I shall go. The best players play hurt.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:12 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

I can't seem to find a balance between pure rest and recreation, and workaholism. My pending return to full-time work (almost) scares me and even though I try not to give my 200% I still feel stressed out and I know not how to be good at my work yet enjoy my life in terms of my hobbies and friends.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:01 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

sekarang balik, tapi akan pergi ke Indonesia lagi

Excuse my broken Bahasa, but I really like Indonesia, and Batam is the gateway for me.

Alas, I am not a camera person; I have no pictures to document this second reconnaissance trip I just returned from. Only thoughts, words, and a decision.

I will write more soon, meanwhile, I need a rest.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:11 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

i'm coming

I nudged my room door ajar and saw him through the crack. He looked worn out, inside and out. He had his Tag Heuer glasses off and was wiping his face, and was dressed in his work garb as he was for the entire day.

"You look shack," I said to him, myself just freshly out of the shower.

"Of course, it's Monday."

But I knew it wasn't just the Monday blues or the heavy Singaporean heat that made him look more tired than usual. J smiles even when he is sleepy.

He tried to sound cheery. "So, tell me everything that happened today, I wanna know!"

Today was a defining moment for my career. I might really be spending most of my every week in Batam, Indonesia, very soon. For how long, and for how semi-permanently, the plans are still unfolding.

I am excited. I worry about having to keep paying for this flat. I wonder about how much I will earn while I will save lots staying there. I think about Slinky. And I think about J.

"Don't worry, I will take care of myself," he says.

His countenance remains torn. I tell him he is acting really strong and supportive about my dreams, but I know inside he will be lonely without me. My words cut through his heart, because no matter how he tries to remain brave on the outside, I read his heart and mind completely.

There is a peace in my heart about J.

There is a definitive unction in my heart about going to Indonesia.

I just have to believe that God will allow both my career and my lover to co-exist as they never really have before.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:40 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

useless

Too awake to sleep, too sleepy to be fully awake - that is the state I am now constantly in. I am sometimes too unwell, too tired, to fulfill obligations. Small setbacks send me drinking, and while I no longer drink to oblivion or knock myself out with medication, I control my angst and bitterness with writing and cigs. At least I am sober and calm.

On Tuesday I received my rejection letter from Brit Council regarding my course. My 'Language Awareness' and 'Written English' is not up to par.

But I am still going to that school in Batam for a reconnaissance trip next week.

I just hope I stay awake enough, and have enough energy to actually do anything useful again. The old E is a figment of the past and I am not even sure if she really ever existed, anymore.

What if I stay broken down forever, however hard I try? I have been scaling this rocky path for so long that even Chaco sandals will wear out on terrain like this.

I can't even go back to remove the ghosts in my past, because my relationship with my parents is my ghost. I can't bring up the ghost with them, because it would drive the ghost even further forlorn. The root of my depression is even more depressing than depression itself.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:26 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

delusional

I suddenly have this feeling that everything is very unreal. Suddenly I am doubting that whatever companionship I have experienced in the couple of weeks was a fabrication on my part, a figment of my imagination. I can find physical clues to prove me wrong, but I could have bought and placed those clues myself all over my room. I have a feeling I really made this guy up. Like in that Audrey Tautou movie ( was it A la folie? Pardon my French).

I am not even sure I am real. Everything seems delusional, only instead of making up things that aren't there, I am under the pretension that I am making up things that are actually, probably, really there, but I don't believe my own sense of reality. Does that make any sense?

Probably not. I probably just cannot accept when good things happen to me, I believe the bad but not the good, which is why I make bad things happen all the time, at least I know those are real.

J, you are too good to be true.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:22 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

short stories on love

I often feel like the woman at the well. Every relationship ends eventually, until the idea of marriage, after trying it five times, becomes too much of a chore. She turns cynical and merely lives together with her current man instead.

I also often think, that the men that pass through my life, go on to greater things. Behind every successful man was one woman in his past, and I am that woman. They move on, and I am still here, merely one of the many jewels in their crowns, but at least they are now kings or on their way there.

My love life is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, strung together by common themes. I make all my men feel insecure - my past, my mistakes, my charm. I neglect them while being in my own world, unable to pick up that phone just to check in. I am either too independent or too depressed. I am too much like a man in so many ways: I don't like to cuddle very much, I am not clingy, I cannot play my computer games and talk to you at the same time, I don't like to be disturbed at work, I give solutions to problems I listen to, and I like to zone out and be by myself sometimes.

My charm is very short-lived. For the past ten years men have fallen in love with me, and come alongside me, but we are unable to stick together because I do not have what it takes to be a sticker. I feel very special each time, but I know I would never be the last girlfriend, even though I know they would never forget me.

I don't like short stories. Beginning a new story again and again is tiring and I have less to give each time. Eventually I do end up loving that someone properly. But that story might end anyway.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:07 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

the thing about younger men

They are usually the one to say "I love you" first.
They are emotionally available.
They aim to please.
They don't see the mechanics of making love but rather the intimacy and pleasure of it.
They are more willing to cry.
They let you be the one to make them feel secure sometimes.
They allow you to inspire them, and gaze at you when you speak.
They believe in hugs, not reasoning and shouting.
They speak gently, not harshly.
They respect you.
They haven't given up on love.

Get yourself one today.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:26 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

Winter Sleep by Olivia Lufkin

It keeps coming back to me
I remember this pain
It spreads across my eyes
Everything is dull

Everyone's smiling, they're smiling
It pushes me far far away
I can't understand
Everything is blue

Can you hear me out there?

Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
I'm gazing from the distance and
I feel everything pass through me
I can't be alone right now
Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
I'm lost in a deep winter sleep
I can't seem to find my way out alone
Can you wake me

I know when I let it in
It hides love from this moment
So I guard it close
I watch the moves it makes

But it gets me, but it gets me
I wish I could understand how I
Could make it disappear, make it disappear

Anyone out there hear me now?

Will you hold me now
Hold me now
My frozen heart
Kiss my lips and maybe you can take me to your world for now
I can't be alone right now
Will you hold me now Hold me now My frozen heart
Please make it all go away
Am I ever gonna feel myself again?
I hope I will

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:55 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

falling in love sensibly

Is it actually possible to fall in love without visions of falling into fields of flowers, or of lights in the skies; or of feelings you get in a dream-like state, while quivering, and wanting to kiss the person madly?

I have only been in love like that twice in my life. It scares me to have to ever feel like that once again, probably because when that happens I end up losing the person in the end anyway. My fear of loss has penetrated me that much. While I am an emotive person, my steely exterior gives little away if I can help it, and I often look away and no longer into a person's eyes. I make humour out of everything and talk of serious issues looking into the distance. I am intimacy-phobic because I am phobic of loss and abandonment. I hardly want to quiver in a person's presence again.

Flowers, lights and quivers don't last anyway. Love is innately sensible. Right?

I can skip the falling in love madly part and go straight to loving a person madly. I lose the person usually anyway, but at least that way, it is easier to forget when he goes. I know that sounds really cynical but I am certainly no Jennifer Hudson in SATC wearing a LOVE keychain.

I don't dare to delve anymore into my emotions because it only opens the floodgates of pain that I have felt for twenty eight years of my life. I still feel fear being neglected and abandoned. I still feel regret for losing the only two people I ever fell in love with madly in my life, the flowers and lights and quivers I felt with them. Falling in love is a sad thing.

How am I supposed to fall in love senselessly if I think this way? Like my doc says, this is not the real me, I am not being authentic if I only think, and no longer feel. From today, I will try harder to let my tears come, and to let my heart go.

But I am so scared.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:41 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

friends... or not

It is nice to talk serious stuff with someone - philosophy, spirituality and the like - and not feel tired out by it. Intellectual conversations spiced with witty banter, yet with honesty and a lack of frivolity about life, these things in conversations make a friendship even more meaningful.

Group conversations tire me out more. I can talk with someone one-on-one for a much longer time. Recently most of the people I spend time with outside of the virtual world, i.e. Real Life, are my gaming buddies. They are mostly guys. I like talking to them in a group and one to one, one being more tiring than the other, but our common interest draws us together and it is more fun than it is pressurising to be with them, compared with other groups of friends.

Sometimes it gets unclear; Platonic relationships are hard to define, with so many male species of friends in my circle now. So many seemingly implied actions, mixed with emotional (and recreational) intimacy, it is hard to interpret if they want friendship only, or more. I love my girlfriends because our intimacy has no such barriers, but of course, my girlfriends are high-end achievers in their careers and very busy, so it is not often we have bonding sessions of intimacy. Hence most of my emotional intimacy is derived from my more available friends now, unfortunately male. So the lines get a bit unclear.

Especially in this day and age. What actions imply an intention to create a more-than-friends relationship? Times are cheap; even after two friends, say, have sex together, it could be nothing more than just a recreational activity that two friends indulge in together. Things get confusing and I hardly want to be a part of such grey activity. But even other things can get misconstrued: sentences such as "I like talking to you," "I can't sleep without hearing your voice first," "You have beautiful eyes," and other seemingly unclear intimate statements that wouldn't be unclear if it were a girlfriend. What do you mean when you say such things to a sex that you might be attracted to?

Especially with men, not boys. Boys lay their feelings on the line more easily; I could get more success with asking, "Are you in love with me?" and things turn black or white far sooner. Men don't let their emotions betray their actions, acting calculatedly and are far more able to see woods for the trees. Which makes me just another tree - nothing special really. That aside, with men it is far harder to guess their intentions because very little emotion is on display and these emotions may or may not be authentic of love or similar. They play the girl-game like a chess event. With this generation of men I really am not sure sometimes and I cannot really ask for fear of losing a friend.

So the game of implications and implications continue on. Is it just me?

Platonic friendships were easier when I was younger. I was one of the guys, and I knew that, and they knew that. Times then were more black and white: physical contact that buddies do not indulge in, simply implies interest in a more-than-friends connection. This connection is clear, it is a love relationship with intention to eventually marry. No such things as fuck-buddies, flings or just-for-now relationships. While I am still very boyish, it is sometimes harder to been seen as just one of the boys nowadays. The rules have changed, and I am older and I guess more womanly no matter how many male-traits I still have. (Fats perhaps?)

In the past it was classic knowledge to not lead someone on if you are not interested the way he is. You don't invite a guy back to your place for coffee because coffee means sex, so unless that isn't your intention you don't extend that kind of invitation. I don't think such courtesies are very relevant nowadays. Maybe because people are lonelier now, they like the company and attention even if they don't want to love the other person back now, or ever. They want to fill the gaps and voids in their lives. Love has become impossible to them and hence activities of love indulged with someone passable, will suffice. We live in cheap times. I admit I have fallen.

Thus I have framed this poem up in my room to remind me:

Be not afraid,
You should never be
abandoned.
- Neglected
Fearful of loss
For loss brings
gain - in love
gain - brings loss
in dignity.
You are greater -
than you - imagine
I love you all the
same - he should
too.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:39 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

i know what i want for my 29th birthday...

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:20 PM    [ 3 comment | ]

embracing my curves

I guess the reality is that I have to learn to embrace my new curvy self (thank you pre-pre-menopause). I am becoming pear-shaped. I look like one of those nudes in French paintings, those that are muses for famous artists, full of fat globules everywhere but still seductively lounge on European sofas for their artists to paint them.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:17 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

waiting

I am hoping to get into British Council's CELTA course - basically a professional certificate course like TOEFL, TESOL etc. - but it is all a waiting game right now. Application is in, but I might not necessarily be called down for a selection interview, or I might not even get through the interview! This course intake in August is the last for this year.

My plan is to go to Batam, Indonesia, as a start of my new career. Other doors might open up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. But everything is a waiting game right now. Patience, my mother would say.

I don't feel very keen on a lot of other things right now, yet I know I need to stay occupied. But my concentration span is not great and daytimes are not really times of my peak performance. I sleep most afternoons and come alive at night.

I don't feel melancholic enough to write much either, uninspired that I am. I try to turn my creativity into playing and singing on my guitars. I try to spend time with people. I try to watch dramas online, go for gigs, watch films. I am reading Sense and Sensibility. I game when I need to. And then I sleep whenever I can.

I can visualise my heart racing when I am back in the flow of this world. I am not sure if I can still think and act and be the person I used to be when I need to be. I fear I might act like I have ADHD, unable to concentrate and stressed out with too much stimuli.

A beer would be good right now.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:22 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

What should I write?

There is a lot I have inside me that have no words to. Pulling and tugging that come to nothing. I want to shout all about nothing. Like a deflated air bag inside of me, leaving only its skin, wrinkled like my face is getting. All you can sense in words are anger and anguish at face value.

I still cannot really answer that question: what will make me happy.

The answer is still nil.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:02 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

written from this afternoon until long after the sun set

I came out without a notebook and pen to town and really freaked out in panic. It is scary to have words and no paper to park them on.

So I hopped into Muji @ Paragon and got these.

I am now sitting at Coffee Bean Paragon to park these words.

Waiting, for the emergency 'tiding over' meds to kick in.

They haven't yet, really.

So I will keep writing.

It is a lonely day, carrying this sickness, without company.

I just want someone to snuggle up to and hug. Is that so hard to find? Even a girlfriend will do, but they, my girlfriends, are busy.

I just want this pain to go away.

It is not easy. Eventually it may become so. But I don't know how to get there! Nothing seems to help right now.

I don't want to be banished to JB. I will be even lonelier than before. I know I will die there.

I don't want to go anywhere. It is lonely everywhere. Just a matter of how much.

Come on meds, tide me over.
Tide me over. Tide me over.
Tide me over. Tide me over.
Now.

The pain has become beyond white. It is now ashen. My heart has been broken down by pain. Slowly. It will turn to ashes.


Tide over. Tide over. Tide over.

Tide over. Tide over. Tide over.


There is a leaden weight in me, like a despondency, that I carry around. I am almost desperate to have it removed. I don't care if I die in the process.

I am running out of words like I am running out of tears. I am giving up on the idea of having some companionship. I am tired of hoping I will be fully recovered, functioning, and fulfilling my dreams one day. I am tired of all this and of carrying around the deadweight in my heart.

When is this going to end?

I am too much of a burden for anyone, even people in combined strengths. I am like the injured soldier they should leave behind.

I don't want to be here anymore.


I am no longer thinking it is possible to live without pain in this world, in my heart. I am one of the worst patients ever. Maybe I should be hospitalised. I should be injected and zapped to get me cured. My mom doesn't even seem to get the extent of my suffering. I am beyond repair. Like a brain-dead patient on life-support. I should be killed. It is not feasible to keep me going, alive like this.


I feel so lonely. But my loneliness is too big a burden for anyone to bear, even me. I will be lonely forever.

Tide over, tide over.

My loneliness and sadness is too big to bear. God, you have to let me see the reality of what you already bore for me on the cross.

Tide over, tide over.

I want to wake up and feel no more pain when I do.

I want to feel no more pain.

Take away the pain, please. I am not as resilient as I need to be to get out of this alive.

Kick in, meds, kick in. Tide me over. Tide me over. Kick in. Kick in.

I want to wake up with no more pain. I want to die. Take me away from here. Separate this pain from me. Take it away.

I want to wake up with no more pain. Take this pain away.

The pain is metathesizing greatly. Kill it kill it kill it. I want to die. Kill it. The pain is me. It's mine. I need to die to kill it. I want to die I want to die I want to die.

Cut me up so I no longer exist.


Neglect caused this. Abandonment caused this. Loneliness caused this. Lack of affection caused this. I am pain, caused by everything that is no one's fault.

How am I supposed to extricate all that is wrong with me and make it right so I can function and walk again? It is an impossible task for me, I am already burdened by this overwhelming pain.

Tide over, tide over.

Even if the pain goes away, my fears won't.

"Liver, you have got to metabolise the meds and work for me and take away this pain."

Take away this pain. Go away. Go away. Extricate yourself from me and go away. I need you to leave.

I am alone. Well and truly alone. I have lost all my defenses and my independence. I have no ability to rise above the storm. I am the casualty; in every storm and flood there must be some who take the fall. I am one of them.


--

The meds kick in.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:46 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

killing the pain

I went to confide in my Mom. She gave me ultimatums. All I wanted was a hug, but I didn't get it.I tried Slinky, but she barely reciprocated. Afterwards Mom apologised for pressurising me. X^anax calmed me down. Crying helped a bit. After a post-dinner session of gaming, I feel empty again. After tonight I am not sure if I need to take my doctor up on his offer for an emergency prescription tomorrow morning. I am irrational and unlovable. I need to stay away from tall buildings so I won't feel like killing this pain. It feels like nuclear energy that is soon growing all white and ashen with a murderous explosion that will kill me. I am running out of tears.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:26 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Staying awake in the day makes me feel like shit. My mom persuades me every day to find a fun job to do, like working in a shop. What makes her feel that is fun for me? I will not be able to bear it. The thought of working in a confined space, with people coming in and out, makes me want to well up and cry. I will fear work every day, not even dressing up will help me overcome the dread I often feel about going out of the house. I don't know how to change her mind that I am not ready.

Doctor says that maybe I need more time for the new higher dose of Tegradol to kick in. I have to wait. If I feel down for more than three days it is significant. Today is day three. After today if I don't feel any better I need stuff to 'tide me over'. I am tired of feeling useless and being useless. I don't want the tears to return.

This is bigger than me. You know that right?

I don't feel like doing anything: gaming, watching DVDs, reading my new books and magazines. I just want to sleep and stop crying. Or cry until everything is okay. But I know it won't be okay.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

pain, reloaded

I want to write myself in to oblivion. I want to write until I no longer exist. I cannot write to make money or prove a point anymore, I can only create words that are welling in me, shouting to be put on paper. I can only write to soothe my crazed mind, a mind that fills with anger and sadness and hopelessness. I only want to not exist, that is why I write. I want to write away the pain. I want to write.

Time stabs at me as it ticks by, it stabs at my meaninglessness. I want to not feel pain, but time pains me at my lack of achievement and lack of ability. I want to not live anymore but it is too tiring to try again, too expensive, too painful to re-live the pain. I just want to go away into the hardboiled wonderland of dreams and sleep to never wake up. I don't even want to feel calm, I just want to no longer feel, or be.

Doctor will probably tell me I need to re-increase one of the mood stabilisers he just brought down the dose for me. This pharmaceutical yo-yo brings me back to my sense of normal, which is really shit indeed; my normal is shit, my normal is pain, my normal is all the anger of my twenty-eight years, my normal is sadness tears and hopelessness.

I just want the clock to hit eight. Hit eight, hit eight. Then I can pretend to be the party hostess I have to be and want to be, and drink myself to oblivion. I just want to not feel like me anymore. Me hurts like hell.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:17 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

Frustrated - with life as it is, with life I cannot achieve. I am not good at what I do: I do nothing much, and I suck at what I cannot do. Words cannot articulate how worthless I feel in this world. My anger from yesterday may have dissipated in my decision to force-sleep early, but it has precipitated into a hard numb dull ache in my chest. I am not rooted in reality, but my weakness eludes reality for me. Writing gives no respite, nothing probably will. Everything is about alleviating my sadness and anger.

This anger is probably residual from everything that has happened in the the twenty-eight and a half years of my life. I am feeling it all beginning now, right now. I am ploughing on with little idea of what I will plant after I till this infertile land.

I am a nightmare to whoever loves me.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:37 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

I am in the middle of reading Marian Keyes' new book, This Charming Man. I have to say its superb literature. For one, Marian has married four writing styles through the voices of four women, all linked to topics of politics and domestic violence through the same man. Four stories, yet not short stories that leave you hanging for the ending, yet one superb story. No regrets following one of my favourite authors.

Labels: books

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:12 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

funk

I am in an emotional funk because I tried to pay some bills at the machines and they just kept screwing me over. Technological infrastructure riles me when I am functioning normally but this peeving has slaughtered my emotional health for the day. I feel off-balance and there is so much anger in me caused by the bill-paying, it has not abated long after I have solved (partly) the issue. What is it about even daily chores that anger me so, so much? How am I suppose to withstand the stresses of the daily world if I cannot even remain normally calm and just a bit peeved for a short while? DVD, reading, bubble tea and cigarettes later, I am still angry. But I hardly have the heart to rant about it and spoil anyone's day, so I eat my anger up, and keep it within me like nuclear energy waiting to be exploited by ill means. I am so angry. All I want to do is sleep the day off but I am not sleepy enough to sleep properly. I don't feel like watching my DVD anymore, nor reading, nor gaming. I am angry and upset that I am angry. This anger is crazily knitting up my chest and heart and all I want to do is surgically extricate it from the centre of my being. Maybe it is time to go back on my x*anax. This is a fucked up world and for me with no longer any shit-taking capacity, even more so. I want to be a non-living thing.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:15 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

after the rain

It is a really sleepy noon. Rain has fallen to the ground and cooled the urban earth. My windows are open and the breezy after-rain smell is wafting through my day curtains. High on sleepiness and nicotine I have a coffee to set the balance, but it is not working: I would rather be asleep amongst my pillows.

Pillows are no substitute for a man. They are soft and smell of me. A man would have hard legs, full of warmth and damp from heat, and he would smell of him. The feeling of having someone to hold is hard to replace, something you cannot really achieve with pillows, girlfriends, or fantasies.

Companionship and mutual care are the first two things that often happen before our hearts get warmed. Undivided attention, conversations, love in actions. These things make you wonder for more and miss the times when you did have more.

But the maybes and mistakes always spoil everything. Creating a haze that mirrors the rainy sky, making you wish for more breeze, more rain! Yet hoping the skies will clear up for blue. All the wishing and wanting for both ends of the stick.

I have finally switched on my air-con again. The heat even after tropical rain, is becoming unbearable and sticky once again. The day curtains continue to let the cloudy light in, and I burn candles to create a romantic atmosphere for one, for now.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:36 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

The Heart of the Matter using Jag's acoustic guitar

Not really my best attempt and my fingers were hurting. But I love this song.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:34 PM    [ 3 comment | ]

new skirt!

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:54 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

the good side I am trying to remember

He was supportive of my ambitions.
He understood that I had to work in close proximity with my ex-boyfriend.
He supported me financially where he could.
He brought me to nice places to dine and holiday in.
Also bought me the Ferragamo bag I love.
His parents accepted me as part of the family.
He washed the dishes and tried to help me with laundry.
He fixed my lightbulbs and other handymen type of household affairs.
He was my IT man.
He was clean, didn't snore much and had very little vices.
My parents liked him while it lasted.

I guess they all had their good side. So here is C's, just to be fair. But I really don't mind losing him at all, anymore.

Labels: c

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:41 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

"it's coming down to just a drizzle now"

I think... my cocktail of meds is finally almost optimal. I feel normal. I still feel phobic. But I think I can get there.

Depression is like a ghost that takes you over, like a mugger on the street. You react because you had to. Then, when it is over... life resumes... it almost is like you never got mugged except that you are now wiser on the streets.

I no longer feel very poetic, nor do I write a lot in my notebooks.

But I no longer feel tired talking about myself. I no longer feel tired all the time, even without coffee. This, is truly amazing.

I am finally the chirpy person I should be like my doctor said his patients should by now.

It has been about one or two weeks of normal. I am still phobic and easily angered and stressed. But my depression is lifting and my energy is returning. I think I am coming back from the dead, fatter and more talkative, with more energy.

I really thought I would never get better. Eventually I am sure I will be given something to help me conquer my fears and stress and anger. As for now, meds, Slims and Corona save the day. And for that I am already thankful.

I kept asking God the same thing over and over this year: why did you put me through this shit?

He finally replied me loud and clear: Because the devil wanted you and I said he wouldn't be able to, even if he tried.

People say that you need to have faith in God et cetera. But I think God's faith in us is even more amazing sometimes.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:47 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

reading and writing

I am concurrently reading Lolita and The Night Watch at the moment. One is about a paedophile and the other a lesbian novel. But both are nicely written, beautiful prose, even if I cannot really relate to the subject matters. Language always gets to me this way.

I love sociological novels as well; the ethos of a time, the subculture within a cosmopolitan city. Hence I love Hanif Kureishi, DH Lawrence, and even (well-written) chick-lit.

My own writing of a book is still in its stop-start mode. Using myself as a muse hardly qualifies, and it is in fact rather irritating because I am such a perfectionist. I think about reading perfectly even before I write the words. Plus I am lousy at fiction. I could probably dig my own blog for material but even that is too tedious for my current state of energy-laziness. I think about my book(s) from a marketer's point of view (occupational hazard?) and the words cease after a while.

I think about my favourite artists like Joan Miro, Jackson Pollock, and I think about their lyrical, meditative artistic process. I want to translate that into literary art. Each one of Miro's and Pollock's artwork is a perfect poem.

Maybe I should interlace my poems in chronological order with the entries from my notebooks and blog. But that is more editorial tedium than writing in itself.

Reading more doesn't really seem to help very much, it has diminishing returns, and seems to not benefit my writing unless I really start to write and write.

I think about writer's desks in rooms or beautiful flats, and I wish I could really write like one like that. Emily Dickinson wrote in a room that she lived in most of the time, an attic of sorts. I want to be like that - lock myself up and write, and think of writing the moment I put the key in my door to enter.

And who would read my books? Local books are hardly the toast of the town, even if Asian writers in general are rather toasty. However I am no Banana Yoshimoto or Haruki Murakami; I am Singaporean. I am more inclined to buy a locally published book out of sympathy and support, just like how I support local films.

Thus, somewhat of a stalemate. Bah.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:05 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

hide

Thank you all for reading me.

I find myself finally, really, truly, now someone who is an open book for others to read me. I used to hide behind cryptic posts here on worldsuponwords, just so that I could hide the truth from the world and yet still write as a release and a comfort to my pain.

I had a really long conversation about myself tonight for a pair of willing ears. The void when the listener goes and leaves behind for me is a deafening silence. I no longer want to hide as much. I would rather have company than solitude sometimes.

I guess I have changed somewhat. From deliberately stressing myself out to share with my friends, to actually finding it easy to talk in a crowd again. Medication gives me the energy to do that, I do feel; it is still a main source of upping my abilities to deal with people and real life. This is progress.

Company is such a beautiful thing sometimes. Thank you for bearing with me. My past, my future. My bitching, my whining even. My fierce opinions, my cutting remarks put across as tastefully that I can. The million times I interrupt you (and this I will keep trying to improve).

The fact that you bother to listen and to read me, still, means that you care enough about this person saying these words. And for that, I love you.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:05 AM    [ 4 comment | ]

wow

Yesterday I played WoW for almost the whole day. And I mean twenty-four hours of a day. I started at 11am when I awoke. Stopped a few times in between for a quick lunch, exercise, two spa-like showers, dinner. I went to bed at 3am. I actually had symptoms of repetitive stress injury: my left wrist and middle finger ached from the strain of spamming buttons.

The best thing of it is this: I didn't feel sad the entire day. I didn't shed a single tear. I didn't have what my doctor calls 'negative thoughts'. I felt normal. And I laughed a lot from chatting with my friends online. Plus, I actually managed to sustain an activity the whole day. I think it is almost a first for me.

I am happy for my achievement. Event though gaming may seem like a vice - to many girls out there widowed by computer games - it really makes me happy. And it is my gaming friends that make all the difference. I really love them.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:24 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

fight or flight

Apparently you can trick your central nervous system into responding desirably to stress triggers which do not actually kill you.

When I am stressed, I get a pain in my chest, or a headache, or I feel irritable, or I freeze up and can hardly think clearly.

My stress triggers are: people asking me about myself, crowded spaces, complicated things, long hours spent at doing any one thing persistently (church, gaming, reading, talking) even if it is enjoyable.

Now, to complete the equation, I need to learn how to trick myself. Wondering how in itself is making me nervous and short of breath. If only logical thinking alters things permanently.

I am very persistent. But my depression is even more persistent.

Trying to get better is stressful. Mind-control has diminishing returns. I feel negated. But I have said all this before.

I will try to post something more meaningful some time soon. We all have a right to read pleasantries.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:59 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

One thing I miss about C, is being able to read in bed next to him as he does the same.

Labels: c

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:41 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

whale

I am not eating more than usual. I exercise more than I ever did since leaving school. But I am official whale-sized. Bloated, round, chubby. I hope you like me this way. I am officially oval.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:17 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

alkie

previously written yesterday, Tuesday, 20 May 2008


Here I am sitting at the public house at Hotel Rendezvous downtown. The sun is setting soon; it is still hot out. My Hoegaarden is sweating in its mug-barrel.

I have decided - and this I told my doctor today- that I cannot give up drinking. I am a closet alcoholic. I have been using drink as a coping mechanism since 2003.

He says, "Go ahead," and this is to two a day. "Enjoy it. Just don't take the Ativan (Lorazepam) when you do." My Mom has also said that if I want to drink, drink at home with her. So that I won't get knocked-out drunk outside alone like I was on Saturday.

So this is me. Out-of-the-closet alkie. For real.

Not only do I enjoy alcohol, very much, I also enjoy good music very much, 'live', or DJ sets. But as of now I don't have very many people to enjoy all that with. I have no yuppie solidarity pool to dip into for pub and club companionship.

I drink alone for now, when I am out. At least, at last, I will never need to thirst that way again.

I get high more easily now when I drink, because of my being on medication in general. But I am not looking to get drunk, it is a horrible feeling, which I recently got re-acquainted with many times this year, more than my entire adult lifetime.

Krys texts me later in the evening saying, "An alcoholic? Alone?" before she comes to accompany me. But I really don't have much of a choice I think.

I feel normal, happy, and my thirst is quenched.

But tonight is good. Sober enough, actually happy, and a good night's sleep without medication.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:48 PM    [ 4 comment | ]

sleepy afternoon

Slinky sleeps a lot. So do I; hurrah for meds!

I don't have the energy to write today. I want to be as chirpy as I was yesterday. Walking from Mount E to Mohammad Sultan, reading, writing, making merry mania with friends. But here I am, hugging my pillow in half-slumber after napping the afternoon.

Oh! Slinky just woke up from her afternoon nap too. She just slunk away to another corner of the room. She has her hyper moments too, but she doesn't need coffee, medicine, CBT, alcohol or nicotine to be a normal cat. She already is one, sleeping her fill of sixteen hours a day.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:07 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

doggie dance

For all who have seen me dance this dance in real life. /smile

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:13 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

crush

My first crush on a boy was on my first day of primary school. His name was Christopher. He was a bit waifish: fair, skinny, reserved. Much like my second crush, Kenji, whom I met when I was barely eight years old, and adored all the way till I was eleven. Ha, I have no idea where the idea of having a crush descended from. I just knew I liked him. Nice to look at, makes my heart a-flutter, gives me some reason to wear my hair nicely when I go to school, that sort of thing. No, I wasn't reading Sweet Valley High prematurely, I really only read Enid Blyton till I reached my tweens. TV was not like it is now; I pretty much grew up on just SBC 8 drama serials and cartoons, so, no, I didn't get my romantic ideas from TV.

Back then, and in most of my teenage years, we had crushes based on looks and personality. She's so cute, so cool - that was it. Today, single adults are so jaded. 'Looks' and 'personality' are otherwise known as just 'fuckability' in today's SATC-styled world. A crush becomes a false hope, a fling, or a broken relationship - one of the above. Having a crush is a sign of being immature. Real adults have relationships based on a whole lot more than just looks and personality. If you have a crush, too bad. Forget it, unless you two are compatible can communicate have common interests are on the same social standing have the money to get married blah blah.

Is having a crush really an adult faux pas? What explains physical attraction? Is it just part of the equation in finding lovable companionship? I cannot love a man based on his social qualifications. But I can fall in love with a crush. Go figure that one, and tell me.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:39 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

politics, class, and me nowhere

How much of a Marxist am I? Like any true educated intellectual I read as many schools of thought as possible into sociological issues, and then I make my opinion on them. I believe that the bourgeois wife or yesterday's version of the tai-tai is the private prostitute Marx says she is. She hires tutors for her children and maids for the house, so what else should she do but provide sex on tap? Work? All right, but only to provide some brain-sex for her husband, or else she would go mad with paranoia at home.

In Singapore we have a middle class. Like most urban Asian societies do now. The Singaporean middle class wife works because she has to earn some, and then hires maids and tutors and mothers-in-law. Meanwhile because she is comfortable (instead of working till death like the working class women do), she goes mad with her free time. Usually used to make children the centre of her tiny universe, clean the house where the helper cannot catch up, nags her husband so as to take the place of his mother, fishes for gossip fodder or is fed some. Oh yes, and spend time with the extended family.

As Marx would say, in my words no less, some day, the poor old working class folks will wise up, learn fast, overthrow the elitist minority. So much passion in that goal! But what happens to the middle class...? Marx dear, your pyramid is now a fucking apple-shape. Think thick-waisted women like me.

Actually, I fit in nowhere. I am neither materialistic nor have I a survival instinct, yet shopping makes me happy, and so do yuppie activities and elitist interests like art and film and literature. I want to save the world, yet I see very little salvation in my own life. I am neither a Romantic nor a logician. I am well-read and somewhat educated, yet I fit in nowhere societally. I hate civil servants and see them as bureaucratic numbskulls, but I think capitalistic business-like thinking rules the economy well. George Orwell says writers write because they have a political viewpoint; mine is this, that I don't fit in anywhere.

Maybe this kind of alienation from the rest of the world, is what makes us depressives disenchanted (thank you Sociology for the terminology). Yet I don't think I really want to belong anywhere; I want to remain an alien. I don't want to subscribe to any one ideology except maybe just my own concoction of ideas. The kingdom of God is not about eating or drinking, but about far more unseen concepts that differ experientially for people. Hence they say, do not judge by what people eat drink wear do or say, and so on. Well, I don't think I do things the same way as you, you or you do. I am E, and I have my own ideology.

I am neither bourgeois, proletariat, nor middle-apple-shaped-class. I dream because I love, not because of economics. I like the arts not because it is trendy to, but because it speaks of life. I read for power, but also for romance. I am better than many men, yet I still would like to have one (especially to change the light-bulbs and fix the computers). And I hope one day I find a man my equal, yet would love it when I do the laundry and iron his shirts.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:12 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

unremarkable

that is how I feel.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:52 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

I am so awake, when I was so tired in the daytime, at five in the morning now, I cannot sleep. How much more medicine must I imbibe into my system for me to fall asleep? I hear a noise inside my head that keeps me from reading; I hear a silence that needs to be filled up by electronica. I feel almost completely anhedonic. My cat probably loves life more than I do. I would watch movies in bed until I fell asleep but my laptop is kaput. Black screen. Words. Not working. So I sit erect at my desktop remaining awake. I feel like screaming and cussing out very loud. Writing gives no respite.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:19 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

My hands are trembling. I want to keep sleeping. I feel fucking lonely, yet I want to be alone. Talking is tiring. Replying messages is tiring. I have no appetite. I feel fat. I want some really good music. Every tomorrow stretches out empty.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:43 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

weight

I am - the
weight of a hot air balloon,
chain at the end of drapes,


jewel in your crown,
weighty, set -
elegance and worth
weightier than you, gold.

I am - a
maker of kings.

I - give you trajectory
with you behind you
away from you even.


give you love,
give you helplessness,

intoxicate you
with charm and the sex
of power, and that of
destiny.


I am - a
maker of kings;


a sieve you pass through,

a signpost, a bus stop,

a valet a prostitute
so you don't drive alone.


I am - a
maker of kings

and I will die
without royalty in my bed
or a crown on my head.


- my immortality is
in all of them kings.

I am the -
weight they carried
for their worth,
charm they fell in love
with,
jewel in their crowns.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:23 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

My body reached a 'breakthrough', says the doctor

My depression took a turn for the worse because my body stopped responding to my meds. I am now taking more antidepressants and mood-stabilisers than ever. I am hitting the maximum cap of quetiapine administered for depression at 300mg a night, up from 100mg. I am taking 3 tabs of Lexapro a day of which 4 is the maximum cap. Neither are dependency-causing, but it means that I am incredibly unwell, and very expensive to take care of.

Not responding to medication means I feel like I do when I am not on any medication. Nothing describes the pain properly. It feels like an indescribable anguish and then some more, like a tropical storm causing squalls all over a wrecked vessel. I feel almost as down as I did when I really wanted to die to remove this pain.

The storm is passing soon. I am but driftwood, dead but afloat.

I wish I could cut out my heart and brain and replace them with normal ones. I need a heart that is not black with pain, and a brain with the right chemical balance. Right now I just carry around in my skull a brain that feels like an alchemy lab bubbling over and drying up, and in my chest a heart stuffed full of rusty needles, black and gangrenous.

The answer would be term insurance. I need at least $250,000 to half a mill assuming I live for say, twenty years, as an inpatient at IMH, or in my own flat paying outpatient charges like I currently do - after my parents go. I really don't think I am going to get better anytime soon.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:54 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

Dear Mom and Dad

Who is going to take care of me when you're gone? I have nobody left in this world who will take care of me except you two. I don't think I will get better anytime soon. I need to be taken care of. I always have. I could make Milo by myself as a little girl who couldn't reach the hot water flask. But I cannot do without you two as my parents taking care of me. I have been depressed for a very long time, and I think I will be depressed for a very long time still. I need you to take care of me.

Your only daughter,
Elaine

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:42 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

About Clinical Depression 4 - helping someone you love who is ill

1. Educate yourself. There are countless sites on the Internet where you can learn about depression, it's symptoms, and treatment.

2. Put yourself in their shoes. Learn what depression feels like, the misconceptions about mental illness that they must deal with, and get the facts about what depression really is.

3. Take care of yourself. Feelings of depression are contagious. Periodically take some time to step back from the situation and recharge your batteries.

4. It's okay to feel upset, angry, frustrated. These feelings are a valid response to a very trying situation. Join a support group, talk with a close friend, or see a therapist. The important thing is vent your frustrations rather than allowing them to build up inside.

5. Be there for them. Give them a shoulder to cry on or just listen while they spill out their hearts to you. Be patient with them. Let them know that you care. Share the things you've learned while researching depression. Let them know it's not their fault, that they're not weak or worthless.

6. Remember that the depressed person's behavior isn't indicative of the "real" person. The depressed person has impaired social skills. They may be withdrawn and shy or sullen and angry. When the depressed person lashes out in anger, it's because they're actually angry with themselves and the way they feel. You just happen to be there. When your spouse or significant other doesn't feel like having sex, don't take it personally. Loss of sex drive is a classic symptom of depression. It doesn't mean they don't love you.

7. Depressed people aren't lazy. They're ill. Everyday activities like cleaning house, paying bills, or feeding the dog may seem overwhelming to them. You may have to take up the slack for them for awhile. Just like if they had the flu, they simply don't feel up to it.

8. Medications and therapy are crucial to their recovery. Help keep them on track with treatment. Help to ease their fears about treatment by letting them know that they're not crazy.

9. Offer hope in whatever form they will accept it. This could be their faith in God, their love of their children, or anything else that makes them want to go on living. Find what works best for them and remind them of it whenever they're not sure they can hang on any longer. If they're suicidal, you may need to seek immediate help. There are some very valuable suicide resources on the Internet that will help you to help your loved cope with suicidal feelings as well.

10. Love them unconditionally and let me know it's their illness you're frustrated with, not them.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:32 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

More about Clinical Depression - 3

Medical and clinical terms of symptoms for clinical depression might be mind-stumbling to some who are trying to find out if they are depressed. It also means that people who know someone they love who is clinically depressed may not totally understand what their loved one is going through. Here is a list that puts the clinical depression symptoms plainly. Refer to the title link for more information.

1. Things just seem “off” or “wrong.”
2. You don’t feel hopeful or happy about anything in your life.
3. You’re crying a lot, either at nothing, or something that normally would be insignificant.
4. You feel like you’re moving (and thinking) in slow motion.
5. Getting up in the morning requires a lot of effort.
6. Carrying on a normal conversation is a struggle. You can’t seem to express yourself.
7. You’re having trouble making simple decisions.
8. Your friends and family really irritate you.
9. You’re not sure if you still love your spouse/significant other.
10. Smiling feels stiff and awkward. It’s like your smiling muscles are frozen.
11. It seems like there’s a glass wall between you and the rest of the world.
12. You’re forgetful, and it’s very difficult to concentrate on anything.
13. You’re anxious and worried a lot.
14. Everything seems hopeless.
15. You feel like you can’t do anything right.
16. You have recurring thoughts of death and/or suicidal impulses. Suicide seems like a welcome relief.
17. You have a feeling of impending doom - you think something bad is going to happen, although you may not be sure what.
18. In your perception of the world around you, it’s always cloudy. Even on sunny days, it seems cloudy and gray.
19. You feel as though you’re drowning or suffocating.
20. You’re agitated, jumpy and and anxious much of the time.
21. Your senses seem dulled; food tastes bland and uninteresting, music doesn’t seem to affect you, you don’t bother smelling flowers anymore.
22. Incessantly and uncontrollably into your mind comes the memory of every failure, every bad or uncomfortable experience, interview or date, like a torrent of negativity.

#5. I have always found it hard to wake up in the mornings, but some mornings it is so hard, and there are times I never successfully make it out of bed till much later. I thought I was just tired and lazy.

#13. I worry all the time - I pray every day that my parents are alive and safe, and before my mom moved in with me this year, every phonecall I got from them, I used to worry it was bad news.

#3. I cry almost all the time, almost everyday. In the past if I got spotted by C, he would get angry. I usually cry alone. I hear myself cry, and it sounds so sad, I felt pain for the pain I am feeling.

#9. There are no feelings. No emotion. Just a physical gnawing pain in my heart, and tears in my crying. I feel I no longer love. During this time I initiate break ups with committed boyfriends. Looking back, I have done this to three of them. All while I was depressed. Love suddenly became an impossibility; I wake up, and realise, that I am love-less. So I devise a reason, and ask them to leave me.

#8. I feel like being alone, and I deflect questions my mom asks me. Being in church irritates me because Christians naturally take an interest in other people, so they ask me things about me. This really irks me. I rather they talk about themselves. But that's me.

#2. There is nothing in life right now that makes me happy. Not anymore, if there were, due to limitations (shopping makes me happy but that is financially crazy). And so, there is nothing. Anything I try to do now, would be an alleviation of the sadness, not creating happiness. To be honest, I don't believe happiness exists anymore. It is a myth. Believe me, it really is a myth. Let's just try to live with our sadness in manageable portions (not like the carton-loads of pain I have on my heart now). I hope to try and alleviate my pain to make other people "happy".

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:24 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

alone

Who is going to protect me? Even the angels in my presence stand aside and touch-me-not. Tears are repulsive to every man. I feel like a beggar on the street waiting for my next coin, vulnerable, pining, and truly alone. I still see no real point to my sickness, except to live in this state till I die. Who is going to protect me? I know I would stay by the side of a sick husband if I had one, but no one will find me and no one will rescue me. I say to every lover I meet, "I love you too much to make you stay." A caged bird loses its song and my sickness is that cage. As a result, I wither from neglect. I will keep feeling neglected, keep letting lovers go, keep on staying alone and isolate myself, and stay unwanted for the rest of my life. I sound like a pompous ego-maniac, but my emotions are bigger than my ego, I only wish they would submit to me and be controlled and be happy. But I will never be happy again. Never.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:15 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

dazed

My doctor asked me how I had felt while, as a child, I waited for my parents to return home from work every day. I remember times when I felt really sad because I missed my mother. But if I was not feeling sad, I felt nothing.

"Dazed?" asked my doctor.

It seems to be so. I was in a daze, unable to feel anything. Not loneliness, not sadness because it was wrong to be sad, not anger because I love my parents. He called it 'mixed emotions', because I was happy when they came home, but I also felt angry that they left me to be alone even though I knew it is not their fault. I never realised I was angry. I kept it inside me and defended my parents. And so I felt dazed most of the time, not really feeling anything because I repressed it all.

"Did your Mom ever take time off work to take care of you?"

"Only when I was sick, and I remember when that happened."

"Did you wish you were sick more often so that your Mom can stay home and take care of you more?"

I guess I did.

"You need to be taken care of. And you need to realise that you need to be taken care of."


Yes I do. I guess I really do.

"Will I always need someone to take care of me?" I said amidst tears.

"No, you will be one day able to eventually take care of yourself."

"But what if I never get well?"

"You will," he reassures me.

That is not to me a promise, but simply the right thing a doctor has to say. I am right now incapable of feeling anything, dazed, and if I feel anything, it is sadness. It manifests as salty tears and a dull pain in my chest. I feel I will be like this or versions of this throughout my entire life.

I really wish I could live in Naoko's sanatorium in the mountains, I really do. Where there are other lonely souls living together in peace and quiet, doing nothing much but reading writing gardening and playing the guitar. Nurses and doctors in house who really are patients themselves. Nature at its best - in quiet, away from the city. Like a spa! Why isn't there some place like that in Singapore? I want to be alone in a safe environment, not alone at home like I am now, truly and really alone, save for a dull ache in my chest, tears on my face, and a dazed sensation all over.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:54 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Fly Away.

I am not a Corrinne May fan actually. But I am hoping to be able to play this song when I next pick up my guitar. Which I haven't been doing, though I should.

This is for you.


"When will you be home?" she asks
as we watch the planes take off
We both know we have no clear answer to where my dreams may lead
She's watched me as i crawled and stumbled
As a child, she was my world
And now to let me go, I know she bleeds
and yet she says to me

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

Autumn leaves fell into spring time and
SIlver-painted hair
Daddy called one evening saying
"We need you. Please come back"
When I saw her laying in her bed
Fragile as a child
Pale just like an angel taking flight
I held her as I cried

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away
ohh...
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:59 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

energy

Love needs energy. Does a demented, catatonic or completely paralysed person have the ability to love?

I used to be more able. But I have spent it. On those worthy and unworthy of love alike. I am spent. I feel extremely tired, inside and out, it is indescribable.

I have little energy left. I feel dry like a pore squeezed out of all its sebum, leaving behind only a gaping hole which merely gapes more over time and age. Or an ox-bow lake, cut off, deadened and eventually dried out, leaving behind stones and dead plants. How is a person like me capable of giving sacrificial love anymore? I can hardly take care of myself. I am no longer an independent working gal who has her own apartment she upkeeps beautifully. I am an out-patient living off my parents.

What I need is a full-time nurse like Mom is to me. Who will take care of me when my parents go? My thoughts turn to insurance: my medical insurance does not cover psychiatric health (how archaic!) and I need to plan for my life after my parents pass on. I need to set aside money for my medical fees, and perhaps fees for a sanatorium I can live in for the rest of my life. Because, I suspect I will be ill for a long, long time. My doctor may say one year. It has been three months, a quarter of the way so far, so soon, yet I am so far behind. I hope the curve increases at an increasing rate, somewhere.

Not only does medical insurance not cover my sickness, there is also no such thing as government welfare in this country. When my parents die, I will have no where to go. Stories where one best friend or lover cares for the other unto death, only happen in fictitious drama serials and films. Such will never happen to me or in real life anywhere. So I will die, alone, eventually. It is almost funny when I think about Bridget Jones saying the same thing, dead alone in an apartment half-eaten by Alsatians. But it can almost be true.

I am not only incapable of love, I am incapable of errands, chores, work, thinking. I am thankful I can still form sentences like this, I can never be sure this ability of mine will go one day or not. Just like my ability to work, and to love. These have gone.

Who will bring me to see the doctor tomorrow, and pay for the cab there? Mom.

One day I will have no money to go to see the doctor anymore.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:04 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

slipping

My hands are weak as if in hunger, as if in withdrawal, but I am not even weaning myself off any of my meds. There is no explanation for my trembling hands. I feel myself slipping away from life as it is real, but I can't help myself from slipping. I don't feel like talking much. Going out for a walk, if even just to the AXS machine to pay my bills, or to the postbox, seems tiring. I am sorry for broken promises of errands to be done.

Anything social seems tiring too. Can I not talk or start conversation threads? I don't even want to make requests or demands or try to repair anything to undo my dysfunctional interactions with others.

I feel edgy. I go to the supermarket, get surrounded by Chinese nationals, and I feel like shouting at all, all of them, to go back to their stinking country. People are tiring even when they are friends, let alone horrible strangers who don't wash themselves daily, while earning money masquerading as foreign students.

I am slipping and stationary. I cannot run to you. Or tell you things. I hurt all over, like an autistic child with ultra-sensitivity to touch, sights, and sounds. I just hurt. Any movement of mine would be movement back, away, from these stimuli.

I do not feel anything. I don't even feel sad. I am just a bundle on the ground, by the path. If I see you again I will cry. If you want to see me you have to pass by me, because I won't go to where you are. I am staying here, even if I want to move, I can no longer. I slip away from everyone.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:59 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

About Clinical Depression - 2

Symptoms

1. Persistently sad, anxious, or "empty" mood
2. Feelings of hopelessness, pessimism
3. Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
4. Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex
5. Insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping
6. Decreased appetite and/or weight loss, or overeating and weight gain
7. Fatigue, decreased energy, being "slowed down"
8. Thoughts of death or suicide, suicide attempts
9. Restlessness, irritability
10. Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
11. Persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain

Depression symptoms may be a cause of other illnesses, so it is advisable that all organic causes are ruled out first. Anti-depressants should not be doled out on a whim without first examining other physical symptoms and ruling out other possible illnesses. Depression symptoms should also be experienced over a prolonged period before it can be diagnosed as clinical depression and not a mere 'mood swing' or 'psychosomatic symptoms of stress'.


I experienced all eleven of these symptoms when I went to see my psychiatrist.


Today with medication and trying my best, I only experience:

#1, #2, #3 during some days of the weeks, or some hours of a day, instead of every day and every hour.
#4 is better now than before.
#5 is fully alleviated by medication.
#6 is more than okay. My appetite is fine, too fine that I am getting fat.
#7 is still persistently there. I have to force myself to do things.
#8... is still present sometimes, when I think about things like, what will happen if I never get better and my parents pass on.
#9 and #10 still there.
#11 is gone, I am no longer sick everyday. I however get migraine headaches when I am in tiring scenarios such as social situations, for example when I have to spend time with a group of friends, or when I have to talk about myself or find things to talk about with people.

Labels: share, worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:39 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

dreams and slo-mo

Recently I have been dreaming in my sleep - is that a good thing? I think it means more frequent less-than-deep sleep cycles during the night. Probably not the best thing. I dream about things I should have done or should do, small petty things that hardly really matter.

When it comes to the bigger things though, I procrastinate and find myself tiring out. My mental stamina is really low. Getting better, but still low. I find myself activities and projects to do, leisurely ones mostly, but I cannot seem to bring any of them into fruition, or if I go through it, I tire.

I am not sure that if I take those silly online IQ tests now, will my IQ still reach 140. I think about studying or learning anything new, and it feels daunting as hell.

What I need is physiotherapy for my mind: constant intellectual, creative and cognitive stimulation. To bring myself back up to speed. But right now, the E of the past seems so distant. The intelligent, gifted, talented E is a thing of the past. I feel like I am eighteen years old again, struggling with the stupid A levels and no matter how much I study, I still do badly.

Slowly, slowly.

At least I am exercising again - I took a short hiatus because I fell and bruised my left ankle. Shedding the fats slowly, and regaining my physical stamina.

And, I am finally actually getting through a book - A Fortune-Teller Told Me by Tiziano Terzani. While I am not superstitious, this book is a great insight into Asian religions and beliefs, and the writer travels almost all of the Asia that I love, detailing the things that matter to me. I am at the part of the story where he is now crossing into China via train from Vietnam. I am less than a hundred pages away till the book ends. There is a stash of books awaiting me to read and devour like I used to.

All this slowness, is, I gather, a function of my depression. Yes I am still depressed, I still feel sad sometimes for no reason, I still break down under stress, I still feel tired sometimes. My medication and actions act as a life-buoy for me. I wish I didn't work myself till I am this seemingly-irreparable. I would change a lot things if and when I get better. I would be less of a workaholic. I would bitch about things more to my close friends instead of keeping it inside. I would allow my weaknesses to show, and ask for help when I need it. I would no longer turn to loner-drinking at home to cope with my daily stress. I would I should I will.

I am not sure whether I will be less depressed when I start living out my life's dream once again. I lived it out before, during the first years of Splashwurks before I left. I felt right smack in the middle of God's will for my life, and I had my best friend alongside me in it. But within a year's space I lost a best friend, I left my business, I lost a dream in a bid to pursue another one that compelled me so. I tried to pick it up again: I got a job in a non-profit, but left it when it proved of little use to my career, when I had a nervous breakdown from over-working. Splash was the happiest part of my entire working career, not just because of the dream it represented, but because I had someone alongside me in it. I still have not gotten fully over this loss. Yet, all I know, is that I need to get out there into mission work even though I do not know how and when. And with whom.

I once felt God tell me this, long ago, that I am a maker of kings. I feel happy for all the boys and men I know whom I have had meaningful acquaintance with, who have now have achieved success, en route to the fulfillment of their destinies. Kings in their own right, royalty as a figure of speech for being in a position of destiny and leadership. I feel happy that I make the men in my life succeed, or at least push them in the right direction towards it. But when will it my own turn? I want to never thirst again, just like the Samaritan woman at the well.

Mom says I need to be patient. Though the dream tarries, wait for it. I guess I am ambitious. It feels good when I work hard and achieve great things. Adrenaline rush. But my ambition is rooted in mere semi-realism and hardcore perfectionism. And I feel used, like a dish-rag.

Slowly, slowly.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:13 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

simple

When your brain's cognitive functioning slows down, you stop thinking so much because it is not all that possible to anyway. Things become uncomplicated, by design, or by compulsion; smallish, so that you can take them in without intellectually barfing. I wonder if I have become thus dumbed-down, just so I can think in an uncomplicated fashion. Just simply.

I no longer need to come up with multi-dimensional grand plans to rid myself of the sadness of the world. I just need to let happy come to me. And so it does.

Happy felt awkward to me at first. It came in bouts of serotonin-fuelled uncontrolled laughter, many times louder than the loud E you already know. It felt strange, to not be sad, not feel merely neutral, but a completely other emotion altogether. Then I came to recognise it as being happy. I have never felt this way in my entire life, until now.

Happy is not an everyday phenomenon. Now that I know how it feels like, I know when it is present, and when it simply does not reside. It doesn't matter that being happy is not a daily emotion, because at least, sadness no longer is either.

Simple things help me alleviate sadness, like my cat, flowers, music, or writing. Best friends do too.

Now that I am less complicated, simple things will make me feel happy too. They are just very few and far between, and they cost. But I am not thinking all that much about it. I will just let things come, and let go, let my world though fallen apart, just simply be.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:58 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

forgetfulness

One thing good about not remembering things so well lately: being able to watch a film again as if I didn't know how the story went or ended. I just watched Black Dahlia again, and I really didn't remember the plot at all even though I watched it very recently. I guess I was also a little distracted the first time; Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett are both really hot.

I forget other small things like whether I ate my medicine that day, or sequences of events that recently happened, or the fact that I was the one who told my mom to throw out the olive oil. I remember bigger things, but not small details like these. For appointments, dates and parties, I use Rainlendar. I see it on my desktop everyday, no way I would be able to forget now.

There are a couple of years in my life of which I don't remember either - 1999 and 2000, I think. Whatever happened then, I don't recall, be it the people I met, the things I learned, or the places I went. I only remember significant events like the fifteen-hour bridge marathon (as in, the card game) we had over the coming of the new millennium. Things like that. I remember H telling me once before, that he doesn't remember the year he was fifteen years old. Doctor told him he was depressed or something.

I hope I get better at remembering. And doing complicated things. Become useful again.

Meanwhile I soak in big things, and older memories.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:09 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

bored and lonely

I feel like I have been transported back to the time when I was about fourteen years old. I was lonely, and bored. I made a dozen phone calls a day to friends, just to chat. I watched kids' daytime TV. I felt really lonely in a quiet house with only me and my dog to accompany me till my parents came home.

Instead of Dog, I now have Slinky, and instead of living in JB, I am living where I belong now, in Singapore. But while I am in a new century now, I find myself feeling the same way as I did then - bored, and lonely.

I need to fill my day with activity, but I feel a tad lacklustre, and poor. And I have nobody to meet and nowhere left to go. I am not looking forward to tomorrow. If only it was already Saturday.

I could do many things tomorrow. But I would be doing them alone and nothing I can think of catches my fancy. It feels like I am trying to ask myself out on a date, but nothing seems to please me enough to say yes. I am supposed to find things to do that will make me happy, but for tomorrow, I cannot think of anything. The night ahead remains long. At least when I was fourteen years old, I had school, and I was capable of attending it.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:39 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

dreary

a lil' dreary,
a lil' poor, and
my heart is like

a lil' dreary,
a lil' poor,
my life is like
- a void

a lil' dreary
without --
every tomorrow
is kinda hard.

dreary, like
- the rain -
wiping out traces
of afternoon light.

dreary, dreary
-- you, or me --
the story folds and

-

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:43 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha

I regret renting it. It looks like an exciting plot but there is just TOO MUCH SINGING. I rented a bloody musical! Sheesh

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:32 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

recently...

Watching DVDs:
Ray - loved it terribly, is on my list of favourite movies now.
50 First Dates - dreams are powerful in love.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - thanks to Daffy and DW who both have recommended this film to me before. Romantic and very true too.
Letters from Iwo Jima - I like war-flicks.
The Pursuit of Happyness - an ai-piarh-jia-eh-eyah story, and a good movie for any sales person.


Exercise:
I admit I was a bit slack in the last week or so, but I am going to work out for 40 minutes every other day now.
Electronica is really good to work out to. I like The Crystal Method's Drive album. I also use podcasts from Stellar and Gareth Emery, to work out to, and they usually last more than around an hour's length, perfect for exercise.


Reading:
Slowly but steadily I am back on my books. My general attention spans and cognitive aptitudes are not really 100 per cent Elaine yet but I am continuously reading my current stash of books.


Writing:
I took on a freelance copywriting job to help Priscilla's company out. It is not much but it is easy to do, and with some side income too.

For leisure, I would really like to drive myself towards this whole 'citizen journalism' thing here on my blog, but my recent posts: here, and here awakened people towards saying that I (a) need to 'change myself first', I guess meaning I need to 'change myself' to get out of the sickness I have. So all you who are not feeling well - flu? cancer? gastric problems? The solution is to 'change yourself' yeah, all the best on that one, and to all doctors, sorry you aren't needed no more; (b) am covering up the 'shame' of myself by raising awareness about clinical depression to my readers. I guess WHO's prediction of clinical depression being the world's number one health concern in 2010 means that we should shut up about the disease and not help out our fellow man; (c) I am a 'psychopath' for having 'tracking devices' on my blog. Raise your hands if you blog and have a site-meter or comment moderation to some extent on your blog. This gal says you are a psychopath.

In my folly I deleted these comments to clean up my blog, and to not ruffle the feathers of mine and my readers. This time around, say what you will, I am leaving your cutting and unfair remarks up here. And no I won't ban your IP address, I love people to read me, I really do. This is why I web-publish what I write sometimes, on this blog.

Other than leisure-writing on this blog, I honestly haven't been writing much else, save in notebooks, and about trite topics.


Music:
I have been buying CDs, and listening to loads of music, from classical jazz to electronica. I also tried to play Corrinne May's The Birthday Song on the guitar for my BFF Shuyi. Thankfully, it turned out to be an okay 'performance'. I will keep on singing and playing my guitar.


Others:
Shopping, and spending time with people. Ask me out or make a date to come visit me at my flat. I love parties!

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:12 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

it could have been this way or another

Life is a series of near misses. Events happen, or fail to happen, or are mitigated by other events, causing a chain reaction turning destiny around; like streams moving around more resistant rock, causing the entire river to live somewhere else completely.

A lot of these near misses are plans failed in order for something else to succeed. Cosmos-folded rock layers creating waterfalls; man-made dams stopping the life-flow of rivers but creating electricity; conversion of a sungei into an urban river, making it a touristy, yuppies' locale or a parallel main traffic artery.

Some near misses are engineered by kismet. Mutually exclusive events of which one must not happen for the other to come into being. Like seeing the ugly side in someone, so that you can appreciate the beauty in another. Deciding to go for a party even though you are tired, just so you can meet the cutest girl you have ever seen since you knew you were alive. Events like that.

Some near misses really are about letting a dream die completely, before it can be resurrected in a fuller glory. You thought you missed the moment to fulfill the dream, but really, it was not a miss, but a planned death, so that you could see it rise from the ashes and appreciate its life more and never, ever let go of it. Now you will always run with this vision. You may see it die, but though it does, it merely tarries in this momentary death, for it will surely come to pass.

Near misses can become regrets. But we should live life with no regrets. Every mistake we accumulate can cause us to fall forward, not back and never again. Regrets merely choke up your drainage system, turning people into moronic, bitter, phobic-obsessives. God forgives and gives us a tabula rasa every morning. Let go of the near misses in life and hang on to the river which you are chasing towards the shore, taking its lessons with you, letting go of the rivers that could have been but never came into being. Run with it, for the revelation will surely come to pass.

I will see you at the seashore.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:34 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

hooray for citizen journalism

I guess 'citizen journalism' is a nice term for blogging, vlogging and podcasting nowadays.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:07 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

About Clinical Depression, or Major Depressive Disorder - 1

It all started for me when I was perhaps nineteen years old and I slipped past the television set in the living area of my parents’ house in Johor Baru, Malaysia. It was turned on to Channel NewsAsia, broadcasting a programme which was talking about some disease that was affecting more and more people statistically, worldwide, and in Asia. I read the symptoms of this disease, and my immediate thought was, “Hey, that sounds like me! That sounds like what I have!”

That sickness, which is an epidemic now, in Asia and the world, which kills about 15% of all who suffer from it, so it is possibly fatal: major depressive disorder, or clinical depression. And that was me. I realised those symptoms were me, all my life, as far as I can remember. So in other words, I have never been happy, until I started seeking medical help.

For some reason, due to my level of empathy, or perhaps because I started to open up to people more, I started to uncover people around me who either wondered if they too were ill, or were sure they were definitely clinically depressed, either diagnosed or at the time untreated. It shocked me to realise there were so many people in my social sphere that were feeling at least a measure of the grief I had been feeling all my life.

So I decided to write this article about this grieving sickness which Winston Churchill called 'his black dog' of depression. Be it whether you are that person I uncovered recently, or the one who opened up to me, or a loved one of yours has suspected or diagnosed clinical depression - I hope this article helps in some way. I also hope that if you are clueless about the disease and you think it can be helped by 'positive thinking' and 'behaving yourself', then please read this, and follow the links I have placed within this article.

Clinical depression is not normal sadness. We all have times when we feel sad due to situations in our life. We feel sad if things may not go our way, but we usually get up and go eventually, after the problem is solved or after we have ranted about it with a friend. It may be harder, if someone in our life dies, but eventually, maybe years after, it gets easier. If we grew up abused, or witnessed too much of war and death, like troops returning from war often do, we might get depressed too. If you are a woman you probably have felt down before, maybe before your period (chocolate then suddenly seems to help), or after you have given birth. Or maybe you have a thyroid dysfunction. But all these illnesses are not the same as clinical depression.

There are other illnesses that exhibit similar traits to clinical depression. For example: eating disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse.

There are also other two other depressive disorders that are not exactly the same as major depressive disorder, such as, manic-depression (also known as bipolar disorder) and dysthymia.

I am being sweeping about these other illnesses because I want to focus on what I have, which is mainly moderate to severe major depressive disorder, coupled with generalised anxiety disorder.

If you suspect you might be depressed - maybe you really identify with what I write here, or you have been feeling sad or stressed for a long time now, or like I have just written, you feel your sadness is not normal sadness; or maybe you just want to make sure you have a clean bill of mental health. Please take this test now. (Remember this is not a medical diagnostic tool and you should still check with your medical professional if you would like a definitive assessment and treatment.)

In my next few posts, I will cover other aspects of my sickness, such as symptoms used by doctors to diagnose patients, or symptoms you may feel you are depressed like me. I will also write about medication.

Labels: share, worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:03 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

I Measure Every Grief I meet by Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes--
I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--

I wonder if it hurts to live--
And if They have to try--
And whether--could They choose between--
It would not be--to die--

I note that Some--gone patient long--
At length, renew their smile--
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil--

I wonder if when Years have piled--
Some Thousands--on the Harm--
That hurt them early--such a lapse
Could give them any Balm--

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve--
Enlightened to a larger Pain--
In Contrast with the Love--

The Grieved--are many--I am told--
There is the various Cause--
Death--is but one--and comes but once--
And only nails the eyes--

There's Grief of Want--and grief of Cold--
A sort they call "Despair"--
There's Banishment from native Eyes--
In Sight of Native Air--

And though I may not guess the kind--
Correctly--yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary--

To note the fashions--of the Cross--
And how they're mostly worn--
Still fascinated to presume
That Some--are like My Own--

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

the world of the undead

As I open up my cocoon, and share my story with more and more people around me, it turns out that I know at least, by now, more than five people who are also likely suffering from emotional illnesses like mine.

It feels like I raised my hand in class to say, "It was me, I did it," and suddenly hands are raised all over the class, to join me in as if to say, "If she did it, I did it too," or "I was right there with her, we did it together," or "It wasn't just her idea."

Or that I rose from the dead in the cemetery, and suddenly I realise, I was not the only undead around - the cemetery was filled with the becoming of zombies.

More and more undead are being raised from the grave.

Maybe your life-force is hugely dependent on medical help, like I am.

Maybe you don't even know you have symptoms of clinical depression but you know you are just not happy.

Maybe your body is reacting crazily to the stresses around you that are beyond your control.

Maybe you just rather die, than live, no matter how people say that is the wimpish way out.

Let us die or let us live. Being in-between life and death, being undead, it really sucks I know.

Best thing is, I can now say, I have been there. Because I am on the mend. I am starting to feel happy. Almost everyday. Life sucks, but I am actually happy.

It can happen for you too.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:52 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

uh oh poor doctor

So the reporters flooded Johor Specialist Hospital after I tomorrow-ed myself regarding G's mother's case. Apparently this story was featured today in one of the newspapers in Malaysia.

The hospital is now threatening to suspend the attending surgeon for G's mom. The doctor called G to apologise, and then called my Dad to apologise, and to ask him to tell me to take down my article from the internet.

If they do suspend that doctor, the management probably has to suspend themselves too. A problem like this should not have to be one doctor's fault, but really it is about the basic management infrastructure of the organisation, in this case, a hospital. The workflows and SOPs are seriously flawed for such mistakes to have happened.

By the way, G's mom's operation was a success, finally. At least she didn't die. We shouldn't have to wait for another wrongful death for JSH to wake up their idea.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:17 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Brain Rules

So according to this book's website, it seems I'm not all that strange and weak when I (1) cannot multi-task very well even though I am a girl and even though I used to be able to, (2) am highly visual-literal and hardly an audio-learner, (3) would rather not be on MSN at work unless I need it. An online excerpt:

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

What we pay attention to is profoundly influenced by memory. Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention. Culture matters too. Whether in school or in business, these differences can greatly effect how an audience perceives a given presentation.

We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?

The brain is not capable of multi-tasking. We can talk and breathe, but when it comes to higher level tasks, we just can’t do it.

Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. This is why cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get in more wrecks.

Workplaces and schools actually encourage this type of multi-tasking. Walk into any office and you’ll see people sending e-mail, answering their phones, Instant Messaging, and on MySpace—all at the same time. Research shows your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.

When you’re always online you’re always distracted. So the always online organization is the always unproductive organization.

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:27 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

Even the shadow of you is driving me insane.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:04 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

these you are not

stopgap. super-glue
that holds cracked-bits
- together
void-filler, band-aid
emergency torchlight
commercial break
white noise, Muzak
penny entertainer
rations for war
- these things:
you are not.
You are so much,
so much more
(so much that I
want to tell
the whole world).

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:50 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

finding the right spot on the continuum

A virtually impossible task - finding the balance between extremes. Reality hardly exists for me, because I create my illusion of it, or I break down and out from it.

Will I have enough resources to last till I find my place?

So I have to finish the race with a lit torch, I don't have to finish first. I just have to finish it with the torch in my hand, still alight.

I hope I make it.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:17 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

empathy

One question my doctor asked me the first time I visited him, was this:

"Do you find that you empathise with people very easily, like you feel you can understand whatever they are going through?"

I said yes. Be it in the form of my Weltschmerz, or when friends confide in me, or when virtual strangers choose me to share their painful secrets with, I somehow manage to know how they feel.

Apparently, people who suffer from clinical depression are high on empathy, which technically means "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives."

I guess when we want to love people, help others, make life better for those in ours, we need to score high on empathy. I think this will forever be a 'good' trait of mine. Empathy.

Maybe thats why Daffy calls me a 'natural Aunt Agony'. Maybe that's why I tend to build genuine relationships with my clients, colleagues or contemporaries. Maybe that is why my words can make people cry. Maybe that's why people fall in love with me.

If you are depressed too, I hope you may eventually realise too, that empathy is a good by-product of our sickness, a blessing in disguise.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:30 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

reading

I subscribe to 92 feeds on my RSS aggregator and I read them all, daily, hourly.

I read lengthy magazines like Vanity Fair and Glamour.

But I cannot seem to sustain reading the books which I chose at the bookstores, those I am intent on collecting in my trove.

I have, on hold, these few books am somewhat currently reading:
Why I Write, George Orwell
The Lizard Cage, Karen Connelly
The Night Watch, Sarah Waters
His Illegal Self, Peter Carey
Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
A Fortune-Teller Told me, Tiziano Terzani

Suddenly my favourite hobby has become difficult.

Labels: books, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:13 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Good Night, and Good Luck

Ed Murrow is one inspiring man.

I love films about politics, freedom, history, and journalism.

McCarthyism sounds strangely close and familiar to what we sometimes see today, doesn't it?

After watching this film, I feel ignited to do what is right, simply because it is the right thing to do.

Oh by the way, I love the soundtrack. I love jazz from that era.

Labels: arts, share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:42 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

LOL@ Johor Specialist Hospital

My parents brought me this story from across the causeway:

Their friend, whom we shall call G, had to admit his mother into Johor Specialist Hospital (JSH) for a major operation to her knees for acute arthritis. This involved putting her under anaesthesia, which meant fasting from food and drink before the operation. The operation was due to be held on the Monday just past, and costs an estimated RM$40,000 thereabout.

To facilitate the operation, G's mother, who is about 62 years of age, checked into JSH on Sunday night, so that her condition could be monitored while she fasted.

On Monday morning, the anaesthetist administered general anaesthesia and G's mother was wheeled into the operation theatre.

The operation was however, called off before she entered the OT.

"Sorry, the surgical knife has not yet arrived from Kuala Lumpur."

Yeah, that's a real deal-breaker ain't it. So the whole family took leave from work on Monday, was prepared to pay astronomical amounts for the surgery - forty grand IS a lot - and G's mother had to endure fasting and anaesthesia for the sake of... nothing.

The operation is due to be held tomorrow. Let's hope they don't run out of, say, oxygen, halfway through the surgery. Or the wrong knives were sent over from KL or similar.

This is not the first lol@JSH that has occurred. Three years back, my Dad's friend, who is younger than me, met with a motorcycle accident. He went into a coma, suffering a major blood clot in his brain at the back of his head.

He was admitted to JSH, warded in the ICU for three nights. Subsequently, he died.

They did nothing during this period of time, really. Just left the blood in the brain; no drilling was done to clear the clot, nothing.

So, he died. And the family was billed RM$16,000 for the three nights of ICU.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:32 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

me and my work habits:

I like to read a lot of business books magazines and online feeds, like really, a lot, just to improve my knowledge base.

And then I like to draw charts plans schedules tasks on paper. That is how I work, I write things down. I type stuff up.

I also like to work with Excel spreadsheets, creating costing workbooks, logs, performance management tables.

I organise my workstation and files extremely neatly, into work and project files, categories, archives and such (although I hardly organise my own blog posts, writings, and personal administration with such meticulous care).

When I am not unwell, I am a workaholic.

Work is very important to me, to the point that I hardly make personal calls, emails, or SMSes during my work day. I don't even like to have MSN while at work unless I actually need it for work. And if I have a major project to rush, I am sorry if it's your Second Uncle's wife's birthday dinner, work is work is work and I am working late means I am working late.

I try to do everything myself until I am about to K.O., or will not be available. I like to delegate because I feel it will benefit the person doing it, and every delegation I see as a favour done unto me, or for their own achievement and development. Even when I am boss. (This probably stems from my 'inability to make demands from people' attitude which is what I need to change). I believe in getting your own feet in the mud if you want your people to get theirs in.

I also keep the problems I am facing at work to myself until such appointed time, which usually is too late, I am already ill from stress, or extremely depressed.

But when I am boss, my weaknesses are that I am impatient, and since I already sound aggressive when I talk normally, I sound more fierce and pissed than I actually am. I also procrastinate on solving problems I cannot solve because I keep things to myself.

Hence I also believe in having someone to think aloud and bounce ideas off with.

I believe very strongly in dressing the part.

And in charming the room. I can talk to anyone and network with everyone. Firm handshakes, warm smiles, eye contact, conversations and namecard exchanging. I also seem to know people that other people know and so on and so forth. (Although when I go to a party I don't want to, I am not necessarily so charming).

I believe loving your work is important.

Labels: me

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:05 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

firsts, lasts, have you evers

first...

thought when waking up today: 'the candle Mom lit in my room last night is still burning'

thing you ate today: coffee-flavoured bread

thing you did today: blow out the candle, turn on the computer, log in WoW

car accident you were involved in: a bus backed into our parked car when I was all alone in it as a kid. I didn't think of pressing the horn at the time...

guy/girl you had a crush on: Christopher/Phyllis

CD you bought: I can remember my first cassette tape, probably the soundtrack of the movie 'Pretty Woman' or a Roxette album

pet you had: Pomeranian doggie called Rocky

dream profession as a kid: lawyer

best friend: Sijian

award you received: Best in English - Primary 1 level, won a $100 book voucher from MPH

sport you played: badminton



last...

person you talked to: Slinky

person you hugged: Slinky!

person you said i love you to: someone I love

thing you ate: cookies

thing you drank: red date tea

thing you said: 'Slinky you are sitting on my chair'

thing you did: read Cassandra's blog where I found this survey...

time you lied: can't remember

time you cried: last night

time you showered: this afternoon

time you got sick: now

time you broke a bone: never

time you got drunk: drunk or high? two different states of being altogether...

song you sang: 'For the cause of Christ, I will lay down my life'

song you listened to: Stellar Digital Music Podcast #23 by Yukun

thing you typed: this



have you ever...

seen a shooting star: yes; Serangoon Gardens 1991, Pulau Ubin 1996

met anyone famous (if so who): not that I bother

prank called someone: yes, as a kid I would dial random numbers from my nanny's house and talk to whoever picked up...

cried for attention: when I was eleven years old and I wanted attention from the cousins I was staying with

had alcohol poisoning: no

wrecked a car: no

threw a fit in public: quarrel, yes

wanted to kill someone: yes

been in the newspaper: yes, Today

cried over nothing: yes

had a crush on a teacher: not MY teachers, but people in the teaching profession...

wished death on someone: yes, TPS

been called a tease: yes

like more than one person at once: how is that possible...

imitated someone: yes, Prabakher from Shantaram

wrote a song for somebody: yes

been to a concert: yes, Air Supply, when I was a kid

snuck out of your house: yes, when I was living in Toa Payoh in the early 80s

cut class: yes

been scared so much you pissed your pants: no

loved someone so much it hurt: yes

faked being dead: yes, out of childhood boredom

failed a class: yes

spoken fluently in another language: what does fluently mean... confidently? or just very well?

gotten lost at the mall: yes

kissed someone of the same sex: what kind of kiss?

gotten a detention: no such thing in the schools I went to

missed the bus: yes

fallen down the stairs: yes, Midlink Plaza. My phone broke into pieces, I ricocheted down the steps, and the guys who saw me completely ignored me...

been in a sped class: like GEP? But I didn't even pass my first streaming exam in 1988...

had a bad hangover: the worst one was when I had red wine with my parents, three bottles between us...

gotten grounded: no

lied about your age: no

got hit by a car: no

not done your H.W. then copied it off someone right before class: yes

shopped online: yes

given money to a homeless person: how do you know they were homeless? I remember giving away a sandwich to two Cambodian border kids in Aranpathet, Thailand...

been on a sports team: only recreational - netball for Citi Olympics!

been so bored you did a survey like this one: yes...

Labels: trivia

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:49 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

watch this.

Addicted in Afghanistan from Jawed Taiman on Vimeo.


Do something:
Don't take drugs anymore.
Say a prayer.
Find out more about drug rehabs in Singapore -
Donate to their cause.
Volunteer.
Use your skills for worthy causes.
Seek to understand drug addiction.
Be contented.
Realise that the world does not revolve around you.
Go for a mission trip or a community service trip.
Spread the word.
Inspire someone - he or she might become the next world-changer.
Sponsor a child through World Vision.

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:13 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

one year from now

According to Dr. K's diagnosis of me I should be off medication in a year's time, even though I have been depressed for 'a long time' - his words.

In one year from now, I will be 30.

I would have sorted out my plans to go to an Indochinese country for a mid-term stay, three to six months long thereabout, not including reconnaissance trips there before that.

According to my doctor, for me to be 'rooted in reality' I have to prove, or disprove, the relevant core skills and strengths that I have. So that when people tell me, "You are so talented, E!" or "E is very good at (insert task/activity/ability)," I no longer feel traumatised by their perceived value of me. Yes, I hate it whenever anyone praises me for being good at something, for having a lot of potential, for being talented - because I truly, truly, feel I am not. The thing is, I am 'good' at almost everything I have done with everyone. I don't know why I am 'good' at that thing with you. I am not genius like Sylvia Plath or Jackson Pollock, I just have the same sickness as they did, without talent. But people keep telling me otherwise, which stresses and upsets me, because deep down inside I feel these things people say are grossly untrue.

So, I have identified three core things I should prove that I am good at, ever the cooperative client that I am. I already know I am good in managerial-related roles. And it is what I have a B.Sc (Hons.) in - Management, with a capital M. So for that, I will stop hating every comment that comes my way telling me I am good at my job. Doctor says managerial and administrative skills are lacking badly in most NGOs, missions agencies and other aid-related organisations. This might tie in my passion for missions, in some way, down the line.

The second skill I need to prove or disprove in me, is writing. D W says "only you and Emily Dickinson deserve to be published in print, not people like me." This statement muddled me and caused tears to flow, and it only means one thing: I have to prove that I can write. I am still not sure if I am a novel writer, a short story writer, or what else. I know I can write well on this blog, but that is useless. I know I make a good copywriter for marketing communications - business-y stuff. But I am not a published writer. I need to be published to prove or disprove that I am good at writing. This skill is the scariest one to prove.

The third core thing, is my usefulness in humanitarian-related work or missions work in Asian countries. Pastor Brian says I am a very good person to have around on a mission trip (I don't know why or how, to be honest). Some people tell me I inspire them towards missions. I don't believe any of these comments whole-heartedly. When I think of humanitarian work I think of how under-qualified I am. The disparity between wanting to be involved and not being able to, tears me apart and has broken me many, many times, since I left H to run the business alone, since I left the Y because I was not gaining anything and yet losing so much. I decided that, to prove my relevance in the humanitarian industry or in missions work, I need to be more present in the countries that need help, and not just do a short mission trip a year, which was all I was doing since 2001, except for last year, where I didn't even go for any.

Hence, the reason for my plan to work and serve in (most likely) Cambodia in a year's time. This was one of the main factors why I left C: it wasn't just his lack of empathy and his abandoning me alone that led me to leave him, it was also because I knew that if I had stayed with him, I would never make this step to live in a developing country like Cambodia for half a year. And my Mom even agreed that if I could find something for her to do, she would come with me.

One year from now, I will stop crying for no reason.

One year from now, I will love life.

One year from now, I will no longer be sad.

One year from now, I will know where my strength and beauty lies.

One year from now, I can truly say, I lived my twenties with no regrets.

I just need to survive the year. Two steps forward, the occasional step back, but forwards nonetheless. Technically I have a little more than a year, because my birthday is in November. But when I am finally thirty years old, I would have re-engineered Elaine, into someone even better than I am now.

Cry with me, celebrate with me. Stay alive with me. Exciting times are ahead.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:04 PM    [ 3 comment | ]

psychopharmacology etc.

I am now on:

2 Lexapro (total 20mg a day)
3 X*anax (total .75mg a day, sometimes I go up to 1.0mg a day)
2 Lorazepam (total 1mg a day, down from 2mg)
1 Seroquel (total 100mg a day, up from 50mg)


If you are like me and like to read online about medicine, and you will find out that Seroquel is more commonly used for schizophrenia or manic-depression or bipolar disorder, if I am not mistaken. But my doctor is using it as a sedative and to calm me, not because I have been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, meaning I don't do things that 'mad' people do like facial twitches, shouting at invisible people, or dribbling in catatonia. I also don't suffer from mania, that is, I don't have episodes of hysteria where I think I can jump off the roof and fly...


The fact that depressed people don't do these so-called 'crazy' things is probably the very reason why when people like us tell others that we have been diagnosed with clinical depression, it is almost hard to believe, because we often hide it. And it is actually concealable, because depressed people behave normally on the outside like regular folk do. In fact, we might be charismatic leaders in real life (like Winston Churchill), behave like natural comics (Charlie Chaplin), be cheery people (me, to some people). To the unsympathetic layman: the depressive needs to 'cheer up', the schizos act 'strangely'.


If you want to find out more about schizophrenia though, one of my favourite books "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb, talks about a pair of twins, of whom one is schizophrenic. We also of course know amazingly smart people who are mad, most famous of all John Nash immortalised by the movie A Beautiful Mind.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:55 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

amaze me, inspire me

"You are an amazing person."

I use this phrase sparingly; when I do, I really mean it. Amazement stems from the well of a person's heart, in the form of a powerful destiny, a deep compassion, a supra normal capacity to love, a sincerity of being.

If I have told you before that you are amazing, you really are.

"You inspire me."

I haven't said that in a long time. I might have said that to H, long ago. I recently said it again. Very few people inspire me; I do not have any role models in life, except maybe, Mother Teresa, who is dead, Hillary Clinton, and maybe other famous women who made an impact on the world, like Anita Roddick, Jacqueline Novogratz, etc.

I am seldom inspired to write poetry, by a person. I am more inspired by emotions or by my infamous traffic-light moments. When a person, emotions, and traffic-lights come to a standstill in time, I end up writing one of the best poems I have ever written, (in mine eyes anyway). Paper-and-pen style, right there right then, creating editing and completing it, in the companionship of the person who inspires me.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:22 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

1 step back
2 steps forward

I am not regressing
I'm recovering

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:47 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Fuck you Charles Darwin

Screw all survival instincts, self-preservative awareness and the idea of natural selection.

Like what I told my Dad once when he cut me deep with his words: "Scan my brain and I will show you that what I have is a sickness, not a choice. I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. Cut my head open and do a brain transplant with a normal person and I will give you a normal daughter! I am sorry I am sick!"

All I want to do is help change this world devoid of love, to save the starfishes beached and dry, is that so wrong... I cry with every child prostitute, murdered journalist, AIDS orphan, abused wife, unemployed slum dweller, drug addict despairing with life... I only wish I could bear their burdens and do something to help make their lives better.

I don't dig natural selection - I want to run to those that evolution will leave behind.

I only wish I had more talent, more skills, more qualifications, more strength, and health, to help me realise my deepest passion of all. So many people who were depressed changed the world. I only wish I could turn my sorrow into joy for those who need it most.

You try to help one person, just one person, that you know, in your local circle of influence - a friend, a child, a loved one. That task alone takes an almost lifetime of prayer and effort. Let alone the whole of povertised Asia - the need is that great.

Choose to be Darwinian about it, and live for yourself. Or choose to make a difference and run towards the regressed and left behind.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:40 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

wreck without a caregiver

Without my mom in the house when she goes back to JB to stay a few nights with my dad, I seem to function less normally. Eating a proper meal is a chore alone, and getting out of the house pales to the idea of sleeping in all day. I live like a depressed person again: sleeping, listless, hardly eating or drinking, every supposed enjoyment a chore, every planned activity lying in the dust.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:53 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

firsts

undeciding. spacing out
imagining only today
being happy,

being happy.
taking your eyes in
giving in to the foreign -

unknown - all the better
to let go to take in now, only
playing laughing being transported

- to another era

tasting empathy
embalmed
focused

all
firsts.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:34 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

QQmore

I just found out that Seroquel might make me fat!

OH NO!

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:10 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Supplements I take daily:

1000mg Omega-3
Apart from general well-being, Omega-3 is supposed to aid receptor and neuronal activity in the brain. If you know enough about clinical depression you will probably know that this is good stuff, because there are chemical imbalances and abnormal neurotransmitter activities that need to be treated in the brain of the patient.


1000mg Evening Primrose Oil
For selfish reasons, this one. This is mainly good for skin, which is why I take it if I get an eczema outbreak too. Plus it grows your boobs, useful for me since I did lose a lot of weight recently. But vanity aside, EPO, taken in the mornings, is useful for hormonal balances in women, so that the coming of your monthly period does not give you adverse mood swings. It is also good if you have cramps and such.

300mg Mega Acidophilus per meal
This aids digestive health, much like popping Yakult pills. Useful for indigestion and gastric problems, as well as for constipation. I am not sure on this, but apart from my measly appetite, necessary avoidance of citrus fruits for my asthma, the medications I am on might cause constipation as a side effect. For some reason my gastric health isn't that great lately - I get bloated if I eat too much, I get gastric pains now and then. So this bacterial-boost-in-a-pill helps.

1 cap multi-vit for women
The Gnc brand, if you are wondering which one this is. This is the one that C bought and made me eat religiously. Multivites usually make me fat because they improve appetite and metabolism, but this one doesn't. So I am sticking to it.

1 cap glucosamine if I am exercising that day
I am prone to joint - mainly knee - pains because of my banker days spent standing on heels at weekend roadshows. I usually pop one when I exercise, which is more frequent now.

All these supplements come in huge caplets. Thankfully I am now an expert pill-popper.

Labels: me

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

what motherhood means to me

By 2010 there will be 15.7 million children orphaned by HIV and Aids in sub-Saharan Africa.

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

real

I love you God

church service tires me
like you say in your word:
Try my mind and my heart.

I am tried and dried

You say, let go
of making decisions
give them to you

I love you so much

so why does being
in your house
cut me open

face me to face
my darkness and pain
because you say you see
my darkness and pain

doctor says:
live normally
people say:
don't think you're sick

You say:
I am not giving up on you

I put aside my wanting to die
You bring me face to face
and say
You are not giving up on me

with my wanting to die
as our under-torrential
understanding of who I am now

it is as if
you are saying

you are right
you have never been happy
all twenty-eight years
of your life
you really do feel
like ending it all
and leaving
you really are sick
with this horrible darkness

- but I am not giving up on you,
so don't give up on yourself.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:52 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

the FACTS: Depression

"One should not quarrel with the depressed person or bring up questions of separation or divorce, as this exacerbates the depression and may contribute to suicidal thoughts."

Some people went wrong with me.

Reading this now scares me with its depth of truth and reality.

Labels: c, share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:02 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

diagnosis and too much self-awareness

When I saw my GP recently for my asthmatic cough, I updated him about my psychiatrist's work with me, my suicide attempts and my hospitalisation, the drug allergy we discovered I had, and the medicine I was currently on, because I haven't seen my GP since the clinic issued me the referral letter to my psychiatrist at Mount E. He busily scribbled all the medicines I was on, taking inward gasps at the amounts of some.

Then he also asked me, "So what did Dr K diagnose you with?"

Actually my psychiatrist never did give me a proper medical diagnosis, but I knew it myself: "Major depressive disorder, and generalised anxiety disorder."

So when I went to see my psychiatrist yesterday, I asked him what really is his diagnosis of me. I told him what I told my GP. He said that I wasn't wrong. He also calls what I have "phobic depression".

I also asked him, "So, is there a range, like how depressed am I?"

He said, "Between moderate and severe."

"What is worse than severe?"

"Severe means hospitalisation."

Okay, so I guess I sought some specialist help in time to save myself from being warded in a psychiatric hospital.

Well, I knew what I was suffering from, just didn't know it was that bad. And my recovery is very gradual. My psychiatric doctor says about me, "Unfortunately, you are very aware of yourself and your own progress."

"Why did you preface that statement with 'unfortunately'?"

"Because when you are so aware of your own improvement you will come to realise your recovery is very gradual, and you might get discouraged by the rate at which you are getting better."

I guess I really have to take my time. I am still Calvinised to think that I need to keep trying harder and harder to get better and better and better for him for me for us, even though there is no more him and no more us, because while I was trying my best to get better while with him, he saw and claimed and commented and complained that my best was just not good enough, that I had to try harder, that I was not putting in any effort. So here I am, sub-consciously trying to please someone whom I have already removed from my life. I really have to un-Calvinise myself and just be Elaine, at Elaine's pace. Love should be unconditional, and I really should not have to recover to please anyone.

In any case, I really do think my phobias and anxiety is improving, only my depression is crawling at a snail's pace of a recovery rate. I look normal,



but really, I still have a long road to slowly take. There are many people out there who need help too. Depression is like a cancer with no visible tumour, yet it can kill, at a rate of 15% of all who suffer from it. I may look normal, and so may many people in your life, but if they have my sickness, please, get them to get help. Curing clinical depression is not about 'thinking positive', or pretending the pain isn't there. You cannot wish away a tumour, or pretend it doesn't exist. Depression hurts like fuck, it is a real, physical pain. Don't leave it alone.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:59 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

KL Velvet pics

Me, Doji, Shuyi, Enid, Pixavonne




Eugene (Doji's friend who got us into Velvet for free), me and Shuyi

Labels: journeys, pleasures

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:27 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

it is at moments after i have dreamed

by e. e. cummings

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.







I haven't read a poem that has made me cry this way, in years, years. It speaks my heart.

Labels: share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

psychotherapy

While I am functioning somewhat normally - eating square meals, sleeping regular hours, relating to people regularly - I still feel sad, sometimes.

So I asked my doctor today, "What do I do when I feel sad?"

His answer: "Do whatever makes you feel happy."

Such simple advice. Like my mother's, "As long as you are happy Elaine."

- I know what made me happy this week.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:36 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

"As long as you are happy"

This is what my mom said to me. Which is why she allows me to go out. To do whatever I wish to, whatever my agenda, whoever the friends. After all, she has met almost all of them before, at least once, I guess.

"When I see you just sleeping in your room everyday in the afternoons, I feel very sad." My mom knows now that sleeping too much, like insomnia, is a symptom of depression. Those are the afternoons I feel tired from trying to recover. When I just want to be myself, by myself; to rest from recovery. Also, I caught a cold recently, and have been on antibiotics and cough medicine etc. Combined with my current cocktail of psych meds, of course I sleep all the time.

Like today. I really wanted to go out, and shop for some stuff I need for the house. But I was so tired, I woke at dinner time, and all I could do was go for a long walk. To Katong. I just needed to get out of the house.

I came home after that long walk to find my mom out. Apparently there was nothing she could find on TV to watch, so she went to the coffeeshop for wings and beer by herself. Finding this out, I felt selfish for planning my own agenda, leaving her alone in the flat while I went out and walked and met people and did my own stuff. I felt bad that I didn't suggest things we could do together. But she really didn't mind it at all; she really wants me to plan my own activities and such, and not to worry about her. I am not sure how much of it is just mother-talk. The thing is, I already do spend time with her, but in the flat, chit-chatting non-stop.

I think my mom and I both need to find some work to do in the near future. I am scared shitless of work; there are very few things I can handle now without triggering a panic attack. My mom still wants to be around to take care of me. This is the status quo, for now. (Even though we have dwindling finances).

(Okay, writing this post is making me stressed and sad. I shall stop here.)

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:09 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

regaining interest in life

Trying to act normal, to re-wire my brain to believe I am normal is a feat indeed. Everyday that I have the energy to, I try to fill my day with some sort of activity based on Elaine's interests, which I still feel rather lukewarm to in general - yes, all of them, even books, even men, even WoW.


I have been exercising. Like maybe for an hour a day, I reckon (not a clock-watcher, me). I tried running but like the last time I did that, I got an asthma attack. So I am sticking to yoga, stretches, and free-weights, crunches push-ups etc at home. Brisk-walking worked for me too, but I did that at night, and it can be rather lonely to do thirty minutes of brisk-walking around Ubi by myself.


I guess then, shopping counts as walking too! KL shopping was awesome, shopping and transport and F&B was sponsored by my Dad and my friends. I bought some youngish looking clothes to go to church in, since my new church is very youthful. Older people sit at the back rows. I sit at the last row. Thank God for streetwear.


My novel-writing, alas, has come to somewhat of a standstill. I feel like Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation, only calmer because I am medicated. I have so many false starts, so much to say, I am at a loss on how to stitch it together and how to blend my research into it. I guess all that is part of the fun.


Music - I have been playing the guitar and singing more often now. My mom suggests I do a recording of all my acoustic renditions for my Dad, as a surprise-love gift (something we learned in church recently). It will take a while. And it makes me contemplate about buying an acoustic guitar instead of doing acoustic on a classical. But I listen to music a lot more now. It helps distract me (Mona's advice, too, on dealing with anxiety). Still mostly electronica.


I think as for art, my next step will be to visit SAM which I have planned to with my ex-student Aly, sometime next week, amongst other things. I have barely any art materials in my house anymore anyway.


Reading is still a chore. I have turned from a voracious reader into a tedious one. I can hardly trawl through a book of chick-lit, let alone the kind of books I am used to reading. Even magazines are tedious. I speed-read the biz mags for the main points; I hardly feel excited about girlie mags. My interest in books is now shown mainly through lending them furiously to friends to read.


Some of you know I love Josh Hartnett - he is like my fave Hollywood man. He doesn't turn me on anymore, and I just finished watching Black Dahlia. He is handsome, but I am more fascinated by Scarlett Johansson's make up instead. I view men and women alike as art, not as objects of fancy or lust anymore. I find Bruce's Springsteen's Kitty's Back played by the E Street Band in 1975, as good as sex.


I eat for the sake of eating. No longer crazy over foods I was used to, perhaps only coffee, and chocolate. Coffee is an obsession for me when I go out, because I need to keep awake from my meds so that I will watch where I am going, and also so that I don't keep yawning.


Strangely, I no longer crave for alcohol that much now. Maybe because I drank some on Saturday over at Velvet, sans medication. (Sans medication! I actually felt happy and calm and not-stressed while on holiday, with my two bezzie mates, I didn't need to medicate.) Needless to say, I drank very little - half a beer, some whiskey green tea, a Johnny Walker OTR, and was hardly high for the piffling amount I limited myself to. Alcohol really does cancel out the effect of the anti-Ds I take, because by the time it was time to sleep at night, I felt like my serotonin effects were cancelled out. I took lesser sleepy meds than usual, and fell asleep more slowly than my high and happy girlfriends.


Does my cat count as an interest? We have converted her into a full-time house cat, which involves more pet ownership responsibilities such as cleaning her litter box and such. She hangs slink-slunk around me in my room most of the time.


All that, while I am on:
2 anti-Ds (total 20mg a day)
3 X*anaxes (total .75mg a day, sometimes I go up to 1g a day)
2 Lorazepams (total 1mg a day, down from 2mg)
1 Seroquel (total 100mg)

a day. These are what help me resemble normalcy on the outside. On the inside, I feel calm and un-sad.


(Oh by the way, the rubbish about anti-Ds only having a placebo effect - doesn't work on people with my depth of depression. It is referring to GPs doling out Pro*zac in small doses to random patients who seem stressed or mildly depressed. My dose isn't small. I am not mildly depressed.)


A lot of people tell me not to keep thinking I am sick. But if I thought otherwise, I would have nothing to 'get better' from. This is why I am trying hard to recover. I think accepting that I have major depression and coming to terms with the fact that I need help and I need to recover from my sickness, is an important step. Sorry, screw the 'think positives'. Living normally is one thing, denial is another plane altogether. I cannot wish this cancer away.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Enneagram Test

Not very sure what school of thought this personality test is based on, but hey, quizzes are fun!

Labels: trivia

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:33 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

lost for words

So I use movies and songs to convey my thoughts instead. Borrowing the inspiration of others to tell the story of my heart.


I am not sure if I can finish my book in a year.


I start to use pictures, graphs and arrows to explain how I feel about things, to myself.


I get tired of talking sometimes. My mind wanders. Wander with me?

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:49 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

four months, pre-breakup entry in my diary

This is an au naturel entry copied straight from my notebook to here. I wrote it then, and re-read it recently, and shocked myself for not seeing the signs earlier. It might be offensive to some readers, but bear with my honesty: it was originally not meant for public audience.

First October 2007


...

I think of C and I think again of how he cannot deal with my depression. About all times he has said self-preservative cocky words like how he cannot spend his life with a depressive because he doesn't want his children to be depressed, because he needs not to be with someone who is so negative "all the time". About how he fears he will lose his career trajectory if he has to stay home to take care of a clinically depressed wife. I think about his inherent negativity displayed through anger and resentment at the world. His plastic, fake family and their disgusting matriarchal rituals and parties and Cantonese small talk and forced hellos. I think about how C hates talking about anything serious - ideas, dreams, problems in our relationship (because it is not productive to). About how I can't be myself like I am with God, with him. And how he can't seem to want to love God and know his truth and not his warped falsities from his Catholic upbringing. I hate him but I know he loves me, which is hard to find. And I feel comfortable reading in bed next to him. And we make up after every fight well enough to smooth all his fur and ruffled feathers. If I leave him I will truly be alone in this flat till I die. He is supportive of me and I do love him most of the time, just not very lovingful right now because I am still hurt by his shouting at me yesterday. If I tell him this, he will shout more, and talk about leaving me.

Labels: c

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:27 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

diary

I read my handwritten diary of scribbles and notes and prayers and thoughts; and I cry at the level of sadness pain anguish that must have been present for those words to take shape, and over so much time. I know I should not be saying this, but the next time I try to die, I will make sure I succeed. What is holding me back right now is not the absence of suicidal ideation, but the roti jala net of friends and parents and promises to stay alive and get better. I still feel like dying to remove this pain and sadness. I have been sad all my life, all my life, and even on meds, I still feel the sadness seeping through sometimes. It is inherent. In the end, isn't it still all about keeping up appearances?

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:00 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

KL this weekend

With my two best girlfriends.

With the D man as our escort in KL.

With my dad chauffeuring us from Singapore to JB to the Bas Stesen in Larkin.

With my meds, with coffee, with prayers, with friends - I should be fine.

Labels: journeys

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:15 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

recovering is tiring

Opening up to people is tiring.
Talking and replying calls and smses is tiring.
Acting normal is tiring.
Proving or disproving my relevant talents is tiring.

I just want to cocoon up.

I am okay, I just need to stop being a people-pleaser.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:30 AM    [ 4 comment | ]

I am trying my best to get better.

I am tired of trying my best.

I need a break.

Recovering is fucking tiring.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

rage and pain

I have a lot of rage in me. Right now. Often.

This is why I need exercise.
This is why I crave alcohol daily.
This is why I need Xan*ax.

This anger has no reason. It just IS. It just exists. It just remains.
Until I medicate.


Yes, I am still sad. Despite functioning normally and living life in a seemingly hyper-elaine, energetic way.

I am still sad.
I still hurt.
It still hurts.

I am still angry.

I am still sad.

I just can no longer do very much about it.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:35 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

finally:

I will write a novel.


I envision it will read like Amrita meets Prozac Nation meets Emily Dickinson meets Working Hot.


I will try my best to finish it within a year.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:43 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

exercise

I have been exercising. I bought two 1kg weights. I bought an exercise mat. I went for brisk walks (still too weak to run). I have been exercising, everyday. Gets rid of a lot of rage. Gives me a nice ass. Nicer legs and arms. Hopefully, flatter tummy soon. And I hope I get my boobs back because I lost weight recently.

Labels: me

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:30 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

I have a thing for ginger flowers

I have a thing for ginger flowers:
Their unbloomed, phallic shape
Their hardiness
The blush-red colour of the flower
leads me to stroke it along its petal grain
A creation that gives me a tad reason for living

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:48 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

wtf, no wonder

Suicidal ideation should be assessed during regular intervals throughout therapy (every week during the therapy session is not uncommon). Often, as the individual who suffers from a depressive disorder is beginning to feel the energizing effects of a medication, they will be at higher risk for acting on their suicidal thoughts. Care should be used at this time and hospitalization may need to be again considered.



Yeah, it was a period I had just increased my anti-D doses and taken on new meds as well. So it wasn't just the lousy relationship and the resultant OD-ing on meds and alcohol because I felt like shit. I was in extreme danger all this while since I stepped into that psychiatrist's office.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:55 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

lost for words

I really am. I have talked so much about myself these few days to my doctor, my parents, my friends, that I AM TIRED of talking. About. Myself. It is tiring and stressful and I have to keep it up because people feel weird being around a psychotic ex-suicidal clinical depressive.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:59 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

hobbies- updated

I need to regain interest in my hobbies. Slowly but surely.



Buy books --- check
Write --- check
Read --- check
Music --- check
Play guitar --- check
Paint/draw ---
World of Warcraft --- slight
Exercise --- check
Shopping --- check

Labels: pleasures

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:45 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

milestones for todayish

Today I will go browse new books to see if I can regain my interest in reading again.

I will start on a new book. For real.

I WILL GO TO TOWN. On Xana*x of course, under doctor's advice.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:48 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

bored yet scared

So anyway I managed to do a few things I haven't been doing properly:

I went out and met friends and replied text messages and answered phone calls.

I took a train ride! Although it is only one stop but I managed to do it. I felt a bit crazy doing it but I did not have a panic attack and I told myself it was okay and actually believed me even if it was slight. And I did it without Xan*ax.

I told people my problems. Let me be self-absorbed for the moment please! Sorry if I repeat stories I don't remember who I confided in and what. I am not good at this problem-sharing business still, now I just blurt out everything. Eventually I will find my place between the continuum of isolation and diva-dom.

I feel happy. Serotonin is a beautiful brain-chemical to regulate.

--

What hasn't changed:

My memory is still poor.

I am still very weak,
my hands are shivery, I can't write,
I feel tired, I feel cold.

I can't sleep well.

I still haven't regained interest in reading, gaming or writing.

I still haven't regained my appetite.

I still feel strange telling people about myself, warts and all. I feel very diva-like now and I hate it.

I still fear going back to work. Any work.

Labels: me

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:16 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

Plumb - Lie Low

You didn't care about me
So I packed my bags
And left you to wonder
What you could've done better
To make our love stronger
We could have lasted forever and longer

But we'll never know how good it could be
This isn't how it should be

I couldn't laugh
I couldn't cry
I couldn't waste another day
I couldn't live
I couldn't lie low any longer
I couldn't laugh
I couldn't cry
I couldn't waste another day
I couldn't live
I couldn't lie low any longer

Did you ever care about me?
I remember the time
You looked in my eyes and promised
We'd stay together
Our love would grow stronger
The storms we had weathered
Wouldn't last any longer

It could've been so good
But there was something else for me

Labels: c, share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:22 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

scary elaine

I am sorry for my behaviour the past few weeks.

Alarmingly impulsive. I tried smoking (no I didn't really smoke but I acted like I did). I cut myself. I was high on Xana*x and alcohol. I took sleeping pills even in the day if I didn't drink. I overdosed on meds, twice. I broke up with Calvin. I used others to hurt him on purpose. I had no self-love. I was ecstatic or hysterical. I screamed. At people. In my house alone. I was crazy.

I don't remember a lot of things I did, were did to me, I said, or was said to me. I don't remember puking in my bathroom. I don't remember my suicidal threats. I don't remember my seductions and propositions.

Pardon my behaviour, that really wasn't the real me.

I was in so much hurt and pain and physical despair, I really wanted to die.

But I am still on meds. I cannot live med-free at the moment, just like I cannot be left alone. I am just sorry for all the scares and scathes I might have inflicted on anyone who was in contact with me the past two weeks.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:00 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

i survived my attempt

Look I am sorry.

I hurt you all badly.

I really almost died.

But I won't do it again.

And I have to give up drinking,
for the sake of my liver, which I almost killed.

I am sorry.

I am sorry.

I am sorry.

I was desperate.
I really wanted to die.

But now I know
when I am desperate
I have to call my doctor
I cannot be alone

I have to let people care for me
I have to let people do things for me
I have make demands.

Please check in on me regularly.
I really am very sick.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:59 PM    [ 4 comment | ]

It is hurting very badly. I don't know why. My sickness is degenerating? Alcohol? I am no longer responding to my medication? What?

All I can say now is that I really need to die.

Please publish this blog in print for me when I go.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:07 PM    [ 2 comment | ]

and the reasons why...

I can't cry in front of him without him feeling guilty and responsible and therefore angry at me.
I can't be sure he will not abandon me. Again.
I don't want to live with the fear of losing someone because he might leave out of his own will.
He will not marry me while I am depressed and I might be still be depressed when I hit 30.
I can't be sure I can fulfill my dreams and calling together with him.
I don't want my kids to grow up playing tennis in the country club.
I don't need my kids to fly first class travel. I want them to ride various modes of transport cross-Asia with me.
I want to minister to Asia's poor and damned and inspire others to the same.
I want to mother kids abandoned by AIDS, sickness and poverty, more than I want to bear my own children.
I need to learn how to be independent again.
I need to reforge my alliances.
I can't drag him down any further.
I put him through enough shit.
I no longer trust him to be my best friend.
I no longer love him because he no longer makes me feel safe.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:31 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

I left C.

Labels: c

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

updates

Psychiatrist visits - 2, superb
Break ups - 1, and another 1 by me this time

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:51 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

C came back.

Labels: c

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:56 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

cannot sleep + medicine = fantasy story writing

"Whatever you do, don't fall for me."

I tell this into his eyes mad with longing fulfilled and again. He has beautiful eyes, ones I can see myself in, eyes that are true and childlike. You barely notice them until you talk to him close up and find his big eyes responding to you. When he speaks, I watch his mouth; he has perfectly odd shaped lips that are poised for a kiss that is made of romance and all things young and sweet, a kiss that tastes of virginity and a foreign heartache. He drives me mad in my race to fall asleep. He is a dream. And while I am real, we get lost in each other, intertwined, arms flailing till we collapse together in psychedelia.

This is madness; it is my loneliness mixed with his purity, my brazenness with his subtlety, our mutual longing for loving friendship in the night.

It is complicated, because I have a young daughter borne from a recent love. She either needs a man of the house to stay in our lives, or just me - permanency. But my friend with the beautiful eyes is a travelling young writer with a promising journalistic career ahead of him. He is smart and brilliant, loving words as much as I do, loving Asia as much as I do, and more. But he is naive, and only the age I was when I gave birth to beloved Esther, who is now eight.

I speak to him everyday and find a lost love in him, one that I should have had, but never did, for all the men I fell in love with before, were already men when I met them, full of hardness and cynicism. They all tell me to trust them, while they proceed to break my heart again, and leave with the need to preserve themselves over love and their lover. But Sam is different, because he tells me instead that he trusts me, that I am already the strong woman I should be. It makes me feel unique, to be trusted in blind faith, to be loved unconditionally, at least for the moment. I feel like I am the only person he wants to be with, instead of having to share him with all the other things in life that fills a man's mind. However regressive this may sound, but it is nice to feel like the only one that is special to someone you care about deeply.

Call him irresponsible, for I know he is going to fall in love with me anyway, and think about the consequences only after. It is hard to not give in to those beautiful eyes. For now, I tell him, "Let's see how we feel, when we wake up in the morning together."

Labels: fictitious

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:31 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

C says he is weak.

E says:

i'm sorry that i seem to be regressing. i just really want to sleep more this week becos i realise i really need the rest for my health. at the expense of other things i now realise. pls dont be upset anymore.

Weak says:

i need help also. i can't care so much

Weak says:

it's affecting me

Weak says:

i'm sorry if it seems selfish

E says:

if u really would like to stop caring about me for awhile then stop caring. i want u to be okay also.

Weak says:

maybe if i'm not around you will be spurred to better yourself

E says:

if u say that then it means u really love me

Weak says:

sorry. i don't have to mental and emotional resources anymore

Weak says:

i'm in self preservation mode

Weak says:

i don't want to become self destructive

Weak says:

it seems everytime i see you i only get stressed and upset and alot of other things... i've come to associate being with you with those emotions. that can't be right

Weak says:

loving another person isn't enough. there has to be the right fit

Weak says:

you need someone who isn't affected and won't try so hard

E says:

if u really feel this way, then do what u think is best. i care about u too.

Weak says:

if you really want to be with me, you'll work at getting better

E says:

ok i will keep working at it

Weak says:

it breaks my heart to look at you in your state

Weak says:

to be in your house

Weak says:

to be around you

Weak says:

it's not that you can't help it

Weak says:

i feel you're not trying.

Weak says:

i feel that i've become your crutch and therefore your downfall

Weak says:

if you were alone or with a less caring boyfriend i think you would have been even better

Weak says:

you would have remained independant

Weak says:

and strong

Weak says:

i am weak now.

Weak says:

my strength is gone. i need to recover

E says:

okay

E says:

i wont press u or anything

Weak says:

yep.

Weak says:

even if i never see you again. i really really hope you can get better

Weak says:

you have so much potential.

E says:

i will try to be the independent and strong girl that u like

Weak says:

just be the elaine that i first met

Weak says:

the one who takes bus to CITI

Weak says:

i don't know what else to say.

Weak says:

we shouldn't be talking right now. i'm not going to be a very good motivator

E says:

i dont care if u are a good motivator or not at this point. thats not why we r talking.

Weak says:

just get better

Weak says:

take care of yourself

Weak says:

be someone i can be proud of. even if it's only if i hear about it from someone else

Weak says:

be someone who will be able to support your parents

Weak says:

be a source of strength

Weak says:

be true to yourself. but also recognise that to do that, you sometimes need to do stuff that makes you feel otherwise. because you are doing it to obtain the mains to achieve your true goal

Weak says:

you don't arrive at the end

Weak says:

you arrive at the start

Weak says:

and walk to the end

Weak says:

remember that

Weak says:

i know i haven't been nice to be with recently. i'm sorry for that. but it's the pain and frustration bubbling over.

Weak says:

and i feel i can't be with you

Weak says:

until all this foaming emotion goes away.... and you get better.... that's even more important...

Weak says:

i just don't feel like you are even putting in effort

Weak says:

and i feel like if i stay. you will not have the motivation to do so

Weak says:

i know this sounds like a load of crock

Weak says:

but i swear it's the truth.

Weak says:

i will try to get on with my own life... you should get on with yours....

Weak says:

if we cross paths again. so be it. i won't be avoiding you

E says:

i dont feel i will get better if u are gone.

Weak says:

well you gotta try

E says:

wat is the use if u are not going to be around anymore.

Weak says:

because you got to live for yoursefl

E says:

u r the only sure thing in my life right now and even that will be gone