mobile silence

So many means we have today of communicating words. Most words we spew often generate response and then we need to reply to those responses. Aren't you tired of replying already? And so I revert to writing on a blank canvas that is 'Compose' on a blogging platform.

Truth be told I was forced into a mobile silence today because my phone is not really working. It shut down and then refused to start back up. Which is good since I am still sick with the gastric flu' and ought to rest. Will deal with the repercussions of mobile silence later.

Without needing to constantly reply to things on the Notifications panel I guess we need to go back to basics and speak without prompt. Yes also without being stoked by news and whines and opines we see on Timelines. This is harder than you would think.

But we already are so critical of reactive versus proactive moves by anyone. So why not try and not be stoked into response for a while too yea? Try it. Be introspective, deeper than usual. Strip away humour and all things trivial that are the cover-ups of what lies deeper.

It is as if your boss (or yourself if you are the boss) gave you a day off without any emails, messages, phonecalls, meetings. What would you then do about it?

This hypothetical question which I saw on a nonprofit management tweet, made me immediately reply: spend time with the beneficiaries you manage the nonprofit and raise funds for. Nothing beats going back to basics and getting feet deep in the mud again to revive a sense of cause and passion.

I would venture further then to ask, what would you do for yourself if you had a real day off without neediing to reply to any form of communication?

Wouldn't revival also be a good motive for such a day?

Sit with yourself. Contemplate all the agony and emptiness. Feel the pain but know it will pass. Listen to the urban silence. Then realise you can choose to not answer to anyone but yourself for a change. Big relief. Now all is right with your perspective again. You are not a cog in a wheel. You are not just a replaceable part in a bureaucratic machine. You are not a daisy in a chain of flowers even.

You are so unique words fail to describe.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Sometimes I forget

I egg myself on to do work: my cat rescue work, freelance work and its related tasks. Then I keep stumbling, and get frustrated. It then hits me that I am not wholly well and I forgot that fact. Perhaps like when your legs fall asleep but you don't realise it but still get up to walk like one usually does, then you fall. At this point I recognise that I stumble because I am handicapped, then get frustrated that I am not normal.

(Oh, rest, you say? It is one of those anhedonic days. I have no mood to do anything leisurely like watch TV shows or even eat.)

Which is why this post is shitty, and for now, I will just not bother about it.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:24 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Every day is a defeat

Every day is a defeat, I wake up to its reality, for it is committed as the daily sunrise. Thereafter it is all about trying to overcome the defeat's by-products. Be it sickness of body, exhaustion, unable to make self un-sad, or lack of motivation. Nothing changes this, not even the fact that I am an overcomer who can get over this. I can, of course, perhaps not every day, but the net defeat overcome. But this already means that the premise of every day being a defeat from the get go, is truth

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:45 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

How to make a proper vegetarian soup stock

I am not a vegetarian but I have been trying my best to cut down my meat consumption. I decided to because of health and environmental reasons. Meat is fattier and no, it is not the good kind of fat. If you have already been eating less meat, eating animal fat now will likely give you digestive upset, so it is best to eventually cut it down to nil if you want to reduce consumption of unhealthy fat. Also, it costs the environment a lot to produce meat for our consumption, and I like vegetarian sources of protein anyway. For cooking, I don't need to worry about food contamination from not handling meat properly. So many rules for cooking meat safely, such as not cutting vegetables on the board that was used for cutting meat, making damn sure it is cooked fully. Plus it isn't difficult now to eat less meat because we have so many other protein and calcium choices.

So of late I did a search on making vegetarian soup. Soup is a healthy food choice because it is full of protein without having to eat so much as it is filling. Plus, I really love soup.

Alas the vegetarian soup solutions I found via Google were dismal. Firstly, It always seems to involve miso. I like miso soup, and have just ordered some miso too so I can cook with it. However I am Chinese, so I can't do without my Chinese soups too. Then the internet prescribes hot and sour soups and similar as my Chinese option. Must I? I don't always feel the need for it, and I am Teochew, our soup is clear, not starchy. And J doesn't dig spicy soup anyway. The third option was using coconut milk. I don't see how this is a good idea, perhaps an angmoh notion of Asian soup. The last option I found seems to produce a weak soup that resembles the kind you make with vegetable waste. So, I had to go do some soup inventing.

No I don't know cookery, and I don't follow recipes well. I cook by feeling, and the way I judge my cooking in terms of taste is whether it has all the notes, like in music where you need a variety and bass and treble. So, this is my disclaimer if you don't find my soup invention at all professional to read and follow.

There were a few vegetable soup preparation rules which I read online and followed. 1) Start with cold water. 2) Cut the vegetables in smaller pieces so that there is more surface area from which the flavours can escape. 3) Mushrooms are important, they are the secret ingredient to making flavourful vegetarian soup.

To me, Chinese soup must be herbal to be good. Chinese herbs add flavour of a different kind than vegetables which tend to be light and sweet. So this was one new rule I created for vegetarian Chinese soup stock. Herbs I chose include star anise, dioscorea, red dates and qi zi. You can also try others of course, such as apricot kernels. I do not know the health properties of these herbs. But you should know that star anise is a good addition to vegetarian soup stock. This is because unlike the other herbs, it is not that sweet. Vegetarian soup stock as I discovered tends to be sweeter than meat based soup. So star anise is a good herb to balance that flavour out.

The vegetables that are good for making vegetarian soup stock include cabbage, tomatoes, carrots. Tomatoes obviously make the soup more tangy, whereas cabbage and carrot make the soup sweet. Cut them into small pieces to make the soup more flavourful. I also like using pear or apple, the kind from China. It makes the soup cooling, has a unique flavour (also sweet) and it is delicious to eat when cooked. Other vegetables you can use are more the sort that you cook with, last, before your meal itself, so that it doesn't disappear into leafy bits with no edible girth.

Mushrooms, without a doubt, must be shitake. I buy fresh ones normally, because I also use them in salads and pasta dishes. You can use dried ones. Add mushrooms generously!

You also need the basic Chinese soup ingredients like ginger and garlic. Onion if you eat it too (I don't because it gives me gastric pain). I use whole garlic cloves smashed beforehand, with the skins on.

For seasonings, I added dark soya sauce, pepper, and a dash of salt. The salt is truly optional, but I like my soup less sweet and more savoury, so it had to be. I also added in a Japanese mix of red pepper, roasted sesame seeds, orange peel, chilli flakes, seaweed and ginger. You can buy this pepper mix from a Japanese supermarket like Sakuraya or the Japanese food aisle in Cold Storage. It is the kind you find at the seasonings tray in Jap restaurants next to the soy sauce and wasabi or ginger.  This could possibly be one of the best secret ingredients when it comes to soup seasoning.

I reckon you can make your soup more savoury and spicy without using these seasonings, by adding preserved vegetables to it. Choices like sichuan vegetable, preserved mustard (kiam chye), tang chye, sour plum. I didn't want to go the preserved vegetable route so I didn't try, but you can if you want to! I guess the rule applies too for kimchi.

Put all the tiny pieces of chopped vegetable, garlic and ginger, herbs, mushrooms into a pot. Fill it with water. Boil over low heat for as long as you can. The tomatoes take a while to make the soup tangy, so if your soup isn't sourish yet, it isn't done. When I filled my pot with the ingredients and water it was full to the brim. The soup stock was about 60% of the pot eventually. As it boils the depth of the stock's flavour starts out light and sweet, then moves on to the richness of fish stock, then chicken, and finally the full rounded depth of your regular pork stock Chinese soup cooked by our parents.

So now the soup stock is done! I hope you like it. What to eat it with?

You can make a no-carb soup meal by cooking the stock with tofu, enoki mushrooms, other green veges like spinach and sio pek chye, tomatoes and a little water. You can make a noodle soup too. If you want no-wheat noodles, try buckwheat noodles without wheat. Impossible to find in supermarkets though, so I get them from iHerb. You can also opt for gluten-free quinoa macaroni which will make your soup meal like the macaroni soup of our childhood. If you do want to try buying from iHerb, use my discount code AVA985 and get USD5-10 off your first purchase. If you are not avoiding carbs or are avoiding processed foods then you can eat your soup with rice of course. Add ingredients and the soup stock with some water and boil a nice hearty soup to eat with your rice (think yong tau fu soup you get from the food court).

I totally feel good about this vegetarian soup stock idea. It is as awesome as pork based soups, but it is healthier and lowers my carbon footprint.

Labels: pleasures, share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:58 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

[trigger alert] what a panic attack feels like

You start to not breathe anymore. Well, you still are, surely, but it is like you are merely able to make air enter your throat area and then, it goes not further, does not saturate your lungs. And if you forget to tell yourself to breathe, you realise you are holding your breath. Breathe, damn it!

Then that throat closes up. It is a combination of a swollen throat you get when you are sick, and that choking feeling you get when you cry. It feels like a lump right there blocking your breathing. Talking, aloud, quite difficult now.

Dizziness. Not like that that you get when on a boat on water, but like your brain is floating in water but your body isn't. You feel light headed. Gazing at whatever is in front of you helps, but it means you don't quite register what is around you anymore.

You are still not breathing in the correct way.

Brain continues bobbing on water.

Fingers feel cold and tingly, you tremble.

Chest hurts like hell. Right in the middle. It feels like it is closing in on your heart, right? It is a heart attack, and immediately your entire nervous system tells you for certain that you are going to die, you are going to die. All the muscles around your heart tightens and tightens, it makes your shoulders and neck ache, maybe even your upper arms.

Let's cry, involuntarily.

Legs go weak, cannot... walk...

You cannot move. Or stand. Or get away. Mobility is no longer an option.

So: not breathing, chest constricted, throat closing up, heart in pain, and everything has shut down.

It will be over eventually. You might pass out, and find yourself later curled in a foetal position. Or you might be conscious throughout, if you can call it that. It will end, of course, but until then, this is as close to the shadow of death as it can get.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:54 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

this darn wet rock

Every day feels impossible.

I was taught to set a goal, stretch it a bit further. I believed in excellence, which is also biblical. My motto was that shit happens every day, that's why we are overcomers, which meant we ought to revel in solving problems.

Nowadays of course my days are much mellower. Instead of the kind of impossible that is revelry in endless possibilities, it is the impossible that is what it says on the can: impossible.

Everything is just so hard to do, the difficulty is surreal. Like trying to climb a wall of rock covered in moisture and moss - in a dream, so you keep falling, of course. If I try to do something I should do beyond making dinner (for human or cat) or taking a shower in my daily activities, I feel that almost-drop one does when clinging on to that wet rock with fingertips. With that, you now understand why I would rather stay at the bottom of that cliff face, isolated and alone and far away from attempts at climbing.

(Well, I did enjoy abseiling more than rock-climbing as a younger girl. Dropping down is exhilirating and climbing up is excruciating. Getting to the top is more like relief than a sense of accomplishment, so rock climbing isn't really that fun for a high. To me anyway.)

Two options, the way I see it: look at the cliff and feel destitute that I cannot scale it. Or look away and just enjoy being at the bottom of the cliff.

Or maybe, there is another way out of this little valley or underground cave or whichever, that doesn't require climbing wet rock. It will however take years to get around it, just to get around it. More temperate terrain, but it takes far longer.

Ah well.

In the meantime, tears form for the pain of being trapped below, and numbness from that pain through placing said predicament in my blind spot. Neither is the better option but for an abnormal like me, I don't have very much else to choose.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:30 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

the truth of the matter

Wish I could tell people the truth when I fail, that is that I didn't oblige because I wasn't able to find the strength to. No matter how piddly the task, if I can't, I can't. I lie about why; usually I say I was busy or unwell, alibis that can hardly be proved otherwise. Or else I just disappear. "Take off," is what they usually say on TV shows. How else should I explain that I was too handicapped to do something?

I am a woeful existence. I know that yes there are people worse than I am and so I should not beat myself up. I also know I should not complain and do something about it. Knowing something however does not equal energy required to do any of those aternative actions.

And if I cut myself slack, I only feel worse eventually.

• I honestly want to give up.

Labels: state

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

#nowwatching The Sessions

In one session, Cheryl asks Mark to think about himself as a six-year-old boy. "Do you blame him for getting polio?"

I think of myself as a child, and all I feel is, I am sorry you were in such sadness. Sadness that numbed, you barely even recognised was there all the time, because it was such a perpetual emotion.

It is like breathing, you don't realise you are until you aren't, or until you try to control it. Everything was shrouded in grey. like the earth was already at its end like it is now, every air space polluted periodically. There was no one to blame, no causal relationship to define it; it just was. Why did you grow up in sadness, Elaine? Now that you know what it was, you realise you missed it completely.

Was it worth it, to have serotonin balanced finally. to feel those two instances in your later life what happiness feels like? Now that you know, you know what you didn't. It was such a primal feeling, happiness. You knew it the instance you tried to define what you felt, because our brains are wired to recognise the emotion. But it never returned and it can never replace all those years of loss. The childhood without happiness.

I need to come to terms that I will never naturally feel happiness, and that it is okay not to. "You are trying to be mainstream when you are not mainstream," says the good doc. Happiness is mainstream, and I am not, and I should not strive to achieve it anymore. I need a new framework. Perhaps the old one, which is not to try and feel happiness. but to not feel sad. That in itself will already be a lifelong mission. The new framework should be to try and live out my life's goals while carrying this eternal companion of sadness. Even the most ferocious dogs can be great friends.

Numbing, ignoring, soothing: things one can do to sadness for alleviation of it. Embracing it even, for it is the muse of the artist. It is the bedrock of the compassionate arts, and I am a compassionate artist in the making even if I have not much further to live.

And perhaps one day, I could make another person's childhood experience the happiness I never did in youth, to make up for all those years without in mine. From chaos came creation, so from sorrow and pain, shall come forth joy.

Sadness, I acknowledge you as my friend, at last. Perhaps I have regarded you with too much disdain, or ignored you until you poured words onto canvas through my pen. I recognise that you are my source of compassion in so many ways, and that you will propel me to change this world I live in. If enjoyment brings motivation to the mainstream, bring me the same in this offstream world of mine. Without you, I would have no pain, but without pain, I would not see the same in another.

PS. Watch the movie.

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:37 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

for Romanticism, humanity

Crank me up
but hear nothing.

-

Displaced
as a cassette tape were
to be in a digital world

Do I sound like silence?
Insofar as the universe is.

-

Capture me
on silver, black and white
Create permanence
out of transience.

But that is all.

-

We explain, solve
and today, more, opine
but forget to
feel --
her blood through your veins
her heart in your ribcage.


(Regression is far worse
than transgression.)

In becoming feminist
we became masculine.


Make art, but more Romantic
Display the grotesque
Intersect on countenance
Animate pain bloodily
So that we feel again
Beyond photos, news
and opinions.

Her pain must be felt.
Crank the people up
Hear the injustice
And see the world
As it is.

Alleviate her pain
so that you feel it too.
For there is no happiness
But the absence of sorrow.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:41 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

a postmodernist take on today's right to say whatever we want

In present times we all think we are smart enough to present our views. In fact we demand it, oft-heard in freedom of speech spiels. Journalism is now for the masses and no one dares to refute that anymore. So whatever we say on be it on penny platforms like social media or in serious journalism - they must be right, and have a right to be aired.

In essence we are destroying the egos of others whose views differ from our own. 'I stand corrected' is a hard phrase to utter. Egos -will- be bruised, whether or not the owners of these egos act out acceptably after the injury, or not.

Knowledge is no longer privy to the few who are academics or professionals in their fields. Like the Protestant movement that declares the Bible should be freely available for everyone, like how Marx believed that the aristocracy will always lose its land-owning powers to the people.

But really though, are we taking it a tad too far? Anyone now can pontificate over the internet, and so we do. But in bruising egos, there must also be a tipping point where it becomes the destruction of respect for one another. What else is respect for others after all, but about being delicate with a person's humanity, reputation, values? Which are, if you think about it, attached to our egos.

Sure, when our position is attacked, others may not mean disrespect, as often stressed by opening phrases of, "I mean no disrespect when I say this." But that is only because we choose not to take it as disrespect, and thus not an attack on character. Merely opinions, therefore merely logic, devoid of all that is emotional and intangible otherwise. Knowledge above all: a very modernist concept.

I am of course, postmodern.

But sociological misfittings aside, I think we really ought to, in plain terms, stop hurting one another with our pretty sudden free pass to say whatever we want over the world wide web. We should choose to influence, not insult; if we really want our ideologies (which believe to be true, to each his own) to make a difference in this world. Inspire change and stop bashing in people who hold on to what hasn't changed. And between that, spread cheer, humour, laughter. The social media platforms of today for our individual selves should be platforms mirroring the French salons, not battlefields or the Cold War.

Think about it. Either you disagree and feel a tad (or greatly) incensed by what I have said, because people need to divorce their feelings from logic. Or I am right, and you take this with a pinch of salt and apply bits of it to your pepperings over the internet. Or what I have said is utterly boring or irrelevant and has been a waste of your time. Either way, I know this has made some contact with you. This is the power of today's freedom of speech. Don't abuse yours, then.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:50 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

out of place but not out of count; Twitter and its beautiful people

It baffles me how I am so much less worldly-wise than them yet I feel like I fit in. I am not on par; they are smarter than I am. I do not 'get' witty remarks because I am not that witty. But they just aren't arrogant enough to make me feel small and thus out of count.

In other social circles I am the smart one. I know what others don't. I can pitch in on intelligent topics of conversation. I am all-convincing. Impressive to the point of charmingly attractive.

Not anymore, now that I have met my matches - plural - in real life. (Yes, it IS real life). It is as if I was given membership of an exclusive club, one whose members I feel are my match and above. But I did not have to get sworn in or go through an initiation to be a member of this club. It is exclusive and yet so inclusive!

All I did was follow the right people on Twitter, and somehow they followed me back. Echo chamber of the highest value and without a whiff of arrogance within, as is usual in circles of theorists that are too full of themselves.

Yes, apart from being devillishly clever these people are also folks of character. There are very tolerable levels of passive-aggressiveness, one-upmanship, and general condescension. There is no exclusiveness to the point no one new can penetrate the circle.

What did I do to be welcome, even associated with people of such nobility? Very little; I am just myself, authentic. Thankful then, my real self is acceptable.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:35 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

wistfulness?

So it is time for wistfulness. I wish you would be wistful with me. But it just isn't to be. Because you make it so. I want to contemplate the world with you, about you. But I go alone. And you too. Should it really be this way?

What can I do to be contrary, otherwise? I did what I thought was adequate but it isn't; I suspect even if I did enough I would still be stopped short. Because you would just refuse to pick up the baton at the time it is your lap.

And you would claim it isn't your race. I know, because of all that you left unanswered. Silence is a negative reply, I see.

Will the apparition of you fade away from my subconscious? I hope not, because while it remains, you are torturous.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:01 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Blessed Christmas, I love you

Blessed Christmas.
I love you.

But you know that. I need you, but you know that. I am emotionally weaker than you, but you know that. I make mistakes, but you know that. I break treasured things, but you know that. I am too much for everyone and anyone, but you know that. I am less than normal, but you know that. I am impulsive, but you know that, and I will change.

At the end of it all, I still choose to love.

No better time than this to tell you who read me that I treasure you.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:22 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

absofuckinglutely gorgeous amazing

you are absolutely gorgeous and our eyes locked and I held your face in my hands and you put your mouth on mine and the next moment we knew that this was it there was no stopping now and the clothes just came off I was relishing removing every bit of your clothing to feel your warm skin every touch was electric and you said are you sure and I said I was sure and you decided to fuck all else and I decided long ago I want to fuck you and it was fucking glorious and you put your hand over my mouth just so I couldn't scream that out loud and we filled latex sheaths and wet the groundsheets and there were claw marks on your back and we were drenched with ourselves and you are just absolutely amazing.

Labels: fictitious

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:27 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

To You

I enjoyed that short moment we shared, if moment was the right word to describe this. What made you finally willing to be vulnerable to allow me to penetrate this space of yours? Regardless, I love you for it. Be mine always.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:35 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

repression

If I were to stop repressing every thought and emotion I don't like, chaos would ensue. People will get hurt, tears will flow, hearts will break. And so I retain my most steely front for all of you until I am taken over, reason and all.

Should it be that repression is really a way of life, taken in moderation? I don't do moderation; I am an all or nothing girl.

And, while repression is taking place, what of for the other emotions and needs? Emotions that can be articulated are silenced. But those that have no form to be silenced in go on, grow on. Hunger and lust for example ─ cannot truly be articulated beyond being satisfied.

It therefore follows that repression leads to the pursuit of base desires. If they be met, what would happen?

I know not yet.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:24 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

To June of iwantsuicide.blogspot.sg

June, I read your comments.

It doesn't seem like it, at all, but there really is another way out of suffering that is not death. If you have no reason that you can stay alive for, do it because I am also still alive, also working through this disease. You are right, I do understand.

It is not your fault that you take time off work because you are not well. You did not ask to be sick. It is not out of weakness that you take leave to rest when yoh are unwell - it is the responsible, adult thing to do.

You are not alone.

You are not alone.

You are not alone.

Am waiting for you to call, text or email me back. Promise me you will.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:28 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

one step at a time, straddling grief

When in doubt of what next to do, write. And so, here I turn.

It feels like I am rebuilding a derelict castle, but with granite bricks covered in moss and mud, misshapen. Each time I lay part of a wall, a storm will come through, and it will be knocked down. But I continue.

Will I ever feel real progress towards getting functional, normal, again? The adage, "One step at a time," is apt, because sometimes even taking that one step is so fucking difficult. As if it were one step while in quick sand, black gold, or underwater.

Tonight, I rest, because I feel too off-kilter, in grief, that I cannot make that one more step forward. I admit defeat. Tomorrow I will try again.

On good days - maybe tomorrow will be one - I manage to walk, albeit in clumsy near-falls kind of way. Like trudging along river banks of silt and wet. That is good enough for me.

I take my grief to bed now, and hope it leaves and does not stay the night.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:17 PM    [ 3 comment | ]

recent days

Two days ago, E gave birth. Baby E is absolutely gorgeous. I love him already and will see him next week.

In so many ways we have stopped communicating. For me, even more so, because it is just that much harder to pick up a phone, reply a message. The last time I checked on E she wasn't even pregnant. I lovwe so, yet completely missed her pregnancy. I feel awful about that.

I have come to prefer monologues over dialogues. This way, I have no questions to answer. I need not lie about anything just to make someone else feel better. I do not need to tire myself to draining point pretending to be cheery and all right.

Every day I struggle with trying to be better. This could mean making a successful trip out to be with friends. On bad days, it could mean I actually could stood and walked enough to take two showers in a day. I feel like a complete invalid of course. I envy people who can do normal things that I wish I were doing: working, housework, indulging in hobbies. For me all those things are obstacles I have to scale. One day I will get there. Right now, I will do what is set before me.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:45 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

a sixteen year old dream, and counting.

I still dream of being with the poorest of the poor and making their lives that bit better. Is this dream ever going to materialise? It has been with me for almost half my life now. Everything I do gears towards fulfilling that calling. When I dig myself out of this pit that is my black dog, I will be there. On the streets, in the shelter homes, in the slum clinics. One day.

I am still waiting. My life is slowly dripping away. Years have been somewhat lost, yet critical in this journey of living the dream. For now, I merely walk one step at a time, one day at a time. For I am an invalid. Yes, for now indeed.

Will do best in meantime, that is all I can. To push depression into remission. No matter how long it fucking takes. A decade maybe. Let's go, then.

Labels: status

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:09 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

a letter to ─

Sometimes I feel like you and I might have a go if the timing were different. Then I realise I don't completely understand your thoughts towards me, that maybe the motive is friendship. I am keen on that really, it would be a blessing to have you by my side as a friend. Of course even as friends, there will always be an inkling of attraction that I have for you. Will you mind that.

I don't know what exactly it is that you do, that makes me feel your love, that makes me want to walk your journey with you.

You are an awesome human being, a wonderful man, a rarity. I do admire you. It is an honour to have your acquaintance.

I do hope you will reply this letter, but if you don't, it is all right. Not every fantasy should cross over to this reality. Meanwhile ─ am thinking of you with a smile in my eyes. Lovely friends have this effect on me, and you, are lovely; almost a treasure.

Labels: fictitious

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

#nablopomo four of thirty

Sleep is being a cunt-tease. So I load up on overdoses of sedative pills to try and lure the bastard to knock me out for at least eight or nine hours straight. No can do, he only lasts for three hours at a stretch. Then I have to spam pills all over again.

What I feel: anger. I. Just. Want. To. Sleep. Not nap! Sleep!

I also feel depressed when I cannot sleep; last night I literally cried myself to sleep. Cunt-tease took pity on me and gave me about four hours. Especially because I really wanted to be made love to so I could sleep, and be less lonely, but it didn't happened. I felt more abandoned than ever, and the tears came even harder. I dealt with two cunt-teases last night.

Think I will crank up the dose of x*nax tonight. It is the worse thing to sleep to because I wake weirded out, disoriented physically and mentally. But for the sake of subduing the bastard. Let's see who wins tonight.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:15 PM    [ 12 comment | ]

#nablopomo three of thirty

Every now and then I think of you, an insignia of lost lovers. You are gorgeous, absolutely. But what I love of you, is not you. It is all that you represent: a hope for serendipity again, an aching for one more chance, a void that can only be filled by that one lost lover.

Even then, as an insignia, you are beautiful in your own form. I want to take in your beauty, as far and as deeply as it can go. I cannot contain all of you but I want to try. A taste, a parting of lips, breathing you in. Touching you where it matters, with my tongue, because you are as delectable as you are beautiful.

- Those words above, formed because of you. You perhaps might also become my muse, if I ever have that honour. I promise you a lifetime of fighting over creativity and ideas and design and art, ending perhaps in tears, or in communal couch hogging with happy smiles on our faces.

That, I miss, of that one lost lover, and you remind me of that. Insignia of lost lovers, you fold space and time: taking the past to recreate the present, for me; creating a new love, inspired by the old ones. A swap from what-could-have-been, to what-could-be.

I am still waiting, what could be. Thanks for the kisses.

Labels: fictitious

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

#nablopomo two of thirty

Days have past since my mention of my mood journalling assignment and, I have not started it.

Apart from wondering if I should write it, type it, present it as a spreadsheet - no clue which yet - it is also hard to record a mood after it descends and you recover. Wait too long you forget, during the episode you may be too broken up to even breathe proper, let alone wield a pen or tablet. Writing is cathartic but painful and tiring, sometimes, there is no good time to broach a subject.

Also, this kind of journalling feels like record-keeping not unlike writing a timesheet or checking inventory. To prevent it from feeling like so, writing it would be the best move, in my notebook. And then maybe take a photo and send it to my doctor! Hmm, combine it with hashtagged tweeting perhaps?

Well, my doctor, Marcus, is really trying his best to help me, and earnest about it. I don't want to let him down. He won't blame me of course, but my words will open me up to him. I am a labyrinth of confounding thoughts, which I find hard to say even after my years on Twitter trying to become an open book. I have learned to, but it is not easy.

Will keep trying. Thank you for reading me.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:22 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#nablopomo one of thirty

Injustice:
Perhaps I felt it too often growing up,
thus my calling to want to meet the greatest needs.
A calling is a spiritual one -
but it also depends on what you're built like
And I am built to hate injustice
So much, that I cry when I watch the news.
Especially about streetkids in Asia:
Welschmerz kicks in hard.
I was made to hate injustice I guess.
Compassion, passion, depression:
a veritable combination.
There is more to that, regardless,
I hope I will be fighting injustice
For the rest of my life.

Labels: me, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:40 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#nablopomo zero of thirty

Aptly, my psychiatrist gave me a mood journal assignment to do, just this week, though I haven't started yet. I was pondering between writing about that for the next thirty days to come or simply write my usual cryptic words haphazardly arranged, on worlds upon words. I am not sure what decision I come to, yet.

But I do know this, writing makes one's writing better, and reading gives one ideas; and so, I start, and end, day zero with this.

I read today that what you hate in the world is related to what you hate about yourself. The first thing that came to mind was 'injustice'. How about you? I will expound more, from this paragraph, on day one, which starts in twenty minutes or so here in Singapore. Injustice is very linked to me because of my oft-occurring welschmerz so I will surely return for it.

Meanwhile, have a good writing month ahead.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:43 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#nablopomo sounds like a dirty word

but I need the challenge. I can't Nanowrimo anyway because I don't write fiction nor anything the length of a novel. But while everyone is wrotong during November, Avalon Day month! I don't want to feel left out. so I will. Challenge accepted.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:57 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

feeling like a crushed piece of newsprint

                                 Agony.
              I feel the crushing to my bones,
 from a sadness that seems to transcend the mind
              and onto the body.

                                My heart
              feels like it has been on a treadmill ECG test
 since beginning of time.
              "Tired like fuck."

Labels: state, words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:30 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

reservoir

Reservoir of memories,
More like, the Dead Sea
where all that was me dies.
Every flat I've lived in
and every lover,
Turns to sediment
Floats in salinity

No phoenix - ever -
rose out of the Dead Sea

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:40 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

cut-up words in a cryptic arrangement they call 'poetry'

Does an artist truly ever paint from the beginning of the canvas like the writer does, from the top left hand corner.

Not always.

Why then do we conform to paragraphical methods that have to appear left to right top to bottom in lines and coherent sentences?

This is why one of the books that influenced my writing style forever is Working Hot by Kathleen Mary Fallon.

Prepare to have your canvas turned sideways a little, and perhaps your brushstrokes abruptly stopped. Find that book and read it.

For posterity's sake, here are some cut-up words in a cryptic arrangement they call 'poetry'.

Labels: share, words

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

#WhyIWrite: Poetry and such, I suppose

I am not sure whether this is unanimous, but there are people asking me to publish my poetry. I am not ready to do so, unless I die. My friend Eisen has the directive to publish my poems should I no longer be living. But maybe one day I will publish while alive, in the real sense, not in the, "Imma give you a book of letters," way.

There are lots of poems lost out there, given to H mostly. I wrote on all kinds of paper, even on the packaging teabags come in, even on envelopes torn open with my brute fingers after mail sorting. No one is going to find those letters, unless H kept them and is willing to hand them to Eisen post-Elaine-mortem.

Poetry, which I was reminded of by this article, is something I have been neglecting to write. I am so caught up with micro-blogging via Twitter that I have no urgency to journal my feelings and suchlike.

Poetry has its uses for despair. It can carve a shape in which a pain can seem to be; it can give one’s loss a form and dimension so that it might be loss and not simply a hopeless haunting. - Christian Wiman

Even in a physical notebook I don't date my entries and write anything in relation to how I feel for the day and what were the ups and downs of my daily activity. I could never create a spreadsheet of my moods and symptoms for my psychiatrist like some depression patients actually do.

Then I remember something I tweeted with the hashtag #whyIwrite and to paraphrase it I said, because words form themselves into sentences in the air like radiowaves and can only materialise when pen is upon paper.

And if you know me, my poetry is such. I am but an instrument, not in a spooky way, but I find that I am catching words in the air, that is all, that is my poetry.

I was told by the counselor at the psych ward I just spent one week in, to write more. So, with that, I will. As soon as I get this cat off my lap, perhaps.

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:00 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

ready, set, sleep! all these things notwithstanding.

It's time. Time to sleep, which is never easy at night when I am supposed to. And I have no control over if and when I wake up halfway through, interrupting the entire sleep.

This is shallow.

I am tired, drowsy enough from medication, and it is late. I am writing my feelings and such, down, albeit on a blog post instead of a private diary (lost the last one). But writing, the right circumstances and all that, do not make trying to sleep less anxiety-causing for me. Only easier to execute the plan of getting self to fall asleep. zdo thi, will sleep. Do that, will sleep. It is a freaking tactical operation.

I was advised to write more, put more words into reality. So I wrote here what I am feeling this moment. Nothing fancy, just how I feel.

What else do I feel? Like a failure. Like a sub-par human being not worthy of the food I eat or air I breathe.

Ok, plan for successful sleep ─ continue with steps that follow after 'writing'.

Labels: state

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

kismet

no sorries.
no goodbyes
just silence
- in the space
between you
- and me,
no words
just thoughts
like tributaries in a delta
where the river meets the sea
- and dies.

you inspire me
your tears lay in my breast
evaporated not into thin air
but seeped in my heart
my heart knows only pain
and you took some of
- that - away.
I was on a tightrope
but now I lay, grounded
because - kismet -
brought you to me.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:38 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

doing a stand-in gig on @hellofrmSG, Singapore's rotation curation twitter account

Photo by Kevin @inrsoul from Cake Images LLP



Here is my bio for the official Hello From SG blog:

This is @avalon, full name Chiam Elaine, born in 1979 in Kandang Kerbau Hospital, Singapore. If this were a real paragraphical curriculum vitae I would say I have a B.Sc in Management with Law (Hons.), which means to say I am a generalist, good at everything, excellent at nothing sort of person. I live in the estate of Ubi, which is located in the southeast of Singapore, near Paya Lebar airbase, in between Eunos and Macpherson MRT train stations. My home is a 2 bedroom flat, and I share it with my boyfriend Andy of four years (referenced to as J in my own Twitter account). I also share this home with four children of the furry, feline kind. Yes, I am a crazy cat lady.

Which brings me to what I do. I am financially unemployed, but occupied with running a cat rescue group together with Andy out of our own home, called Love Kuching Project, kuching being the romanised spelling of the Malay word kucing for cat. Since graduating from school I have been in various jobs and industries: sales, human resource management, marketing, banking, training, teaching, education, design, the arts, NGO work (see what I mean when I say I am a generalist). I stopped working full-time about five, six years ago, originally taking a sabbatical, then finally having to stop altogether, because I suffer from severe clinical depression, and I had entered a second major episode. Doctors feel I should lead a normal life so I am not institutionalised but I have been hospitalised before. I switched to freelance work, teaching, both here and in Batam, Indonesia, as well as doing copywriting. This year I stopped doing freelance work altogether, because it turned out my health suffered even from whatever little amount of freelance work I did - I ended up in hospital once after increasing the number of days I taught in a week. So now it is just volunteer work I do.

When I am not doing catty stuff, I am usually... being really mad on Twitter. No kidding, I really, really love Twitter. Mainly because I feel like I am talking to myself. I am an only child and that is pretty much we do. I am irreverent, I oscillate between trying to be cleverer than I am and being silly and inane. Even though I am mentally ill, I am intellectually functional, and I shall attempt to show that we who need psychologists and psychiatrists too, are human beings worthy of dignity and respect. And don't worry about hurting my depressed feelings when I am on this rotation curation account yeah, because I am rather resilient against shitty things people say about me lah. Depressed people probably are their own harshest critics anyway!
Other hobbies besides cats and cat work! I love watching TV shows online. I love reading, though I do that less now. I love music - to listen to, mainly, I occasionally strum a guitar and sing, sometimes to troll my neighbours. I like art, but many rotation curators have covered that so I won't be talking about it! I most of all love writing, evidenced by my very long bio here.

I am a fill-in curator for this account, but I shall try to do a good job. Nonetheless, as I always say on Twitter: if you don't wanna read it, just unfollow. A new curator will come in next week, no love lost!

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

(because @contrabandkarma told me to write): the war nurse

I wonder how war nurses feel. Dealing with soldiers away from home, already in emotional distress, wrecked further by the trauma of war. Blood, tears, last words and letters. The war nurse sees more soldiers dying or maimed or traumatised psychologically, than patients she nurses to health that go home relieved and happy.

Not only is the job heart breaking in itself, there exists the threat that one day, one dying soldier might be that one straw that breaks the camel's back. And she becomes irreparable, albeit still going about her duties, but numbed and overfilled with the sadness of the ward, and the world. Welschmerz.

Then there are the matrons, other nurses, nurses' aides, doctors. People who undermine you. Almost like a persecution, somewhat like how Mother Teresa was turned down time and again to be allowed to do missionary work in India. The war nurse loves her patients, but already pulled and torn by the amount of suffering she has sought to co-bear with the soldiers, she faces more crushing blows to her heart from the spirits of her comrades in medicine. It is a war after all, everyone is distraught, and has no luxury of pandering to or pondering over.

Even the young, school girl nurses' aides undermine her somehow.

There is no one to turn to, to whom she can simply whisper her woes, to let them occupy another vessel as well as her own. For she is either surrounded by others who have no vessel to bear, or people who will invalidate her thoughts through some magic of the absense of love and respect. Who will rape the contents of her vessel, or simply disallow them to enter their own.

She meets a farmhand, who works not far from the military hospital. He is cheerful almost everyday, despite the air raids and constant ambulance traffic passing him. He brings her field flowers, fresh eggs from the barn, walks with her when she can take a break off nursing the infirmed.

She tries to enter the farm boy's vessel with her worries and thoughts, but tragically realises, he cannot bear them. Simply because he knows nought of the deep river of empathy that drives her, for to him, a simple, good day's work that bears fruit to bring home to his family, is more than sufficient. The nurse understands this, but she has never been one who satisfied easily with such content. She continues to love the farm boy's sunshine, and decides to bury her vessel, for no one in this war, around her, now, will be able to hear of its whispers and not break without judgement.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:18 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

publishing my poems: will u want a copy?

This idea came to me in the middle of the night, perhaps by way of a dream, I do not know. I have decided to do a simple first publication of my collection of poems over the years.

The books will be handwritten and handstitched-bound; unique and each copy one-of a kind. I am asking Little Jam Jar http://www.shop.littlejamjar.com/ to stitch bind the books for me so what you see on her Etsy store is similar to what my poetry book will look like.

Will select the poems to publish, possibly about close to 60 of them, and arrange them by theme.

I won't embark on this project until I know if there are people out there who will buy my poetry book. The price would be similar to paperback books but slightly higher, since I will be printing them by hand. If you would like one, let me know so I can decide to print them. Leave a comment or better yet, tweet me @avalon to let me know.

Hoping the money raised from selling my poetry will help alleviate the financial burden my illness has caused, and possibly help fund future medical bills as well.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:33 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

the balancing act that is repression and expression

In my first identifiable depressive episode, which also lasted a few years, I self-helped my way to push the depression I always had into remission. One of the skills I learnt then, was how I needed to not keep my thoughts and feelings to myself so much, to learn to talk about them. To validate the emotions I had and realise it was not weak for me to express how I truly felt. Repression is a cause for depression striking, and I did know it rang very true for me.

Recent years, during this current depressive relapse, I put that into motion again. I express my feelings on words, be it here, or in tweets. It isn't easy opening a closed book, but I succeeded.

I felt disappointed with myself though, lately, because I realised I was still repressing. A couple of weeks ago, a sick foster cat who had cancer, died. I am used to death, being I'm the rescue industry, so I was pretty okay emotionally; didn't get attacked by a bout of welschmerz.

But I ended up being even more deflated, exhausted, demotivated about things after that. It has been difficult. Getting work done was impossible. And only when after a couple of weeks had passed, then did I realise that the foster cat's death was the straw that broke the camel's back. I had been broken, burnt out, and pushed into a life-sucking deflatedness.

Why did it take me so long to realise all this? I thought I should have sooner seen that a rescue's death will shake me; cement me in being burnt out, put on another layer of shadows that is depression itself. I asked my psychiatrist this question.

He said that sometimes we may bury certain feelings, but it also isn't all bad. Maybe it should only be opened up and revealed when we are ready to deal with it. Like various things we hide in closets, we should only open them to pack the closet when we are ready to pack. Opening it when when we are not ready to pack yet, will just leave the closet in a bigger mess than before.

This comforts me about my native instinct to repress my feelings. But I will continue to explore my feelings to validate them, and express them in words that are plain and not poetry-cryptic. When long-buried feelings surface, it means it is also time to validate those, and there will each time be a good reason why they had stayed behind for a while. All this said, because I need to learn how to cope with life's downs better, that are hidden within the myriad of emotions that is in my being.

Labels: state

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

Status update: Blank and withered.

Opening up a blank page such as this, and suddenly all the words swirling around in my head simply freeze up and evaporate. The truth is: I haven't anything new to add to the world using my words, here. I am simply the same - exhausted as usual, lack of emotion except some sadness, feeling reclusive, finding it hard to smile. The same old.

I am going back into my figurative cave now. I really don't feel like talking to anyone, because it would mean I would have to fake common courtesy, use energy I don't have, pretend to be alive when inside I feel withered. Whatever cheekiness I present to the world when I do, it is a mask. Comedy masks depression, but, you already know that.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 8:02 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

distraught and violated and more

J lost his bag today. He left it at the lift lobby of the government building he works at, Revenue House, where the income tax people work too. Someone took it, and CCTV footage will determine who did when he gets to work tomorrow with the police report he made earlier.

He came home to me, and as he talked to me lying in bed, was about to break into tears. I held him, and he cried. I told him what Jesus said, that in this world we will have trouble, but He gives us his peace. That no matter what right things he does, shit and bad things will still happen to us.

J has been having trouble at work because shit keeps happening. It is related to his whistleblowing on a colleague's corruption and the investigation is taking forever. He is also beginning to feel inadequate at doing his job. This is not the J I know anymore.

I know he will find another good job because he is more than qualified for his sector.

But losing his bag, wallet, and the goverment issued PDA, and the fact that the person turned on the PDA (we could call through but the person kept hanging up on us), it is the last straw, almost.

I have been so unnerved by all of this. J's despondency, what caused it.

Been playing this and it helps.




And apart from music therapy, I medicated according to my panic attack symptoms: my hands had gone numb and I lost my voice. I was momentarily paralysed and couldn't quite move. I am on the verge of tears and the sadness is overwhelming in the realm of wanting to end it all. And so I medicated that too.

 Regardless, a feeling of despondence resides in the air, it is thick and tangible, like the haze that has been plaguing us of late.

Labels: arts, share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:39 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

I can't sleep.

And even if I do, i don't really want to face another day and wake up to it.

I am really really tired.

Exhausted.

Anhedonic: nothing pleasures me. I can't read very much. I can't watch films. I don't touch my guitar or my paints.

Work is what drives me to wake in the morning and that is all I will wake up for.

But I am tired. Of doing things. Because every action takes more energy than is necessary for it. Something is leaking strength, and the leakage is in me.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:22 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

stigma on #mentalhealth patients in the workplace

I was reading a Time to Change article about stigma revolving around revealing one's mental ill-health at work: http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/blog/disclosing-mental-illness-bipolar-at-work

It is real, this stigma. There are people out there who think that I should not be taking care of rescue cats and running a cat rescue group because I have severe clinical depression. A minor few of the stakeholders, that is, the concerned public that knows about our work.

It extends even further. I am not likely to secure a job with another organisation than my own because I am mentally disabled. Never mind I am shit-hot good at whatever I do embark on (that's what people said). So to prevent stress on hiring managers on how to handle a person like me, I should do no-brainers like reception or administrative work perhaps. Only, I am over-qualified to do them and I won't get hired. So, no, I am not high on chances in getting a job outside of freelancing and my volunteer work (which pays me a small honorarium).

If I were to get a job (like my teaching stint in Indonesia) even after revealing my mental health status, I am a source of stress to the leaders and co-workers because I will often get panic attacks or psychosomatic illnesses. Who on earth wants to give so much medical leave to an employee? Eventually, I will be deemed un-useful and terminated.

Ways out of this stigma in the workplace? Organisations must understand the common mental illnesses well. They need to make accomodations for us, without undermining our actual ability to do the job. Kind of impossible for now, but perhaps someone will write a good policy paper on this for organisations to follow.

Another way is to go entrepreneurial. My choice of route. Navigate your business according to your own health and pace. Make your organisation a success, heck, a force to be reckoned with in your industry. And work your way towards getting your income from your venture. Disclose your mental illness, and with shit-hot work done by your hand to show, no stigma for you. Or at least, only from a few; but the minority tail cannot wag the majority dog. So, be shit-hot!

The entrepreneurial route is not easy to take of course. If you can still work, disclose your mental illness only to those you trust. So that at least someone at work understands when a symptom shows up. Play your office politics well in this scenario, so no one can use your mental illness against you. This is the conservative route to avoid being stigmatised too much.

Not a mental health sufferer? Please read up on common mental health problems like generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), clinical depression, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), schizophrenia. And do me a favour: after you Google these and find statistics on how prevalent these disorders are, forward them to your colleagues. There needs to be a revolution on mental illness education in the workplace, so oddballs like us can be less stigmatised by the people we work with.

Labels: worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:55 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

an empty toothpaste tube

I am lying in bed and crying because I have run out of ideas on how to feel and act better. My cat, Sayang, knows something is wrong and has taken time out from her nap to watch over me.

Of course, technically, I am alone. I tire anyone who takes care of me, and it shows because the house is in a mess that J can't get round to clean. It would take all of me to do it, if succeeding in that chore is even possible for me. I have but just a little lifeblood in me left.

Like an almost empty toothpaste tube being squeezed of its life just to get that last bit of toothpaste juice on the toothbrush.

Like hanging on a ledge and feeling almost no strength left to hold on any longer.

I can barely breathe because a lump is in my throat from trying to hold back tears. Tears from a pain that has always been present for no real reason, only momentarily absent now and then from aid of medication or numbing out on something occupational or otherwise. Which means that the reality is living with pain every day.

I'm tired.

Anyone fighting forever would be tired. It isn't my fault that I am exhausted every day. Being able to accept that isn't easy but I try and sometimes believe it. I push away guilt and the Elaine that condemns myself for being unable, lazy, selfish, weak.

The first thing you learn in clinical depression is that you will condemn yourself for having it in the first place. Accepting that you need to be healed is probably the biggest step of all.

And so I turn and look inward, within myself. I see the abyss. The drained out toothpaste tube. It hurts so fucking much to see the darkness swirling with whatever life is left inside. To know that you are truly alone in my pain no matter how much empathy you can garner from others.

This pain: it curls you up and crumples your entire self from within. It is a physical thing you can feel. Sooner or later I might run out of ways to describe the pain. But it is there regardless, with no respect for what I think.

For now, I will lay whispers of tears on my pillow and face this abyss, rest like a patient being ordered to, just be. Accept the pain in my chest, but not giving up - for as long as is possible.

Ain't no mountain high enough right? Ha, perhaps.

Labels: state

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

tired

I am tired, literally: I have been consistently sleeping away the past few days and nights, and every chore is difficult. Frustration over the inability to get things done sets in hard, as does guilt, but I simply have no physical energy to assuage those feelings. Fatigue is ever-present and it is so extreme, I cannot even find the strength to write more than this about how tired I really, truly am.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:46 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

sunrises

I hate sunrises. Especially when on holiday, your 'friends' make you wake up early just to catch the sunrise. The sun rises every bloody day, okay?

Right, I do sound like an angsty Gen Y or Millenial kid today. I know that, and I am sorry.

But I still do hate sunrises.

I am now hiding myself from the sunrise, with the curtains of the room drawn, left alone with most of the cats out in the lounge and kitchen instead. I medicate with alcohol so that the dawn of a new day does not freak me out. The idea of having to live a new day scares me out, makes me sad, and weighs me down. When I went to bed last night, I wished it was a long winter-style night that stretched out forever. Alas.

I ended up waking from very little sleep achieved, and starting my day with a cigarette and a prayer. I realised that, in conclusion, I should just - screw the new day -. Who cares what I do or don't do? What I need every day is refuge from pain and if possible, a step towards relieving that same pain. I shall do just that today. Once I am free from the burdens and obligations I set upon myself (or even those laid on by others) I can achieve more.

Yes, that is how I started today, before sunrise. Because every new day is so damn difficult.  I wish I didn't wake up this morning but I did. I wish I could die today, but I can't. I wish it was still night, when the world slept and there was some relief away from it. But no, we can't always have what we want.

If you read this, and feel the same way, my heart aches for you. No one should have to go through the affliction of dreading being alive and hating sunrises. I am truly sorry.

If you read this and don't understand and feel retaliation with a counter-point is necessary, please enjoy life instead. On my behalf. Because I am unable to, no matter what expert advice you might give. Go out and enjoy your Wednesday.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 7:30 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

a poet's respite

pen touches paper,
creating a vessel
for the universe
that is words
formed melodically
- to flow.

a poet's respite
is not of creation.
Miro-esque meditation
through art -
would be far
more apt to describe.

And when she has nought
Poet meditates the words
flying through worlds
Waiting to exist.
Words that flow
Like a stock update:

Fast, visual and aplenty
Too much too many.
But the poet revels
For even in mind
There is respite -
Always, worlds upon words

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:33 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Hero and a Wounded Soldier

I need you both. Hero to save me from myself, you, the broken one who feels less than who you are, who gets into sullen moods of melancholy and silence.

I want someone to save me from the big D, and I want to dress your wounds like a war-nurse. I need both a Hero and Wounded Soldier. I will always be attracted to both of you.

Can my sex and womanhood save you both when you need it? I will wrap myself around you or let go in the silence, whichever is necessary. But I need you both.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:32 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

blood and pain

make glass, with my blood flowing in it

make pottery, and glaze my blood on it

bash a mirror, let my blood flow in the cracks -

these are the imageries that appear

when I think about my pain

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:36 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Okay

It is okay to be melancholic. It is okay to need help. It is okay to be in pain.

But hang on -

I will try. I will need you.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:58 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

avalon does erotica: that handsome stranger

He did all the right things to make me wet. By now, he was at my lips - the lower ones - letting his tongue do the work. His beard bristled against my perineum just as his tongue found my G-spot, and I never came as hard and as totally as I have with a stranger.

We then kissed, his mouth masculine yet soft, his moustache moist with my cum. I was still shivering in orgasm. He ran his hands over my breasts such featherlike in manner that I almost came again.

I really needed to take control by this time, mustn't let a handsome stranger turn me to mush and have the upper hand. I forcibly got him to lie on his back, removed his boxers and proceeded to deep-throat him. He let out an audible moan. I wet my finger and stroked his balls. What I wanted was for him to moan in pleasure. This I wanted so badly from this stranger.

He then looked down at me, hovering at his crotch, and whispered, "I want to pleasure you. Now." I let his cock flip out of my mouth, knowing yet again I was to be overcome. I slipped a condom over his wet dick, and let him climb atop me.

Holding on to his loins as he pushed into me, I felt like I was entering a new world. He fucked me hard, and I came in a way I almost never do with any other man.

I loved his body. Lithe, yet not too athletic. A normal man. But an extraordinary lover.

Labels: fictitious

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:31 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

trying hard, real hard, that it isn't today

I want to not exist anymore. Because pain co-exists with me.

Am trying my darnedest best.

But the sadness and pain presides with me so much.

There is so much I can still do on earth.

But can I withstand the suffering just to do them?

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:27 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#hougangbyelection Brand Management Flaws, Exposed

A lot of people may have boiled down certain observations in the by-elections of the constituency of Hougang to simple human errors of slight, here and there. But really, there is a much larger picture that needs to be examined, and that is how campaign management failed to present or maintain a solid brand image.

I am a management person at heart so when synchronicity of a brand is poorly managed, or when PR is done in a slipshod manner, I inwardly cringe. Also, I watch TV shows on fictional political campaigns; that probably sounds illegitimate as credibility but after just watching a certain 'expert' on CNA talk about her thoughts on the by-elections, I think I can do a better job by writing this piece for you and qualifying what I have written in the paragraph above.

Let's be fair and first analyse the incumbent party, Workers' Party, and its failures in campaign management. It is not so much in the campaign week itself that they failed in, marketing-wise, but the way PR was handled during the case of the disappearing MP, Yaw Shin Leong, which led to his expulsion from the party and thus the by-election. The party leaders took too long to step in and do damage control. They remained silent while inwardly they were probably planning what the next step was when Yaw's case came to light.

But that is not the way it should have been managed. In the interim, before the press conference announcing Yaw's expulsion and the plans to conduct another round of voting were announced, they should have stepped in, gone in front of the media, to do damage control. Silence leads to speculation among the people. Do not allow speculation to go out of control, because that is poor brand management. If you are selling integrity - something all political parties should be - then silence is -not- integrity. Imagine if a large corporation is rumoured to be, say, polluting its nearby waters. Before the rumours spin out of control, step into the light which is the media, and assert the brand's values. Even if the pollution rumours are true, you prevented gossip from stewing and taking root in the stakeholders. Shallow-rooted sentiments are easy to sway; deep rooted mistrust is not.

As for the PAP, which has not been able to win the constituency of Hougang for two decades, where do I even start? Okay, let us say that you did not study marketing in school at all. The simple logic in marketing is that, what you say has got to be what people get. Otherwise, it causes what marketing textbooks call 'cognitive dissonance'. Let's examine where the PAP has failed and caused cognitive dissonances.

Desmond Choo, the PAP representative for the by-elections, said to the public, "I am my own man." Unfortunately what he said is not what the Hougang folks got. He was accompanied often by bigwigs in the party that included even the Prime Minister. If you needed PM Lee and DPM Teo Chee Hean to help, then do not promise people you are your own man. It causes cognitive dissonance. Simple marketing principle, no?

Next, you say that the by-election should be one that focuses on local issues in Hougang, not national issues. Why then is the print media you hand out to Hougang residents chock-full of nationwide initiatives? Again, not saying what you mean or meaning what you say.

If you wanted to say in print and to the media what you were doing, it should perhaps been words like, "The nation's resources always here for you," or "Vote Choo, a man endorsed by your ministers." And suchlike, (probably needs some copywriting truncation as those are too many words to fit in). Or you could have done something like say, hey, we already say own man, local issues so let's not talk about NCMPs, and make sure the ministers don't come to Hougang.

I could go on but I have mentioned and expounded on two campaign management failures by the PAP already, versus WPxs one public relations faux pas. And I wrote this too late, the Workers' Party already won by the time I got down to penning my opinions.

In short, we have a serious lack of expertise in brand management in our political scene. The ruling party treats the nation as a corporation, so then, do marketing management likewise, PAP. As for the opposition parties, do take a look at how one of my characters on TV, Eli Gold, does crisis management.

Typed on my tablet, excuse spelling errors please :)

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:42 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

the distance from normalcy

How far indeed should I trek towards becoming a normal human being? Everything is achingly difficult, but I try nonetheless. But with every regular human trait, sense, of negativity being amplified in a depressive state, I feel like this trek is harder than scaling a overhanging cliff.

And what indeed is -being normal-? When I feel normal, I am not sad. I am not happy either because I don't have the ability to feel happy for real. I just am in a state of nothingness, then, innit?

So what then, is all this trekking for?

I feel like I am a blue-collar worker just clocking in and out, just because. The search for normalcy becomes proletariat in nature. Just do enough to survive. Make some music sometimes. Laugh at small things. Then suffer again the next day at work. So you can go home. And then repeat the next day the same thing.

Yes, my trek towards normalcy is like a never-ending occupation that repeats and repeats and I may never own anything beyond what I have described. Normalcy is in the hands of the fictional capitalists, and I am fucking proletariat.

Like today: I wake up feeling bloody angry. Triggered by construction noises. Then after that, the anger lingers far too long and I am incapacitated. So I try and think up every possible way to combat that. My challenge for the day. I decide to exercise, medicate, drink chilled coffee, smoke, and some of those things work, the others don't. I just keep trying anyway, because it is like a work problem to be solved: you brainstorm and you fix it. It took me all morning, and I am still at it.

And here I am, as I write this, still upset, albeit less, but feeling drained and limp and, nothingness. The ideal state I would like to be in now, is to sleep for three days straight. But that is not normal. We must keep fighting to become a normal human being no?

Oh, you are already normal? Congratulations. You are a better person than I am. Please, go journey towards making a difference in this world, because you are already normal enough to do so. I, am not there, yet, if ever.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:49 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

It all amounts to nothing.

It all amounts to nothing.

There is nothing in this world that will make me happy. Medication and such can remove the sadness for a while, but it will remain, and supposedly happy things will never take place, take hold, in my plane of existence.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:15 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Remember H? He was the one that got away. If you have followed me since the birth of worlds upon words in 2003, he was the reason why this blog exists. H and I were made for each other, but just not meant to be.




I haven't been reading your blogs for awhile. Maybe that is why I hardly write as much, apart from anhedonia in general. But today, I came across a blog that cut me between flesh and bone - because the writer reminded me of H.

So closely.

I paste paint sketches on the wall. Back in 2001, H pasted cutouts of his photographs on the wall. We have a taste for the abstract. This writer I came across today, his pictures are like those cutouts. He writes the way I do, like a male version of avalon. I wish I never read him now, because it hurts too much to meet someone's inner albeit online world that resonates so deeply with your past, your loves, you.

And it is so obvious, that he has taken the role of one or another mentioned in the poem above.

I am sorry if I don't read you, before or anymore. Sometimes, it hurts to read you. Maybe it hurts you to read me too, and I am sorry for that.

To the writer I read today: put your hat on and walk into the sunset, away. But know that while you may never meet her again, years on, in a different city or in your neighbourhood, it really doesn't matter. Walk, stop, be someone, meet many someones. You are absolutely beautiful - already.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:08 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

randomities

I wake every morning and check my Twitter to see how many hours I logged sleeping at night. Then I go through that horrible struggle to become awake - actually awake - so that I can start on my kitty work. An arduous process, but I usually achieve it.

I have an obsession with my work. I stay alive for it: literally, it is one of my main concerns whenever I struggle with any suicidal ideations. It is also my occupational therapy and something that makes me feel useful because I rarely fuck it up.

Today I don't feel all that wannabe productive. Maybe because my psychiatrist's appointment today is in the afternoon and it seems to break the pattern of the entire day.

I see days in thirds. No it is not because of my art background. I see it as morning, afternoon and night, that is all. Because kitty work is done in all three parts of the day. It ain't a nine-to-six job after all.

Okay, I merely typed this to test out a new blog to twitter feed app because I need to recallibrate the cat blog's one. 

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:06 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Marriage is an Ecosystem

What sometimes couplehood is, is simply an ecosystem that works in division of labour, being good friends who like fucking each other. In trying to find that perfect match for me since I wrote down my List - every girl has that List - about ten years ago or longer, I realised a while back that he doesn't exist.

So we give and get and compromise. And coming to that ecosystem might be our final result. Cynical perhaps? Try dating the one who is the love of your life and the breakup will be harder than all the others. No ecosystem, no fucking of your best friend anymore. A cruel end.

The love of my life is H. Dig my archives to 2003; I started this blog for him. And I'm still here. But we wouldn't work if we tried again in another few years or similar. Because creatives can't work well together in love. Classic case Song and Kelly.

Am actually quite tired of relationship gathering, trail of memories in my wake, losing some and gaining some. Maybe I am just too eclectic a mix of character traits, dreams, personality perks that make me an unsuitable for the cult of Marriage. Maybe I secretly want to be Charlene.

Tiring also is maintaining the ecosystem of Marriage when you have so many thoughts running through your head that a blog post and a poem can't even begin to encapsulate fully.

Labels: state, worlds

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

Flower

a straightforward liaison

evolved into a flower -

begging more questions

as it were begging to be

pollinated - with light.

light I want you to shed

but let's leave it as simple

as pollen meets flower

abd get the jobs done.

Labels: words

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

A Letter To ─

I think of you rather often. Apart from antipation, I can find no other reason why, logically.

We hardly know each other but seem somehow connected in an intangible way. Let's make it tangible. Not knowing you well means you are but a mere living object for now. As I am to you. We are objectifying each other. Carnal and lovely but will it backfire or lead to a greater connection?

The word 'tangible'. It goes beyond the senses, it means letting down our defences, and having to uncloak our souls, to make it tangible. I want to make you an intimate friend of mine.

Maybe that is also why you occupy my thoughts. You are like an exciting novel that cannot be put down.

Till we next meet,

E

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:05 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

fucking delicious

It may sound superficial - it does to me anyway - but sometimes it is an ego boost to be called, "fucking delicious."

Maybe it is just that while my confidence level in achieving goals is high, almost too high, my self-esteem is in the pits. I don't take praise easily: every compliment dished out to me, I disregard, or ask in detail why they think such a positive thought of me, until I am convinced. Even then, my sense of self-worth really isn't worth very much to myself. The compliment often fades to nothing.

Psychologically speaking, it is because I never received enough affirmation as a child from my parents about my gifts and talents. I didn't expect them either. I just thought, if they didn't say it was good, it meant that what I did was lousy. So I grew up thinking a lot of things about me were lousy. That's the medical explanation in any case.

Praise came from friends, co-workers and suchlike but because I was not used to receiving affirmation, I felt awkward. It meant nothing.

Perhaps that's why being appealing to men is such an ego-boost for me. When a boy or a man is attracted to me, I feel like I have scored a goal, especially with intelligent guys or those with amazing personalities.

All this sounds very screwed up. I think this trait exists in most people who feel rather worthless about themselves. Probably also why those with mental illnesses like depression and bipolar disorder, feel a high when they sleep with strangers, and may be anhedonic about sex with their own partners. We don't feel anything when affirmed in regular ways, so sexual attraction that leads to something real is the only way we feel something at all.

Well, for years I have been working on learning to accept compliments, learning to find my sense of self-worth - wherefore art thou? - and learning to be normal in general. In the meantime, being called fucking delicious is a superb thing to me. Let's go with it for now.

Labels: state

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

There are a lot of things I should be doing right now, and writing this does not seem to fit in that list as a priority. I have been down with the flu' for more than a week, and it makes my depressive symptoms worse, which means I pretty much haven't been out of bed due to either ailments,

Layer on the guilt from shirking things I need to get done because I am too physically weak to, you pretty much have a storm brewing in a teacup that is me.

I find myself in a situation where I have no one to confide in about how I feel. It is not easy for a repressive to learn confiding so easily. I have come a long way in learning that. But it is neither instinctive nor painless even after coming this far.

Even here, in my own written world, I find it hard to articulate every pain that accumulates onto the already existent pain of being that is me. The situations that are conundrums, the complexities of my self-deprecatory thoughts, the feeling of being alone when i am not.

A repressive feeling alone, that is probably odd-sounding to most.

I feel so alone I tear up as I write this, and I'm repressing and not talking to people about how I feel, hence I write. But truly, who can hear me out and not be flippant, confused, or unsympathetic?

Labels: state

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

So I didn't get ECT

My Experience At CGH Psych Ward by avalonelaine

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:48 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

going for ECT, it's confirmed

I have had enough therapy, medication, pain and sadness despite. So i will be booking myself in hospital, with the agreed advice of my psychiatrist, for ECT. I got the referral last week, and took some time to prepare work that needed to be done to ease my absence when I'm hospitalised. The time has come - I will go tomorrow. 

Labels: state

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

pain, a nine-tailed fox

Everyday a residual pain
emerging like a nine-tailed fox:
its monstrosity depends
entirely on it -
not on me.


I want to kill this fox. This numbing pain. This pain that reduces me to a mess. This pain that has accompanied me through my life.

Medication upon medication, coupled with therapy, counselling and the like. Staying in the hospital for my own safety. But the nine-tailed fox, like Churchill's black dog, still resides, resiliently.

I am considering going for ECT. Electricity and seizures might kill it. It had better, for it is the last resort that factors in staying alive.

I just can't keep living like this, living in a living hell. The number of bad days far outnumber good days, heck, I don't even have good days, good moments maybe. Enough is enough.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:09 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

A better day

I told myself today would be a better day. The truth is, even as I awoke for no reason at five in the morning, I already felt the same sadness I felt for the past two days. The day has started in sadness, waves of it. And I tell myself today will be a better day.

Is this even possible? That even in sadness, my day will be better today than yesterday was?

I wonder why the Bible says, "Sow in tears, reap in joy." The tears are literal? If so I am staring at my computer screen blurry eyed. If so then I will work while I am in pain, if I can even think coherently.

In any case, like any other day, I will try. Try to work, try to stay alive. Today will be a better day, somehow.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 6:58 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

An unbearable burden

My psychiatrist recently changed my diagnosis from anxious depression to PTSD.

Either way it feels the same.

Today I feel like this truly is the end of the rope. My antidepressant dose is maxed out, and I am already on high doses of adjunct medications. Yet I still feel days of pain, uselessness, immobility, panic, and insanity.

I keep trying and I keep falling. You know how one should focus on strengths, to maximise potential? Life is my weakness. I keep trying at it. And falling. It makes me feel like living is not my strength and I should simply cut it off. It is a dead tree.

Everything is just welled up in me and I keep bearing all of it on my own. Help only subsides the burden that little bit. My life is still my own, as my thoughts and feelings are.

When can I be allowed to let go of life? It is truly unbearable.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:46 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Boulder

Vision blurred by tears
Boulder in my chest -
Simply painful.

I medicate to kill this stone
It yet still resides in me
Simply unmoving.

Life is too hard with pain
That won't leave -

I wish I could kill this pain, me, forever.

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:49 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

De-emphasise - Can I do it?

I am trying to write here to deviate away from what I was doing - planning my work day - because it started giving me anxiety. I feel the onset of a panic attack. I will have to work it into my day, this anxiety, not unlike how rural women carry babies into the fields to work. It is an extra burden that childless humans don't have to worry about. Such is my depression-related anxiety - it is an extra burden normal sane people don't have to worry about.

If I try to rationalise it all, the reason why my beloved volunteer work causes me to feel anxiety when I need to work on it: is just that, it is too beloved to me. I am willing to break up with J if he loses the vision and I am willing to go it alone. I will probably have no reason to live if I don't have this work. I am ambitious to the image of a corporate bitch type. I aim to do so much more every cycle next, and thereafter even more, continuously. This kind of importance is insane but I am like that. My dream, my ambition, overrides everything and needs to keep going up towards fulfillment.

Because my work is so important to me it ironically becomes my stumbling block to itself. Just like how I find it harder to sleep at night than I do taking naps, because sleep at night is so much more important. Just like how I need to de-emphasise sleep at night, I need to de-emphasise my work.

Can I do it?

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:21 AM    [ 2 comment | ]

Anti-psychotic

What I call my 'emergency medication' is Fluanxol, which helps lift severe mood dips and suicidal ideation. It seems to work like an anti-depressant, but it is actually an anti-psychotic. Which makes me feel like I must be somewhat psychotic that Fluanxol works on me, even though that is an irrational thought; many medications meant for other mental illnesses work on major depression symptoms.

It saddens me more that I have to take it just to not feel sad. That regular things that cheer people up - normal people - don't work on me. Depression really lives up to its name: it is really depressing. I wish I could be more easily cheered up. But, for today's mood dip, I doubt even a bouquet of long-stemmed roses or a bunch of balloons could make it painless for me to smile.

And when I say it hurts to smile, it really does. My cheeks actually feel so heavy, smiling takes more effort and produces a weak smile, unlike the grins I give when I am not feeling low.

Right now I feel low, and lonely. I have no idea for what reason this has transpired. I took a Fluanxol because nothing worked to make this feeling go away. I feel lonely for someone to talk to but I have nothing to talk about. That makes me even sadder.

For now, this sadness has not turned into tears because I took my anti-psychotic in time. I am not smiling yet but my cheeks already feel slightly less heavy. And I don't think I should fight so hard for cheer all the time - the absence of pain and sadness is enough for today.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:42 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

A hard dog

- I felt castrated,
I need to feel alive;
we have nothing
in common anymore -
Base, animalistic,
Martian reasons:
These I have not.
What I do have
is a very base urge
to Destroy love
that costs him much,
that I do not Deserve.
Love that my blood
prevents my feeling of:
low self-worth, and
anhedonia - pleasureless
It takes very high highs
to feel a sigh of pleasure
Escapades - to smile
Conquests: that new smell
makes me that bit new.
We haven't a porch;
but I am a hard dog
Not because I love not
But for I Deserve not.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:35 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Grey

Black is the state,
being, of my world;
elevated to grey by
another world named
Pharmacology -
applied vigorously
it brings blackness
to never-white
it brings pain
to numbness.

Numbness is grey
like translucency
applied over life;
like fog over rivers.
Such is like:
nerfed pain
a cracked window
haze and fog
scabbed wounds
a glazed painting.

Life isn't grey
But I see it thus
Elsewise black and
flowing blood-red.
Grey is far better:
Light is present
reflecting off waves
of deep black oceans,
seeping through
clouds of storms
impending and passed.

Labels: words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:05 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

#ihavedepression #nostigma every day a battle

It is baffling how I can be this heavily medicated and still feel mood swings of low. It is a higher low that I had been feeling recently since two of my core medications - SSRI and lithium - have doubled in doses. But right here right now, it is a low nonetheless.

I am functional: just made breakfasts for the foster kittens with their supplements. But cognitively I feel a bit challenged, I added a bit too much of one supplement for one kitten's meal, and am not sure if I added two or three capsules of another to three other kittens' meal. They are eating it all the same, which means the taste is not altered much, it probably just means they will recover faster from their sickies. But the thing is, I don't feel all quite there. Maybe it was just that moment.

Right now there is drilling going on outside my flat, the price we pay for urban development - noise pollution. Also baffling, in a good way, that I am not made anxious by it nor irritated. It just is. This is so far better than yesterday, where I was so miffed by the noise I swathed my head in pillows and slept to keep the noise out. I am still awake. Maybe today I will just take the noise in regardless.

But whether or not I can continue to be functional for the rest of this day, I do not know. I want to do my work. I want to be able to take a shower like it is second nature. I want to stay awake. I know it is okay if I can't do all these things today. There is tomorrow. But battling the symptoms of depression is just that - battles. And we fight battles to win. So every day I gear up and fight the battle. As I said to God before I left the house that day to try and take my life: "If this doesn't work out, so be it." So be it that I shall have to keep battling.

I will battle the low mood I feel this morning.

I will battle to lift up my cognitive functioning.

I will battle somnolence.

I will battle anxiety and stress.

I will battle to do the simple things I find difficult.

I will battle to keep up the good work.

So be it.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:45 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

splicing work and recovery #ihavedepression #nostigma

Trying to get back into the swing of things called work, but am feeling out of sorts; unsure of how fast or slow I should go, how much rest I should take, how to splice work and rest together for the entire day to be therapeutic yet productive.

Working from home where my volunteer work is based means I have no colleagues in the day to banter with, and that also means I have no sounding board to brainstorm aloud with. No banter no brainstorm unless I do it on my own to myself, which is how I have been sustaining. I guess it is a good thing I am an only child used to talking to self my whole life.

Not that I am complaining about the nature of my volunteer, also my full time, work. It is what I want to do and what will take me further along towards my dreams.

Writing has always made me think clearer, be it scrawls and flowcharts on paper or writing here like this. Coming to worlds upon words this morning has already cleared my mind somewhat on how to splice rest and work together, today.

Interesting, ain't it - normal folks just need to have morning coffee, work, lunch, work, dinner, rest, rinse repeat. And I have to drum up a whole new way of working to accommodate my recovery and my work. This is a daily battle depression sufferers face and often lose because paid work given by an employer very often does not give leeway for our depressive breakdowns, panic attacks, cognitive chokes and psychosomatic illnesses.

Welcome to the real world. Are you willing to accommodate us?

Labels: state, worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:00 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

a quasi-explanation

I have always identified myself with the phoenix - one who rises up from the ashes. But on Tuesday that symbolism was the furthest on my mind when I executed my plan, a plan that eventually failed. Now I guess I really am meant to be a phoenix and continue my journey in championing the cause of the weak till I am at least forty years old.

Up until yesterday I still thought of ways how my plan could have succeeded. I know this sounds morbid, but my plan was to die and that I failed means that - I failed, it is failure, it requires remorse. Remorse not because I wanted to die but remorse because I couldn't even plan my third attempt at suicide to succeed and not land up in hospital alive.

[Yes, to all the naysayers out there - I had planned to succeed. And - my actual suicide note (mostly instructions) is on paper. I liked where I was so I took a picture right before I was about to collapse, I had already gone through half my overdose by then. If I really wanted to be saved I would have told people where I was, the amount of medication and types of it that I had brought, and tweeted when I ingested each pill. If you want to do the same to attract attention - do that! It is far more effective.]

I thought that if I had removed my outerwear and sunbathed in the bikini I wore underneath no one would have thought me unconscious and called SCDF (the reason I was found). I thought that if I had remembered my towel I would look more like a sunbather. I thought that if instead of staying in the shade and lying where the tide had gone out I would have looked even more like a sunbather. I thought that if the tide was coming in instead, even better, I would have been washed away.

I chose to overdose amongst nature because this is the plan I have brewed over the years. My initial choice was the Ubi field but the Downtown Line construction started and I lost the place I wanted to die in. I would love to jump to my death but it would be very scarring and traumatic for people who witness it. Likewise hanging myself. I have tried cutting myself before but am not very good at it, so that was ruled out. I thought through which medicines to overdose with that would surely kill me - if I had not been discovered (who goes to Changi Beach? I didn't reconnaissance enough).

Having said the above, no, it wasn't supposed to be that particular Tuesday. It was just the self-destruction sequence I would activate when my depression takes over my daily ability to fight it. Yes it is a daily fight. There were a lot of triggers that Tuesday that prompted me to activate my self-destruction sequence. We - myself, my doctor and J - are working on strategies to prevent those triggers from happening again from now on.

I am by nature a very repressive person, perhaps the reason why I wrote - at last count on this blog, about seventy poems - instead of talking to people. There are even more poems floating out there given to lovers. I have become less repressive since my first official depressive episode in my early twenties because I realised it was a problem. I was also depressed in my childhood but of course in the eighties no one recognises a child is having clinical depression, particularly if I was repressing my feelings. So I began my journey in opening up to people but I have yet to perfect it. My blog and my twitter are probably the most revealing about myself because both mediums are of the written word. Both mediums don't require interaction unless I choose it. In real life it is rather hard to just sit there, catatonic-like, and not talk. Humans will worry because unless you are in a psychiatric ward catatonia is not a normal everyday sight!

So whatever happened on Tuesday, no human except my doctors and J know why it had to be that day I chose to end my life. Because I kept most of it to myself.

Today, this Monday, I no longer see my third suicide attempt as a failure and how I could have improved it to make it succeed. I am on increased medication doses - maximum dosage of my antidepressant Lexapro, and double the dosage of mood-stabiliser lithium. Yesterday I started to feel the effect of it - I finally felt some happiness. Happiness that was the absence of sadness and happiness that felt light. Up until I was on antidepressants for the first time I never felt that before, and yesterday I felt that again. Maybe that is why today I wake up and no longer feel like I failed in my suicide attempt and will instead focus on continuing the fight against depression. If this increase in medication combined with therapy does not work out over the long run again - I will bite the bullet and go for ECT. ECT is not painful, and while it does cause memory loss, it is the fact that it consumes a lot of time being hospitalised that I am not all very keen on it.

Why did I get discharged so soon from hospital? Medically I was okay by then but the psychiatrists did not want to discharge me, saying I was at 'severe suicide risk'. Unfortunately they also wanted to deny me my medication and put me back on the entire cocktail one by one, day by day, with no parole to go outside for smoke breaks and walks. This management, I knew, would make me very unstable, as I already was since I was admitted. CGH said that if I were to exhibit any more unstable behaviour they would send me to IMH. In my opinion IMH has one of the worst services in all the hospitals (I don't believe they are that award winning, personal bad experience there). So I chose to be discharged 'against physicians' advice' and went to see my own psychiatrist at Paragon the next morning after I went home. I got back on my medications, J has been learning more about caring for me, and things have been better. Had I stayed on in CGH, I know I would have been even more unhappy and probably by now I would really be in IMH or at least be tied up ('restrained') like some of the other psychiatric patients are.

Today, I feel like I normally do before that Tuesday, slightly not yet into the routine of my cat work, but more emotionally stable. Over the past few days I have been getting back into the rhythm of doing my cat work and aim to do more and more each day until I am back on full form. I have been doing my cat work with this illness for years, I will be able to get back to it as I am. After some damage control but hey, I am pretty good at writing press releases in my opinion.

Meanwhile, I will try to write more on worlds upon words. Writing among all the arts is my favourite and the one that I can express myself best. It is easier for me to write a poem than for me to tune and play my guitar or gather my paints and paint on a canvas. While depression causes anhedonia and makes me not want to do any of these things all that much I will force myself to and as my doctor says, use 'primary processing' to enjoy the experience. So, my name is Avalon and I will keep on writing, and fighting the big D.

Labels: state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:47 PM    [ 2 comment | ]