dazed

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

"Dazed?" asked my doctor.

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

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

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

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

I guess I did.

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


Yes I do. I guess I really do.

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

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

"But what if I never get well?"

"You will," he reassures me.

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

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