Tuesday, September 28, 2010

flux

Weary.

Flux of activity:
I haven't been cleaning
I haven't been working for a living.
Well I try to do some of it but it doesn't always work out.

When I get tired I flip and become totally incumbent.

Life is expensive. Recovery is expensive.

The air is thick with hesitation and resignation.

Being able to hit rock-bottom is important for going up. Flux.

But it sucks.

Great will-power doesn't feed us and medicate me.

Money does.

And that's in flux too.

In the trough of the wave, I fall even more sick.

Monday, September 27, 2010

no way drug holiday

I feel like shit when I don't take just one of the essential meds I need. I utterly fall to pieces. And when I do I feel like such a weakling, for being nothing without medication and being nowhere near recovery if not for pharmacology.

Yes I do know recovery takes time and time has proven that in some cases my dosages have been reduced. But even on the drugs I feel only 30% normal and without them I am totally nothing. Imagine how it feels to feel only 30% normal functioning human and then feeling even less than that sometimes.

I took a drug holiday on Saturday because I was running low on one of my meds, a NASSA called mirtazapine, which is an adjunct medication to regular antidepressants like SSRI. I felt the lack of it the next day and crashed and burned.

So that is me. I scare my normal GP doctor with the amount of drugs I am taking. No one really understands that taking 3 Lexapros a day is a lot - the maximum dosage is 4. If you ranked the severity of my depression on that, I am between moderate and severely ill. If I lowered the dose to 2 for a day, I crash and burn too.

Yesterday I felt so ill that I puked and couldn't stomach a lot of things. I had to take time out from my volunteer work. I had to cover myself with a blanket and cry. I scared J and my cats but they hovered near me and comforted me.

Thankfully, doctor's visit on Wednesday. I just have to last through tomorrow now.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

After yesterday's resolve to move my career up another notch to alleviate the stress, I got the fear that every entrepreneur has, one of taking risks and worrying about failure. The debts and mortgage and about having money to eat. I feel a flashback to my life nine years ago. But this risk is meant to be.

Today my stress from yesterday led to a blistering migraine from the moment I woke up. I tried coffee. I tried paracetamol. In the end, I had to go to the doctor to get some Arcoxia. It helped much, and at least I no longer have to torture my liver and just pop one pill.

The doctor intuited that the migraine was caused by stress. Yet actually I don't feel the stress today like yesterday. I guess my body is the same as always, breaking out in all manner of illness with any kind of stress. I stopped shouting at people in anger due to stress a long time back, oldness brings calmness. I guess that means more of the stress is held up inside me, like a heroin-filled condom waiting to explode in a mule's stomach.

I felt more serene today because I had a revelation. I heard God speak to my heart, telling me, "It's not time yet, but it will be soon, and you will know when it is time." I can always trust God for visions and revelations and Him bringing them to pass. Today's word comforted me.

But knowing the vision of building the social enterprise I aspire will happen, albeit not now, means I have to work the plans already. Write it down and carry it. I have been fashioning plans in my head and I know I have the skills to carry it through. One constant in my life is that I often feel over-endowed with talents I did not do anything much to deserve and I can only attribute it to God's way of directing me through a meaningful, successful life of vision. I feel my experiences in shitty work places rear their head for the sake of contributing to upcoming success - working in sales means I dare now to audaciously raise funds for a good cause; working in a bank means I know how to appropriate financial resources sustainably and fruitfully; starting a business with H means I no longer fear entrepreneurial risks; making the leap into salaried life with an NGO means I am officially in the know of the charity sector. I feel like a super-hero that became one because he got bitten by a spider. Affirmatively I have no doubts I will succeed and it is not pride that brings me to say it but conviction, passion, vision and revelation.

Reading some of my older blog posts introspectively made me tear up. I still love Indochina, Asia as a whole. I still think about missionary work, even though I know now I need to rest, here at home in Singapore. My heart is still set on making a difference in this world. I wanted to save humanity, but in my weakest point God gave me animals to save instead, as if it were a prelude, a stepping stone. To? I no longer make myself cry over dreams unrealised, taking things one at a time instead, taking what is given now instead of dreaming of inheriting the whole earth at the same time.

God brought my first cat Slinky into my life when I really needed her, even before I knew it myself. My human existence needed the comfort of a cat and she has really gone through the shittiest times of my depression and stayed with me nonetheless. She was the catalyst for our cat rescue work. And now I carry this dream of helping her kind.

I will keep on going on, resting often because my flesh is weak, weaker than most normal human beings. At least I am alive. Vision will carry me, and I will keep carrying it.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

it's taking over

I found myself today working the whole day, till now. Volunteer work that is. I clocked the hours. It really was a full day. It just ending now, with breaks albeit in between. I haven't even eaten my dinner.

I realised this was becoming a trend, growing pains in our charity - and I only look to grow in this area - that more and more things need to be done just to build it big.

I dream big, so slowing down on the charity front is not an option for me. My heart is for the NGO, NPO industry, for charitable causes, for managing resources to make a humane difference. There is no turning back, only going forward and keep building on what has been built.

The thing is, I enjoy it. I enjoy every part of my voluntary job. My workaholic self rears its head when it comes to this job and truly, voluntarily. It's passion and ambition that drives this workaholism, not an endowed sense of slavery.

But it isn't going to work if I keep going on like this.

So, I have to put on my entrepreneurship hat again, coupled with my experience with social enterprise, to find a bloody solution to my career.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

7/10

Just cause I am recovering doesn't mean you shouldn't care.
I wanted to tell you that day was a 9/10 scale of feeling depressed.
Today is a 7/10.
Don't remember what it's like to be 0/10.
Serotonin helps me survive.
Happy things? What happy things? I don't remember.
What's 10/10? When I truly want to die.
That's how close I came this week.
My meds keep me functioning. I get showered. I wash my hair.
I am not the same person if I am not on them, but I am, so you see me as sane.
Each tablet acts like a splint to keep me from falling to pieces.
It still hurts.
Hurt comes from nowhere and hurts, still does.
I sleep to cope.
Even if sleep is troubled.
I fall physically ill, because I am ill inside.
I break out in rashes.
I function for the sake of others, as far as I can.
But I just need you to care, so I don't disappear.
Like water on the ground percolating away, disappearing, still there but not anymore.
Seeping, like tears, for I am made of tears.
Meanwhile, I pop more pills to break out of the physical pain the tears bring me.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

charity begins at home

My Dad said to me before, about my dreams to work for charitable causes, that, "Charity begins at home." He meant that if I was not well, if I could not take care of myself, I could not care for others properly.

Right now my drive to do more is waned by my inability to do more of my charity work. Inside me is all systems go, but my body betrays. It falls sick, it sends off breakdowns in my synapses and central nervous system.

I am getting quite frustrated at my constant inability to work. Even real work which pays, I can't be well enough to do. I have no idea but to keep going, and resting along the way.

I want to bang out my frustrations on this keyboard but I am having a headache at the moment and too tired to do so. That is how weak I am, that I cannot even mouth off my tempestuous feelings of frustration.

I am a charity case myself.

But I will keep on going on.

Friday, September 3, 2010

never good enough

It is now 4:12pm. Today is one of those days.

Most of the times when my depression symptoms worsen is during the late afternoon. It may come first as a panic attack, then it sinks in feelings of horrible sadness, miles worse than the latent sadness I have carried with me all my life. 

This afternoon, it began just an irritation, a tiredness, but as it sinks right in, it becomes a sadness and a regret. Peeves turn to tears, anger to regret.

A regret that all my life, I have been told I am not good enough. Praise was short, my academics were average. Even in Primary 3 during streaming, everyone in my class went for the second round of testing, and some got into the GEP classes at school; I was the only one who didn't attend the second round of tests because I hadn't made the mark. My parents openly discussed sending me to an orphanage, when already I didn't have enough of them because they were unaffectionate workaholics. My best friend in the younger half of my primary school days berated me all the time, called me a wretch (my primary school mates have superb vocabulary), accusing me repeatedly of things I did not do, hit me in public. Growing up, I nearly failed my A levels, and I only got a third class honours for a basic degree. Lovers despised me and threatened to leave me over and over before finally leaving. I was made unworthy of love so many times because of some inherent weakness in me, abandoned and spurned.

This is why I try to do things perfectly or not at all. This is why I am so sensitive to criticism, because I have had so much of it. Criticism and suggestions ain't bad, but my feelings towards them ain't invalid either. It hurts, because I always try so hard.

Intellectually, I know one can never truly be good enough. Spiritually, I know I am worthy of love despite my weaknesses. But emotionally and physically the reality of unworthiness is painful, cuts to the heart, and is uninspiring. 

I process these regrets and revelations, and I don't feel better.

What does help, is my medication - it makes the pain easier to bear.

Some may say, just be thankful that you are alive. I know God saved me from brink of death. Today, I think that, and I know it is supposed to be a blessing to be alive. But the feeling that thought brings is not of gratitude, but relief that I didn't die on this very day. Relief that today I don't feel overpowered by my continuous wrestle with pain and grief. Relief that I have my medication to keep me alive. 

Thursday, September 2, 2010

waiting

I hate waiting. I used to be a patient, would-wait-for-two-hours-for-you kind of person, but now waiting makes me anxious.

When I was young, it was all about waiting for my parents to come home from work or pick me up from the babysitter. Sometimes they came back at close to midnight. Every day, I waited for them till day turned to night.

When I was in secondary school and had to commute to JB everyday because my parents moved there, I had to wait in line at the customs every day. Wait for the bus. Use of Walkmans were disallowed in school uniform in my school, and mine got stolen in a burglary anyway. So there was nothing else to do but wait.

When in love, I once waited for H for almost two hours to meet me at the MRT station after meeting his friends whom he always treated as more important than I was to him. He never showed that day. Years after, he didn't even remember that he had me waiting there that time. 

After all that waiting throughout my childhood and life peaked, my depression worsened my hate for waiting into a fear of it. Now I cannot stand waiting for buses and trains, one of the reasons why I cannot get myself into public transport more often, (apart from germs, confined spaces and humans). I hate waiting for the lift to arrive when I visit the hospital every month for my checkup. I get anxious waiting for cabs, but thankfully most of the time the wait is not long because there are plentiful cabs.

In any case, never keep me waiting for too long. It physically hurts me to have to wait now.