shards

I know I have said this before, that writing does not take the sadness away. Even painting does not take the sadness away. Medication does. But it hasn't made me happy - for long - either.

I still feel too raw for this world, like skin after a chemical peel. When I feel this way I want to be institutionalised. But that is escape from, not dealing with, the world. Still I yearn for hanging out in a quiet place where every one is sick like me, so that I don't feel so alone in my own sadness.

But even then, everyone's own sadness is their own. Their own splinters in their own hearts. Carrying around a heart of splinters, but shards from different glass. Will facing others' splintered hearts make my sadness go away?

Leading a normal life as I have been endeavouring to for a long time, is really, really difficult. Every hurt is amplified, every success dulled, laughter lasts but for a moment, the rest is bleary grey. I can't think my way out of these sensations that override the protocol of normalcy.

I try to be perfect because that is the only way I will be accepted. Every flaw that mars perfection, is a flaw in me and a lethal blow that is very hard for a perfectionist to accept within. I keep feeling like I failed, again, again and again. It is a never ending refrain. They say one fails forward, learning. That much is really true. They just forget to say that for someone like me, every failure - forward! - is another shard of glass staked into my heart and feels like so, really and truly. It physically hurts and recovery is extremely painful.

So I try to brave the world of normalcy. But accumulate shards of pain and sadness and failure in my heart. How long will it last before I bleed to death? Or will medical science prevent that from happening? It is no wonder so many of us with this disease die from it. One way or another, death becomes us.

I am a charlatan and a ruse -
Masquerade of light;
Really, vile.

Vodka, plain
Unsure in this world:
Let us try to be something.

I am wasted.

Air expended, is wasted
Asphyxiate me, soon
Await.

Death.
Rightful place in me,
My imaginary friend from eons gone -

I never knew you were vile
But I knew you
Intimately.

Serotonin.
That's what's missing,
Yet I feel you, so close by.

Blacker than black.

Falsely,
This I know
But all the same,

You asphyxiate me, every day.

bigotry, bias and burning

I don't consider myself to be a bigot. The only hatred that I outright express is of certain foreigners in the country who are marring the fabric of our Singaporean society. And I don't agree that expressing my own political opinions to be a form bigotry in any way. I tolerate differences in general pretty well.

However I do feel certain prejudices which I do not write about. I call them prejudices because that would be the politically apt term to use if I should express them, but personally I find myself to be right and that what I feel is the truth! But that's what prejudiced people think anyway.

I have little tolerance for religion. To disclaim upfront, there are extremists who use the name of religion in defence of obviously wrong actions and agendas, so no religion is spared. Am not talking about extremists here anyway.

Every single religion is flawed.

I don't consider myself to be a religious person because to me Christianity is not a religion. In fact, the Bible condemns religious people.

So, here is what I think, and writing these words now officially make me a prejudiced person.

I abhor religions that make people scared of things. Living in fear is no way to live and if your faith makes you scared of ghosts and shit, I think it is a major failure.

I abhor religions that requires you to kill animals for no reason or cause air pollution.

I abhor religions that defy human rationale to the point of senselessness - God gave you that brain didn't he? Reason and rational thinking came with it, do use it alongside faith. Take for example - if you are sick, see a doctor.

Here are some outright personal prejudices.

I abhor religions that have statues of any kind. They seriously creep me out. I hate them. They are creepy. They are not reminders. They are senseless enactments of faith that is bigger than the bloody statue. In this aspect I am glad Christians do things like smash statues when someone converts from a religion that has statues involved.

I abhor religions that make celibacy or fasting from human needs into an elevated position that makes everyone else pariahs. I think life on earth is meant for enjoyment. Making others feel like shit because we enjoy our lives is not cool at all. Fasting and celibacy is fine if you want to do it, just don't make others feel like shit for not doing so. Also do not attempt it over a long period of time if you obviously still feel like doing stuff. It makes you lot into repressed, sex-crazy hypocrites.

There, I have said it. Better in than out. I still love all human beings, even if you fall into the above categories. It doesn't matter either way, really. Now, if you can: try not to burn things. It is really quite inconsiderate. The PSI is very high. The world is heating up. Et cetera.

Bell Jar For You

Vodka, plain
I am that woman

Cheshire smile
I am that girl

"Why so many pills?"
"I wanted to die."

Revived, alive
For you.

I need to see this, do you?

“You need to be able to own the reality that depression is a physical illness like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer,” says Richard Raskin, PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York City and Litchfield, Conn. “You can’t get over it by ‘trying harder’ or adjusting your attitude. It requires acceptance that you have a physical illness that requires attention, and that it makes no sense to blame yourself for it.”

But can you emphatise with it if you don't have the disease? Or do you see us as weak folks too? It doesn't help when the world sees it as a weakness when medically it is a disease. Accept a friend with a psychological illness today, and realise it is not something they can help.

omegas vs acute

Recently I got myself more religiously on the omega oils because doctor says it will help my depressive episodes. After taking them, I felt myself either numb or tired, and I got fed up with feeling unfeeling. So I took myself off them.

After a week of not taking them I realise that my regular bouts of feeling blue for no reason are back to being more acute. I guess that means the omegas helped. Am not sure if it caused the constant lethargy and need for sleep during the day. I will only know when I get back on them.

In the meanwhile, I take the feelings of sorrow as they come. I know it has been years but depression is a tune that doesn't get off the radio. It may change tempo but the song will keep playing, rearing its head well past the trend.

I know having depression may well mean I will have lesser friends. By choice, and otherwise too. I choose to talk to less people because it is too tiring for me to talk. If I do want to talk, no one will be keen on listening anyway because it is too negative for anyone to bear. Either way, most of the time I bear with it on my own.

I could write daily on how I feel - today is a 3 out of 10, 0 being utter pain and misery and 10 being happy; marking each day with a score (it usually is around 3-4 daily, not much to report). But in truth nobody really cares about it. The daily scores will probably only make sense to my doctor, whom we pay to care about how I feel.

Do I remember ever feeling happy. Yes, when I first got on the right dose of medications, and was introduced to the effects of antidepressants. I remember feeling, 'So this is what happy feels like.' But eventually of course the effect doesn't remain, it merely stuck around to keep me afloat after pushing me up to the surface, and brought me back to life.

Most of my friends are married, and so am I to some extent. My best mates will be best mates but we don't talk much anymore and they will be there if I do wish to talk. Yet no matter how, the pain of depression is personal. It is something most people do not understand, rightly seeing it as a weakness, unable to fathom the inability of one to shake the negativity off. If you understand it, I feel for you because you must have been there yourself.

So I will write. And the only way I can write is if I feel. Somehow the omegas numbed that. I will get back on them eventually and try to suss out if there is an upside to feeling numb. Numbness means no pain, which for me, where I feel pain almost on a daily level, is supposedly a great improvement.

wordless and worthless

I am all drained out today. Not that I did much by normal standards. I am sub-human. Weak and therefore rightfully should be judged as unreliable, irresponsible and ungrateful. That is how I see myself.

I am functioning at even less than my estimated 30% lately. As usual I am either sick, tired, depressed or having an anxiety attack. Sicknesses plagued me last week, tiredness last and this week. What's new? Nothing, just the usual, but worse.

I need to write for work but have been wordless. If I am not physically tired I am mentally exhausted. I can't rev myself up to be more productive. I wish I could, but I could sleep after two coffees and have two naps a day despite.

I try to give myself a chance, to accept that I am a far below-par human to the fellow human, the humans to whom I am indebted, to the human race. But lately my self-worth is down the drain. I am still wondering if I will ever be normal.

If I will ever be someone who is healthy. Who is only tired when it's bedtime. Who doesn't dread showering and getting dressed. Who doesn't dread waking up. Who doesn't need half the day to sleep. Who doesn't fear the phone ringing. Who enjoys leaving the house. Who can stop relying on cabs because public transport is no longer a phobia. Who can actually enjoy and relish being contactable via telephone and MSN and suchlike. Who can eventually stop having moments of crouching in a corner under a blanket. Who will stop falling sick all the time. Who will go out with friends. Who can work 10 hours straight a day.

Ah, the list is endless. Fuck it world. Enjoy us people with major depression, because 25% of us die from it - we are a true 'dying breed'.

Things I Dread (Nowadays) and Avoid

The phone ringing
Unknown persons knocking on door
Having to clear the kitchen rubbish bin
Having to shower and get dressed
Numbers-related work like accounting
Logging on to Facebook

this week's emotional health

This whole week I have been a bundle of irritable nerves, almost always feeling about to get angry. Listless, sluggish, lethargic, can barely get myself out of the bed, let alone out of the house. I only left the house once in the whole week and that was Saturday evening. Good enough for me, I reckon. I felt totally anti-social, shutting off my phone, and the thought of leaving the house filled me with fear of oncoming noise pollution.

I have been taking my meds, and upping my protein intake as doctor has advised, and am also taking the omega oils, and exercised. All it makes me feel is not sad, just a tad mad. Often. I am so irritable but not enough to be borderline crazy. Instead of feeling very depressed I feel numb. If taking the omegas does this to me I rather feel something and take the right meds for it, than to have a numb, irritable, lethargic sensation.

I would rather stare into space than do productive things. I can't even bring myself to shower more than once a day, for most days this past week.

I have to get out of this funk as soon as possible because I have work to do; a big-ticket copywriting assignment. Maybe tomorrow will be a brand-new start to a great week. There you go, a glimmer of resolve, a sliver of optimism.

my stupid health

I have had major depression since I was a child, but I started falling ill from weird symptomatic sicknesses since I was 17. It was at the time, a stomachache I often got in school, that when a doctor saw me for it, he couldn't diagnose it, attributing it to 'stress'. Age 17 was right before my first major depressive episode. Ever since then, I often fall ill and often hear doctors after doctors telling me that the pain/ache/symptom etc. is due to stress. Which we all know is what doctors say when they don't know why or what.

I have tried everything of course. Exercise. Supplements. Eating well. But the rest of my life since 17 has been plagued with countless MCs (if I am salaried worker) and time-offs from work because I am ill. Before I knew I had depression, I thought I was just weak, and everyone thought I was simply making excuses. I started to think so too. I blamed myself terribly.

Then I learned of the word 'psychosomatic' and finally understood why I fell ill so often, to the tune of say once or twice a week or fortnight. And it doesn't have to happen when I am seriously depressed or suicidal. I could be feeling emotionally balanced (as far as the antidepressants make me) and still fall ill with some nagging sickness.

It is still on today. I was 17 in 1996. It has been over a decade of constantly falling ill. I developed a host of psychosomatic illness. I have been to almost every hospital in Singapore. I have had my heart, stomach, thyroid, etc. organs checked. I know the names of medicines inside out. Tell me a med and I would probably have taken it before.

This is one of the reasons why I consider myself in my recovery to only be leading a 30% normal life. Apart from constant lethargy, depressive and anxiety episodes perforating my daily life, I am often ridden with some kind of flu, allergy or ache.

Supplements you say? I have tried zinc, Vit C, echinecea, chicken essence, and don't even bother suggesting TCM because when I take it, I either get more sick or if healthy, I actually become sick from TCM.

When I was able to travel every year, every time I came home I would fall sick. Of course I take care of myself religiously when overseas, one must when travelling in Asia, but when I come home, I will definitely get some kind of sickness.

At any one time, I would be having eczema, rhinitis, headaches, flu', colds, or gastritis symptoms. Recently I had the experience of being diagnosed with having a migraine, something a doctor has never said to me before about me, it has been tension headaches for the past 10 years or so.

After so many years of flitting between salaried jobs and freelancing or entrepreneurship, I still reckon my state of health would suit freelancing the best because I have to have more sick days than regular people. This means my life has to be financially risky for a long time.

One of my favourite authors Marian Keyes is somewhat like this too - she need 16 hours of sleep a day, gets an illness by simply reading about it. For me, I used to fall sick right after an MRT train ride. Now I just don't take trains anymore (not just because of the germs of course, but I am still phobic of trains).

Having had almost half of my life's worth of psychosomatic illnesses, I now simply live with them. I only hope others will bear with me for them too, but the world isn't that forgiving. Illness is a sin to most. It was fashionable to be constantly ill probably only in Jane Austen's era, but not in workaholic current times. I want to be well too. But will you give me time? I just have to let opportunities pass me by because of my ill health, stock up on all kinds of medicines, and rest more than normal people need. And stop blaming myself for being sick.