Psychosomatic Sicknesses | Psycho till Sick, Sick till Psycho

It was 1996 and I was seventeen.

Also, it was the year I first ever had a doctor in front of me figuratively scratching his head, because he couldn't diagnose the sickness I brought with me to him, finding no other reason for a stomach ailment I had than that of 'stress'. He had nothing to prescribe me for it, because he couldn't figure out what was wrong with me.

The situation preceding that doctor's diagnosis was very kindly and loving. Two of my classmates at the time were very concerned that I had been having chronic stomachaches daily for two weeks, triggered by simple actions like bending down to sit at a chair, or eating fried egg. They did an intervention and dragged me to a doctor near their old school in Lorong Ah Soo, convincing me I simply had to get some help for it.

I remember that doctor somewhat: my friends said he was a Christian doctor, and he had stacks of 'Our Daily Bread' devotionals in his clinic. He didn't have charismatic bedside manners and wasn't an outstanding doctor in any particular way, and him finally saying in a baffled manner that my stomachache was 'due to stress' definitely did not make me want to see him again in a loyal fashion - as I did and still do, other doctors I have met later in life. I supposed he did keep me in his prayers, as did my two intervening friends, because the stomachache eventually went away. I avoided egg for a long time after, though - just in case.

But the trend started - many sicknesses after, many doctors saying the words 'due to stress' or similar. I now know that such sicknesses are 'psychosomatic' in nature, to give the whole issue a proper term. Being thirty two years old this year, it has been sixteen years of having psychosomatic sicknesses. All the freaking time.

Psychosomatic sicknesses affect me so badly not because they kill me, but because I always end up being so frequently sick it kills my productivity. The more stressful the environment I am in - work, school and so on - the more frequently I fall ill. Some are serious ailments, like developing adult asthma, or gastric problems, necessitating hospital visits or rushes to the emergency room. Some are irritating, like chronic eczema, or rhinitis. Usually it is just frequent flu', colds, coughs, headaches, giddiness and such.

Before I knew for sure they were psychosomatic illnesses, I tried every darn thing to 'take care of my health' as my irritated bosses kept saying to me whenever I had to take yet another MC. Nothing worked, but I sure did contribute a hell lot to the health-care industry in terms of buying supplements.

Eventually, I just explained it in simple terms to the people I worked with: When I am stressed, I fall sick. That's just me.

Ah, then the final revelation eventually came to me. I have clinical depression, and psychosomatic sicknesses are part of the deal! It took a while for that causal conclusion to sink in and thoroughly educate me. It started with regular doctors revealing the term 'psychosomatic' to me more often, and prescribing me anxiety medication and sedatives alongside treating stupid minor ailments.

By the time my second and still ongoing major depressive episode kicked in a few years ago, I became more concerned with getting treatment for depression itself - it is much more life-threatening than the sum of all the irritating sicknesses like gastritis and allergies. Years on, still getting treatment for depression, still not able to push the disease into entire remission, still not able to do a lot of things normal people can do. Am still trying, am still bleeding money into getting better.

Meanwhile, I still get psychosomatic sicknesses.

For the past few days, it has been terrible nausea that came with actual puking. Everything I puked was undigested, so definitely some incongruence in my gastric system somewhere.

Well, this bout of sickness may not be purely psychosomatic because I have been having side effects from my new antidepressant (works wonders for depression but): gastric problems, giddiness, severe headaches. I prescribed myself a dosage reduction and the headaches became slightly more bearable, the giddiness went away.

Whatever the cause, I am so sick of being sick. Psychosomatic, or caused by psychiatric medication, I am thoroughly fed up with being sick almost all the time for the past sixteen years. Right now, I am typing this in the middle of the night because I am too sick to fall asleep. I have just puked, and my head hurts. I feel like shit, and I wanna puke some more but there is nothing left to puke. My stomach keeps churning. Medication for it? If could afford any, have consumed them and finished them or puked them out - rinse and repeat - the pain and suffering continues.

And what makes it worse? I am too poor to be sick, and am poor because I am sick.

how close I was to alcoholism

Since I started working or even before, I have relied on drinking regularly to help me cope with stress. I am predisposed to stress a lot more than normal people because of my psychological makeup so the stress occurred on a high, frequent level. I ended up drinking a lot.

Eventually I took to drinking alone at home after work to cope every day or every other day.

When my second bout of severe depression occurred, I drank to cope. And I started to become really drunk very often because I was already on antidepressant medication by then. When I tried to kill myself, I relished one can of Guinness Draught with the crazy amount of pills I swallowed. I survived but continued drinking. I chipped a tooth while drunk. I lost sobriety so much I endangered myself...

So instead of drinking I started smoking. I needed something to cope and alcohol was seriously becoming a danger to myself.

Today, I still enjoy the occasional drink. I can drink much better now, drunkenness is a rare occasion because I have become acclimatised to my large amount of medication.

Now when I want to drink at inappropriate moments like in the middle of the afternoon I smoke instead. It is the only vice I can turn to in safety knowing I won't be putting myself in direct harm's way. And no one has to clean my vomit, blood and tears when I am drunk anymore.

I could say more, but it is too painful to recollect via words. I just wanted to write this because, right now, I really really want a beer. But I shall smoke instead. Because I need to be sober.

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.

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

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.

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. 

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.

2003

The year that SARS hit the world, and I went through the hardest financial difficulty I could imagine, walking the streets with an empty stomach, developing gastritis for the first time yet unable to pay the doctor because I was so broke.

The year I read Lord of the Rings, and it resonated because the world seemed literally really dark.

The year Leslie Cheung committed suicide, and made the world seem bleaker. The song 追 was revived in our memories.

The year I joined an industry I totally hated because of the IT and finance involved, and developed a sickly pallor because it was where money lived and people died.

The year I developed adult asthma.

The year I fainted and was brought to hospital because of asthma, which I didn't know I had then.

The year I got conned by a small business who didn't pay me for one month of hard work.

The year I sat in the MRT train unknowingly for more than 2 hours, dazed, unsure where to go.

The year someone stole my chequebook and forged my signature to cash it. 

The year I broke up with who was then the love of my life, H and took the longest time it ever cost me to get over someone.

The year I started this blog. 

abstraction in therapy

During my EMDR therapy yesterday, my doctor tried to help me cognitively grasp the difference between potential and possibility.

I felt like I had gone back to uni and was writing a paper on concepts and such definitively.

In any case, I still have to mull over the difference between the two concepts. Apparently, one has the potential to do a task excellently. However, possibility is limited to parameters. For example, if you were given endless resources, the limit of possibility is way out of sight. However if you were under much stricter conditions, the potential of you being great is still there, but what you will achieve will be much less. That said, it does not mean that the task has been churned out in mediocrity. It means it is excellent, given the limits.

Hence, if I am sick, and can only do so much, I am not mediocre.

-

The revelation takes a while to sink in. Apparently perfectionists have difficulty distinguishing between the two abstract concepts of potential and possibility. I guess I had to be cured of my perfectionism, else I would never get anywhere. I am one of those perfectionists who either do and do it fuck-off-well or not do it at all. Hence oscillating between moments of brilliance and moments of lull, near-death, sickness and social-disappearance.

Well other things happened during EMDR therapy too. My doctor brought me to re-live the experience of a panic attack. It was traumatic at first, and I dropped emotionally till I felt suicidal, but he brought me back, and then I realised that the experience is simply physiological. Somehow I managed to detach my emotions from the pain of a panic attack or depressive episode. Like it is all just physiological and has nothing to mar on my soul. It was quite a revelation too, also abstract, but something I can cling on to when my body next plummets into a depressive episode or panic attack.

(Oh and yeah, my adrenal glands are fine, after taking the test. My panic attacks are undeniably caused by my clinical depression alone, nothing else. Healthy heart, kidneys, thyroid, but brain-wise still need chemicals to adjust the imbalance. My doctor said one day I could do without medication - I am on so much now, the possibility seems laughingly slim - have you encountered me when I am not on my meds? Not a pretty sight at all. But well, we will get there. It has been years already anyway, I can wait.)

never again

I had a bizarre dream on Saturday afternoon, one that woke me up in heart-racing breathlessness which led me to say out loud, "I had a nightmare" when I awoke.

J said there were no monsters in the dream after I recounted it to him, and I realised too, there weren't any horror elements of the usual kind in it.

One of the facets of that bizarre dream was that I found myself once again working for a corporation, one with offices and cubicles and bosses that berate me for constantly being ill. No doubt my work in the dream was truly a dream come true - fundraising for charity causes - the air in the office was stifling because I was a pariah, one who couldn't keep her health up to not fall sick so often, one that couldn't work the full week, every week, because of sickness.

I realise I never again will be able to work full-time in a normal environment that everyone else does - chugging the train in the morning, every day to work, five days out of seven, twelve hours out of twenty four. Simply because: I will always be sick.

My doctor asked me recently how normal I rate my life to be right now, and my answer was: 30% normal. I cannot work more than I already am, which isn't very much. I get exhausted. I fall ill with something, physiological or psychosomatic whatever, every so often. I have been struggling with such ill health since my early twenties which now makes it a decade of constant sickness and saying sorry to people.

Perhaps I am destined to be a freelancer, as I have been for the past few years because my sickness became so overwhelming I had to take a break to almost die. Now I am 30% living a normal life, and I have to be content that I can no longer be the workaholic over-achiever I intend to be when I enjoy my work. I have to be content with having insecure finances at times, the unfortunate effect of being a freelancer. I have to realise I don't need to work all the time. I have to realise it is not a blessing to be overworked: passion can go too far and kill me. And one thing is for sure, I will never again step into the office scenario in that bizarre Saturday afternoon dream - because I will make my own way, and set my own rules, according to my health.

Maybe, one day, I will regain superb health and be able to become a workaholic again. But for now, the rules need to be re-written for I cannot endure yet another decade of apologising for being sick all the time, wearing sackcloth everyday for being someone who cannot 'manage' her health.

Some people are horrible workers with excellent health. Some are in between, average workers with average health. These people occupy most of the cubicles in that nightmare-office scenario. As for me, I believe I am good at whatever I do because rarely do I endeavour anything I don't excel in. But my penance for that is that I have horrible health. Where in the world is there a place for someone like me? I am a misfit.

The bizarre dream culminated in an investigative journalist threatening to expose me as someone who, using the public's charitable investments, was constantly taking time off work and thus an equivalent to an embezzler of donations. It was a nightmare because I would have to apologise, once again, for being someone who was constantly ill and not able to work like a normal person. I know we don't have true investigative journalists in Singapore, but the dream seemed real. I was going to be declared in print to be a fraud because of my ill health. It was truly a nightmare. Thankfully, unreal.

Perhaps a warning it was. A warning to be content with my current freelancing charity worker - thus poor - status. A warning to never again, subject myself to a corporation.

me and my work habits:

I like to read a lot of business books magazines and online feeds, like really, a lot, just to improve my knowledge base.

And then I like to draw charts plans schedules tasks on paper. That is how I work, I write things down. I type stuff up.

I also like to work with Excel spreadsheets, creating costing workbooks, logs, performance management tables.

I organise my workstation and files extremely neatly, into work and project files, categories, archives and such (although I hardly organise my own blog posts, writings, and personal administration with such meticulous care).

When I am not unwell, I am a workaholic.

Work is very important to me, to the point that I hardly make personal calls, emails, or SMSes during my work day. I don't even like to have MSN while at work unless I actually need it for work. And if I have a major project to rush, I am sorry if it's your Second Uncle's wife's birthday dinner, work is work is work and I am working late means I am working late.

I try to do everything myself until I am about to K.O., or will not be available. I like to delegate because I feel it will benefit the person doing it, and every delegation I see as a favour done unto me, or for their own achievement and development. Even when I am boss. (This probably stems from my 'inability to make demands from people' attitude which is what I need to change). I believe in getting your own feet in the mud if you want your people to get theirs in.

I also keep the problems I am facing at work to myself until such appointed time, which usually is too late, I am already ill from stress, or extremely depressed.

But when I am boss, my weaknesses are that I am impatient, and since I already sound aggressive when I talk normally, I sound more fierce and pissed than I actually am. I also procrastinate on solving problems I cannot solve because I keep things to myself.

Hence I also believe in having someone to think aloud and bounce ideas off with.

I believe very strongly in dressing the part.

And in charming the room. I can talk to anyone and network with everyone. Firm handshakes, warm smiles, eye contact, conversations and namecard exchanging. I also seem to know people that other people know and so on and so forth. (Although when I go to a party I don't want to, I am not necessarily so charming).

I believe loving your work is important.

Supplements I take daily:

1000mg Omega-3
Apart from general well-being, Omega-3 is supposed to aid receptor and neuronal activity in the brain. If you know enough about clinical depression you will probably know that this is good stuff, because there are chemical imbalances and abnormal neurotransmitter activities that need to be treated in the brain of the patient.


1000mg Evening Primrose Oil
For selfish reasons, this one. This is mainly good for skin, which is why I take it if I get an eczema outbreak too. Plus it grows your boobs, useful for me since I did lose a lot of weight recently. But vanity aside, EPO, taken in the mornings, is useful for hormonal balances in women, so that the coming of your monthly period does not give you adverse mood swings. It is also good if you have cramps and such.

300mg Mega Acidophilus per meal
This aids digestive health, much like popping Yakult pills. Useful for indigestion and gastric problems, as well as for constipation. I am not sure on this, but apart from my measly appetite, necessary avoidance of citrus fruits for my asthma, the medications I am on might cause constipation as a side effect. For some reason my gastric health isn't that great lately - I get bloated if I eat too much, I get gastric pains now and then. So this bacterial-boost-in-a-pill helps.

1 cap multi-vit for women
The Gnc brand, if you are wondering which one this is. This is the one that C bought and made me eat religiously. Multivites usually make me fat because they improve appetite and metabolism, but this one doesn't. So I am sticking to it.

1 cap glucosamine if I am exercising that day
I am prone to joint - mainly knee - pains because of my banker days spent standing on heels at weekend roadshows. I usually pop one when I exercise, which is more frequent now.

All these supplements come in huge caplets. Thankfully I am now an expert pill-popper.

exercise

I have been exercising. I bought two 1kg weights. I bought an exercise mat. I went for brisk walks (still too weak to run). I have been exercising, everyday. Gets rid of a lot of rage. Gives me a nice ass. Nicer legs and arms. Hopefully, flatter tummy soon. And I hope I get my boobs back because I lost weight recently.

bored yet scared

So anyway I managed to do a few things I haven't been doing properly:

I went out and met friends and replied text messages and answered phone calls.

I took a train ride! Although it is only one stop but I managed to do it. I felt a bit crazy doing it but I did not have a panic attack and I told myself it was okay and actually believed me even if it was slight. And I did it without Xan*ax.

I told people my problems. Let me be self-absorbed for the moment please! Sorry if I repeat stories I don't remember who I confided in and what. I am not good at this problem-sharing business still, now I just blurt out everything. Eventually I will find my place between the continuum of isolation and diva-dom.

I feel happy. Serotonin is a beautiful brain-chemical to regulate.

--

What hasn't changed:

My memory is still poor.

I am still very weak,
my hands are shivery, I can't write,
I feel tired, I feel cold.

I can't sleep well.

I still haven't regained interest in reading, gaming or writing.

I still haven't regained my appetite.

I still feel strange telling people about myself, warts and all. I feel very diva-like now and I hate it.

I still fear going back to work. Any work.

take shit

When I was working in a bank, my personal motto was, "Shit happens, but that is why we are overcomers." C, when he first met me, said that I said this statement with utter conviction, that he believed I must have gone through many problems and came out of them on top.


I have not been angry at anyone for a very long time, I suppose my health has improved for it too. So in a sense, shit has hardly been happening. I don't think I have been cured of my anger, I just think career change happened, which traded my anger for sadness and hope and expectation.


And no I hardly ever get angry with C, even though I spend so much time with him. I don't really know sometimes which one is really me: the one who gets angry easily, or the one who hardly ever does. If C is my soulmate, then the one I am in front of him must be the real me, no? C is sensible so he hardly ever incenses me. We all know some standard things that piss me off: lack of clarity, pride, broken English, etc. C is none of these.


At the peak of my anger problems I told C what I researched and found out. We realised we both have the same problems and that was why our anger flows easily. I can take C's anger. I hardly ever get angry back, for some reason. He asks, when he is in his pensive moods, why I seem to take his shit, no one else can.


Maybe I have some horrid martyr complex. I set up a capacity for shit-taking in myself everyday, and it gets filled up, by C or otherwise, and sometimes it overflows, but till then all is well.


But I am getting tired of it.

pooh!

Science eludes me, like water over a plastic sheet. It is absolutely baffling to me how people know about cell structures et cetera and not find it overly profound, in the realm of expert, or similar. The motivation behind wanting to know all that, escapes me even more. To me, the study of electricity concerns itself with housing initiatives for the people who need it, instead of resistance and all that. Resistance? Civil war you mean?


Why do I need to know so much about how things work? Life is much more than that. The study of societies and why we alienate one another, perhaps, instead of how some compound is formed. How innately boring. Would you not rather find out how to stop clinical depression from becoming a health threat in 2010? Or study (ugh) the speed of light?


I don't like scientists. Not unless they are also clever, and demonstrate it in their understanding of how societies work.

inner monologue

Waiting produces the fruit of patience, or perhaps frustration and restlessness. In the grand scheme of things I suppose pockets of time that occur between seedtime and harvest can be spent wisely on activities that contribute to the said grand scheme. But many of these things require money. I choose inertia to save money, and energy. Not the best of ideas.


I could spend time on my pleasures as one does during her holidays. But I suddenly rather feel otherwise, for some of these hobbies. For one, I hardly feel like playing WoW very much now, and my DVDs sit there in wait. I could visit the museums and galleries, but there is no urge to. I still love reading, oh! Shopping too, but that requires money I am trying to save. As such, I have become rather bored, especially seeing that I devour books much too fast.


I don't suppose boredom and pro-inertia go very well together. Must be uppity.

claustro

crowded places, like town, or the train;
small corners, like squashy seats or bookstore aisles;



"Claustrophobics may suffer from panic attacks, or fear of having a panic attack...a crowded city square might trigger claustrophobics and agoraphobics alike."


My heart beats hard and fast, just thinking about Singaporeans squashing in my way.

snobberies

straight long hair with no shape at all
almost every shade of purple
musicals: unless Bollywood, no random singing out of nowhere please
crowds, public transport, people walking near me
broken English especially when people have to hear you
stingy Singaporean SME bosses
accountants and civil servants
Taiwanese variety shows
messy floorcloths and wet sink areas

e's 2006

inspired by Syl.


Best food: oysters from that restaurant along Bondi Beach, foie gras from Memoir, fried oysters from Old Airport Road, ice-cream, all with C.

Biggest moment of fear: none, save the times I have had to investigate weird noises outside my flat when I am alone, or when my parents try to call me 'urgently'.

Best holiday: Sydney.

Most stressed holiday: none, but Yangon comes close since it wasn't a holiday.

Nastiest incident: nothing that wasn't dealt with, mostly through a lot of shouting at the top of my voice.

Most expensive purchase: new laptop, but C paid for most of it.

Best surprise: none.

Biggest announcement: leaving the business.

Biggest lie: 'I'm tired.'

Most painful experience: times when I quarrelled with C, and that perhaps gastro-scope I had to do.

Most embarrassing moment: none that I couldn't live with.

Biggest moment of achievement: having more than enough in the bank.

Most awkward performance: But I don't perform anything!

Best compliment: 'You're pretty.'

Most agitated but composed moment: when I try to reason with C.

Biggest crush: of the year? C! Oh my gosh I am so smitten with him.

Most amusing comment during work: too many to recollect!

Worst and most hilarious dinner: worst dinners would be the ones I didn't want to go for but turned up anyway, the hilarious one has got to be the New Year's Eve party (not actually a dinner) when Kenny turned up in a dress even though he has no boobs for it.

Biggest nightmare in my line of work: when someone turns up too late or almost not at all. Argh! Screw all of them!

Moment of helplessness: when even the simplest things seemed impossible.

Most flattering moment: when Eujin conferred upon me the Best Girlfriend Award. That's recognition, man!