Prozac Nation

Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation seems to be a compulsory read for the modern depressives.
I must say, although she doesn’t have much content, wait, she has NO content at all, she very much deserves the success of her book.

The book is very well written. Reading her memoir, one can tell that she is well read and has exceptional intellect.
Indeed one can’t be taught writing skills. I have read many poorly written books by academicians. They have essential content but it’s an ordeal to read.

I can’t help but wonder had Ellie underwent a different upbringing, what would she had accomplished?

A different route but I believe of similar or even greater significance.

The last line of her epilogue
‘Everyone who has experienced a severe depression has his own sad, awful tale to tell, his own mess to live through. Sadly Kurt Cobain can never get that far. Every day, I thank God I did.’

I'm dying.

When I keep really still.
Really still.
Where the only movement is my occassional eye-blinks.

Then, I recall.
I could remember who I am.

But I'm dying.

my head and the pain

My hurts terribly when I think about my past, present or future.
In order for it NOT to hurt, I have to think about OTHER things.
Other things that doesn’t concern me.

That was what I told my doctor before going out to take my medication.
The two pharmacists are very young.
Might even be younger than me.
They are Chinese descent ladies.
The one attending to me spoke to me in Mandarin.
I politely replied.
Then she enquired something from the other in English.
The answer was about me having to be sure of the medication.
I understood.
But the attendee translated it for me.
I politely nodded.

‘I must look uneducated’, I thought.

******************

The psychologist gave me two pieces of paper and asked me to fill them.
She spoke to me in broken English.
In order not to be rude and yet wish to let her know that I’m also comfortable in Malay, I answered the first half of the sentence in English, and ended with Malay.
I thought I could make a comfortable transition to Malay.
But in the entire conversation she seems to be insistent about her broken English.
‘Oh no, my doctor must have warned her about my outburst 2 years ago’, I thought.
2 years ago, I was really out of my mind.

When I was in the doctor’s office, I scolded my doctor about her not being able to help me. I think my sentence was, “You call yourself a doctor, and you can’t even speak proper English. I wonder how you passed your papers! Surely all the medical terms were English right?”
I am very ashamed of that outburst.
I embarrassed her.
If only I could have directed the embarrassment to other deserving people .

I glanced and noticed that she has a file which has the local university label.
“If you can’t understand the questions, please ask k?”
I nodded.
I looked at the paper and concluded that this paper must have been prepared by her.
After filling the usual information, the next query left me in doubt.

Current condition:
Errr, should I put depressed, or severely depressed, or severe anxiety depression, or bipolar, or the latest one, agoraphobia.
Afterall, these terms all appear in my medical card.
Cause:
I opened my lips slightly in disbelief.
One line. I was supposed to answer that in 15cm.
After that, I just put yes/no/nil for the answers.
With such questionnaire, she can’t be serious right?
But the cutest attempt has to be about my childhood upbringing.
Was it traumatic? Yes.
How? My 15cm line lost 1.2cm to the word How.
Result of the trauma:
I chuckled in the inside.
Err, duh! My current condition.
Nah, don’t want to be cheeky to this lady who’s trying to help.

So, she asked the usual stuff.
But when she asked about the usual hurting stuff.
I told her politely that I can’t go on, my head hurts.
Then I smiled and ask, “Can I go now?”
She nodded and gave me her number telling me that she is available for me should I need anyone to talk to.
Thank her and left.

On my way out I saw this kid in a patient’s clothing.
‘Oh God, he can’t be more than 10’, I thought.
He was walking around restlessly.
Trying hard to control his tears.
I won’t dare to claim that I know how he feels but I can claim that I know why he’s reacting that way.

A lot of people think that we feel that we are ignorant about other people’s sorrow and struggle.
That we are too preoccupied with our own pain.
You are TOO wrong.
We are more perceptive of pain than any other.

I remember back when I was in the ward,
There was this lady who was really out of her mind.
Her words were incoherent.
But when she saw another lady crying helplessly, she hugged her.
“Please don’t cry. Don’t cry”, rubbing her back.
Soon after, she joined in the torrents of tears.

That whole memory is still vivid in my head.
Ordinary people who passed by would just past them as emotionally disturbed.

But I’d say, they bonded when words were incoherent but the pain was real.

My face

I was feeling troubled.
I wanted company for reasons I can’t explain.
I helped myself to the empty extra bed in sis’s room.

“Please la, let me sleep here. Not like I’m disturbing.”
“No. GET OUT.”
“Why?”
“No reason. This is my room and I want you OUT.”

Months later, I was pacing back and forth in my sis’s room.
Like a repetitive nightmare, I was experiencing anxiety yet again.
But I didn’t dare say anything.
I went to my room and hid under the covers.
My sis knocked the door and asked, “You want to sleep in my room?”
I nodded earnestly.
“Then, say so lar! Only show your stupid face!”

I told my father about a government doctor’s disrespectful treatment towards me.
I was 17.
“You know, you have a very unpleasant face. That’s why people tend to have a bad impression of you.”
If he had said anything else, I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t listening anymore.

Everyday only show your black face! That’s why we have such bad luck in the house!
My mother said many other things of course, but it’s irrelevant for my posting here.

"Do you understand? You have such blur face."
My teachers always say this. My ex-classmates would readily nod to this memory.

During my temporary stint as a waitress back in my teens, my colleague always asks me if I’m alright. I ask why I wouldn’t be.
“Because you always have such worried face.”
Then she did an impression of me that made me laugh.
She’s real sweet. Subsequently she told me a real life sob story that was supposed to make me feel better.

I was waiting for a friend. She’s late as usual.
I was walking back and forth.
Two jolly men walked towards me, “Ah Moi, are you okay?”
I looked up very surprised. I smiled and nodded, looking really confused.
“You looked really sad. Why lar? Young people should be happy.”
I beamed, not knowing if it was for his sake or mine.

I cried back in the psychiatric ward.
A friend there wrote this to me. http://teasips.blogspot.com/search?q=vince

that person

You know that person who stares at a peculiar thing but you know she's not actually looking?

You know that person who stares at a peculiar thing but you know she's not actually looking but have hundreds of thoughts flying across her mind?

You know that person who ask loads of questions that you wouldn't want to answer because your attempt is deemed stupid or you think she's stupid?

You know that person who has occasional emotional outburst and has a penchant for creating uncomfortable situations?

You know that person whom you'd rather not be seen with because it would be a social-suicide in high school?

Do you know what happened to her?

all of me

It's really odd.
How I'm suicidal and yet at the same time I'd like to communicate.
But to be honestly narcisitic about it,
although it's a two-way communication, it's actually my OWN voice that I yearn to hear.
It's through communication that I can surprise myself with my own thoughts and beliefs.

"You know what is my biggest regret? That I'd never know my true personality nor fulfill my potential because depression has eaten ALL of me."

blink blink

I opened my eyes.
Blink. Blink.
Only after awhile I realized that I’m awake.
Blink. Blink.
What day it is, what did I last do before I fell asleep?

I shut my eyes, hoping to fall back into peaceful slumber.
But it was impossible.

Then I recall that I have been suffering from sleep anxiety for years.
For many years I have been wishing never to wake up.
Each morning.
How I have wished that I could have more of my peaceful slumber.
How my heart would drum upon each wake.
How I would mumble prayers and serene motivational quotes to myself.
Nothing worked.
Not even scientific medication.

comfort company

The unlikely couple of baby hippo and a 130-year-old tortoise was still together, a year after the hippo was separated from its family by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

How cute that we find comfort in situations we can’t explain.
I remember once reading a story about a homeless 40 something man living with a 70 something stranger/vagrant woman. They have been each other’s dependent for years. When the elderly woman died, the man followed soon after, of natural causes.
It seems very common that when one loses its pillar of strength, the will to live seems to be lost too.

I wouldn’t know, I never had any pillars.

Heave

Your surrounding echoes in your ear.
Your can't hear your surrounding clearly because you can only hear the sound of yourself gasping for air.
You are breathing through your mouth.
Your chest is heaving.
You clenched your palms to whatever your holding.
You only look at your minimal front direction to get out as quickly as possible.
You don't want anyone to notice you.
Leave, leave, leave

falling leaves

My all time favourite book,
Adeline YenMah's Falling Leaves.
I'm such a fanatic that I have all her books.
Her book is the first I read which I'd put down just to go to the loo.
I recognise her sense of lost in the midst of trying to be accepted but was always confused with the mistreatment.

However, there is one major difference between us.
She's highly intelligent , is a MD and am now a well known author.
I just got admitted to the psych.ward.

Lies lies

I knew that my sis knows my blog’s address but was secretly hoping that she wouldn’t read it. Why should she anyway? She lives with me.
Yesterday, she told me she does.
I asked why.
“You were that Bored?”
“Err, yeah. And you don’t talk to me.”

And this point, I got really angry. Really angry.
It’s like knowing the hazards of second hand cigarette smoke and still puffing it directly to my face.

She told me that dad read my diary when I was in the hospital.
Yes. The metaphor of puffing that second hand smoke to my face can’t be any better.

So all these caring people who wants to understand me, reads my inner most feeling and still behave like that?

The details about what hurt me, when it hurt me, how I felt, and that just didn’t matter.
According to how they are behaving, it seems like they were just looking for evidence to prosecute me.

Yesterday, my sis and I had another usual confrontation.
She just had to reaffirm to me that all the bad things that happened to me was my responsibility.
“Why didn’t you…. Why didn’t you….So, what now? You’re just buying time to die?”

I was covering my head shaking. My head hurt real badly. All I could hear was
‘Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies’
I seek refuge in my room.
I was sobbing like mad. All that familiar feeling came back.
I wanted to hurt myself; I wanted to tear everything apart.

For years I told myself it will be better. Now I know, it can’t.
Because I am already damaged.

You think I want perfection. No, I merely want to understand.
I can’t understand the cruelty.

What I have been taught.

If you are feeling depressed, it’s your own doing.
If you are experiencing a nervous breakdown, it’s your own doing.
If you are admitted into the psychiatric ward, it’s your own doing.
If you are hitting yourself, cutting yourself, getting tied up; it’s your own doing.
If you are suicidal, it’s your own doing.
Everyone agrees that happiness is a choice and not a circumstance.
So, all your misery and tears shed are all your own doing.

It’s my entire fault then.
How could I argue otherwise?

Nick Hornby

Excerpts from the first chapter of Nick Hornsby’s A Long Way Down, sold in aid of the Tsunami charity.

I’d spent the previous couple of months looking up suicide inquests on the Internet, just out of curiosity. And nearly every single time, the coroner says the same thing: “He took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed.” And then you read the story about the poor bastard: his wife was sleeping with his best friend, he’d lost his job, his daughter had been killed in a road accident some months before… hello. Mr. Coroner? Anyone at home? I’m sorry, but there’s no disturbed mental balance here, my friend. I’d say he got it just right. Bad thing upon bad thing upon bad thing until you can’t take any more and then it’s off to the nearest multi-storey car park in the family hatchback with a length of rubber tubing. Surely that’s fair enough? Surely the coroner’s inquest should read, “He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become.”?
Not once did I read a newspaper report which convinced me that the deceased was off the old trolley. You know: “the Manchester United forward, who was engaged to the current Miss Sweden, had recently achieved a unique double: he is the only man ever to have won the FA Cup and an Oscar for Best Actor in the same year. The rights to his first novel had just been bought for an undisclosed sum by Steven Spielberg. He was found hanging from a beam in his stables by a member of his staff.” Now, I’ve never seen a coroner’s report like that, but if there were cases in which happy, successful, talented people took their own lives, one was indeed wonky. And I’m not saying that being engaged to Miss Sweden, playing for Manchester United and winning Oscars inoculates you against depression-I’m sure it doesn’t. I’m just saying that these things help. Look at the statistics. You’re more likely to top yourself if you’ve just gone through a divorce. Or if you’re anorexic. Or if you’re unemployed. Or if you’re a prostitute. Or if you’ve fought in a war, or if you’ve been raped, or if you’ve lost somebody… there are lots and lots of factors that push people over the edge; none of these factors are likely to make you feel anything but fucking miserable.

Mark Twain

The best quote I've read in months,

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. -mark twain

couldn't

I couldn't have said it better.
This are Iris Chang's final words in her suicide note.

"I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead"

I couldn't have said it better.

malfuctioning

There is a chinese saying which states,
"the object takes after the owner"

I noticed that my things are all malfuctioning.

years

On Tv, the Cantonese soaps =
Husband ; But honey, we have been married for 25 years. Doesn't that mean something?

Wive; If the relationship was worthy, 2 years would have been enough,
if the relationship was just an act, 2 days would have been unbearable!

That phrase of comparison made an impact in me.
I couldn't agree more.
I choose quality of quantity.

iris

I was happy that Iris Chang's story was being featured. I quickly browsed when suddenly this phrased shocked me,

-committed suicide in 2004, at the age of 36.

I couldn't believe it.

what? How come I didn't read about it in the news before?

Her book, "Rape of Nanking" has taught me so much when I read it in my teens.

Nobody can understand suicides, not even the suicidals.

read

I was just talking a leisure-walk around the neighbourhood.
I noticed that the neighbours around me have Astro.
Except my home and the house next to mine.
I know that they're rich and they have a kid with a retiree babysitting it.
An Astro would be appropriate for their family.
I wonder why then,
ah.....

"They must like to read."
I chuckled.

bewildering dreams

the more I think of it, I have more reocurring dreams than I remember.
There's this one type where I run around in very VERY fancy malls.
Very brightly lit, very cluttered, very 'branded'.
And the strangest thing is..

the setting always change and I've never been in any of those malls before.
Where did the imagination banked in all that dreamed-up setting,

-that really keeps me bewildered.

wholesome

The sister and little bro was playfully arguing about who won the trivial game. The younger one had less vocabulary and arguing power than the sis.
Then, the funniest thing happened,
the father slipped a Rm50 bill to the little one, hidden from the sis's view.
One, Two, go!
The sister was surprised that the bro could hand out such a big note.
He won the game.
Father and bro laughed.
I smiled.
I was sitting next to them in the hawker eatery.
The mother joined them, carrying a little toddler.

What a wholesome family, I thought.

out of place

It’s funny how a momentary of thought could affect me.
I was chatting with R- asking to exchange snippets of childhood as to entertain ourselves.

“I’ve never been to kindergarten, no one taught me to read and I wasn’t those child prodigies who can teach themselves.
So I entered Std 1, completely illiterate.
My mother wrapped my books with white calendar paper.
When the teacher requested us to take out our books, I didn’t know which one.
I had to open all my book covers to identify them according to color.
Everyone knew what to do and they had those fancy plastic transparent wrappers on the covers.
I felt really confused and inferiorly stupid.
I was so out of place.”

How was I to know that it was a feeling that was meant for me to carry the rest of my life?

And oops! Sorry R, we didn’t get to your story, till next time k? I look forward to it.

handwriting

Our handwriting is an amazing skill.
It's unique like our identity.
I take great pride in recognising friends' handwritings.
Especially from the traditionally written postal address on the envelope.

Ah, the joy of recognising the handwriting the moment you see it.
Knowing who mailed you instantly.

the human touch recognition program.

silent night

When nothing is certain but the silent night,

my movement is imprisoned but my thoughts are light,

the monsters of course do not even wait,

readily to attack me,my strength they take,

all my weapons are weak, perhaps even none,

to fight the struggles that I shun.

escalators

Lately, it has been only two types of dreams.
Rushing to take baths or

rushing to reach a destination only by escalators.

Escalators which criss-cross with each other.
And the escalators can never take me directly to my aimed destination.
I'm required to hop from one to another.
What does it mean?

fairy

It frightened me.
It was too beautiful to be real.
But how did it get on the gate if it’s a toy?
It turned its head.
Oh my God! It’s real.
I was keeping the laundry when I noticed an extraordinary bird resting on my gate.
It was bigger than a sparrow, its beak was yellow, and its chest had a huge white blotch, as if acting as an armor shield.
It was facing me, so I assumed its feathers are mostly dark chocolate brown but I could see it has some bright blue feathers.
I didn’t dare to move, fearing that it might fly away.
It didn’t like my presence, and it did fly away. Giving me a clearer view that most of its feathers are blue.
Extraordinary.

my reflection

When I was growing up, many close relatives agree that I was cuter when I was little.
Like how my parents sum it, “the older she gets, the uglier”.
A few months ago, a friend saw this photo and I jokingly told her my parents’ slogan-comment.
She accidentally agreed with it until she noticed the disturbed look on my face.
I didn’t even realized I had put on one until she very politely rephrased her meaning.

I don’t like looking into mirrors because I don’t recognize myself.
When I do look, I see a very ugly person.

And the worst part is,

I made the reflection that way.

To myself

Can you forgive me?
The one who hurt and disappoint you wasn't me,
I've lost myself a LONG long time ago,
But would it be a consolation that I hurt myself the worst?
I tried TOO hard searching for an identity, to fit in.
Alas! only to find out that I had it all along.
But even that is gone now.

You know why I'm afraid to see people? They are all more superior than me.Even the vagrants possess something I don't.

dead skin

I was watching this travel show on tv and the lady introduced a place in south China where there are ponds filled with little fishes which feed only on dead human skin.
Therefore, understandably it's very attractive tourist spot for the ladies.
Just float on the pond calmly while the little ones eat away your dead skin. The lady host says it's very ticklish for her.


Wouldn't it be nice if there were little fishes which eat on dead spirit skin?
My spirit is too calloused.

Obituary

For years now, I've always looked at the obituary section of the newspaper. Even in news reports, the age of the deceased always interest me.
I ask, "why aren't lives exchangeable?''

hmmm, I still remember the first time I spoke to a couselor ,I confessed this thought to her and the next thing I knew,
straight into the psychiatry I went.

Photos Frm Newsppr

a sudanese refugee tries to hand over his child through a bus window after both were arrested.
He is willing to risk giving his child to total strangers because in his opinion; is better than taking the child back home with him.

Making calls

Back when I could be still labled 'normal', I always have the same disturbing dream.
I was rushing to go somewhere.
It was always urgent.
Most of the time, I need to make phone calls.
And always, I have trouble dialing the numbers.
The phone would never work properly.

The dream dictionary explains that I was desperately seeking help.
Funny, I haven't had that dream for a very long time.

Photos frm Newsppr

World Disablity Day.
They were not born this way. It was result of unfortunate illnesses and accidents. I admire their courage.

Photos frm Newsppr

This is the oldest one posted here. This Japanese man is jobless and homeless and yet dresses well awaiting for opportunity to change his circumstances. Shoes must be outside your home, even when home is a cardboard.

Photos frm Newsppr

I truly admire this man. If I have a show and tell about a local hero, he's my pick. No family, no income and yet he sees the urgent need to patch up pot holes on the road.

Our paid government saw otherwise.

Photos frm Newsppr

She is Brazillian model Ana Carolina Rexton, died of anorexia.
She's So...beautiful. Yet, she must have saw a horrifying different self of her.

Photos frm Newsppr

I honestly don't know why I kept this photo for so long. The date photographed is irrelevant because I was lazy to reset the camera. Many which I've kept, I had brutally thrown away. But this, for at least 3 years- had been in my possession. Maybe it's because I can't figure it out. I can't even understand how I feel about it.

Photos I saved frm Newspp

The fear, confusion and desperation which I can understand.

like to listen

My father once said that I have ‘high’ taste for music because I enjoy listening to opera, movie soundstracks and other similar classical genre. I watched a movie where this autistic man enjoys listening to a man singing out loud in the public bath.
It was horrible, but still operatic.
Autistic he may be, but he’d sit there faithfully till the song ends.

I guess my explanation to my liking is same as his. Don’t know why, just like to listen.

Wai’s movies

The first time I watched Wong Kar Wai’s movies, I was disappointed. Oddly, after severe depression, I began to understand his movies. Watching ‘In the mood for love’ for the second time, I began to capture the artistic side, which is actually the majority part of the movie.
Most of us want to ‘get straight to the point’. But how else to depict one’s loneliness and emotional turmoil when the audience wants to ‘hurry up’?

more shockingly, I can’t believe he has won my vote.

Fortune God

The cartoon version of the ‘Fortune God’ mascot came to visit the McD I was in.
He was giving out red packets. Children crowded him. Everyone was smiling, I including which surprised me.
The children opened to find a huge gold-coin shaped chocolate. One of the McD staff braved himself to shake hands with the ‘God’.
He was giggling. Both embarrassed and encouraged by his colleagues. Such joy.
The happiness surrounding me hurt. It hurt because I couldn’t genuinely feel it.
The fear and pain in me unfortunately surmounts it all.

too late

Do I want to escape or do I want to better my journey?
Doesn't the former have a higher success rate?

it's just too late.

it doesn't matter anymore.

worst days

One of the worst days of my life.

I came home feeling sick.
I sat down for dinner_ ill-prepared by mother.
It was the period of time when my crazy mother only gave me Rm35 a week as allowance.
I was interning at a newspaper.
I had to take ktm and lrt and eat.
I was so..... miserable.
The rest of the family ignored me.
I sat down to eat.
"See your sour face makes me lose my appetite." says the dowager.

I went upstairs to bath then very quickly fell asleep.
My eyes were wet.
I don't know if it's a dream or I had imagined it.
An angel came and sympathetically whispered to my ear, "It'll be alright."

--Lies

thank you

funny,
more memories seem to crop up,

thank you for answering my online message immediately via mobile, to me it's very uncommon,
thank you for burning the cds for me,
thank you for bringing me the leave-on conditioner, I know too many friends who wouldn't have bother, but you did, and we only just met
thank you for making that chocolate box for me-it's my best birthday present, it is the first birthday present I remember,
thank you for taking me to the movies, back when I wouldn't even take myself

I have a feeling more of these will pop up to my mind soon