emotions

I can’t do this.

October 2, 2021 — 1 Comment

I haven’t been the same since 22nd September. I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know where I am going with this post. Pain is temporary, I’ve heard of that saying. Countless times. For the sake of maintaining my sanity and out of respect for some individuals I love and care about, I will not go into full details of what has taken place, or maybe I will, when I am in a better headspace. I have not been able to think clearly. My emotions have been difficult to contain, to sustain. It’s too much. I am given too much pain and care at the same time it has been hurting me. It’s overwhelming me. Fear. Panic. Confusion. Helplessness. Lost.

That’s what I am feeling all at once.

It’s inconsistent. I could be doing the things I love, and I am hit by a wave of sadness. Then I can’t continue what I’m doing, what I was doing, or what I had planned to do. Since I deactivated my Twitter account on the 25th September, I have struggled to live normally. The simplest things became impossible. It’s still hard, because as I am typing this now, I am dealing with a fever, my chest hurts, and by the time this gets published, I don’t know how I am and I cannot guarantee what will happen to me. Maybe I won’t be okay, maybe I will be okay. I am unsure if this post is a cry for help. Maybe it is at this moment, and maybe I will regret having shared this. And there are plenty of people who have shown me concern and care. There is not a single day I do not receive a text, a phone call, or an email asking me if I’m okay.

So, please, just let me state here once and for all, that I am not okay.

This post is not a walk in the park. So, I am putting it out first, that you do not have to proceed further this time around if a topic around depression and soft suicidal thoughts is something you rather not see at this moment. My posts have and will always be honest, no matter how rough it gets. But it’s not supposed to make people feel confused or down. And I cannot lie to myself as to how I am feeling. Some of you have been there before, I know.

Now that I’ve gotten that disclaimer out there, I will continue.

Don’t ask me if I’m okay, because as much as I appreciate the concern and love, I am physically and mentally exhausted to explain, over and over again, what has happened, and I don’t open up fully, the extent of the pain I am experiencing or the cumulative events that has led me up to this stage. You can check up on me by leaving words of assurance, that’s more than enough for me. I am politely asking that for the sake of my sanity, while I am still capable of being rational without going into my survival mode or being indifferent, please do not ask me for details, don’t ask me how I am doing. I cannot keep up with more than 20 messages a single day of repeated questions. Yet, not answering is unfair to any of you because you’ve taken the time out, the care to ask me how I am faring. Not answering you worries you. Not picking up your phone call worries you. It worries me too. I am a danger to myself right now. It is unsafe.

All I can ask, from the ones that sincerely care for me, from the bottom of your heart, please continue to care for me but do not worry about me. I need you to trust in me that I will be okay and that I will be able to make it through this confusing and difficult phase. All this loss that I am dealing with, I have not been able to grieve at all. I still haven’t grieved. What all these events have done, has removed me from the world here. I am here, but I’m not fully here. I don’t see the light right now. I don’t feel any real strength in me, to reconnect with the world and weave myself anew into the fabric of living. 

Every single day is a day of drowning. I can’t swim. I feel the cold wash over me. But I also feel nothing, numb, almost. I can’t seem to get up. I can’t seem to want to move at all. I’ve stopped telling myself “Maybe the pain I am feeling now is preparing me to face something else.” In this depression, right now, because I am typing what I am feeling right now, is such that I am not seeking the happier version of me. My memories are distorted. My childhood memories are blurry. I don’t know how it got dark so fast, but I remember every single detail of the fear and pain of abandonment, fresh, like it only happened yesterday. I don’t know if I still have it in me to reach out for that child-self I once was, the innocent child who loved the sunshine and rain all the same. I started to see darkness around the lights instead of the other way around, and soon there were no more colours in my world. They say there is a rope ladder out of depression, one you can use to climb out of it. The problem is, that I just can’t find the will to reach out for the first rung, let alone try.

I had always loved observing and listening to people. Their facial expressions, their gestures, the shift in their tone when they talk… I loved the flowers and the birds that sing, loved the sunlight and the clouds that drift by as I make my way to work. Loved the way the leaves move in a breeze and that soft whispering sound they make, like nature loves to chatter too. Yet, the tiredness remains like a veil over my skin, grey and cold. And as I watch the other residents carry about with their lives in their own space, spending time with their loved ones and smiling, from my balcony, there is only a creeping sorrow where there should be joy.

This hurts so much. Just expressing how I feel right now too, doesn’t feel right. That I can’t even express my sorrow without coming off as attention-seeking. It hurts so much that I’m slipping into old habits again. I have just wanted to take my life so many times. It hurts that it’s easier to tell my pain here than to anyone I have ever known. It kills me on the inside that each morning, I wake up with a sense of defeat and unbridled desolation. I just want to feel something. I just want friends to know I am trying. I don’t want to hurt. I don’t want to stay depressed. I didn’t ask to be traumatised at a young age, I didn’t ask to have to relive my trauma every single day. I want to have a group of friends where I could tell them how happy I am, how proud I am of them for all they are doing, for all that they are. I don’t want to hurt on the inside anymore. I want to be happy, even for a second, I want it so bad.

But the voice inside my head is that cruel, isn’t it?

At any other time I would have called a friend, asked for the warmth I needed to ward it off, just a little is enough. I don’t know how to, because at the back of my mind, the voice tells me I am taking up space. It tells me I am unworthy. It tells me I am bothering them. And it makes you sad too, reading this. It hurts you because you are sitting on the other end, behind your device wishing you could make me feel better. You wish you could tell me that’s not true. And you know what? You’re probably right. You hate that I am feeling this way and I had experienced pain and such. I know. I know you care. My mind just tells me you don’t. It is a constant battle I deal with myself. 

And I dissociated again.

I don’t know how to continue this now. My whole life, I never felt like I belonged. Not in my group of friends, family, or country. I have always felt as though no matter where I go, I just don’t feel like I belong. Growing up where emotions were consistently repressed, where the blame always fell on my shoulders, the feeling of being inferior to everyone was so much that I feared speaking up at home, in school, and hangouts. Now, I’m just a 20 something that never got closure for plenty of things, has friends and family members that care for me but I don’t know how to receive their care. I would rather fill that void with starvation than reach out to them because it’s safer than potentially setting myself up for even more rejection. To face disappointment. To deal with abandonment, again. 

I don’t want to kill myself, but every time I wake up I can’t help thinking… Just how many more days do I have to continue with this?

But.

I might as well, live the best I can, while I’m still breathing, hey? Just have to patch up my old wounds with promises of bright tomorrows stitched tight with half-hearted hopes. The pain? I just let it come. Drop by drop. And I feel like it is an ocean falling upon me. Instead of rain. Yes, imagine that. That the grief of years I carefully suspended. All of them. Condensed right above my head. Into a cloud large enough to block the sun. They say it can’t rain forever. That there will come a time when it must cease. That the last drop will have fallen. I will still be true to myself, still help others, but I plan to just stay here in the cold, comfortably numb. 

I don’t intend to be that way forever. I am still trying to stay strong here. Feeling empty and experiencing loss have such a strong connection to one another that I need to fully rest before I can figure out what is what. Hope this answers everything. Hopefully. If you care for me, stay on, and trust in me to make it through, even if it seems impossible for me now. Reading back everything I’ve wrote now, it makes me feel sick. I need some time to heal.

I’m really happy.

June 19, 2021 — 5 Comments

Is it possible that the human passion for deep connection has something to do with the years writers spent crafting their literature—a nostalgia for the graceful conversations and shifting from topics to topics? Perhaps.

I am really happy. Do I have depression? Yes.

Am I really happy? Yes.

Right here.

Right now.

Maybe when you are reading this, I will be going through something else. But I’m really happy as I’m writing this now.

I owe an incalculable debt to many friends I’ve gotten to know better in the past few months. My interest to connect with strangers online returned to me this year around late March when, as a writer who had to work from home in a pandemic, I hopped on to Twitter to share my writing with others. Idly looking around at all the writer’s lifts and writer’s tags, then slowly learning to give feedback on others when their writing evokes something in me, I experienced a kind of epiphanal vision of a writing that would bring about genuineness and compassion to humanity. I resolved to devote myself to such the task.

Exactly when I started being open about my feelings, I started to feel love and support. And it led me to you. Yes, you, the one reading this now. While I have become accustomed to people sharing their ups and downs, I am still feeling extremely conscious about mine. Even so, I am still fascinated by the events and the conversations that form my life here.

Crowds. People, lots of them, there are also all sorts of them on Twitter. Communicating. Beyond the actual language barrier and cultural differences, there is also the complex unspoken language online. This language of implication often seems to be the case here, and it has the tendency to often make what you don’t say more important than what you do say. It’s a bit funny, fortunately I’ve been privy enough to notice subtleties.

But why I am telling you all of this? Maybe it’s because somewhere in the crowd, I saw you. You didn’t think I would, but I did. Just the same, you might have seen me when I was looking somewhere else. You see, I see your tweets as I scroll through the feed. I can see the words. Its meaning is left for me to decipher—to each their own imagination and experience.

Day after day come delightful discoveries: Hollis who has his soul on his Hong Kong beach, neon lights, and questionable life choices. Wrust putting on his suits and Billy’s around to love him. Robert is probably having ramen for dinner again, I wonder if he changes the flavours. Krys looks amazing as always with her hoodie on, I notice she really loves her teacups. Think the first Steve must be singing again as he drives his car and ponders on what’s for dinner (he’s also very proud of a certain rainbow keychain), the second Steve has a lot of work cut out for him, and he’s absolutely smashing it, I can’t wait to see him smiling. I really hope Vanessa’s bumble guy treats her with all the love she deserves. Scout’s probably having her beanie on like a thinking cap when she shares writing tips. Wes is sharing his wellness tips again, lovely, I always found them to be assuring. Kenny’s an amazing artist, very underrated too. Ah, that reminds me, I should see how Emily’s faring.

Xan has writing blueprints figured out, they have really nice handwriting, I hope they know that. Ellie’s interactions with anyone makes me giggle all the time. And oh, look! Kristy has shared another fun word of the day again! Is Whi and Biren walking down the streets in India observing the situation around them for their next post? I still don’t know how Maponi looks behind his shades—I reckon he has beautiful eyes though. I wonder, I wonder… Derrick is proud of his new playlist, I haven’t listened to it yet and I know I should. Eri should be so proud of herself for taking a huge step for a new chapter in her life. Meanwhile, Heather seems to be moving in a positive direction in taking a stand for herself, I know she’s strong to do it. Jess, ah well, she’s doing what she does best, being a mess and sharing vivid haikus. Rachelle, Mina, Richelle, Shruba, Alex, Nick, Brianna, Alice, Sam, Callum…

Ah, you see… there’s so many of you. I can’t count.

I’ve stopped counting the numbers of people who care for me.

Because they are all around me.

And they don’t have to assure me at all.

It is, I know, impossible ever to fully understand this complex nature of online interaction. Yet for the rest of my life, I have made a special point of checking up on these people and others to be sure they are all right. Thanks to writing, instead of seeing a single world—my own—I now see it multiply until I have before me as many worlds as there are these writers. Happiness cannot be measured, you see. It must be perceived. And to that, I say, “I’m really happy.”

You make me happy.

I hope you will see yourself with the eyes I see you one day. You’re such a beautiful human being. I hope you let yourself rest, don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes, over regret, and over everything your mind wants to destroy you. I wish I could remove all those demons inside of your head because you deserve to feel happy, to be happy. If you ever feel lonely, then watch the sky, because you know—someone, at the same time is watching the sky too, maybe feeling the same way.

I am glad you exist and I hope you won’t ever remove your own spot in this world. Maybe you don’t feel like you belong here but, Angel, then build your home here. I don’t want you to leave this world unhappy. I want you to live every little second, I want you to feel alive, I don’t want you to see yourself just existing. You deserve it. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault, the demons in your head recognize that you have a beautiful heart, they want to take it because they have never seen such beautiful heart as yours, don’t let them win. You’re not selfish for isolating yourself, but you deserve to talk to someone.

If you’re reading this, then please never forget to breathe and smile.

Lastly, I want to hear you echo these words…

“I’m really happy.”

…to yourself.

There's are plenty of you who have reached out to me in my DMs telling me about your life, opening up to me on extremely personal matters, letting me know what my writing has done for you, or how I have impacted you in some ways. I'm grateful, so grateful because you trust me so. It takes immense courage to open up to anyone, let alone a stranger on the internet. You are so brave, and I wouldn't want to let you down either. I'm not perfect, I will make mistakes. And I hope you know that you have made me a better person than I was yesterday. From the bottom of my heart, I cherish you.

The man who inspired.

May 15, 2021 — 8 Comments

Caught somewhere between wanting to express and not reveal everything, and armed with the reserved emotion armour, that was me. Perhaps, this has not changed—not entirely. Finally, I settled down with a blog for myself. This time, I told myself, you are not going to delete this one and disappear like you did before. Over the last months saturated with unprecedented global lockdowns and escalating uncertainties, I was struggling with a massive writer’s block. Finally, in Feb 2021, I was debating on a writing hiatus. Anxiety and depression was catching up. I tried to ignore the discomfort as I kept busy with freelance writing and art commissions, but the lack of clarity in my interests forced me to come to terms that I cannot be perfect. There was no such thing as perfection.

This distressed me. Alarming, for a lot of reasons. It’s odd, and I can only summarize that I am a perfectionist. It’s not as beautiful as it implies. There’s really a lot that goes behind the scenes. Whenever a piece is published, that’s what an individual sees—a finished piece. What they don’t see is the number of times I edit a piece, hate it, start over, hate it again and realise my first draft was the best. Managing my blog has funnily but not surprisingly made me a little more insane than I had ever been. But again, I overthink and overanalyze. I beat myself up when I feel that my writing isn’t thought-provoking enough, when it doesn’t give my readers something to think about throughout the week. I don’t know why it is that way but it just is.

On the evening of March 9, 2021, I sat in my room hiding my loneliness behind a glass of beer. Suddenly moved by the special melancholy that comes from being alone, I placed my manuscripts away from view. My laptop was switched on, and I decided to read something, anything. Call it a fate, or whatever magical coincidence that you believe, and this blog just found me at the right time. Grey in background, and white were the fonts. The words read “Hollis Porter is a fiction writer in Hong Kong”. So Hollis Porter is his name. He had a certain way with words. “Enigma” was the title of his post, The first piece I ever read by him—It was so beautiful there. Vivid and raw. I didn’t ever want to come back to reality while I was getting lost in his writing. Emotions run free when you’re enraptured like that. He had allowed me into the dream of his writing, made familiar by his sincerity and human flaws. And each new post then, I would wait eagerly, for they would infect me with newer streams of insight and artistry. For it was in his words, I saw visions—colours of vulnerability, shades of poignancy, and the free strokes of freedom.

So what does this mean for me then? Gratitude. I was grateful for what he had to offer. It’s not often you come across creatives such as him. I think much of writing is about creating a dialogue with the world around you. The settings, the people, the collective thinking. When I was relying on my own memory and experience in what I wrote, there was a barrier that held me back. In the beginning I always tried to keep reassuring thoughts flowing in my head. But I slowly realised I wasn’t giving myself space to breathe, to live, and I grasped for solace. And to have this pleasure of reading his words, and relate to them in some ways, it was therapy.

I took a moment to unwind. Started to read more from other people. Now I am writing every day—not because I have to, but because it feels right for me. I think what Hollis had allowed me was to stop time, and in that moment when time stopped, it allowed me for reflection, both on my writing and my life. I essentially left him a message the very next day. That message underwent a lot of editing because I didn’t want to make a mistake for first impressions—Heck, I was bloody nervous. But I had to let this person know what his writing did for me. It justified a lot of my emotions and legitimized my desire to write about what I was experiencing in my own life. His words, they would dance on your lips and evoke an emotional specificity of that said piece. It’s something that I chase in what I write.

Whenever Hollis releases a new post, I would think to myself, “This is the best damn thing I’ve ever read” and then I am proven wrong with his next writing every time. I think most of us can agree that a lot of our writing comes from a deeply interiorized and personal space. So I can’t help but wonder sometimes, what was his writing process for his antiblog like? There was so much chaos in his writing, yet it felt like there was always something beguiling to take away from. He immerses his readers in hauntingly sweet tapestries of word, blurring the lines between unreality and reality, allowing one to revel in the alluring haze between asleep and awake. What’s more impressive is, the antiblog series was a pure and cathartic journey that flowed fluidly from beginning to end. His way with details either, it’s never too little, never too much. He employs them tastefully in his thoughts and writing respectively.

It’s not easy most of the time to be reading his writing due to its graphic nature, but there is real beauty to be found in knowing that one can face their demons in reading and writing. Now if something made me afraid or uncomfortable to write, I gravitated towards it. I started writing honestly—kind of like an experiment that allows me to talk to my anxieties, and then lets me see beyond myself, as I learn to access my situation with a more present vision. I have to add, while serious in writing, his natural gaiety knows no bounds too, and I am most privileged to be connected with him. And after reading “Life By The Sea And Out Of Time” and “Life Under The Sea. And Back In Time“, I am inclined to believe that when a person’s work has communicated to me any measure of something valued, to be remembered or recognised in the streets I have walked, then they are a success within very limited qualifications; that is, we have already met.

It cannot be expressed enough that I am constantly humbled that my amazingly talented writer friends and readers are willing to read what I write. It grants me a sense of gratification regardless of the outcome, and I hope to hold on to that feeling. As I rest my fingers on my keyboard and begin a new piece, I would think of what he said to me, “Take what you want from my writing—it’s your own interpretation that counts. Your own reality.” I have written this post for him, he didn’t know, but he does now. He will know who was the man who inspired this, who inspired me. Some people read Harry Potter; I read Hollis Porter. Thank you, Hollis.

From what I have gathered from his writings, he is open to life, and continues to learn. He is a well into which the sweet waters of experience and knowledge keep falling. But more than that, he is a writer who is unapologetic of who he is. There's no doubt about it. For those of you curious about his works now, you can find them at https://www.hollisporter.com