Value Pack

How appropriate: it's now 4:44 in the morning. I can't sleep. My mind is doing cartwheel flips through electrified hoops whilst covering its make-believe crotch, and nothing I tried can bring it back to tranquility.

In fact... my mind is in a very, very weird place right now. The number 4, when spoken aloud in both Chinese and Japanese, sound like their respective versions of "death", which is why it's highly inauspicious in both cultures to have "4" in number plates, door numbers, etc..

My mind is lonely. My mind is in pain. My mind tells me it needs something that no longer exists to "cure" the pain. It's stupid. It's senseless. I'm not denying any of it. Short of being able to contain it, I've sort of given into it and let it take me for a roller coaster ride of pain, to perhaps see what the hell I can gleam from it.

It's almost as if I want to feel pain. I don't get it either, but combing through painful memories like the ones below somehow made me smile.

I'm a lot better now. It was painful as hell. It is still painful as hell. But this pain is so, so much more liberating than the crap I used to live with.

Why am I always like this the night before an appointment with a mental health professional. Am I scared that I wouldn't sound sad enough? Am I scared that I wouldn't be believed? Am I afraid that I wouldn't believe in the severity of my own pain to warrant paid professional attention?

I'm scared. And in pain. For the first time in a long while I got the urge to hurt myself or drink myself into a stupor to escape my own mind.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017
abandon
I mean, what the hell else is there left to say anymore?

Everybody is sick of my shit. Nobody believes that I have a problem. From friends, to even family. No one is taking me seriously anymore. "Aiya everybody also has depression one la", my cousin chides. "Your problems aren't even real", says Cypy. JK is too "polite" to tell me straight up she's sick of my shit. My psychiatrist of all fucking people doesn't think I have a problem.

Feels like I've come one full fucking circle. One year plus after I "found out" I have depression, I am still depressed, with no one to rely on. No one to take me seriously. I've opened up to friends and family. I've even sought professional help. All things I never thought I'd do. And I'm back one full fucking circle. ONE FULL FUCKING CIRCLE.

I am all alone.

All alone. In my own personal hell no one can see.

And even if people were to try to help me I'd push them all away anyway.

Why.

Why the hell am I even like this?

I don't want to do this anymore.

I don't want to have to be a burden to anyone anymore.

I don't want anybody else's fucking pity anymore.

I don't want to have to hurt anybody anymore.

Help me. Somebody.

Help me do something fucking stupid.

The alcohol isn't doing crap anymore.

Help me escape this.

Perhaps permanently.

I mean what the fuck else am I to do.

I've done and tried everything.

No one understands. No one cares.

Thursday, August 31, 2017
exploding
It seems like I've reached a point where alcohol doesn't seem to be doing anything to me. Well, at least, this Mitsuya Cider I bought. Doesn't even feel like it has any alcohol in it. Just makes my head hurt a little.

Or maybe my head was hurting from the start anyway and the Cider isn't helping.

Instead of trying to write about the things I don't want to write about, in bid to appear as if I'm still holding together, I honestly just want to fucking explode. Short of taking my own life and disappearing from everybody's lives like I so desperately want to, I almost wish I had some type of drug or addiction as an escapism thing right now. I am super ready and super willing to do something really stupid right now, like hurting myself, or going on a mass unfriending spree on Facebook and deleting numbers off my phone, some of whom I'd have considered really super close friends at multiple points in my life.

JT has his own depression issues to deal with, stemming from problems more "real" than mine, and he's taken to isolating himself as well, possibly due to pride, possibly due to depression itself. YS is the busy bee workaholic as usual. JJ, while well meaning doesn't really offer the best or most insightful of advice. My family is at a total loss for how to help me. My cousins just think I have an attitude problem and want me to change who I am to fit into society, something I can't do.

And then there's Cypy and JK.

At this point, is it even fair to the word to still be calling them friends? I know I'm flip flopping a lot with my opinion on the two, especially Cypy, but it's just... maybe they're right. Maybe everybody is right. Maybe my head isn't right and I'm not thinking clearly. But right now, "fuck them all" mode is firmly engaged.

In my most needy and darkest times, those two find me an irritance. Cypy might've given actual, legit advice at the start, but slowly, she too is growing weary of my shit and neediness, and starting to lose her temper at me because none of the advice she gives me seem to be working and she's blaming me for it. Behind my back they are gossiping. They're starting to withdraw themselves from me. I'm not hearing about their lives anymore.

At least Cypy, when prompted and pushed far enough, is willing to tell these things to me straight up. Jk is the person who's simply "too nice" to dirty her own hands with having to turn me down directly, instead resorting to complaining to Cypy. Yeah, maybe I'm super needy. Maybe I'm a little insensitive. Maybe I forget some things. Maybe a combination of any of the above makes me not realise I'm being a complete dickbag. What the hell is gossiping behind my back to do or prove? Way I see it, you girls just don't want to be the "bad people" to end a friendship, and so you'd rather stand quietly by, not wanting to be my friend anymore, while pretending to still be my friend in case one day I do get better and can then be of some use for you to squeeze. Or, I dunno, maybe when your birthday rolls around or when McDonald's releases a new line of Hello Kitty toys would you then try to squeeze me for presents or Kitties because you don't want to fatten your glorious selves to get the plush toys you want and therefore you send me to do it. Why the hell else would you talk to me on your own free will?

If being my "friend" is so difficult, then why the hell even keep pretending? What am I gonna do if you tell me straight up you don't want to be my friend, huh? Make international news headlines that Cypy and JK are complete assholes and that nobody else should befriend/ love/ hire them? Is being the "bad person" that difficult for you? Does it stain your pretty fucking hands so much? Even in the end, do you still gotta make me do for you the honour of ending it myself?

Why the hell are people even like this...?

Over the course of seven and a half years it's not like it's been smooth sailing for us. But I've always presevered and sucked it all up, thinking that you were one of my very few "true" friends that stood by me in my then darkest times. I've come to see that that really was a whimsical decision, made on the basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", instead of personal goodwill. Over the years, time and time again I've been hurt by your insensitivity and you've shown that you'll never learn and you'll never change. Through it all I too couldn't be the bad guy. I didn't want to believe these negative voices in my head when it came to you. I wanted "true friendship" to mean so much more. I really did want it to mean that we'd never have a disagreement so big it'd literally make one or both of us sick of each other, to want to end this friendship that stemmed from a time when it was actually possible to make friends that mattered that much.

But of course inevitably I'd have to ask myself, "is this suffering silently on your behalf worth it?", and, of course, "what are friends for, if not to support you through your times of crisis and need?" How much can I trust a person that gets sick of me and won't even dare tell it to my face if or when I do get better and recover?

I'm sick of your games of gossiping, passive aggression, and just being a total jackass in general. Both of you. This is me exploding. This is me cutting the both of you out for the rest of my life. Now that Cypy has graduated and has all the goddamned time in the world she STILL doesn't want to meet me. I don't want your fucking pity. I don't want to have to threaten to jump just for you to begrudgingly meet me for a dinner to act like you still give a damn. I'm just sick and tired. Sick and tired.

And quite frankly I think it's healthier for me this way.

Friday, September 1, 2017
betrayal
I realise that everything I said in the last two posts came from a very, very dark place, the depths of which I haven't been to in a good 7 or so years. I realise everything was rashly formulated, and there was seriously something wrong with my head when I said everything that I did. I even felt as if, had I a loaded handgun under my pillow then, I'd almost with cruise control like inhumanity take it and clock myself one in the back of my head.

But I'm not here to take any of it back.

If Cypy were reading this, no doubt she'd immediately blame this decision on my "senseless" male pride. And maybe she's right to some extent; after all, which self respecting man could take anything else he says seriously if he could go back on his own words like that, especially ones that were said so strongly?

The common consensus is that people suffering from depression don't have a clear head and can't make the most rational of decisions. To me, though, I'm beginning to find that, perhaps it's only etiquette and what we're conditioned to think is acceptable and sensible to say, that makes us think and view those explosions as irrational and not made of sound judgment. As I've said, I'm not here to take back any of what I said in those moments. I stand by them because I believe in what I said to be the truth. It may be a very exaggerated truth with aggression turned up to eleven, but what do you expect when you have years upon years of pent up frustration eating you from the inside out like that, yet still having to pretend you're okay, and that everything is fine, right?

I've yet to mention this anywhere, but I've actually been to my first, and thus far only counselling session this past Monday. Oh, and also a call to the SOS hotline because I promised to before trying anything stupid. One of the takeaways that both sessions had corroborated is that it's okay to be myself and believe in myself, that I am a good person with strengths and values that are very rare in today's society. And that's why it's so, so hard for me to fit in, but I should never stop believing in myself, because even if I were to change into anything else in bid to be successful, whatever that may mean for anyone, I'd never be truly happy. That's just glossing over it though, the nitty gritty details are out of the scope of this post.

And I truly feel like they're both bitches. I really am disappointed in both of them.

Blowing off JK? Yeah sure whatever. That's a storm that had already been brewing beyond the horizon for years. But Cypy is the one that really plants the huge seed of doubt and second guesses in me. Hell, even today when I'm out in a mall, at a Kiddy Palace. I see Sylvanian Families and I immediately think, "hmm, what would make a great next gift for her?", before remembering that, oh yeah, I swore to cut them off for the rest of my life, didn't I? Damn.

Now that I'm "sober", for the lack of a better term, I do start to feel that it's a stupid decision to swear off cutting off Cypy for the rest of my life. I get that her University work and group projects are insanely time consuming and draining. I know I did say that her dedication with reckless abandon to a task she sets her mind on is one of the things I loved about her. And maybe the fact that she actually asked me out for dinner on her own accord after she told me she's sick of my shit and after I stopped bugging her suddenly weighed a lot more on my mind. She didn't make it in the end because of her extreme pain from her period as she told me she might, but the bottom line is we didn't meet and that was all that mattered to me yesterday.

It's not something I can really put into words, but the pain was super agonising. Super debilitating. The hopelessness was all consuming. It pushed my mind into a fear ridden, panic driven state, and desperation was priming me to do something really, really stupid, like taking my own life. I was fucking downright inconsolable. I even screamed at my cat multiple times and scared her in that state. I needed help. I literally felt like I could fucking die at any moment. It was a horrible mix of misery, fear, desperation, loneliness... and I didn't know how to deal with it. The Cider I bought as a last ditch brain shut downer didn't do shit for me. I was so, so scared, like I've never been of anything else my whole life. My parents are over in Taiwan having a well deserved vacation, my sister is having her night classes in Uni, and I was just... all alone.

The one thing that perhaps might've saved me was just... Cypy. Of course I'd say that I'd love to have her to hold and her chest to cry on, but honestly something more realistic like just her being by my side and talking to me, perhaps just a smile or a selfie of her would be enough to tell me that she's there for me, that somebody wants me still, that I still had some hope and a place left in the world. I was so close to asking her, too. But then I remember that she thinks talking to me is stressful, frustrating, and that even her, the most accepting and patient of people in my life outside my family, would blow her top on me for even me asking for a selfie because I miss her like crazy especially in her Uni days... I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to. I was shivering with my phone in my hand at the thought of messaging her, someone whom I thought I could trust my everything to, whom I could share the rest of my life with.

Thoughts of suicide hanging above my head like a guillotine, of course desperation would make me inclined to use that as a huge bargaining chip to get her to meet me. I did it once, so why wouldn't I do it again? Pride, that's what. The "senseless", male pride she hates so much in both me and her father. Pause and think about it for a moment: if I really forced her out like that, how sincere would she be? Would she really want to help me and see me get better, or is she doing it because of the senseless etiquette of fake kindness? I don't want her fucking pity; I want her love and support. Threatening to kill myself was only going to get me her physical presence at best, nothing more, possibly even a lot less than even that. And, as I've said before, no matter how much I love a woman, or anything in life, having to genuinely feel like I could kill myself just to net myself a meet with her? I couldn't keep a charade of that calibre up even if you held my entire family at gunpoint and threatened me to.

And that's when it hit me, you know? Perhaps that heightened mental state of panic and scrambling for help and answers accelerated the thought processes, but a hit is a hit.

I say I love this woman. I say I want to trust her with my everything and spend the rest of my life with her. Her and no one else. But, even if by some goddamned miracle and a half that she one day reciprocated my love for her and we become a couple, how much can I trust this woman to stay by my side in my darkest moments, that may reach even deeper depths than what I'm feeling now? From where can I draw the faith that she'd stay by my side when I've lost everything? I couldn't. I simply couldn't. There was simply nothing to hold onto.

I understand her frustration and I understand that, up till very recently Uni work was keeping her busy to the point where she couldn't even find time to walk the dogs she loves and treasures more than arguably any human being in her life. I get that I play second fiddle to her dogs. But I think, counselling and that call to the SOS hotline has made me realise that perhaps I really do pay too little attention to myself, my own wants and needs, and instead always wanting to please others and bend to their will. I was losing my fucking mind. I literally felt like any moment could be my last. I could've fucking died. It wasn't just yesterday; yesterday was a super heated and explosive example. Every day leading up to this from gosh knows when, I've wanted to fucking die.

And her grades, her Uni cert, was more important than my well being. My entire fucking life. I could've died while she was mugging for her exams.

I'm sorry, but I just can't take it anymore. Even typing this now I can feel tears starting to well up in my eyes. You have no idea how utterly and devastatingly hurt I am, and I'm not nearly good enough a writer to convey it.

Being a grown ass 23 year old man with very little friends, to all of which he holds closely with stupid loyalty, perhaps I'm learning this too late, but perhaps adult betrayals aren't as clear cut and immediate as the one I experienced as a teen that scarred me for life. Perhaps I've been betrayed. Perhaps they don't even want to dirty their own hands with the official severing of ties.

You betrayed my trust. And it hurts. It hurts like fucking hell. It hurts to stupefying, debilitating levels. It hurts so much that I don't even know if I'll ever be able to find another woman that'd mean so much to me, that'd share the same chemistry we have, that'd make me feel as cared for and special as you did.

I just don't trust you anymore. When you can value achievements on paper over my whole goddamned life. And, trust is like a piece of paper. Once you crush it, you can try stretching it back, but it'd never be the same again. I can't trust you, either of you, ever again.

3rd August 2018
I wonder if anyone would feel guilty or relieved if I were to off myself.
I hope her boyfriend can live with himself, and her.