Intermission #19

They say never let fear take over.

I don't know if it's just some ironic coincidence, but I seem to recall that this is not the first time that my exams happen to take place at a time when trouble is brewing at another part of the world. Some time before it was the tsunami, then there was also the flood...and now, the genocide in Libya, and my exams are in three days' time.

It was during clinic with a lecturer yesterday when he brought up the issue, which I shamefully displayed my ignorance on the issue. Dr. U was saying how a bit of depression is good - I quote, "depressed people have better reality testing" and "those people who never had an episode of depression have high tendency to become overconfident" and they might terrorise other people, "like what Gadaffi is doing".

So there. Meanwhile, here I am, getting all jittery and depressed for the coming exams, and in an attempt to allay those uneasy feelings, I try to be thankful that the situation wasn't any worse...and I started thinking how bad things are for other people.

Needless to say, out of that exercise...I get more depressed.

Yeah, it backfired.

God Help Us all.

Current Music: No Moral (TV Size) - Itou Kanako

Blurry Eyes

So much emotion overload, I can hardly keep up. Perhaps that's how I feel perpetually drained out.

You know the feeling when your world is turned upside down? Will it be easier if it's you doing the turning yourself, by taking charge of things rather than allow yourself to be pushed against your own will?

I seriously don't know what is normal anymore. Maybe it doesn't really matter - not for now, at least.

Current Music: Blue Bird - Ikimonogatari

P/s: Title is from a song by the J-Rock band L'Arc~En~Ciel.

What's the Deal, y'all?

Warning: If you're looking for happy, then I'd advise refraining from reading this entry.

I was once scoffed at for keeping a blog.

Blogs are not, as I was told, the Islamic way of coping with things. There are other more acceptable ways of doing it, and while those were valid points, I was still stubborn with my stand but, being the pacifist that I am, I held my tongue instead of going into full scale debater mode.

Not out of fear of defeat, mind you, but more of tiredness. There are some things that, no matter how true they are to you, or how strong your conviction is, are not worth fighting and ruining relationships for. Thus, the peaceful middle way of agreeing to disagree.

I see blogging as a highly beneficial activity - otherwise I'd have terminated this blog and you, dear reader, would not have regularly updated sites to feed you with depressive thoughts as to how deplorable things are. It is a form of sublimation - which is a mature defense mechanism, whereby one responds to a negative feeling by channeling the negative energies to more productive ends, such as dabbling in writing or other aesthetics. Which would explain why most poets and writers of ye old days were conjuring up depressing poems and stuff that highlighted the forlornness of this transient life, the frailty of the human psyche.

There is some beauty in the broken, but to the one holding the burden...could the same be said?

Besides, blogging saves me the trouble of looking for people to confide in. Because, hey, everyone has his or her own problems, so it's not like they can actually take an extra load of problems, especially those that don't pertain to their daily lives or interests. See it as myself doing others a favour, will you!?

Occasionally I've toyed with the idea of dabbling into literature as a career, but seeing how difficult it is to cater to the public's whim - especially when it's not in tandem with one's own internal whims - I had to decide against it. (Naturally, my parents would never entertain such ambition!) Writing gives me the opportunity to dive deeper and learn more about myself - most of my entries were written freely, with not much planning or editing prior to the publishing. It's surprising how things actually unfold - oftentimes although I begin my entries with despair, the light of hope somehow slips through. The reverse also holds true though...

Compare this to while one is studying the cold hard facts. For example, the lists of clinical features of bronchial asthma. While you may relate the presentation with the pathology behind it, how far do you feel like you're learning more about yourself? Or, even worse - the mechanism of action of a, say, diuretic that acts to promote micturition...does that make you feel closer to your own kidney? Maybe not to yourself per se, but it sure gives some appreciation as to what the drug is doing to your patient, and you then share the joy when said patient's problems are ameliorated. But that's what a healthy human being should be doing, yes? To strive for the betterment of other people? Does this mean sacrificing one's own identity and positive perspective towards life as a whole?

Perhaps my problem is of different nature - the more I dive into the unknown territories within me, the more I seem to lose touch with the outside world, and hence a reduced threshold to accept the absurdities that the world throws at me.

It's derealisation, whereby I feel that I'm separated from the world around me. Like I'm outside looking in, forever not understanding the workings of the human mind other than my own.

So maybe...I am in the wrong course after all. Because my understanding of human beings has started to become so...ugly, that it's significantly different than that of mine ten years ago.

Or maybe the world is just going to the dogs. I mean, it's one of the signs of the end of the world after all...

Perhaps my personality type is at fault. While I started with idealism, it is easily crumbled, shaping into unspoken pessimism. Faith is so precariously fragile, that I become scared. My pacifist nature, people misuse and start to take advantage, almost like bullying me to do things that I'd rather not. It's everyone's responsibility, dangit, so why can't some people just behave accordingly instead of letting your fears take over you and get everyone else in trouble whereas we were initially ready to support you in your undertakings!? Are we not already adults!? How long do you expect to run?

And I know I've mentioned this before, but let me say it again: The maxim about fighting fire with water as the best option? I say this: bollocks.

Apparently it's impossible to knock some sense into some people using common courtesy and positive reinforcement. Childish much? Darn right.

And I'm so utterly, _utterly_ sick and tired of all this inane things that people - myself included - do without fail.

...

Judging by the state of things, I can't say that my future looks well. If things go on like this and I still can't handle things properly, I see only three possibilities:
i) I end up having mood disorders - be it major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder (God Forbid!)
ii) I end up writing poetry that have perpetually sad, depressive tones
iii) both of the above.

...Dear God, no.

Current Music: Kimi no Negai wo - Miyavi

Intermission #18

1. Dear God, words cannot describe how I hate the hot weather so. It's crazy - just before the CNY break I was shivering from the cold weather, as it was the rainy season. And now...the brightness of the sun causes my head to throb, and I get irritable quite easily.

Perhaps one day I should get my thyroid status checked...

But yeah. Too hot, that I almost can't sleep at night, which then causes me to sleep in the daytime. Pfft. What a way to wreck my sleeping schedule.

2. There are things that I get afraid of somewhat too easily. People may say it's displaced - could this baseless fears be paranoia?

3. Psychiatry is starting to give me some emotional strain. It's tiring - it's like one can hardly get a straight conversation with a patient, and almost each session with the lecturer played out like a game; I had no idea if I was being analysed, and was somewhat thrown offtrack when a lecturer asked me if I was depressed when I couldn't give an answer satisfactorily.

But I wonder, how it would be like to see people through their eyes. To be able to delve into people's personalities just by observing their facial expressions and listening to their words...

Part of me thinks it'll be a burden. Sometimes ignorance could be bliss, and sometimes knowledge can be deadly.

...And thus, I realise that Psychiatry is not really for me...as a serious profession.

Current Music: 「夢」 ～ムゲンノカナタ～ (TV Ver.) - ViViD

Intermission #17

"If you think things can't get any worse, you have no imagination" ~ Sean Keogh

Let's get this straight.

I've seen both ends of the spectrum - patients with major depressive disorder and those with bipolar disorder. And when they're unstable, the first group managed to, somehow, made me feel depressed secondary to their depression while the second group made me feel irritated with their irritability and/or grandiosity.

Let's not even go into how I feel about schizophrenic patients. Do I still feel paranoid about being in the vicinity? Not so.

...I'm pretty sure I'm not judging them, because everyone hates to be judged - but people do it all the same.

What I mean to say is this: I don't want to end up like any of those cases...but the future is hard to tell when even the present is murky.

What does one do, when one is too tired to dream, too tired to hope, too weakened to fight back?

Current Music: Raise Your Glass - Pink

P/s: Accidentally turned out sounding more pessimistic than intended. Whoops?
...Old habits die hard. Dear God.

Demarcation

To me, any revelation is always greeted by at least three different sentiments: some joy, some indifference, and mostly fear. Because knowledge is power, and sometimes power can be abused, other times to be feared.

I've figured out at least some part of the answer to my "meaning of life". Hold your horses before you yell out "God and religion, obviously! Wake up, woman!" to me, because I assure you, while you are not wrong (very not wrong, in fact!), I must remind you that I have an inherent ability to complicate things beyond your imagination.

And allow me to present to you my findings, as I see fit:

Blurry is the line

as I see those things

as I think of others

The world you see

A splash of colours, celebrating life

And yet to me

I see a range of gray

More dark than white

With occasional blind spots

They say "Never lose hope"

But I miff, bittered

By the past, by these wounds

Another say, "No expectations,

no disappointment"

Here I tremor,

Not in seeing the error

Of my ways or thinking,

But in anger.

"What, pray tell!"

I yearn to counter

"Tell me how the two differ?

You put your thinking in the future,

I put anticipication in mine"

And so they, enraged, rebuke,

"Nay, you put pessimism!"

"Again, my good people,

where do they differ?

where do you draw the line?

"To anticipate what could go wrong,

surely you need some dark clouds.

Yet you accuse me of pessimism,

loathing it as if it were poison.

And I, if I could,

would say that your optimism,

is just your delusions, your blindness

blanking out those you wish not to see,

your denial."

But no, I have not the will

And so I smile weakly,

praying that the weakness is not my will,

"Here, alas, we part ways,

we agree to disagree.

For our past differ so greatly,

we may never see eye to eye,

but I implore you, as I pray I shan't,

to never lose Respect."

----
(c) ad. Lucidus, 2011

Current Music: Sweet Serendipity - Lee DeWyze

Intermission #16

1. "The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain" ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thanks to the rainy season, it feels like the it has been ages since I last looked up to sky, blinking to filter out the occasionally blinding sun rays. Somatic hallucinations aside, my lungs feel as if they are lined by ice; each breath I take pricks me in the chest, while my headaches are of different nature altogether - in all honestly, more bearable than the ones I usually get following photophobia or extreme heat.

Perhaps everyone is familiar with this quote by Dolly Parton: "if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain". On the other hand, I implore you to reconsider - the rain inevitable leaves behind puddles of water (and mud?) that you can't avoid, eventually soaking your shoes and freezing your bones, leaving your entire body shivering and your teeth clattering like there's no tomorrow. Is it worth putting up with all that just for a sight of a transcient rainbow, which is still out of your reach anyway?

...And here I congratulate myself on screwing a positive quote just to suit my pessimistic outlook in life. Pfft.

2. Can't wait to go home and meet my car, which is already back home! God, I miss him so. It has been close to three months! And I'm so sick of this dependence on other people. I need to steer my own car fate with my own hands!

3. Oh dear God, it's already February. Why so soon!?

4. Some things can wait. Others won't and will just leave you stranded behind, in regret and in stupor.

Current Music: King of Anything - Sara Bareilles