Do i have my head on alright?
Friday, May 31, 2002
How do you know if you are clinically depressed?
The DSM-IV diagnosis of a major depressive episode requires that a person exhibit at least five of the following symptoms nearly everyday for at least two weeks. Either depressed mood or loss of interest and pleasure must be one of the five symptoms.
1) sad, depressed mood
2) loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities
3) Difficulties in sleeping (insomnia); not falling asleep initially, not returning to sleep after awakening in the middle of the night, and early morning awakenings, or, in some patients, a desire to sleep a great deal of the time
4) shift in activity level, becoming either lethargic (psychomotor retardation) or agitated
5) Poor appetite and weight loss, or increased appetite or weight gain
6) loss of energy, great fatigue
7) Negative self-concept, self reproach and self blame; feelings of worthlessness and guilt
8) Complaints or evidence of difficulty in concentrating, such as slowed thinking and indecisiveness
9) recurrent thoughts of death or suicide
.................
If it only requires one to have five symptoms over 2 weeks every day to classify as a depressive,
what do you call one that is off the chart with all the symptoms for 3 weeks every day and then some?
I wish i am not a psychologist at this moment.
Twenty Sips
First sip slipped icily down
Second sip almost made no sound
Third sip hit you on your face
Fourth sip drowned out all the taste
Fifth sip drained out all the mess
Sixth sip lay the mind to rest
Seventh sip melted into the Eighth and Nineth
Tenth sip brushed away all the lies
Eleventh sip mended all the rifts
Twelveth felt like summer kiss
Thirteen sip wrenched it apart again
Fourteen sip buried all thats sane
Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty
I lost count.
I threw up and turned around.
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Friday, May 24, 2002
I think i have done enough ranting and raving for a while. Thanks to all my friends around me whom i know are concerned about me and i am sorry that i could not really talk about what is happening, primarily because nothing is resolved nor settled. I have not fully understood it myself nor could i really accept it yet but i guess i am calmer now than before. I realized also that while other people may have doubts and no confidence about the relationship but i don't have to be just because they are. It has been real and it meant something, at least for me and i think i have to keep believing in that if nothing else. Whatever doubts and questions would still have to be worked out, but there is a limit to what i can do about that. So instead of breaking down and panicking, which does not help in the least, i could try and hold on to what i have always believed in. I guess i can't expect others to have confidence in something if i myself do not believe in it. I did ever wonder if i am just being foolish and stubborn but i find no other ways in which i can act other than this. Even this, is something difficult at times especially when you are washed in waves of paranoia. I am still unwilling to face up to the possibility or perhaps an eventuality... but this is helping me cope for a while, at least for now. Some days i do wake up and wished from the bottom of my heart that this had not happened to me. I am beginning to accept for a start what had happened even if i have not understood nor accepted the reasons for it.
At this point, i am caught in limbo. Time is something quite difficult yet easy to give. Both of the same reason, i do not control time. I cannot bring myself to speculate what can happen in the future nor could i keep hoping that things are not as serious as i imagined for fear of deluding myself. Hence, all i can do, is to just hold on to the moment and what the relationship has meant or felt to me, and try not to speculate for him. Trying can be difficult too. I guess i am stepping on the fine line of what is managable for me right now. Step out of the line on either way and i risk either delusion (therefore losing consciousness) and blind panic and despire. I am basically breathing in a tight air space with vaccum on the either side of me. But then, having a tight pocket of air is better than having all the air sucked out around me like when this all started. So i guess i am making some improvement at least.
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
The Prince and The Gardener
Once a upon a time, in a kingdom far far away, there lived a prince who built a most lovely castle. Within his castle grounds, there was the most beautiful garden anyone has ever seen. It was filled with beautiful flowers, green lawns, pretty fountains and exotic plants. Everyone who has ever seen it would proclaimed it the loveliest garden of all the kingdom. The prince loved his garden very much and would spent his time cultivating his plants and flowers to put in it. And the prince was happy.
Just outside the castle walls, there lived a humble gardener who admired the prince's lovely garden for the longest time. The prince was kind and enjoyed a good friendship with the gardener. Often he would invite the gardener over his castle walls to listen and share advice on growing the loveliest flowers anyone would ever see. And the gardener was happy.
Then came a time when the prince felt that he would like to share his garden with someone, so that they would take good care of his garden as well as he would have while he had to be away to fight in a war for a year. He searched and he searched when one day, he found a craftsman from a neighbouring kingdom who promised that he would take good care of the prince's garden. And the prince was pleased, so he took his soldiers and rode away. The craftsman worked hard in the garden, spading, pruning the prince's favourite flowers. He toiled and he toiled, working day and night at first, because he wanted the prince to reward him for the work that he has done. But sadly, because he had never taken care of any garden before this, many plants wilted and the seeds he had planted in spring did not grow. The craftsman finally, in a fit of anger, destroyed the work he has been trying to accomplished and left the kingdom. When the prince returned and saw his garden destroyed, he shut himself in his tower for 7 days and 7 nights. During this time, the humble little gardener who had seen what the craftsman had done, tried whatever he could to salvage what's left in the garden. He brought in fertilizer for the soil and cleared the broken roots away, hoping that the prince would once more look at his garden and plant new seeds in it. However, the prince was too heartbroken and would not face the once fruitful but now barren soil. Hence, he did not noticed that though the soil was bare, it was still rich and dark.
Though the prince was sad and thought that he could never grow another flower in his garden again, in his heart, he had secret hopes and yearning to have his lovely garden back again. Yet his despair stopped him from attempting it. The humble gardener realized what the prince must be feeling and seek an audience with the prince, asking for a chance to work with the prince's garden. However, the prince was too sad and did not think that it was possible for anything to grow in his garden anymore. So he turned down his good friend, the humble gardener on his request. Some seasons passed, and it was spring again, when all of a sudden, news came to the prince that a foreign wizard had arrived in the kingdom, who possessed strange and mavellous powers to do wonderous things. The prince was intringued and invited the wizard into his castle. "What magic do you possessed?" he asked the wizard. And the wizard replied "I could make what was destroy and restore them to you, your highness but my service would come with a price." The prince was overjoyed and he took the wizard to his garden. "Make it as it is again and i would pay you a roomful of gold coins" requested the prince. And lo and behold, the wizard waved his magic wand, and everything was restored to the prince. And the prince was happy. He showed his restored garden to his old friend the humble gardener who had been tending to the garden secretly all this while. The humble garden said nothing but was glad that the prince was once more happy with his garden.
However, before summer came, other kingdoms had heard about this mavellous wizard and his strange powers. Each clamoured to recuit the service of the wizard. Finally, a king from the kingdom over the mountains agreed the pay the wizard two roomful of gold coins if the wizard were to enter his service. And the wizard left, taking with him his magic. As the prince's garden has always been sustained by the wizard's magic, the garden fell once again into barren grounds when the wizard was gone. "No more!" cried the prince, "No more would i live in hope that my garden will grow again!" and the prince stayed in his tower for 14 days and 14 nights, refusing to see or talk to anyone. And the humble gardener was sad. He looked at the tower every day hoping that the prince would look into his garden and see all that he was blinded from. That the land has heal, the soil was rich and the scars were long gone even before the wizard came and hid all behind his magic. But the prince was too sad to look and to listen.
The humble garden continue to work in the garden day after day, night after night. Till one day, the prince came out and saw that the soil were spaded and awaiting new seeds to be planted for the next season. Then he saw the humble gardener, who was so tired that he had fallen asleep under the moldy pavillon. Finally, the prince said to the humble gardener, "Do what you could if you want my friend. Though i know your efforts would be furtile, i could not bear to stop you from trying." With that, the prince walked back into his castle, leaving the humble gardener in his garden. The humble gardener was overjoyed. He felt sure that once he could get the plants to grow once more, the prince would surely be happy and once more, take joy in his lovely garden. And the humble gardener worked very hard, season after season, rain and shine, in the prince's garden, spading the soil and planting each seed by hand. It was not easy because the humble gardener had no magic, and he was just one person. Yet he perservered day after day, spading, planting, pruning the plants. And the plants did grow. Slowly at first, there were shoots, then seedlings and finally a tiny bloom from the first springtime flower. Four years passed and though the prince had walk passed the garden, he had not stepped into it as the pain was still great in his heart. One spring morning, the prince heard the song of a lark, a music he long thought he would never hear again ever since the first destruction of his garden. Almost against his will, he once more walked towards he garden and the song of the lark. Now, the garden was once again blooming, and though it was not as lovely as it once was, it was healthy and there were seedlings and buds everywhere. Though there was no fountain, no exotic plants, just humble flowers from the countryside that the humble gardener had picked and transplanted, the garden was nonetheless, growing again.
The humble gardener was eager to show the prince what had been done in the last four years and was glad that the prince finally walked out into his garden again. Yet, the expression on the prince's face froze his excitement. The prince then turned suddenly and walked back into his castle. The humble gardener was crushed and chased after the prince asking him what was wrong. The prince stopped and looked at the humble gardener who was nervously fingering his gardening cap. It seemed like a long time had passed, when finally the prince said to the humble gardener, "My dear friend, i know what you have done and good work it was too. But i am sorry, it can never be and never will be what i have lost.Nothing you could have done could make it up." With that, the prince left the humble gardener and his garden and never once looked back ever again.
The process of losing some one in a relationship is not an unique experience by itself.
Mine is not more painful
nor heart-wrenching
nor wasted
nor upsetting.
There is nothing special in what is happening.
I have seen it before and shared other's pain.
I have been the one saying everything is going to be ok.
The one picking up the phone at midnight.
The one comforting.
I have seen it and said all the words and
i had understood.
In fact, the process has been the same
for one, for all.
The difference is that now i am the participant,
not the spectator.
Everything changes and i found myself at a loss of what to do.
Is there a protocol i must follow?
"Words are useless in times like these."
I can't seem to hear anything.
"We are close and we share everything so i thought you ought to know...This may not be the end...I just needed to think...Its not you...Its my doubts about myself...Maybe i have never loved you but treated you as my best friend...one day i work up and realize...you are not the person i can picture spending my life with...i can't picture...i am not convinced...i care about... i don't want this to end...i am afraid...i just don't know...my friends said...he broke up...similarities...stark...3 1/2 years... 4... i enjoyed being with you...i don't know... it's my doubts...it's not you...it's never you... it's me... i never asked for a break up... that's not what i want...perhaps it is...i don't know... i just wanted you to know... a can of worms... i thought we could share everything... there is nothing you can do... you have done enough... i don't have the conviction you do... do you... i need... think... make or break... i am scared... has it been real... yes... no... i enjoyed being with you... my best friend... comfort... security... is that all... special... you are special..."
BUT YOU MAY HAVE NEVER LOVED ME!
I have not, could not listen.
I could not have, have not understood.
Is this pain?
When breaking up isn't an end in itself, but a process.
It doesn't have to be explicitly stated,
or as easy as "let's break up" anymore.
It started the very nanosecond when one say,
"I could not convincingly say that i love you"
"I do not know how i feel about you"
There doesn't have to be any reasons to justify a start in the process.
It is a beginning of an end that doesn't want to appear as so.
"you are special" becomes entangled in a mesh of cold-cut wires,
that pricks you when you pick it up.
It is pretending to carry on, holding up a semblence of
a shadow of what is has been, of what it was.
It has become a skin deflating while you are still inside it,
trying desperately to keep it held up in its original form,
trying desperately not to let it collapse on you.
"Did you just step on a nail my dear?"
You will know that breaking up is a process when...
when nothing was said over fries at Macdonald
when he wouldn't, daren't maintain eye-contact
when he used to walk beside but now one and a half step infront
when he held you hand and yet the once familiar touch felt foreign
when pressure changed with each contact
when your hand brushed against each other and he flinched for a second
before recovering just as quickly to hold it again.
It is knowing that he still cares and yet perhap he doesn't.
It is knowing that he loved you and yet may have never loved you.
It is sharing a can of worms with you, watching you eat it one by one because that's the way it has to be
It is a request for breathing space and yet taking away every available oxygen around you,
making it hard for you to breath.
It is asking for time and yet you know that it is just used to allow the pain to ebb away,
to allow a slow least painless way to wilt away.
Except that it is not painless.
It's never painless i'm afraid.
Breaking up is a process.
And now, i am not ready to begin the process of acceptance.
Saturday, May 18, 2002
I realized that perhaps i have grown complacent: in my family life, in my career, in my friendships and in my relationship. While i am never one to believe in staying stagnant in one single place for long, and knows fully the furtility of wanting things to stay the way they are, i am nonetheless overwhelmed by changes at different points in my life. I realized the need for change but some changes are beyond my comprehension. What is worse, is that i have failed to recognized the signs of changes. I am complacent, hence i am unprepared. Its my fault for not dealing better when changes happened. To let myself be swept by the waves into the sea. When you go sailing, the onus is on you to bring the life jacket, be watchful for the weather, the currents, the sea. If being complacent, you have neglected to do all that, do not blame the sea for being rough and capsizing your boat, leaving you to drown. The sea has never promised to be gentle with anyone.
Friday, May 17, 2002
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Sometimes you have to live a life which you do not understand.
It is possible to just exist without meaning.
When one meaning cease to be meaningful, it is always possible to create another.
Or is it?
What is a meaningful existence?
And meaningful to whom?
Ultimately, it has to mean something to oneself.
The crux is an egotistical one.
You have to seek meaning for yourself.
Sometimes it is through others and this invariably create meaning for others.
But at the base of all that, it is the self which must perceive what that can mean to oneself.
Serving others is only meaningful if it serves to meet some intrinsic need within oneself.
We form relationships with others, hoping to create meaning by which we live.
We may even form relationship with inanimate objects to achieve a similar outcome.
Hence, many are slavishly forming new relationship with work, money, housing, and transport vehicles.
We can derive meaning from almost anything just so to make our own lives meaningful.
Is my existence a meaningful one?
By what do i derive my meaning from?
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
On my missing years:
I am not really big on photographs though i "look" big in them. There are people who will faithfully keep their photos in big fancy albums, categorized into times and events. And there are others who would keep a few chosen momentos of loved ones (pets or otherwise) around them, on their work desk, in their wallets, or their bedside table. I guess i am just not one of them. Perhaps i am not doing justice to the countless of travel photos collecting dust in my drawer, kept stacked in plastic/paper bags but i really do not know what else i am suppose to do with them, nor do i feel motivated enough to do anything. When "forced" to by others (e.g. family, SO), i can be compulsively neat and organized to insist that every picture is in their chronological order, going by each numbered albums (nothing fancyful, just the regular ones given by the shops). Otherwise, they would forever remain in the exact bag that they came in.
When i was younger, my parents kept all our photos of birthdays, holidays, weddings, gatherings in thick double flip-side albums. I always enjoyed looking through them from time to time as they gave me a window into a world/time/place which i increasingly have difficulties remembering. However, there is a period of time when my photographic "history" lasped into, what i would called, the "middle ages - i.e. dark ages". There seem to be little concrete evidence of that period of time in my short life. Almost from the age of 12 till my early 20s, there are few and little photos in between to represent my existence as a teenager. Other than some compulsory class photos here and there, there seemed to be none other evidence that i was ever one.
Recently I have been to the SO's place and looked through his old photo albums and realized that he was missing for a couple of years as well. It was as if we went into hiding for a while before emerging all fully grown into adults in travel photos. Perhaps the phenomenon is not universal but i could speculate on where did my missing years went or failed to be captured onto celluloid.
1) It is not coincidental that during my adolescent years, my family went into a sort of financial recluse as well. Hence, birthdays, holidays, outings, gatherings were practically non-existent for a long while. No one would consider spending that kind of money on such events, much less taking photographs to commemorate them. If we could, all i would have seen was a geeky bespectacled girl running around the estate in t-shirt and shorts because there was no one else to keep her studying at home. Hmm, i would really like to have one of those photos actually.
2) Another possibility could be that, personally, i am never fond of taking photos of myself. Generally, i needed to be coax into one (especially if i am the sole occupant of the photo). This could be due to the growing awareness of oneself and own's self-image during adolescence. It was at that moment when you assumed the stance that "hey, i look pretty awful with all those pimples etc etc" and put you off from wanting any lasting evidence of that fact on photographs. I was probably too self-conscious of my braces, pimples, jutting lower jaw (before "corrective" surgery), boyish hair cut and thick glasses. You can be blinded to how you look from in your daily life because you don't often get to "see" yourself (except in the mirrors) but photos in those days (before the make-over phenomenon) always conspire to show you off in the worst light possible. So, another reason for my unaccounted for "missing years".
3) It is also entirely possible that it could be due to the fact that most of us (well, maybe just me) may not have much access to a camera in those days. How often, in times of yore, do our parents actually trust us (rash, careless teenagers), with an fairly expensive photographic equipment? Not to touch it, much less fool around with it. Since we do not have ready access to one (except maybe during an odd birthdays here and there), we often had to depend on our parents to "do the deed" of taking our pictures of us. Now, frankly speaking, would most parents (alright, maybe just mine), actually want to or feel motivated enough to take pictures of their once-cute-cuddly-adorable-toddlers-NOW-gawky-pimply-moody teenagers? That same moody teenager would probably kick a huge fuss if they attempted to, probably due to reason no. 2 given above.
Like i said, these are only speculations. No more than hypothesis which could explain my missing years. It is by no means comprehensive nor universal but still if anyone suffer from the same phenomenon, do let me know. Perhaps there is a support group for people like us out there. In the mean time, i will just continue to dwell here and decide on how i should deal with my "non-missing years" that are slowly disintergrating in my drawer.
Monday, May 13, 2002
Sunday, May 12, 2002
The further adventures of Ruski:
He never fail to give me big fright when i least expected it.
Of all the weird places i have found him, the roof, on the ceiling board...
this time i found him on the window ledge.
What so unusual about that?
Well i found him on the 2nd floor window ledge when my room is on the 3rd floor.
There is no way getting to the 2nd floor unless its through the door (which is closed) or unless you can climb down walls like spider-man.
So has my cat suddenly turned spider-like equipped with spider sense?
I think not.
It most probably fell from on ledge to the other.
How and Why i refused to speculate.
Imagine my surprise when i heard him meowing (but i couldn't see him at first) and then stuck my head out of the window to see him meowing for his dear life on the narrow ledge below my room.
When i picked him up from the ledge downstairs, i must say he never looked or felt so nervous.
His body was shaking (and still is) and panting like i never seen before.
But other than that, there is no other visible sign of damage.
Now he absolutely refused to go sit on the window ledge to look at the crows (something he had always enjoyed before).
Only cats can get into such scraps and managed to land on their four paws.
Someday i will probably die of a heart attack first.
I am flabbergasted at the implications of what you have said.
What does it all mean?
Why does it seem all so familiar again?
Did we travelled so far to find ourselves jogging on the spot?
Why can't people call a spade, a spade?
If it isn't the real thing, then it isn't.
What can one do?
No one is holding a gun to another one's head.
Stop wishy-washying around.
You are wasting your own time.
You waste my time.
Watched a friend's dance performance last night.
The title of the performance is called Melatonin.
I can't say that i understood but i enjoyed the forms and images.
I remarked that the friend that composed and remixed the music should be a great rave DJ
(even though he is a visiting tutor teaching music in a london university).
Friday, May 10, 2002
Watched No man's land the other day.
I think the ending scene of a man lying in a trench, in the middle of the fronts of two armies, on top of a landmine which cannot be defused while waiting for the night to fall and bombing to start, succintly denotes the whole serb-bosnian conflict eloquently without words.
Thursday, May 9, 2002
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
 | You are Hobbes! You're a bit too mellow to be an incarnation of Calvin, but you're still his best pal. You don't mind having fun, though, and enjoy playing tricks on your friends when they least expect it. Take the What Calvin are You? Quiz by contessina_2000@yahoo.com! |
I am actually a Civilian Calvin but i cheated cos i liked hobbes better and would prefer to have his picture here. :D
Monday, May 6, 2002
Its May.
My May day was spent watching SO finishing his video.
Caught Animal Farm after that and it was pretty entertaining.
Perhaps i was tired, so i did not enjoyed it as much as i would have liked to.
May is filled with turbulent rains and thunders and lightnings.
I noticed a patch on my brother's room ceiling.
Suspected a leak in the roof.
Remembered the little incident involving a night roaming cat few months ago.
A weekend in May that totally drained me out.
Spent a record time of 9 hours mudding overnight.
Dinner at Sento, ice cream at Swenson, pool at Monster cue and Spider-man.
Shouldn't all weekends be so?
