I'm not sure how to start, I don't know how to go on about this--getting into my "story". I remember everything starting at eleven years of age. If I went back any further in time, I'd probably or should just write smaller posts in the future as mini-stories or this would be even longer than it already is. I want this website, my brand to be as raw as possible. I want it to be meaningful and really advertise, show who I am as a person and what challenges I had to face in order to be able to grow as an individual, everything I did and experienced growing up dealing with all these mental disorders. I don't really believe that "it's all in your head, all about your mentality." For some people, it is a constant battle or inherited from generations passed on. There are certain stigmas that I can understand but I don't agree with everything statically.
At eleven, when I was in elementary school, I was constantly bullied. I guess it never really bothered me because it happened at such an early age when I was about nine years old and those "bullies" transferred schools so I had this whole beginning to start over and really be who I wanted to be. I used to be a pushover, easily influenced. It wasn't really a necessity for me to be cool or popular. I just wanted to know where I belonged. My family dynamics were always different than others, especially growing up in a diverse/Asian family household. Everyone was different but the pressure of being successful and rich was almost insane. I never had anything in common with anyone else. I'm the black sheep in my primary family and our family is the black sheep in our larger family. All the high expectations weren't always realistic.
I was always fascinated by death. I always wondered what it'd be like no longer be alive. All because I experienced the death of loved ones at a young age. I guess I was too young or maybe just wasn't able to grieve or understand what it any of it meant. I lost my cousin when I was eight years old. Growing up with someone who was disabled but showed so much character and personality, I didn't know how to really cope or feel. I knew death and dying just meant they're never coming back. I never had the perfect childhood of having both parents being together. I was raised by a single mother who was my cousins caretaker. Our short span of life together was cut off unexpectedly. We were four years apart. That kind of triggered me about the thoughts of death but I never really thought about it until the bullying started. I thought what any child would have thought, why I wasn't good enough for my dad to stay in the picture with us, why wasn't I good enough that my "friends" wouldn't bully me. I never understood why I considered them my friends when they tormented me every single day. And humiliated me every single day, I was only nine when the bullying started. I never enjoyed being at home, but I found every excuse and reason to not be present at school. As soon as both of my bullies transferred schools, I was relieved but it only got worse. Two years later, the bullying started again all because I was still this pushover, kind to everyone. It was just a habit and how I was raised. I guess it made me superficial and people gave me a lot of problems for it. Girls teamed up with each other and harassed me every single day, it happened all the time; I couldn't say much about it because they'd follow me home and home did not feel like home at the time. So I was always hanging out with bad influences after school or skipping school to leaving school whenever I'd attend.
I started self-harming and I hope that doesn't trigger or influence anyone who is reading this right now. For me, that was a way of coping. I started with broken glass, later started using any razor blade I can find. I did it almost every day. In a sense at the time, it helped with the depression. I slept any chance I could, I wanted to transfer schools but I would have no transportation of getting there. I learned how to forward all the calls from school to my mom's phone knowing she never checks the voicemails they'd leave her. There was a roller coaster of what and how I felt every single day. I mean I wanted to die almost every day I was alive while dealing with all I was dealing with in school and at home. I didn't think about the future. I thought or only had hope it'd end but it got worse with the harassments. Boys picking on me because of those girls or merely because I wasn't fond of them. They called me names, "fake bitch" or "slut", "whore". I didn't understand why. I still don't know why until this day. It wasn't just verbal, they started psychically harassing me too. Throwing spoiled apples at my mom's house. Pushing and shoving me at school any chance they got. Those girls who bullied me used to be my friends. As children, we believe everything portrayed in front of us. Even now, I still believe that there is good in everyone. I was naive, I thought everyone had the same heart as me which fucked me up even more. I still believe that. The only difference between then and now is I don't trust anyone. Not one soul. I can't, I can't allow myself to or trust MYSELF too.
The bullying got worse as I started cutting more, the people who bullied me noticed the cuts and scars so they told on me. Ironic isn't it? People do terrible things to you, then play victim or hero. Those people are still around now, I don't find myself ever associating with them. Which I want to clarify. I wish them the best but that trauma, what I had to go through and experience, I'll have to remember for the rest of my life. I try not to not remembering something so terrible and horrific but I can't help myself constantly being reminded of what they did. I'm just content that they put me through what they did so now I know the true meaning of real friendship.
There were times a few years ago where some of them came in contact with me but I'm older now. I have different friend groups and a different perspective. Reconnecting with those people was meaningless and not many of them changed. They only befriend me and call it reuniting because I did everything they thought I couldn't. I graduated on time, I moved out of my parents' house and I bought myself a car. I accomplished more than people thought I ever would. The only reason why they even tried being friends with me was that of the things I had, they didn't genuinely care about me. I already knew that they never cared about me and I don't think they ever will. I helped all of them get back on their feet because I couldn't help myself, it's just who I am. I kept them out of jail or end up being dead. Nothing I did was ever appreciated. I don't need them to do those things for me in return, but a call or text every now and then would be nice. But how can I be so in denial and believe that people can grow, change when they refuse to see themselves at fault? I guess I did whatever I can just so they can see for themselves--that even though they hurt me, I'll never be able to have the same ugly heart they have.
Back to the cutting thing, the school contacted my mom. She was in disbelief and disappointed finding out that I was cutting myself, she didn't understand. It wasn't just the bullying. It was the fact that I felt lost and not in control of my problems and thoughts. I couldn't tell her what was happening all because I didn't know how to approach the subject because I already knew what'd she say. I love my mom. I really do. And I wish there was more I can do for her to be happy. But we grew up in different worlds. She grew up in a third world country where everything was different. How do you tell someone who used to be a slave that you're self-harming yourself because of daddy issues and mommy issues? That the bullies at school made you want to kill yourself or made you start cutting yourself. I did what I do best, tell lies even though they weren't lies. I made promises to everyone, signed contracts saying I wouldn't ever hurt myself again. The whole school counselor thing is a gimmick anyway. They get paid to pretend to care, they were always overly happy. It made me very uncomfortable. Maybe I'm used to the emotional abuse and emotional neglect that I have never committed to anything good or affectionate... still unsure. Thinking about it now, I was always an old soul. Feeling and seeing everything I did force me to grow up at a young age, I don't wish any different. It made me very grateful for everything I learned. It makes me appreciate small things and small gestures in life.
I didn't stop cutting, I just got very narcissistic about it. I did it where no one would notice. I started skipping school even more. That's when the pill-popping started, I started taking sleeping medications, painkillers. Whatever I found in our kitchen but I took small amounts so no one would notice. I started attending school more; the only difference is, I went to school with cuts and a small high, each and every time. I enjoyed staying home alone more comforting than being at a school where everyone neglected my feelings and thoughts just because I'm a child and it's not "serious". This is when I started journaling, writing poems and haikus. All I wrote about was how I wanted to die all the time. I wrote mostly about heart breaks from different people and how they hurt more than just emotionally and mentally. Although I wrote most about how I felt negatively, there was a lot of positive things that I wrote about too. Such as looking forward and towards better days, there was a small ounce in me left that fought, that had hope. I hope that things will eventually get better and one day, everything that I was going through will just override all the emotions I was feeling. It did a for a bit. Things were starting to get better... middle school came, two years of more hell more or less. New school, new bullies, new attachments to people, that I'm happy to be friends with till this day. In a sense, it's not the same, everyone changed. I didn't. At least my mindset didn't, or my reckless behavior. I still remember the first time I tried weed, my first sip of alcohol at thirteen... how it felt touching my lips for the very first time, how it literally tasted and felt like poison to my veins. The results weren't so bad, it made it all go away for a short amount of time. It was an escape for me, sometimes still is. I'm not surprised I'm an alcoholic now... my dad had or probably still have alcohol problems and it runs in both sides of my family. I guess it's normal and part of our Asian society, to a handful anyway. The stereotypes you hear about are true.
Fourteen, when I first met with my first therapist. Life kinda took a bad toll. I started dating someone who became abusive and controlling. This was a little before I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. After the first year of therapy, I have transferred to a different therapist. There are different types and different therapists for different ages. My second therapist wasn't the best one that suited my problems at the time. I stuck it out because I thought it was good for me. I actually was brave enough to say "hey I'm hurt and dealing with things I don't want to deal with alone, I need help, please help me, please help me learn how to heal myself." The relationship with my boyfriend got worse and worse every day. He was abusive not only psychically but emotionally and mentally. It was toxic and very controlling. There were certain things he didn't like me wearing. A certain way he didn't like the way I did my makeup or the friends he didn't like me hanging out with. He wanted me to stay secluded to only him, that if anything were to happen, I didn't have anyone to go to. Had no one to rely on or go to. He'd go missing for days and sometimes weeks. He'd talk to girls I didn't really get along with on purpose and did certain things that he knew would upset me all to get a reaction out of me for his own ego and amusement. Of course the start of the relationship, things were different. Everything was great.
We were broken people and for some reason, God always sends me the broken ones and I'm so empathetic with people who have rough patches. I'm easily drawn to people who have family and relationship problems. I am easily drawn to people who have things wrong with them so I can fix and heal them even if it wasn't or isn't my job to do it. I was young, naive and stupid. I always had the mentality, personality where it was easier--sometimes even relieving to be involved with people who are equally broken as I was/am, sometimes even more broken. My family took him in as our own, he lived with us because his family kicked him out. It didn't get anywhere. We fought about the smallest things, he'd always leave whenever we'd fight, even my younger brother begged him numerous times to stay and not leave me in the condition I was in. Even though the relationship was abusive, that was the only thing that kept me somewhat sane while I was going through my spirals of depression and mental breakdowns. It also triggered it at times too. I still don't know how I feel about that era. He was just like his dad, even his own mom begged me to leave him. But this memoir isn't about him.
I finally agreed to take antidepressants. I tried multiple kinds. It felt like it was artificial happiness. Even though I was desperate for some life and happy in my own life, I wasn't very pleased with the results. I started taking different kinds and the side effects made me more suicidal; weird. It was a weird high, I think it made me more insane than I already was. I continued taking them to "feel better" but I ran out and forgot to get another refill. I started freaking out because I couldn't get a refill in the timeframe I wanted. I was in biology class and someone offered me something better, something that can get me off the walls. I fell into peer pressure. I didn't know that what I took was ecstasy. I didn't question any of it because I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be free again. I didn't know anything about this pill. I took it and about an hour later, it fucked up my anxiety even more. I started having an anxiety attack, I went to the nurse's office, they called my dad, go figure. He was one of my emergency contacts. I was admitted to the ER and the whole time when I was high, I blamed him for leaving, I was high off my mind I didn't really think twice about what I was saying. I had a bad trip; I nearly died. My heart rate was so high, I had wires all over my body. He asked me "why did you take a pill from a random stranger?" My answer was: "I'm tired of being unhappy and always feeling unhappy, I'm tired of not being good enough that I'm starting to believe it. I'm tired of feeling unwanted all the time by everyone. I just want to be happy instead of always feeling suicidal and always trying to kill myself." I didn't even mention trying to OD my seventh-grade summer when I was thirteen, life happened. I lost one of my closest friends during the homicide. Clearly, it didn't work out, I just passed out and puked up my insides.
Moving forward, he started crying which made me even more upset. From my perspective or "point of view", people start crying because they feel guilty for something or feel at fault. Even so, it's when you are near death or sometimes even dead yourself. After I got released from the hospital, my boyfriend at the time, the crazy abusive one, came home to make sure I was "okay". Before admitting the ER, when we were both in school, in the nurse's office when I was beginning to have my panic attack, instead of being comforting; already knowing why I would even do such a thing. He yelled at me the whole entire time saying how stupid I was. Even after I was released from the hospital. His sister called him, they were both making their judgmental comments, she made posts about me on social media, saying how I should've been dead. How much of the waste of space I am on this Earth. That I didn't deserve to live. This all came from someone who pretended to relate to my mental illness, convinced me they were suffering and battling it too. It confused me, usually, people who are dealing with the same crisis as you, they'd understand more and be less judgmental to whatever you're dealing with. At least that's what I think. I had another panic attack standing up for myself because he certainly didn't say anything.
After a while having to deal with my own life than having to deal with his, and his family, I stopped taking antidepressants. I started taking more sleeping pills. It made my problems go away and I always had bad insomnia so you can see where this is going. Higher dosages and more pills... every time I took any, it would be more than I should. They gave me a high where I felt like I wasn't on Earth anymore. I felt as if time just froze, nothing mattered. My thoughts were all there, but I didn't feel any emotion. I just felt numb and empty. I began to slowly distance myself from him and eventually I got tired of the same fights and miscommunication so I left. I broke off our relationship because I found out he was sleeping with one of my "best friends". They have a child together now and are still together. My parents see them every so often. There were many times where I had to deal with my own demons and he just made it worse. Plus his friends and family weren't very nice people either.
I started smoking more, I began to start partying throughout my freshman year of high school. I started drinking. It only got worse because I stopped smoking weed as soon as I discovered what being drunk was. I drowned all my sorrows and sadness in alcohol. I started making new friends. I was drinking every other week. Then it became an everyday thing--spent most of my money on alcohol. I was tired of living then but it was more of an understanding tired of life thing than being depressed and constantly trying to fix myself, I started dating other people. By the time I graduated high school, I enrolled in college. I got a good paying job, had my own car so the transportation thing of driving everywhere was a bonus, not relying on anyone for anything. I moved out of my parent's house and got an apartment with the help of my last ex-boyfriend. The current person I was dating then, helped me get my first place. Everything was great for two+ years.
Of course, this was the time I was the soberest with my thoughts, I felt genuinely happy. For so long, we dated from when I was seventeen-nineteen. I was almost completely sober for two years, I was only drinking whenever I was in the mood to, it was a "getting drunk to refresh the vibes" type of drunk. Instead of "drinking to fill the empty voids" drunk. Everything at the time being felt like things were finally turning around for me. It was almost perfect. After more than two years, everything began to start falling apart again. I was independent but with another person, if that makes any sense. I was growing up with another human being. I had my own friends and had a balance of my true identity, I had a relationship with my family and it got better. Things got better because I finally gained the respect that was missing from my life. People started respecting me more because I was out kicking life's ass, instead of it kicking mine. Regardless of the things I had to deal with, the obstacles I faced in my earlier stages of LIFE, and was still enduring and facing, I was still able to get up most days and went after what I wanted. What I wanted was to graduate with my BA degree, save up for an actual house, get married and have kids eventually after all the traveling. I wanted to get married to the person I was with in dues to him getting his citizenship. I wanted to give him everything even though he didn't ask me to. I wanted to travel with the love of my life and be able to travel to Mexico for one time. For the experience and for him to visit his childhood and his brother who passed away a little after birth. Even in the aspects of doing what I was planning to, I didn't think about me. I thought about another person. We discussed the subject. He told me he didn't ask me to. Ironic is it, you can climb mountains for someone, even swim oceans for them to be happy, and they still don't see the bigger concept of it. I mentioned that I knew what I was doing, that even if it doesn't work out, I still wanted to do it. Not because I was so in love with him and what I thought we had but solely because I understand how hard it is. I began to start drinking more when our relationship went downhill.
I was ready to settle down and have this amazing life with someone who I thought was my forever, my soulmate. He knew who and what he was getting involved with. He knew I was battling my depression and why I even started drinking and partying so much during my high school years. He promised that we'd go through whatever it was I was going through, alone, together. He made me that promise the first time we finally sobered up the night we first hung-out, drunk. Even after that, for months, I couldn't make it official because, after my abusive ex-boyfriend, I dated someone who cheated on me with an ex-girlfriend. With one of his previous exes... this is funny to think about now... there were so many issues and most of them involved his family. They always made themselves involved where they didn't belong. With him, he was always insecure I'd cheat on him because of his past and his last ex cheated on him with her ex. Just a web full of cheating/cheaters. Anyway, he ended up doing me dirty like how he was done dirty. They also have a kid with each other now. The funniest part of it all is they named their kid after the name I wanted for my future kid. Not even with him but just in general. I wasn't ready to open my heart to anyone else. I was scared to ever trust anyone after dealing with people who I thought would've stayed longer and change not just for the sake of our relationship(s) but for the sake of their own future. After months of hanging out every single day with each other and going on tons of dates, I made it official with my boyfriend of two years. We went to high school together and I had a class with him my freshmen and sophomore year, we never really had a normal conversation. I always thought he had ADHD problems to be completely honest. We made it work somehow but when my depression--suicidal thoughts and tendencies got more problematic, he always left during my mental breakdowns. He didn't know how to deal with any of it. It was usually when those related situations and life problems that would trigger me, randomly. I was traumatized by the past and current events that made me remember it all. We dated for two years until 2017. From high school to college.
I think 2017 was by far one of the worse years of me being alive or just the worst experience of going through these major events. There were so many complications and heart aching. Not just the break up itself. Having a new job that was on the opposite side of town, in the middle of ending our lease at our old apartment. Traveling back and forth from work, visiting friends and family, trying to maintain my grades in school. Working full time, lots of overtime. In the process of finding a new place closer to work--eventually moving back closer to my parents home, work and school. Up to one of my closest friends committing suicide. The person that I kept annoying and poking at work, the person I spent most of my shifts working with. We just clicked right away. In a way, I brought out the talkative side out of him. We shared a lot of the same problems, relationship-wise, family dynamics, alcohol, and drug abuse. The best part of it all was, we were so good at hiding our problems, I think he was better at it. I tried to figure out why he was the way he was. I never got to know the dark side of him. He used to take me home from work every other day or would drop me off at my car when it was later those nights. We had most shifts together or/and the opposite of each other but the same days if that makes sense at all. It was either we replaced each others parking space or him arriving at work, working a double then I arriving to close the same shift with him. After three months of working together, a little time after his twentieth birthday, we found out that he took his life down the street from our work...
I was in shock, I was confused. I still am. I didn't know what to say or feel. I had no idea what to do, work was called off the next day, my boyfriend at the time didn't even want to be there for me. I guess he chose not to be, not that he didn't want to. Later on that week before the viewing and funeral, my ex-boyfriend's sister contacted me via facebook and sent me an essay about how horrible I was of a person and how possessive I was of her brother. His family never really liked me anyway because we chose to spend the majority of our time together with just us. Not because I made him pick and choose between family and our relationship but he did it out of his own will. This always happens with people I date, I am drawn to broken goods because of their family neglect then suddenly it's a competition of who cares about their kid/sibling more. I was upset, morally disappointed because if we had lived together OFFICIALLY or he kept our business/problems more private, it would have not happened. People let their friends and family opinions really cloud their judgment on how they truly feel for you. I don't know what's worse though, their family not wanting them to be wholeheartedly happy or them being easily influenced into distancing themselves from me for no logical reason. Anyway, I went to the viewing and I responded to her. I told her: "I don't have any energy or time to fight or argue with you because I am dealing with my own problems and I don't want to be that person fighting with my dudes family anyway." She kept saying nasty things, for example: how I was faking my depression, faking my problems to make him stay with me. At this point I was already leaving to my friends viewing at the church, the funeral was later that night. I ignored her and just went on with what I had to do for my friend. It took me a week or two to decide that I'm not in the right place in my life anymore to have a relationship with someone who wasn't even ready for me. Who constantly allowed his friends and family to ever even talk about me in a negatory way. Let alone, never defending my name and character in my absence. That was the last straw for me, plus we've been fighting for months about him not moving in with me after being together for that long, dealing and putting up with each other and knowing each other good enough to know that it was eventually going to be a time when we have to start our own lives. It never happened, even though we were in a lease together, and he helped me pay for rent partially here and there, he never moved in. Even having most of his important things there such as clothes, video games, etc.
I finally broke up with him. It wasn't just his family that made me leave or him not wanting or was interested in investing life with me. I found pictures of other women on his phone too. Recently as I was dealing with complications in my personal life. I was just curious about what pictures he had of me, instead, I found pictures of other women from his job. There were excuses as to why he had them. It didn't matter because they were inappropriate. Before that, there were weird behavior and changes in his personality and how he started acting distant. Till this day, I'll never understand the concept of cheating, just because it wasn't psychical, does not mean it wasn't cheating mentally and emotionally. Adding to that whole cheating aspect, he had been talking to my best friend at the time about me and the problems we were facing as a couple, a lot of them actually, just about me. I never understood or understand why people rant and vent to someone else of the opposite sex about their relationship problems instead of just communicating with each other. I still don't understand why until now, I still don't understand why it is so common for people to continue doing so, in general sometimes too.
The feelings were there, but at that time, I already addressed how I felt and how we were going to grow and be at peace. That part wasn't mutual. I'm not sure if I was still in love with him, sure I still loved him. I think I still do, a part of me always will love him for treating me so well for so long. Until he stopped. Come to think of it, while I was dealing with the whole break up and the heartbroken thing of my friend... I think there was a part of me that was still in love with him. There was too much pride and ego for us to ever get back together. This was the last time, last breakup. I always told him, there was going to be a day where I just stop caring to make things work and compromise. There is going to be a time where I had enough and will start having to distance myself to do better for myself. There's going to be a time where I'll have to finally love myself more than I loved him. Long and behold, I did it. The end of us was the beginning of me. It was a perfect time; he could've shown me he really cared about me. That was the time he could've set that pride and ego aside and really fix things knowingly how forgiving I was, how accepting I am of everything. Of life. He didn't, he didn't try to fix things or work on things with me, I waited. For months, until I moved on with my own life in the realization that he was never going to be the man he promised me he'd be. That he wasn't going to change and compromise with me for a change.
A part of me will always remember the memories we shared. I will always have a piece of me that's broken. I don't think I can ever forget how it once made me feel. The beauty in the lies, the fairytale I thought I was in. A part of me will always remember how happy I was, for a long time, I was. We spent most of our waking moments together--for the two years or more we were together, even when it wasn't always rainbows and sunshine. It was real, at least it felt real. That was the first person I ever thought about having a future with. Being committed to for the rest of my life. I was young but I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew exactly where I wanted to be in the next five years. I knew exactly who I wanted to be with, for all eternity. It makes me sad that I don't see that kind of future with anyone now. Even when the flings I had with people, I never truly felt the way I once did romantically. I haven't met anyone potentially enough for me to want to settle down within that aspect.
I went on a drinking spree for five months, I just moved into this apartment, I had a good paying job. The only downfall was there was no one to share it with and I was grieving and trying to cope with these new changes in my life. I couldn't get a grip on reality. I was drunk every single day and night for five months. The pain and hurt I felt every single day; never ended. I went numb again, I couldn't feel, I couldn't talk about my deep dark thoughts for months. I just cried every so often but I started journaling a lot too as a form of expressing myself. I was in so much pain, there was so much of it, I couldn't portion out any thought, feeling. It got bad. Insomnia, depression, bad habits, running, drinking and sleeping pills. I did everything I could to provide and love myself. I lived alone with my dog. I did everything I could to keep a smile on my face and had never-ending peals of laughter because people were that easily fooled. I was drinking or was drunk all the time, I was still functional. I just didn't care about the living part anymore. I was taking everything--one day at a time. I had the mentality where if I were to die that day then so be it. I went to my friend's site every single night drunk, highly intoxicated. There were times (from stories I heard from friends) that I would be so intoxicated, I'd try to dig holes at his site and try to lie there, in his presence. Wanting to just die so I can be with everyone else I've already lost. Life seemed to have already lost its meaning. Nothing meant anything. I didn't see life the way I did, even when I tried to hurt myself, I stopped looking for help and recognition. I never knew how bad it felt to ever feel that empty and alone. Even in a room full of people, I felt nothing. I started drinking to sleep with people to fill that void and eventually stopped because like everything else, it was meaningless... I didn't even have the right morality to just sleep with people I had no emotional attachment to or any soul connection with. Everything and everyone was just a distraction. The alcohol made it less vain and more comforting because I blacked out every time I was making reckless decisions. I forgot all the times it happened. I just did it to feel better about myself and the heartache I was facing but I never did. I never felt better about anything, about myself internally. Mentally, emotionally, and psychically.
You see, when bad things happen in a domino effect for me, I start to panic. I start lashing out, drinking excessively and force myself to turn off my humanity and emotions even if it's not how I think or feel when I'm sober. I start acting reckless and make poor decisions. I am morally aware of what I'm doing but I just stop caring about everything. I stop thinking twice. I start being impulsive. That's just who I've always been. Being the black sheep, being different, people already have mistaken my reckless behavior(s) as me being crazy so why not make the statement true? The thing is, I don't think people who are dealing with mental illness are crazy people. People who are the real "crazy" are usually the ones who can't self identify themselves, who are in denial of who they are, always in denial of their senses. They don't notice anything they do. They don't know they're "crazy" for being unaware. For someone like me to consistently say I'm crazy and for the people who have similar problems as me; we say we're crazy for how we choose to cope and move on in life, I think that is what makes us sane, to be honest. I think we just say those things because people think we have problems but at least we already know and take note of what we are dealing with, how to fix and heal ourselves. The first step to being better is taking initiative to the patterns of how you deal with things.
Fast forwarding to now. During 2018, I spent the majority of the first half of the year trying to OD from sleeping pills. I know, it contradicts everything I've been talking about. I'm a paradox and sporadic. The drinking didn't stop, it slowed down but it definitely did not stop. A lot of things happened in the last year. Things I can't express completely yet. Back in May of 2018, it was the first time I was on suicide watch. For three days, I was a suspect to myself. Then moving towards my twenty-first birthday, I tried to off myself again. Then again, back in November 2018, I was admitted to the ER and put on suicide watch once more. I downed a whole bottle of sleeping pills for three days straight with alcohol, I just wanted to sleep but I've been doing it for so long, I built a tolerance from it. My grandma passed away recently--October 18, 2018, I only received a phone call from my mom. There were things I couldn't do that I planned on doing with her if I was able to visit her sooner in Vietnam. I was supposed to bring her here for six months. If everyone trusted me more, and if I was more financially stable, I could've prevented everything. Her death could have been prevented. I could have provided or find her a better doctor. Better care instead of neglect. We weren't close as I wanted us to be, that's still or was my grandma. I shared memories with her any time I visited Vietnam. The last time I saw her was when I was fourteen. I wasn't even able to hang out with her as much as I wanted to. She stayed with my aunts so I barely got to see her due to everyone's schedules. She was battling cancer, I thought maybe after the surgery she would be fine but ended up having a heart attack instead. I was always so hopeful and believed in fate, I still believe that everything happens for a reason in a butterfly effect. In this case, I don't know what the reason was. She was old but very healthy. She lived life. She had tons of grandchildren. Her funeral lasted five nights and six days. Still, I wasn't able to make the paperwork nor did I have the money to travel to go see her one last time. I had my own life to take care of. Rent to pay for, my car, and I didn't have a job anymore at the time.
I had other things I had to deal with on top of that, there were one hundred reasons why I did it. I was just so tired and I lived alone. I talked to the suicide hotline and it didn't help, I was having another panic attack, I didn't think it would lead to me having to spend half my day in the ER on suicide watch. I just wanted someone to comfort me and help me calm down from my anxiety attack. At one point I tried to leave but all my rights were revoked because apparently, I don't know how to take care of myself. I took out my IVs and seen blood squirting everywhere but realizing that I used to be an intern there so I didn't have a badge to leave with anymore. Plus I was in the crazy people clothes, mine were taken into their possession, temporary. I got my phone back but that was also on one percent. Yeah, I didn't think this thoroughly, I just wanted to leave but my stuff wasn't given back yet because I was still on suicide watch. I found out later that day that I have hypertension on top of my messed up mental illness, I can have a stroke or heart attack at any time in stressful situations. Not only am I messed up in the head but psychically too. It doesn't surprise me, I never knew how to take care of myself internally. Only externally. My sleeping schedule wasn't always the best, eating habits, sure I can eat healthily, but the drinking and all those drugs from all those years. Caffeine too. I didn't eat the whole time I was there. I missed breakfast and lunch, never been a breakfast person anyway. The only reason why they released me was that I agreed to go to therapy, again. The other option was the "loony bin" I call it the loony bin to take make it less dramatic than the mental hospital. Come to think of it, the day I was admitted to the ER was four days after my one year anniversary of my other suicidal attempt back in 2017 on Halloween. It was also my one year anniversary of the accident. I never thought about the dates while doing what I did, it just happened. Dates and time run differently for me, I usually never know what day it is due to my sleeping schedule.
I am still dealing with these events and problems as far as mental disorders go, I still have a long way to go. I'm still dealing with new problems too. I think now, it's harder, it feels worse but I'm doing something I said I would do two years ago. I'm blogging, writing, and designing a brand for people who are facing the same things as I am. The same problems my friend dealt with. The only big difference is now, we don't have to do it alone. I won't have to feel like I'm doing this alone. I hope this "memoir" doesn't freak anyone who is reading this now. Or triggers you to do the things I did. What I did isn't something I'm proud of. I had a lot of near-death experiences and suicidal attempts because I felt alone, I felt unworthy, unhappy. I sometimes often still have those thoughts and feelings but I am not going to act on it now. I feel like, after all those attempts and the things that happened, it brought me here. I'm taking it one step at a time, baby steps. I'm not feeling super duper every day but this website and what it is promoting to sell gives me a sense of hope. I'm using social media as a platform for my story, my everyday life. Jeopardizing my personal struggles and reputation, sacrificing that, it's not that I care about peoples negative input on my beliefs or perspective. I'm not letting social media "get to my head". It's just scary having to see where it all goes. The negative feedback will slowly probably eat me alive. But this isn't all about me. This is just "my story", this is just me, creating this, acting out on serving a purpose, finding my own--in hopes that it helps someone out there. Whether or not you are dealing with it or dealing with someone who is dealing with what I am now; maybe it'll help and give you a different point of view on how important it is to take care of your mental state of mind. I spent the last month or so pretending to act out on my "crazy" even more, to bring attention to this topic, this problem. Hoping it helps other people who feel like they're alone, you're not. Now I'm not sure if I did act out on my crazy to bring awareness or I'm in denial of feeling how I feel now. Depressed and suicidal, still. Maybe more than ever. It just makes me feel warm and happy most when I get personal messages from people who I don't even know or people I do know or knew, tell me how happy they are to see me so content with life as I'm dealing with all the bullshit I am now. Whether it's them messaging me on social media, personal texts. How it makes them feel like they have a purpose or even start doing things out of their comfort zone because of me. I've always been an empath. I've always felt more and thought more than people my age, sometimes I think I feel things and understand so much more than people who are even older, and probably seen decades of life already. I dealt with a lot of things I don't think anyone should at such a young age. Suicide, deaths in our generation is just spiraling out of control. What I went through, things I've experienced, things I've seen, never turned me cold. It did not make me less of a giving person. It made me more of one. I'm just more cautious of who I want to help (relationship(s) wise). I don't want to make the same mistakes more than twice, I don't want to be too invested too much in the things I was I was investing in. Except for my own life, this brand.
This isn't the end, this isn't my end. I have so much more to tell. I have so much more to say, this is just my perspective on life itself. I have a bazillion more to go. Not just in my life, but the way I see the world, reality, society, politics, etc. Even the lives of other people who are dealing with this, and how they used their mental disorders to be successful. There's so much more to life than just our disorder(s). There's so much in the world that we haven't even seen yet, and if you're reading this, I hope you find some kind of comfort knowing that you are not alone. And you have to wake up and find that purpose--whatever it may be. To keep living, to keep trying. To keep fighting for the life you DESIRE and DESERVE. It won't happen overnight or the next few months. Sometimes, these kinds of things take years. I'm not an example of how to die, that isn't my goal or intention to share this story. I am a million reasons why you must keep going, and solid living proof that things will get better and if they don't, just try to try harder. Even on days where you don't feel like yourself anymore. I know how hard things get, find a distraction. Explore the city you're in. Go on dates with yourself. Find at least something to spend your down times on. Adopt a dog, volunteer in shelters, food drives. Maybe your purpose in life is to serve others, to make other people feel happy, fulfilled. Because in some fucked up, way that's where you find peace and your own happiness. Empaths, I still can't decide if it makes us unpretentious or just more human than others in this fucked up thing we call life. "Maybe Hell is a place on Earth, and when you die, that's when you find peace." A good friend of mine discussed this one night when we were on the verge of blacking out. It's not wrong or bad, it will never be justified like that. Some of us don't really know how to love ourselves completely because we're constantly finding that self-love in loving of others. We never feel good about ourselves until we're done doing whatever that thing is for someone else. It's one of the most gracing qualities TO have, but please don't ever give up, even if you want to, even when life kicks your ass and feel like the world will be better off without you. It won't be better. People will move on from the deaths of their loved ones but it won't ever be the same without you. Don't give up just yet. We can't just live a life that we are given but simply CREATE.