Wednesday, October 17, 2012
I am emo queen
I should be getting to bed, it's 12.20 AM and I have a Women's Studies exam later, and Wednesdays are always my busiest days, but I felt compelled to write this.
Many times in my teenage years (which, sadly, are coming to an end) I have faltered and fallen into bouts of depression. I know at heart it was never ever super extreme, I don't really know if I should consider myself strong or weak – at times whenever I was depressed I would want so badly for myself to die, but I never had the courage to hurt myself enough to seal my spirit and jump onboard the train of death. In a certain sense, that's bravery because I was making myself go on living, but in another sense, that was cowardice too because I wasn't brave enough to kill myself.
So I displayed my despondence through other ways – starving myself, going on raving diets, bashing myself when I wasn't strong enough to uphold those diets; and purposely putting myself in situations where the risk of injury or fatality were high. It's quite a paradox though; I did those things to express how depressed I was but doing those things required a certain level of discipline, and I was rigidly trying to control as many aspects of my life as I could because I... wanted to be in control.
Up until recently, my viewpoint on life has always been this: why try so hard at living, when in the end, you are going to die anyway?
Digressing a little: I was, and still am terrified, not by the idea of death, but by the fact that if I am reborn, I would have to go through the same sufferings and pains everyone goes through in their lives, that the coming-of-age scenario(s) would just replay over and over again in all my lives. I keep asking myself, what is the point of facing so much pain? At times I still wish that my soul, and I, as an entity, did not exist at all. Sometimes I wish my existence would be completely negated and erased because I am tired of fighting – again, what is the point of it when we all live and then die in the end anyway? Maybe I am too weak for this world.
One of the turning points came in Sec 3 when I was trying to pin something up on the noticeboard outside the Council room. That was the worst time in my life ever – but then again I've gone through so many periods I considered "the worst", so I don't really know what "the worst" really is anymore. I was pushing on the glass panel and it was kind of stuck, and then I don't know what happened, but the glass panel that covered the noticeboard (which was probably up to my shoulder if you held it up on the ground, and the width of a bicycle) fell out completely, crashing onto the gray cemented floor and shattering into a billion pieces. My first reaction was to be upset about a) how careless and stupid I was to not even be able to do something properly, b) how the glass panel didn't just fall on me because I wanted to just die. These thoughts came so quickly to me it was almost like they were a reflex.
I think that was when I realized how fucked up I was. I didn't know what I going to do with my life, I didn't know where it was headed, that scared me, and it felt like it could never go the way I wanted it to no matter how much control I exerted, no matter how much or hard I tried. I didn't see anything about my life that was good, or worthy of being happy about. I didn't know why I was living; I wanted to die.
So I continued to cross roads impetuously, running across them in hopes of being knocked down so I would just die, please God just take me out of my misery. Whenever I felt even slightly happy, I would start to feel guilt because I believed that I was "undeserving of happiness" (that is verbatim, off one of my blog posts from years ago). Whenever I gradually got out of feeling depressed and started feeling happier, I would begin to doubt myself – why am I behaving this way, I don't deserve this, I should stop being obnoxious, etc.
Along the way I realized many things. When I was really young I thought I was destined for greatness, and then in Sec 1 I realized that was not going to happen. I had always thought love conquers all, and then in Sec 3 I learned that sometimes, just love is not enough.
And all the beliefs I had in the above paragraph are beginning to elude me.
I think the wonderful thing about life is how it is ever-changing, and life is simply what you make of it. Ironically, coming here to America, away from my family and all my friends, has actually made me a happier person. The truth is, I never expected that to happen, but it has. Now that I'm here, I feel like I have more autonomy in my own life and I'm no longer dictated by what could be expected of me.
Yes, I believe that when I go back to Singapore, I'll feel oppressed again by my parents' expectations of me, but this thought is easily negated but one belief I hold – that "this too shall pass", that all things in life are transitory. When I grow older and become more of my own person, I will be able to live the life I want. And hopefully you all believe that at heart I'm a good person hahaha, because I will live my life the way that makes me the happiest, but I won't do so at the expense of other people's happiness.
It hurt like mad in the past whenever I had to conceal how sad I really was, how I had to pretend to be strong and force myself to function, when deep down inside I really felt numb, like I had already died. And the saddest thing was, despite this, many people could see through my demeanor and see how sad and angry I really was. My friends labelled me "emo queen" lol. My old Tumblr URL was "residentemo". It was evident I was depressed. When nobody extended a helping hand, I assumed that nobody would be able to understand the depths and intricacies of my emotions, but then I also felt like I was the most selfish person ever for wanting people to care.
I am not the most confident person. Today, I still battle self-esteem
issues – in fact ever since a couple of weeks backs I have, on a couple
of occasions, stuck my finger down my throat to try and regurgitate
food that I have so sinfully binged on. (But don't worry I didn't
actually throw up anything HAHAHA I was too afraid to go all the way.) (And a part of the reason why I attempted it was cos I wanted to know how it feels like hahaha.) Every single day I am still liable to being depressed, and it doesn't help that I am attracted to sad things. I see many reasons why being sad is actually not such a bad thing at all – I am still really really tantalized by the idea of it, but I shan't go into why for now.
But the realization that I am my own person has made me a more hopeful
person. I still haven't figured out the point of life but I do know now
that it's okay to not have all the answers, and the only way I can be happy
is to ignore and push away this perplexing question from the confines of
my mind. And after having been depressed so many times, I've finally concluded that depression is not something to be ashamed of at all, because when you come out of it, you emerge a stronger person. A stronger person with scars (visible or not), but still. Every single time I come out of being depressed, I become a better person, I learn a little more. So now every time I feel sad I just tell myself, you've been through something like this before, no matter how you think this could be the worst, it will get better, you will feel better. No matter how much it doesn't feel like it's going to happen, just blindly believe this.
So yes, in retrospect, I guess my secondary school friends' moniker for me (amongst several others) of "emo queen" was actually not such a bad thing at all.
I just want people to know fighting internal turmoil is not something to be ashamed of, because in actual fact, it makes you the strongest person of all.
Goddammit it's 1.30 AM I am going to wake up tomorrow morning sleep deprived.
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