20190129

When it comes to my emotional state, my mind has come to rationalize the semblance of a pattern of it. There are certain things I have come to expect: the general cheeriness, the intermittent despair, and maybe an outburst or two in a regular day. The pattern in the long-term includes a meltdown every few months. At this point, I may be a few months overdue for the next one.

Lately, the smallest things can turn my mood—a really good bowl of noodles to lift my spirits, or a really flat cuppa tea to dampen what would have otherwise been a fairly pleasant afternoon. And then, the irritability: for the most part, I can take pause and consider things from a more rational stance, but I still wonder about my temperance. If my composure can be affected by the most unintentional of triggers, then how can I expect myself to be in the mood for anything productive?

What makes me feel worse is when people who matter notice, and then they bring it up, and we have to talk about it. Because friends talk about pain and hurt and ruin. My intention is not to put on a strong face for them so much as to remind them that there are still good things, and I would much rather talk about the good things than dwell on the negatives, because chances are the negatives lead to a spiral of negativity—a positive feedback loop of heavy feelings that inhibit joy.

(I have developed a few new habits. Whenever someone says something to me that makes me feel moral outrage, I incite them to take action against my life. It is a marginal improvement upon the previous impulse to take action against my own life. I now fumble with the tigers’ eyes I have been given, taking comfort in the vibrations going into my ears and onto my skin. The under-the-breath profanities come and go as they please.)

Sometimes the image of skin-piercing projectiles comes to mind. There is a threshold for how deep a bullet can go before the trauma surgeon has to cut from the other side of the entry wound. Sometimes it feels like that: triggers and bullets through my emotional epidermis and lodged somewhere in the joyous meat behind a punctured feel-bone. The catch is that I am my own trauma surgeon, and the only way to fish the bullet out is to cut a way through.

Maybe I actually hate metaphors, or maybe this one works because I imagine that bullets hurt and negative thoughts hurt, and maybe there is an emotional body, but maybe not analogous to the physical one. I imagine this body to be constituted of positive energy. Maybe in form it is not like the physical body, but maybe in characteristics it can be. Bones grow back stronger than they were originally; maybe positive emotions grow back stronger than they were before because of negativity.

This is a forced metaphor. I cannot attest to its veracity outside hypothetical scenarios based on my own experience. I did not subject this metaphor to any academic rigor from any disciplines or fields of study. Maybe it is my own metaphor, applicable only to me. Maybe I am masochistic, seeking justification for the necessity of negativity.

The thing is though, I am ambivalent to pain, metaphorical or otherwise. Pain comes regardless of how much I avoid it, and I have stopped avoiding pain for a while now. The challenge for me becomes how I cope with it, and I am a mess of a person. My tendency is that there is a certain threshold of negativity in which I can no longer hold back. Small inconveniences on their own should not affect my mood, but a barrage of them in a short period set me off.

On the flipside, there are some big negatives that have come my way, and maybe my emotional self gives up, because those times, I feel as though I go on autopilot. My physical body does the living for the rest of me; I become a thing that reacts out of instinct and without emotion. It gets tiring though; I have to crash at some point.

Almost every day now, I encounter something that makes me tear up—usually because I become overwhelmed with positive thoughts. Almost every day now, I have to remind myself that maybe the time has not come yet; no matter how much leeway I give myself to cry, I find myself in a deep state of satisfaction. It is not yet time, I think, to despair.

Yet the despair is there: somewhere just out of sight. Maybe it knows I have grown used to it; maybe it lies in wait, knowing fully that I will be vulnerable eventually. Or maybe I still have a bunch of bullets in my emotional corpse. Emotions are difficult; sometimes I wish not to have been allowed them in the first place. I could have been cold; I could have been level-headed.

But again: temperance. I find that it helps when I take a step back from visceral reactions to negative stimuli. It helps to pretend to be objective, taking into consideration different interpretations of an event, knowing fully that I will probably go along with the one thought that is most convenient, most comfortable. I cannot afford the discomfort—not now.

(My tigers’ eyes glimmer; I need to stay calm. The tap-tapping of the keyboard has slowed. Have I been rambling all this time? My emotions are mute, but nod their concurrence. Sometimes I cannot stand metaphors.)

Maybe after I have had myself a good cry will I be willing to be discomforted again. I am a few months overdue. I wonder how long this will last—it feels like I stand on a ledge somewhere, looking up, with the void peering into my mind from my peripheral vision. My dreams for med school are dead, but maybe I can still be a trauma surgeon for myself.

20180628

Sometimes in the clutter of my mind, I forget what my voice sounds like, so I interject, mostly to myself, whatever stray syllables congeal upon my tongue. Usually, I am alone, but there are times when group conversations become so overwhelming that impulse takes over, and I can no longer measure sounds. Too loud, too soft, too much something, than what the context calls for. Words can be inappropriate, or gentle, or sharp, and mine are usually as abrasive as my opinions can be.

There are days when I do not speak aloud, so when I actually do, a hoarseness coats my vocal chords in hesitation. I find myself relearning words or chancing upon neglected ones. They come out shrill or otherwise unrehearsed, and I often falter. Language for me is in flux—a constant state of discovery of how to say what I mean, or how to mean what I say, and I find myself often saying things and meaning differently. My voice clarifies the disparity in words.

So I try to write in the hope that I can elucidate the gaunt mess of meaning.

I was ten when I joined a choir. I wanted to do something with my voice, and singing at the time made sense, with friends and family complimenting my singing voice. I started out with a mezzo soprano in my timidity, eventually reaching soprano notes at age twelve. It was an achievement for me because most of the songs that I ascribed meaning to were high-pitched. Not shrill, but light and airy. There was a song without words that I used to vocalize to—it spanned almost four octaves from mezzo soprano to soprano, and I remember reaching the crescendo notes during a car ride at age thirteen.

I could not reach the notes since, and I stopped joining choirs at age fourteen primarily out of the lack of will—I no longer had the motivation nor dedication to keep singing for an audience. It did not help that my voice kept breaking at the onset of puberty. Even now, over a decade later, I find my voice has not settled. I can occasionally reach mezzo soprano with my falsetto, or mid-baritone, but my range for the past years has been fluttering between alto and tenor. I no longer have a stable singing voice, and I try not to force myself. Whenever I feel I want to sing, it is usually when I feel alone—to emote, as I grasp at words that are not mine to express what I think could be.

Music used to figure so heavily to me back then, but now it has been relegated to mere interest—a way to keep conversations going. A topic to which I could relate, but no longer with which I could actively engage. Instead, I listen to music in the hopes that the clutter piles into semblances of sense—words that flow with some clarity.

I try to cultivate some sense of musicality when I write. Maybe that would be enough, but words fall short without melody. Rhythm, tempo, harmony, pitch, resonance. Something about music is so much more than the words and sounds; I can only hope to replicate the emotion that music allows with mere words. When words afford me clarity and precision, music allows ambiguity and an inarticulation that escapes me.

Music is something else when there are no words. Words are something else when there is no music. Another disparity. Attempt as I do, I cannot find the words in the clutter, nor the sounds in the voice.

Ever since I could remember, I would record words in my head, and they would play back whenever the occasion presented itself. Since I was eight, I have been collecting words and voices of the people around me, as if documenting sound and meaning. Eventually, maybe I would resonate with the words or the sounds. I used to find myself holding conversations with the voices, as if subjecting myself to the judgement of others in the safety of my solitude.

When I was twelve, in a period of crisis and selfishness, I remember being told to get over myself. Each word enunciated, stabbing, and effective. I played it back over the course of months until the words became echoes, and the echoes leaked. It became something of a mantra. The first couple of years of my teenage years, while I was still under the illusion of discovering myself, I would repeat it. Get over yourself. Until even now, it is a feature of my persona—the constant struggle to get over myself.

Even words not directed at me, I can retain. A past flame was told by a past mentor off for being a piece of work. I still struggle to understand why I was so affected—maybe because I, too, am a piece of work. Maybe it was in the delivery, ripe with spite and fueled by rage. I could feel the spite directed at me because here was someone I considered important being told off for something I could have easily done myself. I am a piece of work, an object with no useful contribution to the group. A piece of work just there to be seen, not to be heard, much less listened to.

I am of little consequence, and that is fine with me.

Even through the clutter, I am aware that the words can bridge what is in my mind and what manifests. Words spoken in kindness shape the world in kind. Words spoken in spite proliferate negativity, which in moderation can challenge the circumstances of the world, but I refrain. I try to measure the clutter and use words that I find easy to let go of. I have nothing of substance to shape reality to say, but I know that even simple words can mean a lot more than I think they should.

So I minimize, and try to get over the disparities between what I mean and what I say. When the words fall short, I try to get over it. When the words overwhelm, I try to get over it. They are just words; I rarely sing anymore anyway. My voice still breaks.

2018 March 19

In the mornings before first period, I would wander around, occasionally joining the games that my peers would play—the likes of Cops and Robbers and Ice-Ice-Water. By first period, I would find myself preemptively worn down; the energy I expended on physical activity gave way to a sense of calm. Though I would find myself bored and restless for the first couple of hours of class before recess, by break time, I, at some point in primary school, had just enough energy for a couple of rounds of kooshball, monkey in the middle-style.

It was at the ripe age of ten that I would frequent the library. Whenever I had no more energy for physical activity, I would hole up in a quieter corner and pick up a book—any book—to read. The type of energy I need in order to read has been, still is, qualitatively different from that of physical activity. It takes a sense of calm, I figure, to peruse through written words and immerse in a world beyond the sense of sight. Reading, for me, is an exercise of the imagination and a skill in tuning out the physical world, if only for a little while.

By lunch time, I would find myself not wanting to engage in anything particularly physical, and my visits to the library were motivated, in part, by a wanting to get away—to escape, as it were, from the mundane of the day-to-day. Something about books—fiction in particular—offered respite from the challenges of reality. Which is not to say that reading did not offer any challenges, but that the challenge was markedly different from having to perform myself. Reading books allowed me to introspect when homework and childhood games were wanting in that regard.

At some point, I found myself relating more to fictional characters than I did with my peers. While friends around me were dealing with growing up, I already felt that I had, in a sense, grown up with fictional characters in books. At some point in high school, I would joke about fictional characters being real friends. There was a grain of truth in that, by immersing in the perspective of another person—no matter the fiction—I was able to consider my real-world experiences in terms of the experiences of fictional characters. Because fictional characters also had motivations for actions, I could ask myself about my own motivations for doing something.

My motivation for staying in the library for break times was to have a break. I wanted to learn more about myself through other people, and while my peers were playing games, I was reading fictions. Sometimes my readings would leak into conversations with friends, and we would compare opinions on characters, plots, and context. I suppose I was under the impression that only a few people read.

The few friends I had in primary liked to tell their own stories—it didn’t have to be personal accounts, but for the most part, their stories reflected some aspect of their lives, and embedded in the story was their perspective. I was thirteen when I came across more people with similar experiences of immersing in fictions and sharing their own stories. I grew up listening to their stories and learning about how they experience the world. I grew up incorporating my friends’ perspectives in sharing their stories into my own.

By the age of sixteen, I had an inkling that stories have never been simple nor linear. Stories are complex, with characters operating under different assumptions in a shared context. The drawback of stories told to younger audiences was that characters tended to be flat, and character development was reserved for the protagonist. Maybe that’s why I was under the impression that, as the protagonist of my own life, my character development took precedent. Whenever conflict erupted in my real life, I was the first to cast a spell. At the age of sixteen, I learned to reconsider this tactic.

Working as a cleric in the human resources department of a local firm, I was exposed to all sorts of people—each trying to develop their own characters. I would read job applications and cover letters in which people were, in earnest, trying to improve the conditions of their lives. Growth was, and still is, for good reason, a buzzword in job applications. Growth is important because character can only be developed through growth, the persistent questioning and rising to the challenge.

Part of my growth in that job was to update files on seemingly minor conflicts in the firm. My manager would not let me sit in any of the interviews, but gave me access to the documentation—from formal complaints, to testimonies, to action points or interventions. I had a glimpse of conflict resolution—the procedure of investigating the multiple perspectives and experiences within an issue in order to come to an agreeable compromise. I applied what I learned then to resolving conflicts in my personal life, but it turns out life is messy and complex, with too many characters stepping in and out, and no coherence.

So instead, I write. Not about specific conflicts, but about what I have learned from experiences with conflict. I try to form some semblance of coherence, but there are too many variables to consider. With human resource management, I am at least assured of a resolution, but my personal experiences with conflict constantly call that into question. Personal life is full of conflict, I figure, that rarely, if at all, reaches a resolution. The growth, then, does not hinge on the resolution, but on the ability to grow through the process—considering other perspectives and arriving at a solution that could possibly make sense.

I often find that it doesn’t, but I at least have hypotheses I can test out. I at least have a procedure for investigating conflicts. It was at age twenty that I realized that the best thing to do is listen to the stories of other people. Not intervene, but offer some solace in that their perspective matters, and that they are trying to come to a resolution for themselves. People are somewhat like characters in fictions in that they can be read. Sure, not everything they say will cohere like it would in a fiction, but that does not make their story any less important, any less worthy of learning something insightful from.

People who know me know that I have moments when I believe in people so wholeheartedly, and know also that I constantly question everyone—myself included. My latest hypothesis was formed when I was twenty-one—take what people say at face-value. I tend to read into things, and that doesn’t help me so much. At least with face-value, I am assured that people are trying to do something concrete. I am assured that there is a direction toward which to grow.

2018 February 03

I was nine-years old when I first tried to kill myself. I remember it was just before lunch; we were in class, and I’m not sure of the efficient cause anymore, but I do remember getting into a stupid, nonsense argument with one of my classmates at the time. I remember not seeing any other solution but to take my ballpen, open the cartridge, and drink its contents. The ink was bitter and astringent.

The teacher was in the middle of a lecture, and she yelled at me when she saw what I had done. I remember feeling shame when she sent me to the bathroom to clean up. The pigment spilled blue on my crumpled white polo despite the black it left on my notebook, still open on my desk. I think I spent the rest of the period in the bathroom, examining the stains in my mouth, trying to wash out the color. I think I didn’t want to die at that point; I just wanted to be left alone. Instead, I was sent from one adult to another for the rest of the day. I lost the rest of the month. I didn’t have a good reason to block out the memories; I suppose this is what remains.

I came across the idea of suicide sometime after that, in a book I was reading. One of the characters was struggling with a life full of suffering. It didn’t occur to me that I myself was suffering, but suicide was something that would cross my mind every so often. I may have, at times, romanticized it as the ultimate solution to all my worldly problems, no matter how useless they felt. Though I resolved only to resort to it when the situation was dire. I didn’t know that I would eventually get used to this guest of a thought.

Over the years since finding the word for it, I entertained thoughts of various ways in which I would want to die, whether at my own hand or not. One of my personal favorites is smashing my head on the pavement while riding a rollercoaster. That, to me, is a good way to go. Whether or not I sabotage the imaginary rollercoaster such that it derails with just me on it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I just want to die.

I was fifteen when I was almost run over by a car. I was going back to school after running an unsuccessful errand; I remember going out to buy lights or paint for a play we were staging. I was somewhere between strangers at the back of a jeep. I got up at my stop and said para to the driver. He slowed down, more because of the traffic. I remember thinking the jeep was going slow enough that I could just jump off. When I actually did jump off, I crumpled on the street, hitting my arm on the curb. The car behind the jeep made a sudden stop, its bumper somewhere above my nose.

It was when I got up to the sidewalk that I realized the drivers—of the black car and of the jeep—were yelling at me. I remember extended honking on the lane. I walked the rest of the way to school, ignoring all the noise. When I got to the auditorium, people were expressing anger and disappointment that I didn’t have anything to contribute. It was only when I got home that I noticed the extensive scuffing on my boots, showing the brown of the leather underneath the black dye. I lost the rest of the week; the only thing I remember of it was the pain in my shoulder and ankles, which stayed for a few months more.

In uni, I was required to take a Philosophy of Religion class. One of the readings was The Myth of Sisyphus; it bored me to read it again, so I relied on my understanding of it from reading it at age seventeen. I didn’t understand why my classmates had such miserable readings of it—how they seemed to pity Sisyphus. So what if he had to spend each day rolling a boulder up a mound, only for it to roll down again? The discussion was about suffering, but I reckon I didn’t get it. Sisyphus couldn’t do anything but roll the boulder up each day; if he didn’t, he would suffer the idleness of not doing anything at all. Then what would we be reading? Maybe they would have been mad at Sisyphus if he just, one day, didn’t roll the boulder up the mound. That wouldn’t have been a satisfying story either, but they wouldn’t pity him anymore.

The ending didn’t make sense, either; it’s not on me to imagine Sisyphus happy. It’s not about happiness. Sisyphus could not do anything in his situation, so he resolves to push the boulder up the mound. If I were in his place, maybe I would too. But as a reader, and not as a mythological figure, sometimes I would want a break. Pushing a boulder up a mound each day gets tiring. I wonder if Sisyphus contemplated death while pushing the boulder up the mound; I’m sure he would if he didn’t.

I wonder what it would be like to die by guillotine. Supposedly, a guillotined person remains conscious just long enough to see their body. At that point the cause of death is uncertain—whether it was due to exsanguination or to shock. I reckon if I got through the initial shock, I would be fascinated by the sensation of opening my mouth to inhale but not being able to breathe. It would be fun to contrast that with the sensation of drowning.

Sometimes I fantasize about moving to the middle of the Pacific—just disappear from land completely. I would live and die inconsequentially. I wonder if anyone would get mad at me if one day, I drown just off the coast of Ami, in a last-ditch effort to find home.