It’s okay to be sad

When Pixar’s Inside Out came out, I was really glad to see how Sadness was portrayed at the end. Sure, the character Sadness was kinda annoying, but it was good to see how important Sadness was to help a person sort through their experiences and how damaging it was to suppress it.

Parents learnt to talk about emotions better to their children, therapist had better ways to explain and describe emotions to children… but I don’t think enough people have watched the movie for there to be a significant impact, because the message I’m seeing these days is still, “You should be happy”.

I know, I’m being such a Negative Nelly. After all, there’s nothing wrong with preaching about happiness, there’s nothing wrong with telling the world to not focus on their sadness and learn to appreciate what they have, as sometimes yes, we do need the reminder to help us get us out of that sorry state.

But we focus a lot on happy endings without realising that we need to be sad first and acknowledge how frail we are or how painful our struggles are before we can gain back our strength and move forward. You know how before stories reach their climax, there’s this moment where the protagonist has a weakness to acknowledge and overcome? In a similar way, we need to acknowledge that we’re sad and upset over something before anyone can move forward and really, truly be happy. But today, sadness continues to be seen as a weakness, an attempt to gain sympathy or evoke false emotions, and is usually treated with a lot of disdain.

“What are you sad for?”

“Why are you crying?”

“Boys don’t cry.”

“Stop being sad, you’re upsetting everyone else.”

Throw in the “You should be happy” message, followed with a list of things you should be grateful for, and well… all that will do is just create fake happiness and hidden misery that’s bound to affect someone, if not now, then later in life.

I’m not saying that we should accept sadness by wallowing in misery for a long period of time. If there’s one thing I learnt from therapy is that our emotions are signals of our mental state that we need to take note of. It’s like when you have a fever, you know something is wrong with your body, the same way goes with your emotions.

So if you’re feeling really sad, you need to address it and find ways to deal with it. Cry, write, sing, dance, talk, just acknowledge that sadness and let it out in a way that’s healthy for you, and when I mean healthy I mean it doesn’t hurt you further physically or mentally. Sadness is there to help you realise that you aren’t feeling well and you need an escape before more bad things accumulates within you, so embrace the sadness and let it all out.

If you’re feeling sad for a longer period of time and despite all your efforts, happiness isn’t anywhere as close as you thought it should be, it’s definitely something you should worry and take note of. Remember that fever analogy? Yeah, it really is the same here. Long bouts of fever is worrying, and so is long bouts of sadness. Stop pretending you’re okay and see a doctor where you can, keep seeking help if the doctor isn’t giving you the remedy that you need, go online and look for resources to help you deal with your constant sadness. Just stop telling yourself you shouldn’t be sad when you really are.

Society may be constantly telling you to be happy, but fake happiness can only get you so far. Sure you gotta fake it where necessary (especially for us working folks), but don’t force yourself to be happy, or hide your sadness for so long cause it will bite back eventually.

It’s there, it needs to be acknowledged, and it needs the right treatment for you to get back on that path to happiness.

Dreams or Reality

I remember when I was in Primary School, I had this strange belief that if I thought of something happening, like truly imagine it and expect it, it would not come true.

I don’t know what prompted me to come up with this line of thinking. I’m not even sure how it worked. I think it involved really wanting and seeing it happen that will cause it to not come true. Maybe I experienced enough disappointments to make me believe that? After all, at that age, there were plenty of little disappointments to experience when your expectations involve having a rather magical life. I would imagine a life where I was popular, and it convinced me that I was doomed to be unpopular due to my constant visions of wanting to be just that. I would imagine being noticed by a cute boy, but alas most boys were more afraid of me than even remotely attracted.

Maybe it was because I was experiencing life beyond my ability to imagine it? After all, my imagination was inspired by the very unrealistic world of TV shows, movies and books. At that age, I didn’t experience enough to really process what reality should be like, so I made it up in my head and knew full well it would not come true cause I made it up from a book or a cartoon. But imagining that I was beautiful but then telling myself and others I was actually ugly became a major problem.

As I prepare to start my journey forward anew, I discovered a lot of the things I imagined, the ones that I really wanted and never came true, the beaten and broken up imaginations and dreams due to how things have been for me in the past few years.

I recount the times I imagined being in a musical, and mused at the thought fondly as I fought back tears. I remember my dreams of being a singer, and though not quite gone and I made attempts to keep that dream alive, it remains relatively untapped with little practice. I dreamt of the stories I would write, or the amazing stories that I could possibly be a part of, worlds I hope to someday see come alive in the worlds I would pen down in words.

But here’s something I realised about my dreams. They are not “dead”, but they are broken because life is never how I imagine it to be. Now that I’ve experienced enough heartbreak in my life, and have learnt to love myself a lot better, I find myself picking up these dreams and realising they never left me, no matter how many times I threw them away.

I just need to picture them better in my mind, and with my new confidence armed and ready, I’m determined to indulge in my dreams and make them come true in one way or another, even if takes one small step at a time.

I mean, if I can look at myself in the mirror and be happy with what I see, surely I’m on the right path so far.

I am a writer

I am a writer. If there’s one thing that I’ve always been proud of, and will always state myself as regardless of the different name position given to me by my job, I will always say what I know I really am: a writer.

But as the years went by, I found myself challenged on what it really meant to be a writer. Being a writer broke me at some point, so I thought it was best to take a break from it. I went on to do social media work, another area I’m familiar with as part of my writing and self interest, and despite its challenges, it still fascinated me enough to keep going.

Even though I’m content with that, I still find myself wanting to go back to that little skill I have which I am still justly proud of. Yet for some reason, my attempts to get back into it kept failing, again and again.

I would write, keep it, re-read it again and realise it wasn’t as good as I thought. I would write, hesitate at where I was going with this piece, and delete it altogether. I would write, only to be encumbered by fear and defeat.

What is the point I’m trying to write?

My biggest fuel to my ability to write is also my biggest weakness. I think too much, I feel too much, which makes my words emotional drivel that, to me, seem to serve no purpose other than my own, or they become cold in my attempts to control those emotions. There doesn’t seem to be a balance in my writing that I can feel content with, so I gave up.

Writing about what I really care about, how I really feel, comes with a number of consequences. Most are definitely made up in my head, but the others remain a strong reason why I hesitate.

I’m scared.

I’m scared of people seeing the real me, even though I want them to. I’m scared of my words reflecting me wrongly, misinterpreted, preachy, naive. I’m scared of those around me making sole judgments on that one piece of writing I have done alone, because that is me, yes, but it’s just one piece of something bigger.

I’m scared that the world isn’t interested to know my overflowing thoughts and emotions. They’re not practical, you see. It won’t cure cancer, and even if it stirs emotions it may not be enough to make a wave of change, and that makes my writing pointless in my eyes.

So here I am, trapped by fear, but here’s a fact: I have successfully written this far because I am still hopeful. If there’s one thing about me that has remain, even in the most darkest moments in my life, even when I am inches to losing my mind, even as my mouth spills words of despair, was that hope never left me.

It remains etched within me, strong and certain, that everything is all right. That my desire to write and being unable to does not equal failure, that I am capable of overcoming this fear and that I may someday write something that will stir someone’s soul and possibly bring change to their lives.

Someday soon, maybe not now, as I am still struggling to be at peace with myself more. But soon, and with each word I type out in this piece, my resolve gets stronger and stronger.

The Journey thus far

One year ago, someone posted an update on Facebook that she will no longer be responsible for someone else’s depression.

That someone she was referring to was me. And the person who posted that update was once someone dear to me.

To be honest, I would have forgotten this date had I not realised a day or two after it happened that this entire ordeal happened on one of my favourite fictional character’s birthday. And since then I knew I would always remember this day.

I won’t go into details about what happened, mistakes were done on both sides and I am not here to whine about how misunderstood a depressed person can be. I will tell you that I suffered tremendously after that, with anxiety attacks I never knew could grip me tighter than before, and blamed myself a lot for what happened. I have plenty of regrets from the entire ordeal, and articles of lost friendships did nothing to soothe the pain of losing someone you were close to.

I made even more mistakes after that, as my anxiety and depression got the better of me. But through it all, they became the lessons I needed, throwing me into dark pits so low, my only choices were to continue clawing at the hardened floors or to climb up.

Even as I sit here remembering how much I struggled, I’m actually glad that this day has come. I knew it would come, because even with all the suffering and emotional torture I was going through, I was determined to do all that I can to be there for myself. The biggest lesson I learnt from losing someone who was once important to me was the need to balance my dependency on others for support, to be able to learn to support myself as well as knowing when to seek support from friends.

The best part of my journey so far is having my mother tell me that she knew I was depressed for the past few years, a moment I never thought I’d live to see. While it took many mistakes along the way to get here…

Well, I’m here.

It has been a rough journey, but I survived one of the most painful moments in my life. And because of that, I’m ready to get writing again. I’m ready to embark on some soul searching in my writing, as well as share my experiences of depression and suicide not only in hopes to reach out to someone who may need it, but also as a tribute to my past self (I’ll write on this eventually).

So thank you to everyone who has loved me in the past, even if I have lost you now. I am still dealing with the pain of losing you, but I have learnt to forgive you and myself. To those of you who remained, I love you. Thank you.

For the love of Coffee

You gotta love coffee

I have never been a coffee person. Yes, yes, I know. This goes against the instinct of every proper writer out there whose source of life, passion and inspiration comes in the form of a cuppa with enough caffeine to fill every vein within them. It’s how writers work, it’s how they function.

But something about that bitter concoction never appealed to me. You can blame my mother who, despite being a coffee lover herself, banned me from drinking coffee (and alcohol) so that by the time I turned 18, I would have been too attached to my favourite Milo and tea to really open my heart to new flavours.

I suppose, in this sense, I had always been the “outsider” kid who never quite caught up to the proper fads that would have made me popular the right way. Teen dramas? Pfft. Give me my anime . A Walk to Remember? Excuse me, Harry Potter please.

In the same line: Starbucks? Pfft. I’d rather go to Gong Cha. Or at least, that’s what I could say only when bubble tea chains became popular. Before that, I had no popular drink fad to follow. I like tea. I like milk. But there was no big brand that properly combined my favourites until brands like Chatime and Gong Cha arrived.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate coffee. I’m just very indifferent to its existence. I don’t long for it, I can function fine without it, and the one time I drank black coffee out of thirst after dinner, I fell asleep just fine. Coffee had no effect on me, and I remain the weird one out for not being able to properly worship the overpriced beverage that everyone around me continuously raves about.

That was until I found myself badly craving for it at one of my past jobs when an ex-colleague made herself a cup of instant white coffee. The strong coffee smell as she walked past me had me salivating, and I sat up, looking at her almost jealously. We had been stressing out for the past few days due to work. It was past 7pm and we all knew we had a long night ahead in preparation for an upcoming event. My desire to have what she was having grew imminent.

“You know you can get a cup yourself at the pantry?” she told me.

Preposterous! I thought to myself. Why would I want coffee? I have never been into it before, and I have always been strangely proud and embarrassed of my disinterest in coffee, so why am I at the pantry, taking an instant white coffee packet and grabbing a mug?

It was probably the most compelling moment of my life had there been witnesses of people who could truly appreciate the moment with me. I can imagine the friends who know me either cheering me on, or more than likely, teasing me for being out of character at that very moment. Michelle drinking coffee? Seriously? Did an alien implant a new personality into your brain? Have you gone cuckoo already due to work? Have you finally succumbed to our side to worship the great coffee?

To answer them all: Yes. Yes. No. Maybe. Definitely not.

Because after drinking that delicious concoction that perked me up and had me all giddy because “OMG WOW I DRANK COFFEE AM I AN ADULT NOW?” (I think the stress of work warped my senses on that day), it took another year before I craved it again and drank another cup. And it wasn’t really much of a craving other than me needing something hot to drink and I found myself missing the taste of instant white coffee.

I still do not enjoy going to Starbucks that much (my favourite drink from them is only the Green Tea Latte, and even now I’m considering making my own) and I still do not like the really bitter taste of coffee. But I suppose, just as how I feel about alcohol, I don’t mind having it once in a while and can appreciate it when I’m in the right mood.

So maybe when the mood strikes, I may finally cave in and drink really bitter coffee. And the caffeine would actually affect me enough to start worshipping it as a proper writer should. Maybe it’ll finally give me the power up to become a better writer than I am now!

Naaaaaah. *fills up her bottle of water, like the cheapskate that she is*

The Beginning

I’ve always wanted to start my own proper blog, both professional and personal, that truly showcased the variety of talents and interest that I have. The thing is, I have been blogging since 2002, but my work had always ranged from personal and fandom to rather random thoughts on various blogging platforms.

The good side of this was that I learned a lot about blogging and the face of online social communication in general, how it has evolved throughout the years, and the assorted social media and online platforms that are available.

The downside was that I didn’t spend enough time building a proper reputation for myself online, especially in terms of being professional. Admittedly, the internet has always been something of a getaway for me, an opportunity to be someone else rather than myself. Not that I did anything bad or shameful, but because I have always been wary about really putting myself out there on the internet for everyone to see, especially since I started my venture into the internet as a young teenager.

As time passed and I started to work full time, I grew to fully understand the possibilities of the internet, and how important it is to make a mark for myself here, where I spend most of my downtime interacting and learning. There is still a lot to learn, but then again learning never stops for the curious minds.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and everything that I have put up. Whatever it is, my words and everything I do has a little bit of my soul inside it. You can tarnish it, criticise it, praise it and appreciate it. But at this one moment of time, I am laying down my mark on the internet.

And I thank you for being a part of this experience.