After Death

We all experience suicidal ideation at one time or another, and in varying degrees of seriousness. If I were to do the deed, I would make it look like an accident, and I would do so without causing a wreckage and putting anyone else in danger. In fact, I have what is in my head, the perfect method. I have researched my method in detail and how the moments leading up to my death would feel, including a few survivor's stories. I chanced upon reading about Near Death Experiences (NDE), mostly those of non-suicides. But I was curious, so I continued browsing. I have read everything from people experiencing what could only be described as "Heaven," and even a few of "Hell," as well as everything in between and more neutral albeit no less impacting stories

In one person's NDE story, God asked him, "What have you learned? Whom have you helped?"

Although I don't believe in "God" as an anthropomorphized being, I tried to ask myself the same questions. But I couldn't answer in full. In fact, they sounded quite tepid and pathetic in my head.

Someone suggested perhaps the reason we are on this earth is to learn how to deal with depression, how to confront our problems and demons no matter how difficult, instead of running away. All I know, is these are the cards I was dealt. And while I may hate myself and my inadequate brain, it is all I have. We all have to make of ourselves and our lives what we can. The truth is no one really knows what happens after death (unless, you believe in a religion that says otherwise), but we have free will while we are alive. It's not your brain chemical imbalance or unfortunate circumstances that make you who are, it is the choices you make despite them. 

Discrepancy

I lead a troubled life, inside

due to great discrepancy

in my head

between who I long to be

and who I am.

And the pressure built between temples

has proven to be a friend,

propelling the mind to new heights of comprehension

before pushing it off the edge.

Can I forfeit yet, would that be alright?

The sun that shines so mercurially for me 

will soon set.

The path that was never meant to be tread

will soon end.

A Paradox with Flies

What can I say? I moved again in Daly City. I admit it was a hasty, almost desperate decision, but now that I am spending my first night in my new room, I don't regret it one bit. It is on the small side, but warm and cozy with a huge window to allow in as much sunlight as possible - a major mood-lifter for me. The view contains BART running in the background and the suburbs of this city that is so close to SF, but not. Below me in sight are the rooftops of other apartment structures, giving me a facetious sense of superior invisibility from prying eyes in lower windows. A good decision, in spite of the financial repercussions.

I need to make better decisions in life, I know. But the truth is I had to get away from my old rental unit. That room, while I had become accustomed to it, was marred with the corpses of flies (literally) which I associated with, even symbolized my growing depression over the last year. Starting with just one or two pesky flies daily that I'd have to swat dead with a rolled up math solutions manual, they grew in numbers, so gradually until I couldn't keep up with killing one before another one would appear. Then one night, in the light of the lamps, they just multiplied like crazy. An entire colony of black, flying maggots swarmed my room. Just like the evolution of this swarming, filthy, blackness inside me.

I can usually beat back despair with a few drops of rationality or optimism. While my blog posts have never been the most uplifting, there are actually few times in my life where I have let it get this bad. The best way I can describe it is like an implosion of self. For so long I had been harboring these worsening self-hating sentiments, it finally reached my core and simmered to the top, manifested as utter desolation and apathy for life. I could not have cared less if I died; in fact, I wanted to. My life was not only completely devoid of meaning, it was taxing. I was so exhausted, all the time, even the smallest actions seemed monumental. I could see myself and my world for what it was worth, and that was nothing. Everything I did or wanted was pointless, just trivial things I tried to pretend held some importance to fill up space before death, but it was immaterial, just like myself. And every day was the same cycle of an attempt against disappointment, failure, chronic fatigue, and emptiness. Every day just a microcosm for an entire lifetime of morose meaninglessness. And that knowledge engulfed me in a strange, black, doom-like supernova.

All that is in the past now, even if I feel that happiness or just "normalcy" is a precarious and elusive state. I got help, and I am getting better. A lifetime is not the same as a single day. It is a process of continuous days of improvement. A process.

And in your eyes I see so much more
than that place you always go back to.
You can pull yourself away from
that face that constantly haunts you.

~Darkest Hour, "(The Light) A Paradox with Flies"

A Scanner Darkly

It is much easier to hate yourself than to love yourself, I've learned. Loving yourself requires work: physical and mental energy, boundary pushing, and constant self-reassurance. Meanwhile, hating oneself is effortless, a simple pessimistic thought is all it takes to slide back into familiar, dark oblivion. Do people enjoy being depressed? I don't think so, but I do know it is something like a safety trap, as unpleasant and painful as it may be to be there, at least it is well-known.

Realizing this I've decided to take proactive measures to alleviate my melancholic condition. A more active routine, with healthier meals, consistent study habits, sleep curfew, and perhaps a mood journal for my sine waves of irrationality. For this past spring break has been bad, really bad. Feelings of irritation, isolation, and night insomnia was a general theme this last week. Although I slept plenty during the day. Things have been getting worse for me, as the need to be alone piqued then fell sharply. How can someone who longs for alone time so fervently, suddenly feel extremely lonely, ugly, worthless, and ashamed? I love being alone, but sometimes it is a form of self-sabotage to escape from an ugly world and my own feelings of self-disgust. The stress of what comes after this rainy spring break has also prevented complete relaxation.

My boyfriend has proven to be a ray of reality in a dismal illusion of self-persecution. At times I want to escape my head; he makes it enjoyable to be there, in the present, with him or just the knowledge of him as part of the reality. He is so kind to me: considerate, caring, sexily intelligent and logical, and facetiously uplifting. He has done wonders for me, and probably does not even realize it.

"Any given man sees only a tiny portion of the total truth, and very often, in fact almost perpetually, deceives himself about that precious little fragment as well. A portion of him turns against himself and acts as another person, defeating him from inside. A man inside a man, which is no man at all."
~A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick

SAD Fractals

Cold, foggy days are always difficult to someone of my disposition. I am pretty sure I have S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder) even after years of living in SF, I still cannot shake the cold weather blues. Life literally looks more optimistic when the sun is out, and the wind freezes my bones and aspirations. When I was younger I had held such a romantic ideal of the city - now I can't wait to escape to a warmer life.

Beginning my day with a slight argument with a fellow Math Labmate about whether the square root of x squared was the absolute value of x (it absolutely is, by the way, without a fucking doubt), the rest of my day seemed burdened with a realization that the path I am on, with all the mistakes I have made along the way, looks quite daunting and unrealistic. With a GPA and stress tolerance so low, a workload and demand for acute intelligence so high, it seems to me that I am setting myself up for failure. Whereas I used to look forward to tutoring, now it mostly just seems aggravating and time-consuming. And I am already short on time.

In Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, mathematician Ian Malcolm mentioned the concept of fractals:

"There are good records of cotton prices going back more than a hundred years. When you study fluctuations in cotton prices, you find that the graph of price fluctuations in the course of a day looks basically like the graph for a week, which looks basically like the graph for a year, or for ten years. And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there... And at the end of your life, your whole existence has that same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day."

Lately, the last line has been swarming terrifyingly in my head: Your whole life has the same shape as a single day. And as far as I am concerned, this has been dead on. Nothing that I have ever set out to do has truly been accomplished, not in a single day, a month, or in my lifetime so far.

If I really think about it, I would be perfectly content doing some specialized vocation, massage therapy, or something, and going to community college and just having plenty of time to learn and pursue trivial yet fascinating hobbies. But I don't want my whole life to be one be one big procrastination after the other. Being content with oneself is not the same as being happy with oneself. In many ways, I have no choice but to continue the hopeless path I am on, and slowly change my individual days to somehow shape a life contoured by something other than disappointment and depression.

Slave Ship

I grow tired of my bearings
burdened by the very sails which guide this vessel
always in need of direction
but is just a prison in which I bury myself.
And the the aspirations that guard my cell
prevent escape or early leave
from the life which has no meaning,
but to embark upon destinations unreachable
and heated hopes that cannot be quelled.

Set Theory

I feel my life is nothing but an empty set 

that I continuously fill with trivial elements, ephemeral

though they are, still splendid in their disconnectedness.

And I, a mere instrument, to ravel together the segments 

in-between birth and death 

so that they may be perceived as 

though they were of great importance.

Anatomy of a Crush

A crush is not about the other person. A crush is about you. You, and your projected idealizations of what you ultimately find lacking in yourself is what you find so attractive in another person. A way to cover up your own shortcomings, you willfully fantasize of another person who you believe carries these attributes, and the fantasy manifests itself as love, or rather, obsession. Now sometimes, a crush can be a driving force to better oneself in hopes of impressing the one who fulfills this illusory role. More often, however, it is a self-perpetuating instrument of hatred of self. Because the inability of not only the smitten but of the desired to meet unrealistic expectations reinforces one's unchanging state of loneliness and low self-esteem.

A healthy relationship, on the other hand, still contains elements of fantasy in another but aims to have a deeper understanding of the significant other, warts and all, and still find beauty in him or her. At the same time, a certain vulnerability of allowing the other to see the inherent flaws in oneself, and still be desired is what characterizes a good relationship. A relationship is about self-acceptance and improvement. A crush is about self-hatred and denial of reality.

The new guy in my life may not know every pathology of mine yet, but what he has seen he takes in stride and inspires me to become a better version of myself. He cushions my sharp falls with humor and rationality. Similarly, I can tell his unspoken insecurities are soothed by my repeated presence in his life. It's strange for such a callused pessimist as myself to be with someone again, but I must say it is sweetly comforting in the darkness of my everyday troubles.

Quarter-life Crisis

Coming home to Cupertino used to be such a relief from the choking grip of city life. But ever since my mother caved to her depression, now San Francisco has become the welcome break from the suffocating stench of mental illness in my parents' home. As much as I want to spend time with my family, the effects of my mother's breakdown on me is hefty. Depression is an infectious fucker. All I want to do when I feel my mom's lackluster is pull the sheets over my head and sleep all day. Forget school, forget my friends, forget everything I used to know and love about life.

Perhaps the sudden arrival of my quarter-life crisis has also fueled an easy descent into mental instability, but I'm too stubborn to let it handicap my life the way it does my mother's, the way it used to mine. I find myself thinking about how much time I have wasted being down, when all I needed was to have completed a small task to have moved forward. Now I am 25, still 2 years and a semester shy from obtaining a Bachelors. The hell I am going to allow more time to be taken by my or others' pathology.

An important element to any life crisis is fantasy, and mine is no exception. I fantasize about the alter-personality of mine, the one that's sexily intelligent, cunning, attractive and strong. The one that has a Master's degree, a job in teaching mathematics, yet the freedom to steal away on the road on a whim's notice blasting classic rock riffs and wearing a black leather jacket. The one who is in control of her life. The imagination can either drive one to success or blind the same to disassociated failure, and I find it a tender balancing act.


"I hate my illness and I want to control it. This is what I believe to be true: You have to do everything you can and if you stay positive you have a shot at a silver lining."
~Silver Linings Playbook

Appearances

Nothing is as it appears to be

Yes, you know the meaning behind these words

intimately, but grudges held against your own heart

never stopped its persistent beat.

You've never been the forgiving kind,

and neither have I, but the past is no oppressor now

Time, the perpetual traitor, is on our side.

Fighting Depression

There is more to it than that I am broke, unsatisfied with my current job, up to my neck in debt, degree-less, and have fallen out of shape. Physically, hitting the gym a few days a week as I do on and off would be an easy prescription and boost endorphins, but it's not about my looks, which are average at best. Though I realize finances or the lack thereof make up the bulk of my unhappiness, it's not so much about the money than the loss in my sense of self.

Who the fuck am I? And what do I have to show for my life? Nothing. I know I'm not un-liked by others; I have a fair amount of friends in different circles and individuals I can hang out with. I get male attention, both sexually and from more emotional interests. Still, I often feel angry inside and so alone. I feel I have let people take advantage of my docile kindness and when I look back on them I feel a distinct rage. Both strangers and friends, even my best friend, whose 7 thousand dollar debt to me still remains unreturned, and his pace at finding a good job over a year after he has graduated from college so painfully fucking slow. Finances have put a strain on our relationship, and I feel distanced from him in my frustration.

I do enjoy what I'm doing, my goals toward a degree in Math, the tutoring gigs I've gotten. But the reality is I'm broke, the gigs barely pay, and I'm getting older and have less time to go after the other vocations I wanted, meanwhile my debt is stacking along with my doubts, and I have a sinking realization that I'll need to resort to other means of paying rent and tuition. Ever since summer school ended this depression has been crawling on me, slowly engulfing the optimism which usually balances out the blackness. This time, though, the blackness is winning.

So who am I? Just a vessel for others' use. That's all my life has shown me.

My Mind Can Feel

I have to admit, I still have some nostalgic sadness which lingers from the end of the Spring semester. Once again, I'll never have another one like it, and despite the hardships, I learned so much and made quite of bit of progress over the last 4 months, both academically and emotionally.

For one, I realized my career path in life is a mathematical one - not a physical one, per say. The study of English taught me to organize my thoughts. Astronomy opened my eyes and paved the way for Physics, and Physics made me fall in love with Mathematics. I'm not one who believes in fate, but I guess you could say I believe it was a natural progression of events and thought development which led me to the where I am now: a nearly 25-year-old aspiring mathematician, teacher, and more importantly, student. What draws me most to teaching, not just the 3 month summer vacations or even the feeling of empowering others through your knowledge, but always and forever being a student - always learning.

Doing and learning math does something to me. It clicks on some logical part of my brain and makes me think more clearly not just about the Calculus problem at hand, but other areas of my life. I've never been a particularly "rational" person. My emotions range too far along the spectrum to have any solid hold on reality, but studying and teaching math all the time forces me to see the world through analytical eyes - something I've lacked for a very long time. While there are holes in my education, starting from K-9 and up, I feel I'm slowly patching those gaps which were lost on me as a youth. I feel like a kid at the same time that I feel I'm getting much older. It's a strange sensation, but not unwelcome, and feeds back into my sentiments of the concept of life coming together naturally, with and without my conscious actions.

Perhaps that's why I've been able to finally and fully distance myself from my ex. Not to say there weren't relapses on both ends, but the final product was a good one. Forgiveness, closure, reason, love, and emotional acceptance found a balance and home together. I can move on.

This summer I have decided to dedicate myself to seeing a bunch of old timer concerts, modern summer festivals, continuing massage classes, spending time with friends and family, tutoring, getting back in shape, and furthering my education: a Linear Algebra and Elementary Statistics class. It most certainly will be a Summer of Rock 'N Roll to be remembered.

Oh my love, for the first time in my life

My mind is wide open

Oh my love, for the first time in my life

My mind can feel.

I feel sorrow, oh I feel dreams

Everything is clear in my heart

I feel life, oh I feel love

Everything is clear in our world.

~John Lennon, "Oh My Love"

Dimming

From great distances, or microns near
the fibers of my skin remembers - as though you were here.
And the tear, which remains splitting
from your careless folly, is unfair.
Our love holds like the stars - the space between us substantial,
and only grows more colossal, with time.
But by talons of your emotions,
the physical differences become minute - waned memories magnified.
Like a reluctant aperture into the past
the light never dims on you.
No, the light never dims on you,
even as our detachment becomes more vast, and solidified.

The Hard Way

Nobody else around me will ever know the dark, overwhelming, parasitical anger inside, and although I have taken measures to heal or lessen its effects, it is as much a part of me as the warm and caring person who feels for others unconditionally. Finding the balance may take a lifetime, but the rate at which my mind is growing through my studies, I hope my heart follows suit. I know we're all human, but it seems as though the people, especially the men in my life and starting with my own dad, had to first completely debase and mistreat me in order to realize I was worth anything to them. And after repeated careless stakes that pierced me, my rage advanced twofold on the people who caused me pain, and in the moment on anyone who disrespects me just a little. Does it always take hurting someone horrendously first to realize you love them? And I know if I had done the same to them, they wouldn't have allowed it, but I did allow it and it is completely fucked up. Still, I loved them and there is no magical parallel universe I can just slip into where they were magically not fucked up to me. I just need the pain to stop eating away at me.

I have even considered taking anger management classes, though my busy schedule and lack of funds hasn't permitted any such luxuries. Anyways, I'll be ok. The madness comes and goes, and so have the people who proved they weren't supposed to stay in my life. What I need now is to work on forgiving both myself and the people who damaged me. I don't want to let any experience debilitate me, as I've been stunted long enough.

I've had a few guys express interest in me, romantically and otherwise, but right now I feel like it is more of an inconvenience in my life to date. Someday, someone will love me right, for now I'm learning everything I ever slacked off on and never gave myself enough credit to apply myself to in grade and high school, and I will tell you, it is simply amazing. Not just the plasticity of the brain, but the incredible journey of how we understand and came to understand the universe, and how it just works, from the most seemingly simple motions to grand schemes. There is an elegance to everything around us, and I cannot soak it up fast enough.

It would be easier to be insane. But I'm not, and I have to keep learning and growing, the hard way.

Seasons Out of Time

Having a mental breakdown in the midst of pursuing an education, especially a heavily mathematical and scientific one, is never a good idea. Depression is the worst thing to happen to intellect: preying upon logical thoughts and quickly deteriorating even common sense. And unless you're Descartes, talking yourself out of it is not really an option.

I think it's safe to say I'm no longer in danger of the looney bin; however, I can still feel leftover shards. I would never be so selfish and cruel to the people who love me to do it, but it sure as hell sounds pretty bloody damn good at times. Driving home from class tonight, a little left in my mind, I couldn't stop what deeply dismal thoughts came: the pure pain and disappointment resulting from life and all its antics, from the people I trusted and cared most about, from the ugly things they and strangers have done, and from my own shortcomings. The fact is, I know the torment will only continue and sometimes, I would love to let it all end. The more excruciating the pain becomes, the less I care for the repercussions, the more distanced and numb I feel to even my best friends.

But that's so damn dramatic. And at heart, I think, I am a happy-go-lucky, optimistic, and empathetic individual. That's who I really am - who I'm supposed to be. I know my blog is not the most uplifting out there, but if you met me in real life, you'd wonder where all the darkness lay, it is so unapparent in my everyday, smirking self. I use this blog as one of my only outlets of therapy. And life isn't supposed to be easy anyway, just like higher math, or physics, or there would be no point to it at all. Somewhere along the way, someone (or several someones) had the same problems the rest of us did, and having grappled with them, found a pattern and method in which they could be understood. My Calculus professor said mathematics is just the study of patterns, and life is rife with these. Perhaps life's dilemmas are not always solvable, but at the very least, worthy of being challenged.

We had seasons in the sun;
but the hills that we climbed
were just seasons out of time.
Goodbye, my friend,
it's hard to die.

~Terry Jacks

Growing Pains

Although I feel Summer's end closing in on me, the last two months have been jam-packed and well-spent seeing friends, working 'till I dropped, and finally learning Calculus the proper way - in a classroom. Undoubtedly, there have been growing pains for me, internally, since leaving my last rocky relationship, but it has gotten better. My ex is like a ghost. He likes to haunt me. And by that I mean not in my mind, but he actually makes repeated calls from unblocked numbers and writes heartfelt emails unable to be ignored. I even met with him once to give him closure - maybe for us both. Some couples can end on good terms. We tried and have many times, including the last episode. But for me, the memory of him includes not just the good times, but the horrible ones which have left discreet scars. And after repeated contact with him I start to feel the subliminal burn of those wounds. He blames me for not letting go of the past he put me through, and perhaps he's right. Our last exchange over the phone was beyond unpleasant. I hope he heard from my voice not just the petty words, but the pain - the pure agony that has resulted from the past year of keeping and trying to stifle those demons. Now it's time to let them go. I hope to God he leaves me be.

I made another difficult but good, gut decision to leave my job at Bevmo. It has been a fun and educational job, but I have more important and bigger things to move onto and pursue. For now, this Calculus class is the next step towards those goals. I might go on a date this Friday with a new guy I've been talking to, but my heart will stay focused and dedicated to the dreams I want and will accomplish.

SI

I want to keep cutting myself. I want to saw and bleed out all the pain from my body, until I'm depleted of all the ugly emotions and stirrings inside. Starting again after so long is intoxicating, better than any drug or drink I've taken, and more effective. I've cut superficially since, but not like this, enough to fully soak the band-aids I haphazardly tape on. The relief is immediate, and sometimes followed by an giddy high.

The aftermath is a different story. Even if some secret satisfaction lingers, I have to deal with the shame of hiding my wounds and later scars, making up lame excuses for their existence if I slip in coverage, and dreading the next heated episode of wanting to continue the act. Because I don't if I really think about it. The part of me that conquered this before feels disappointed, pathological, and defeated. If I can't deal with this now, how will I ever? Life will always be full of small and large crises, and I can't keep turning to this ritual which solves nothing.

Most of all I want to learn not just better coping skills, but communication as well. A lot of my desire to cut stems from an inability to convey what I am feeling in a productive and healthy way. So what other people see as a psychotic, angry outburst, I know is really just a plea for an ear to truly listen.

Wonder Waves

The rage inside me is a wave, continuous

and always on the move, changing

with each new amplitude - breeds a unique battle ground,

each more calamitous than the last.

But the words rolled around, over and over again

in my head, and on my tongue

are the same, trite and crass.

The meaning of them grows obsolete

and only proves the mind's subservience to a distant past,

as the will to fight fluctuates in violent streams.

Like the Sun I hold no peace,

but there is equilibrium within reach.

I believe I can but just can't figure out

how to stop, or fool, or destroy an enemy

which is neither man nor ghost,

but inherent contradiction

between the self and the soul.

Body Fear

Please do not try to touch me
for what you perceive as my body - is not,
is an empty carcass which does nothing
to protect me from others' harm.

Either the world is blind or am I, and surely twisted.

And none who hold more shame in knowing

that truth was only myth, incarnated.

They say enveloped in another's arms,

all perils not gone shall be diminished,

so I never would have envisioned

beyond my wildest fabrications,

that love itself was the specter;

the demon in my view.

Feigning to be the greatest guardian,

then turning inward to covet

the very seed you created.

So tell me what is Truth?

I know not what intimacy is, only that it handles

my body in hands which are cold, thus a degree of potency

I could not sever myself from such strange affectivity.

Now I am older, and still I feel the same.

Nowhere to place this anger,
so it stays inside my veins.
I thought I would heal with time,
but my skin would not let me forget.
I would like to love again, but you are just like him:
whereas once I held you in such high revere
now I shrink back from you in fear.

Retrograde Motion

I am back in the 90's, musically. The sweet, old school tunes of Sugar Ray, Everclear, Third Eye Blind, 2pac, Notorious B.I.G and many other gems are my only company deep into the night. A warm, fuzzy, familiar feeling returns every time I play these songs, and in my dismal circumstances I feel a balm-like hope seeping out of my troubles.

Yesterday I attended my second SIA meeting, and actually opened up to several other survivors, and one woman in particular named Evelyn, who knew exactly what I've been through, and worse. In 2 meetings, this support group has already been more effective than 7 sessions with my previous therapist, not to mention without a bloody $400 dent in my pocket. Although my abuse was short-lived, no one around me, not my family or exes or best friends, knows or is even vaguely aware of how traumatized and scarred the experience left me; how much shame, loneliness, and anger I have harbored for so long, or how detrimental the effects have been. But I'm getting better, and now I have a small, close-knit community which not only understands but helps to pull one another through the painful darkness.

Revisiting the past doesn't always necessarily mean moving backwards. Tycho was wrong about the planets, after all. Settling the past will help me get back on track with my goals, whether those are academic, financial, or emotional. Already I'm formulating and focusing. The past is a cripple to me now? I think not.

Two nights before I turned 13. I know because the morning after, all I did was play Blink 182's "Take Off Your Pants and Jacket" album over and over, that the next day, I almost forgot I had become a teenager overnight.