Adieu mon amour: my failed first romance

Tears are dropping from my eyes, in such a sentimental and forlorn mood.

I wish you are okay, if you by chance are reading this. And I wish you peace and happiness in your life. I have nothing but good wishes for you.

Love and relationships are like lessons of life. They can teach one so many unexpected things. I am forever grateful for everything life has given me.

I thank God for blessing me with my ex lover. He was all I ever wanted and needed.

I have always been a dreamer, idealistic and hopeless romantic. Being stuck in a old, lifeless, lonely ageing area, all I did is play "Tous les garcons et les filles" on my hi-fi set and complaining to my buddy how "Won't you find me a boy, just a nice looking boy

Who will show me the way, who will teach me to say
"I love you, yes I do", and who'll promise me too". Some dream lover saving me from my mundane life, take me away from this place.

I prayed to Goddesses of Love everyday, was frantically searching around for love. My only wish for New Years of 2015 is to bless me with a wonderful lover. Just a nice looking boy, who would show me the way, who would teach me to say.

And he came. We got along the first day we met. Both are musicians, are into the exact same things and music. Psychedelic rock of '67.

Day by day, we started to talk more and more, like an addictive drug. Seeing each other on screen, we thought each other as the most beautiful persons in the world. Love at first sight, huh?

I talked to him whenever I can, even being hospitalised and having internet access in the limited hours, I just waited the whole day just to talk to him. He's my first priority.

I started to think of him every second, I was so glad to have the someone to watch over me. I must have spring fever! Silly me!

Suddenly every love song is about me! Suddenly I am the main character of every love story! Suddenly I became the princess in children's tale!

I had all the classic spring fever symptoms of course. Except I cried often, not being able to sit next to him, even hold his hands. It was so difficult.

Life got even more difficult with all the severe drug withdrawal symptoms and all the difficulty with health and school. But I held on.

And I finally got to visit him.

It was just amazing. Surreal. Dream like. I was living in a fairy tale.

It was nothing but very sweet. Like being immersed in a land of sweetness. Being in cloud 9. He was so sweet, caring and gentle. I was very loved. We travelled around the quiet streets and beaches of Newcastle, the bohemian roads of Newtown, the beautiful ocean of Circular Quay and Darling Harbour, the quiet town and mountains of Katoomba. And the Korean street of Strathfield? It was amazing. All the nights we've been together, shared happy moments. Talked til 4 in the morning. He took care of me whilst I was sick, unlike my abusive parents. It was wonderful to fall asleep with someone you love, wake up with them and see his loving emerald eyes in the midst of night...I was truly happy.

I remember we both cried like crazy the days before I had to leave. It was amazing just to have him in the same space. A dream come true.

But I was more in pain than I was happy. I felt very stressed and unhappy. We argued and disagreed a lot. Maybe we had irreconcilable differences. I wasn't treated well, his family treated me very poorly, as if I were a fly on the wall. I wasn't able to visit him anymore no matter how much I wanted to and begged for...I was just tired of begging him all the time...

It took me a long time to cut him off of my life. It was so hard as I am all alone in my life, with my abusive parents I can't live with, and a country that has disowned me. He's the only one in my life.

But I had to do it cos I couldn't bare it anymore. Now I have to be independent and try my best to escape this terrible hell.

I had all the good intentions. I am sorry it failed. We both tried our best.

I hope he's happy with his life and will find someone that matches him....

Someday soon. Gonna try and love again.

Deepest gratitude to my old lover, all my loving friends who are always willing to listen non-judgmentally and supporting me, all the guides and spirits that are helping me along the journey.

Mental Illness: An Autobiography| How is it like to have OCD, anxiety and depression| Part I

I have been suffering from mental illnesses for more than seven years. It takes a lot of courage of me to come out and publish an article about it. Mental illness is heavily stigmatised in Hong Kong, with the sensational news reports of untreated psychotic patients committing murder, it led some people to believe that all mental illness patient are potentially violent (my secondary school teacher admitted she was afraid of her neighbour because he had schizophrenia). In fact, stigmatisation is one of the major reasons mentally-ill patients are not getting help. The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent; Inaccurate beliefs about mental illness and violence lead to widespread stigma and discrimination. 

Here is my very private and personal story about how it is like to be suffering with OCD, anxiety and depression. I am opening my story so the general public can know more about the conditions in a more accurate way other than the "glorified-TV-and-movies-form".

From a young age, I have had the problem of having a certain image or thought or sound being stuck in my head. It was very disturbing. One of the earliest memory of true OCD symptoms is when I was in primary school. I constantly had the thought of vandalising, and the thoughts were very disturbing and intrusive. I had to compulsively do certain movements on my hand to "prevent" myself  from vandalising. It lasted for many months and was very disturbing. But it went away after I went to secondary school.

After I got admitted to secondary school, I felt depressed and anxious from time to time. I would feel heart palpitations and anxiety out of nowhere.

One day, something changed the course of my life forever.

At lunch time, I decided to drink a cup of coffee with my classmates (note: caffeine is a type of stimulant and people with anxiety should avoid caffeine). After the ingestion, I had terrible stomach ache the whole evening.

At night time, I had difficulty falling asleep. I felt very agitated and anxious. Suddenly, I got reminded that the Floridan death metal band Cannibal Corpse has a song titled "Fucked With A Knife". I suddenly had a thought "what if I stick a knife into my vagina?" I felt very frightened and the thought got stuck in my head (for the rest of my life, I still have this thought). I had a bad panic attack and it scared me so much.

This changed the rest of my life. Like a switch, my OCD switch was activated, and I had to deal with it for the rest of my life.

Let me tell you what is OCD. OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsory Disorder. It consists of two part, the obsession and the compulsion part. A lot of people suffer from "Pure O", which is not having any compulsion, this makes treatment and diagnosis very difficult. The OCD Obsession isn't like the obsession of football game, pop stars, TV shows. It's a kind of unwanted and disturbing thoughts that no matter how hard we try to get rid of them, they stick in our head. We can have an obsession persistently, from the moment we wake up til the time we go to bed. It's very debilitating. Common themes of the unwanted obsessions include contamination, blasphemy, causing harming(to self or others), inappropriate sexual acts, doing socially-unacceptable behaviour, schizophrenia. For more information you can view this website. Most of the suffers know our thoughts make no sense, but we are forced to think about them. I found a description which is very accurate:

"Imagine that your mind got stuck

on a certain thought or image…

Then this thought or image got replayed in your mind

over and

over again

no matter what you did…

You don’t want these thoughts — it feels like an avalanche…

Along with the thoughts come intense feelings of anxiety…

Anxiety is your brain’s alarm system. When you feel anxious, it feels like you are in danger. Anxiety is an emotion that tells you to respond, react, protect yourself, DO SOMETHING!

On the one hand, you might recognize that the fear doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem reasonable, yet it still feels very real, intense, and true…

Why would your brain lie?

Why would you have these feelings if they weren’t true? Feelings don’t lie… Do they?

Unfortunately, if you have OCD, they do lie. If you have OCD, the warning system in your brain is not working correctly. Your brain is telling you that you are in danger when you are not.

When scientists compare pictures of the brains of groups of people with OCD, they can see that some areas of the brain are different than the brains of people who don’t have OCD.

Those tortured with OCD are desperately trying to get away from paralyzing, unending anxiety…"

The same "what if I stick a knife into my vagina" thought stuck in my brain in a very rigid way for at least 3 years. I didn't tell anyone because I felt very ashamed of it.I didn't know anything about OCD. I thought I must be crazy or something! Everyday life became difficult, I had panic attacks all the time, I find it difficult to sleep or eat or study. Life turned upside down.

Two years after the incident happened, I finally had the courage to tell my mum. But I still felt immense guilt about my thoughts. I didn't dare to tell anyone else besides her.

To see what happened next, please wait for Part II.

Disclaimer: the information provided in the blog is for information purpose only. It is not used to treat, diagnose, or prevent any illnesses. Please consult a professional for advice.