Random Ramblings

• Tonight I almost had an entire bag of hard candies. The coffee flavoured kind, with chocolate filling. I know it’s definitely not the healthiest thing to do but I needed something and I gave myself what I wanted. I’m not going to feel guilty for that…but still, I probably shouldn’t do this every day. It’s just that I think it’s okay to answer to our emotional hunger once in a while. Of course, we should be listening to our physical hunger most of the time, but like they always say, everything in moderation. I think that as long as there is some sort of a balance between eating for emotional and physical hunger, it’s quite alright. At least that’s my opinion.

• I have been having a new downward phase (again…sigh) since last Saturday. I felt terrible, swollen and bloated but they seem to be getting a little better; at least I can feel my jawline now. There is still a bit of swelling left around my face but hey, I know it’s healing, so I’m going to let it take its time and I’m just going to have to be patient and deal with it.

• Despite these annoying symptoms, I have not been irrationally bullying my body nor my mind, so that’s a progress compared to where I was months ago. I don’t feel depressed either, and also have not been ditching my commitments, which I am quite proud of, although that’s probably something normal that anybody should be doing anyway. But whatever. Some days I don’t want to go in to work, but I know I’ll always feel better once I’m there. I like this job, so far. Keeping fingers crossed it will stay that way.

• Okay, now the candies are starting to nauseate me a bit, but not in a horrendous way. It’s okay. I think I’m going to get myself a cup of peppermint tea.

• Oh, and I ate a veggie sandwich with cheese for lunch today, along with a bowl of lentil soup. No soy cheese or any other vegan cheeses in Bangladesh, obviously. Now if I were more committed to being vegan and really strict on myself, I probably could do without dairy at all, but I wanted cheese and I ate it. Again, trying to have no guilt here. I’ll just do what’s right for me at the right times in the right amounts.

• Because I am missing Downton Abbey so much (gosh where the hell is Season 4), I’m trying to fill the void with other TV shows Namely:

Game of Thrones

Hart of Dixie

Adventure Time

Sherlock

The Carrie Diaries

Girls

The Vampire Diaries

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (although I’m still stuck at episode 1)

Nurse Jackie

Dr. Who

Rewatching…

Sex and the City…

All while keeping up with…

How I Met Your Mother,

Glee, and

The Big Bang Theory.

That’s all…I think. I sincerely do hope that is all. But I kind of want to watch Daria all over again too. I think I have a problem.

• Oh, and the good old Youtube, of course. Like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Here’s the latest episode:

• I guess there is no conclusion to this post (wait when did I ever have one anyway…) but here’s a thought I have in my mind right now – no matter what happens, there will always be a new day awaiting on the edge of the strike of 12. If you had a bad day, well that’s that, doesn’t mean tomorrow has to be one too. If you had a great one, let that inspire you. You go and make You happy.

This Is My Christmas Eve

Apparently it’s Christmas Eve. I guess I should be glad people generally don’t celebrate the holiday over here in Bangladesh, and it’s not a huge thing in my family anymore either. Should I have stayed in Sydney, I may have had to face either the loneliness of being alone for Christmas, or being present in the whirl of events and parties, amongst the craze, the mess, the food, the uncontrollable. Being unable to control what I see, hear, smell…makes me anxious. And I’m definitely not in a place to be able to enjoy the festivities yet. Not just yet, especially having had a stupid relapse this past week. But that’s a bit of a paradox because such a relapse may not have happened if I were still living on my own back in Sydney, as I’ve also talked about in my last post, in which case I may have been able to cherish the holiday with close friends. It doesn’t really matter anymore though, there is no point in wondering what could have happened if things were arranged differently. Alternative scenarios did not happen. I am only standing in the actual reality where things happened, and they cannot be reversed, no matter how much I wonder how things may have been done differently.

I wouldn’t say I am entirely successful on my road to recovery (haha, like that needed mentioning). Heck, I don’t even know what that even means, ‘a successful recovery’. Does ‘doing what I can at the moment’ fulfil the requirements of the term ‘successful’? But if so, am I really doing all that I can? How do I know that I am not capable of doing any better? You know what they say, “it’s about progress, not perfection”. Well, how the hell do I know if I am progressing or not? Just the fact that I am in a better place than the worst of all phases I’ve ever had? It’s hard for me to swallow that. I’m sorry if this is depressing, but the honest truth is, I don’t think I am doing the best that I can at all. I can’t be positive on this recovery all the time, I bet nobody can, and today, I’m not going to try to hide that. What can I say, that’s just how I feel today.

You know what, though? I am yet this girl who cannot be entirely pessimistic, I can’t help but always have that light of hope deep down, that I will get over all of this one day.

Christmas used to be my favourite holiday of all times. I used to love all sorts of Christmas movies. I wish to be able to enjoy the bright illuminations, the cheerful decorations, the joy in the air as I walk through the streets. I hope that one day, I can giggle along with my family with a tray of freshly baked gingerbread cookies.That I can smell the happiness that people breathe in the air.

I could almost hear you laugh at me as you’re reading this, but that’s who I am. Or used to be, and I still haven’t lost hope to get that old self back once again. Well of course I know I can’t turn back into that kid again, but the new me, with that same old smiley spirit.

But the moment I begin to dream of these hopes, I cannot help but think that maybe I’m just not bad or sick enough to be worthy of treatment at all. Maybe I’m just creating a bubble of illusion of myself in a disorder, to make things easier for myself, so I can evade from the guilt I should be feeling, the punishments I deserve. What do I deserve? What’s my worth? I, as always, am utterly clueless.

Okay, I don’t know how long this post may become if I just keep rambling on like this, so I’m going to put an end to it about here for now. Thanks for reading without falling asleep And thanks anyway even if you did dose off too

Thank You

Just wanted to drop in to say that I’ve been dealing with certain health issues these few months, and hence I haven’t been able to update this blog at all recently.

I’m sorry I’ve caused trouble to many people around me too.

But I am recovering, though very slowly.

I really am doing a lot better, even compared to a few weeks ago, so I hope this doesn’t get my friends too worried! As a proof that I am steadily improving, I’m actually being able to post this today

I know my issues are not going to disappear overnight and that I have to continue to do the best that I can, at my own pace.

Despite the utter depression that I went through at one point, I do have one positive outcome of this incident.

This made me realise that I am where I want to be now, and I now know where I want to walk toward.

To be honest, I was somewhat unsure whether I made the right decision to study Medicine.

Until now.

Because now I know that I want this, really bad, no matter how long it takes, no matter how much trouble it causes to anyone.

This might not be the best way to phrase it and it might also come off sounding self-centred.

But honestly, I don’t give a damn. That’s just the way I feel right now, and I know I am going to do this.

I think I am only able to feel this way right now because I have such amazing friends and family who have supported me through all of this, and I’m truly grateful for that.

I know they’re always there for me, and they make me want to be stronger so I cradle their tears with my shoulders when they need me. I want to cry with them, laugh with them and be with them.

Sorry, I didn’t even mean to blabber this much today but I ended up rolling with the flow.

I’ll just end this post for today, by saying a BIG THANK YOU to everyone. Everyone.

- Asuma

Letting emotions snowball you down

Sometimes I just panic and don’t know what to do. I know this happens to everyone, but often when I fall into this sort of a situation, I just let everything go. I also know that letting thing go and denying the reality will not nullify what is actually going on, and that consequences will always fall back upon me eventually. I feel absolutely pathetic right now. If only I didn’t have to let it go entirely that one day…if only I didn’t continue to give up, just because I did that day. If only I didn’t let it snowball downhill. If only I were not this pathetic. Now there’s no point in wishing “if only”, but can’t help it. Wishing I wasn’t so disordered. I guess this is just me blaming that for what I have done though. I know what I should be doing now, whatever the result of my action for today may be. I want to make a vow, never to make this same mistake again. I want to get my body and my mind straight and do what’s right for me.

 

- Asuma

Where Am I?

Cutting to the point, I wasn’t being able to feel myself lately.

I know it has a lot to do with the fact that:

(A) We were in an Easter break until Sunday, meaning staying home for the most part of the week.

(B) The more I stayed in, the more I did not want to go out.

(C) The longer I stayed in alone, I slipped into a mild state of depression. But the process is so slow, you don’t notice the pain and the numbness it causes.

(D) All of this finally leads to mindlessness, numbness and low self-esteem.

While I was walking to uni this morning, I realised how little of self-confidence I had in myself right now.

This is definitely not the first time I’ve felt like this, but it’s not a constant state of mind that I have all the time – yes I do believe that in general I have lost a lot of the confidence I used to have in myself a couple of years ago, but it’s not always constantly very low and some days are better than others.

When it is really bad, I literally cannot think of one thing that I like about myself.

Every reflection of myself is negative.

Today, I went to a mid-day yoga session at the uni gym in between classes. I usually do not like going to the gym in the middle of the day, but I always make an exception for a relaxing yoga class, especially if it’s my favourite instructor, N’s session.

Now, yoga is one thing that I feel like I can call my own.

If there is anything I can come back to, and make me feel like my heart is at home, it’s yoga.

Right now, yoga is the only thing that can make me feel better, even though it’s only just a tiny bit.

While we were in Savasana at the end of the practice today, N spoke to us about asking ourselves, “where am I?”.

I tried to feel my body. I tried to feel my heart.

I usually love this aspect of yoga.

But today, it could not have been more painful.

I could not feel my heart nor my body.

Facing myself, just me, alone…I don’t know how to best explain this, but I felt so suffocated, like I was choking myself with my own hands.

When I opened my eyes, my hands and toes were freezing (though that was possibly just because of my very poor circulation, but I usually don’t feel the chill like I did today).

After the practice, N asked me how I was feeling now, and I thanked her and told her I was feeling a little better.

It was true, I did feel better for being able to face the core of my cold emotions (or the lack of).

I wasn’t a happy camper, but acknowledging the position that my heart was in felt like a step toward figuring myself out again.

A baby step, but a progress, nonetheless.

I hope I can come back to myself again. I want to feel again.

Sometimes there will be steps backward.

But I know I have to keep looking forward and make little efforts to positivity and light.

I hope I can tell this to myself more often, and be at peace.

Let’s Bring It All Out

So I went to see my GP yesterday to collect the blood test report.

Long story short, I’m basically fine. No problems identified. LFT was normal, negative result for Coeliac, no allergies, normal vitamin-D level. I guess this is good news, but like said earlier too, this just kind of puts me back to the darkness in finding out what’s really causing the issues I’ve been having lately (well, for the last year or so). Well, they aren’t really life-threatening so I’m not too worried right now, but I know that it could help me a lot if I could just get to the root of it all and make changes around it.

We did talk about other issues that may be causing my health problems though, and although I used to take some very mild anti-depressants and they didn’t really help me much (also because I kind of quit after it made my mouth so dry and thirsty I literally had to drink water every 5 minutes), my GP thought it may or may not have something to do with that. As in depression. Honestly, I am not that severely clinically depressed but I can somewhat relate to it. Just looking at the number of posts I made about how I was feeling portrays how it has affected my life since I moved to Sydney. I don’t really want to emphasise on this much, I don’t want anyone around me to be too worried about this at all. It may sound like I’m in denial if I just say that I have not reached the point where the level of depression or anxiety or whatever it is that I’m dealing with has become clinical, but I’m just trying to be honest here. On the other hand, I’m not an expert so I can only say so much from what I think about myself. The doctor did recommend me to visit a clinic for mental health to discuss about my depression and also see a dietician there, and wrote a letter of reference for me, so we’ll see how that goes.

I guess I’m sort of happy with my current GP like that, that he doesn’t shove away my problems just like that. My previous one just talked to me once (and she also looked like she could not care less as I was speaking), gave me a possible reason for what I was experiencing and that was it. The doctor that I am seeing now kind of takes his time to go through all of my problems, even encourages me to talk about things that I don’t even consider as an issue myself. He does some routine tests, but doesn’t end it there and gives me different suggestions for how I could approach what I’m encountering right now. Also, every time I visit him, he never forgets to ask me how my studies are going, how I am feeling about university right now, about my family, my friends, basically everything about my life. From what I have learnt in my first year at uni, that’s exactly how a doctor should be while talking to a patient but in reality, not all medical practitioners are actually like that. Sort of makes me look up to him. Who knew visiting my own GP could be a lesson for me like that? Well good for me, I need all the inspiration I can get to motivate myself right now. I have an exam coming up in less than 2 weeks…I cannot emphasise enough on how horrible I am under pressure, but I guess all I can do right now is just kind of do whatever I can to prepare myself and at least try to remain calm. Anyway, enough rambling and time to put those words into practise now.

Relapse

At the moment, all that I can say is that I just hate myself. I abso-effin’-lutely do.

Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why, when I know that all this causes is pain?

I’m hurting. And nobody is to blame but myself.

This is such a pathetic, masochistic act and I know that it’s bad for me, and yet I still keep killing myself by bits from deep inside.

I need to get out of this. This is taking me nowhere, and I’m just going to keep resenting myself if I keep up with this vicious cycle.

I need to get my shit back together and live like a proper human being.

Finding myself once again

Sometimes, I just feel so lost. Utterly lost and empty. Actually, not just sometimes, I’ve been feeling like that quite a lot lately, especially in the last couple of months.

 

I feel like I used to be a better person before. In high school, I was involved in all these extracurriculars like basketball and prefectship and all that, and did other stuff like karate and music, outside school too…along with tutoring, I don’t know how I used to do all that and keep myself together. But it was still all fun, okay, maybe not all of the time, but I liked doing all that. I was passionate and motivated. I had some amazing friends who were really supportive (well, maybe not all of them turned out to be true friends in the end, but some stayed and I love them from the bottom of my heart). I felt alive. Yes, now that I come to think about it, I actually did have a life back then.

 

Well, not that I don’t have a life right now…uni, friends and the weekly French classes. But that’s pretty much all that I’ve got, and trust me, when I’m not doing or spending time in one of the above, my mind and my heart is like a big hole. A deep, endless hole that’s dark, really dark, all the way through. Some people might say, “oh gosh what the hell is this girl complaining about, there are others out there who don’t have anything at all, she’s just being spoilt”. But that does not nullify my feelings. I’m not sure if this is coming from the loneliness, but I just feel so depressed and as though I don’t even deserve to be sitting here right now, when I’m alone at home. I guess I can distract myself when I’m out with friends or working, but the darkness just clouds over me when I’m alone. I wasn’t such a needy type before, I used to appreciate my solitude time and enjoyed it quite a lot. Now I feel like I need to run away from myself. I’m not passionate like I used to be before, and that makes me feel dead, and invites in negative thoughts into my head. And the heavy depression takes over that I can’t lift off myself anymore.

 

And yet every night, I wish for the next day to be different. Somewhere deep down, I know that it’s going to be the same thing all over again, but I still don’t stop hoping for a miracle to happen. That I’m going to wake up and everything is going to be just the way I want. But then again, what is it that I want? Well, I don’t want to be depressed, but what exactly do I really want for myself? Maybe figuring that out will help me find a target, to be motivated to work towards it. Maybe that will be the way for me to save myself. I can’t wait for a miracle. I know I need to do this myself. I need to find myself again. The real me.