Here I am

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve been on here. The thought to go back to this crossed my mind when I was having lunch since there is a lot I have been keeping in since I don’t feel like I am able to talk to anyone about it.

I guess it’s the worry about how bias it might sound to others and what the advice might be if I told someone.

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So we’ve been living together now for more than a year in Australia (yay) and everything has been wonderful. Moved out of my parent’s place after both getting our respective jobs sorted out and now in our own little place.

Even though we are far away from FMIL, I never feel far away enough sometimes and honestly feel incredibly stressed half the time when she crosses my mind.

There are days where I wonder if this wonderful relationship with my partner is worth having to deal with her for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong, she means well and all that - but her actions and words hurt a lot even IF she doesn’t mean it. I don’t know honestly - my partner always tells me ‘this is just how she is and she means well’ - I wonder how much of that is true.

They say children of long term family abuse can see and notice the smallest inconsistency in someone - and sometimes I wonder if I am just over analysing it.

I hate it how she likes to “haha remind” me that her son will always be ‘her boy first’ then mine. I hate how she ‘berates me’ about not contacting her ALL the time. I hate how she tells me I should ‘always choose family’ first. She’s so idealistic with her family - I’m not. She will never understand that ‘family’ isn’t everything to me.

I do my best to keep her happy. I try to stay on top of making sure she gets gifts for her birthday, Easter, Mother’s day, Christmas whatever. All I get in return is her laughing at how she totally forgets my birthday and thinks it’s hilarious. My birthday is only a few days before hers. And yet she CALLS us to remind us about <insert distant relative of theirs>’s birthday is tomorrow and make sure we call them too! But what about me?

I’m beginning to hate my birthday. I already share it with my sister. Now I basically share it with her and OF COURSE SHE has to get precedence because SHE’S the mother and that’s her son and her man and not mine.

I still honestly cry when I intermittently remember all the times when I used to visit the US and she was around. How when we go out as a group, SHE has to hold his hand. SHE has to sit next to him, and how many times she has to TELL ME how much everything we do together SHE had already done with him / used to do with him ALL THE TIME.

I just smile and nod, what else can I do? There were so many occasions where I had to use every ounce of willpower not to cry right then and there.  

And now that her ‘baby boy’ lives with me and in Australia, she ALWAYS has to bring up how “it’s not about her happiness and it’s about her kid’s happiness” and how she’s always so alone and sad because she isn’t living with her children anymore. I am THIS close to just saying fuck it. Take your stupid son back. I’m done with this. I am DONE being the BITCH for stealing your precious son away. The one who SAVED YOUR LIFE when your husband failed to be your husband. Just fucking marry him for all I care. 

When you remember that your boyfriend has talked about having an alternate reddit account used to browse porn and other NSFW stuff that makes you feel so insecure about how you look. I guess I get it. I know I'm not the most anesthetically good looking individual, not even average honestly. I'm overweight, I don't know how to use make up and I don't know how to "look good" so to say.

Sometimes I sit here and wonder if this feeling is jealously. However jealously carries a negative connotation to it which doesn’t accurately describe how I feel. Envy? Nope. Longing? Perhaps. Sigh I’m already tearing up just thinking about it.

Ever since I moved here and slowly experienced the ‘Western’ culture, I find myself wishing that I had a family like some of my friends. Who’s parents are ever so doting and openly affectionate to their children. They were their children’s greatest support, their biggest fan and their ever so loving parent.

I remember I had broken crying so hard infront of my dad when I had failed my first big exam. All he did was look at me disapprovingly and walked away. All I wanted was a hug to say that everything was still going to be ok.

I remember being bullied in school and coming home crying after having endured it for so many years - and that day I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I sought out my mum to tell her and hoping for some support but all I met was anger asking why I had let them get to me in the first place.

So here I am. 25 years old and finally doing what I should have done a long time ago at the request of my psychiatrist.

Dear past me,

I just want to tell you that you will learn to be ok. You will learn that just because no one was there for you in your darkest moments, doesn’t mean you can’t be there for someone else. You will eventually turn your anger and sadness into something productive - but not before you try to destroy yourself. Then you will learn that just because you were never loved, doesn’t mean that you can’t make someone else feel loved.

There will be days where you’ll spend days just crying in your room, not eating and not drinking. You will hold your breath subconsciously because you were told to keep quiet. If you didn’t, mummy or ba will come in and scream at you for being sad. They’ll tell you you’re not allowed to be sad or angry. That you just need to stop. Stop. S T O P.

But it is ok to cry. It is perfectly ok to cry. Even now I’m still learning that. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to think that your blanket is your only saviour in these moments. But please don’t think mummy and ba don’t love you, they just don’t know how to show it.

You will turn to those guys because they were the only ones that showed you any affection. The ones that told you that they loved you and they would be there for you. One one them will be for a while, but the other two won’t. One will just be an enabler to encourage you to inject illegal substance in order to change your body. You wanted it in the first place, but no one will tell you no because no one has cared. Deep down you just want to fit in somewhere. So you go for the most drastic option you can.

You will continue to be beaten down physically and emotionally. Whether it be done by you or someone else. Please don’t do that to yourself. You are so harsh on yourself - I know. I know because I watched you in the mirror with that knife in your hand. Knife in hand and tears streaming down your face, hiding behind the door of your wardrobe. But that was too obvious. So you resort to making your nails so sharp that you can pass all the cuts off as ‘accidents’ because of your bad habit.

You will cry yourself to sleep almost every night wishing that someone could just hold you and say that everything is going to be ok. That you have someone to go to when you’re sad. Someone that will share your pain because there will be nights where you will just be so paralysed by it all that you wished you were dead. 

You will think it’s because you weren’t smart enough. Pretty enough. Outgoing enough. Tall enough. Skinny enough. Athletic enough. Good enough for anyone. Mummy will tell you that you are the worst daughter ever. That she failed because you turned out like this. Gung gung will tell you unimaginable things that you will cry for years about. 

You will get kicked out of the house. You will also leave willingly. This is where you’ll learn that you’re fine on your own. Independence will be your friend. You will still feel weird being slightly happy. That you don’t have to fear coming home late because you wanted to have fun with your friends. You don’t have to come up with a million lies in order just to go out and have lunch with them.

You will think everything is going well - until you meet him. 

You will get a taste of what it means to have a real family. You will experience your first Christmas that doesn’t consist of being in your room for most of the day. You learn that Christmas is about family, and not an awkward mid-morning gathering to open present half-heartedly and then resuming the rest of the day as normal.

You will experience a little bit of what it means to have parents that are interested in you. Who cares for you, Who genuinely love you.

Then a familiar pain will surface again. Something you thought was gone. You will again spend nights crying because God fucking damn it you want that he has so much. However it is something you will never get. 

You. Will. Never. Get. It.

So past me. Please learn to be ok. Please learn to be happy without it. For my sake. And for you. It’s something you cannot change. You will learn that some people are just more fortunate than you are, and that’s ok. You love him, so you are only happy for him. 

But in that happiness you’ll feel pain. You’ll always feel that pain. You will try to hold back tears whenever you see them together and you chest will ache whenever they talk about each other with such love. You will notice all the little things they do for each other, or the little evidence of how much they love each other. You will give anything for that - but don’t let all this pain cloud you. You still struggle between wanting to leave him or stay. Cause if you stay, it is like a silent torture. Everything you’ve ever wanted is right there - but for someone else. You still stand there and watch like a bystander. 

But if you leave, you know you have chosen to be in misery because he makes you happy. The only real person so far that has made you happy. You will struggle with weighing up which hurts more. You will do so for a long time.

However try not to cry so much ok? Just because you never got a loving family like that doesn’t mean you have to be quietly miserable and bitter. I tell you now, you’ll still be struggling with this - and that’s ok.  You will wonder why you didn’t deserve even a fraction of this. You will question your worth. You will question everything and wonder why you drew the short straw in this game called life.

However you’re must stronger than you thought you could ever be - and you’re only twenty-five. You still have many years ahead of you. 

I scream but you can’t hear me. My chest aches and my lungs burn after what feels like eternity. No matter how hard I try, my voice is drowned out and muffled. I feel the pressure in my head, the numbness of my face, the blurriness of my vision and the wetness of my cheeks.

Why do you keep doing it?

Why can’t you love just me?

Am I not enough for you?

I don’t know how else to tell you. I kept my words as plain and as simplistic as I could. I told you exactly how I felt and yet I’m still here; completely insecure and feeling like you’re on your way out of my life. 

Sometimes I feel sad that I can’t talk about my day when I get home. I feel even a little frustrated. I know my SO says I can talk to him about it and tell him about my day, but we never get the time. He usually gets up, rushes to the shower - eats breakfast quickly then he’s out the door. I mean I can’t blame him either, but it just feels some sided sometime when I get to listen to his day when he gets home (as I’m getting ready for my day) but I never get to really talk about mine. And if I do, he falls asleep within five minutes so I always feel kinda stupid after realising I’ve been talking to myself.

It’s never really the same either once I’ve slept and a good 10 or so hours has passed and I’m already one quarter through the next day. So I’m not really inclined to talk about the day before again because it just seems pointless and almost too much of a hassle to try and remember. I guess it’s just another thing I have to deal with. I’ve definitely drawn the short straw in this LDR; there’s no one to blame for that either. I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and just get on with it whilst he currently reaps all the good part of having the ‘nicer’ half of the relationship.

It’s been a long day at clinic. Working off approx. 2.5hrs of sleep is never really a good idea, despite getting more ‘active’ hours of your day in. Honestly it was a good distraction, a good mental workout to forget what had transpired in the past 24hrs. 

I felt sick. Betrayed. Bitter but disappointed most of all. I had come to the conclusion that perhaps I just drew the short straw in life and I had to live with that. The constant headache hasn’t gotten any better - perpetuated by the intermittent crying that strung it out for two weeks. Coupled with the stress of just dealing with the terrible hours of clinic work and classes had worn me down.

I feel perpetually sore - my right shoulder in particular. Every time I take my feet off the ground and lay in my bed I can feel them ache. My diet has gone to shit and everything is just off. I’m slowly falling behind on school work. I’m falling behind in maintaining friendship groups. I barely have the energy to cook food nor procure the appetite to eat anything half the time. 

I don’t know how I feel. Do I feel sorry for myself? or do I feel a sense of frustration with myself for being unable to work through this? There are days where I just want to sleep my sorrows away - I just want to lie there and forget about everything. To forget how unaccomplished I am for being currently twenty five (fast approaching twenty six) and I’m still here with nothing to show. 

I feel like you’ve forgotten - seeing you make plans for the rest of the week. In my naivety I wanted to surprise you and found out you’ve got further plans in motion with your friends. It is hard not to feel sad or jealous in a situation like this. There is a part of me that screams to just talk to you about it, however another part insists to wait and see how long before you realise this on your own. 

Am I just being petty? Perhaps. Though I do recall how much you detest the festivity and I guess I’m here wondering if I should even bring it up in the first place. A few of my friends had flowers/chocolates/gifts delivered straight to the clinic today from their overseas boyfriends; seeing we have a handful of international students that are studying with us. A day early, however I guess the reasoning is that since tomorrow we will be consulting till 8pm so they wouldn’t have been home for the delivery (since I think they stop after 5pm). 

I had cleared my schedule for the weekend in hopes that maybe we could have spend time together and do something a little bit special, but in learning this I’ve dropped all plans and am preparing to spend the weekend maybe catching up on work now. Am I just too keen? I just hope he enjoys the little present I had set up to deliver by his Wednesday. Considering I’ll be in clinic from 10am till 8pm that day. I guess I was stupid in thinking this was going to be any different. He always thought Valentine’s is a stupid day anyways.

I probably should’ve said something, but I guess it is too late now. Not that it matters anymore anyways. I already knew this was going to be the case anyways so why did I even made myself to believe that there was going to be anything special. Plus with a midterm this week and a huge senior project underway, there isn’t anymore pressure that I should be placing on him. 

However I just can’t help but feel the same sadness that came with him not remembering my birthday or any of my important exams previously. So I guess why would this be any different. I like to think I don’t ask for much - a card at most. Hand written notes or letters are worth so much more for me because I can go back and read them when my mind goes awry. Hell I sleep with the little Christmas gift next to me so I can re-read it when irrational thoughts permeate. Perhaps I am unequally more invested in this than he will ever be. Perhaps he has realised that I should just be happy that I have him because he could easily do so much better. So I guess tomorrow is just going to be a normal day for me but who knows. Maybe he has something planned. However I don’t want to think about it - I’ve had enough hope shattered cause I was too optimistic. I’ve already cried too much this week and it’s only Tuesday. Perhaps he has planned it with someone else already. I wouldn’t know anyways I guess. I just hope he has a good time. 

It’s moments like these that I lay here wondering if there is any therapeutic benefit in doing these sort of things; writing and speaking into the void. I guess it is the same when we voice our troubles to our pets or when we scream into the pouring rain. With hope that somehow our actions may soothe the ache, dull the pain and tell us everything is going to be ok. 

Thoughts are hard to translate into words; I struggle to find the right mix to convey the exact feeling of it all. It feels much like the turbulent undercurrents at the beach; on it’s surface it seems easy to predict and understand it’s motions however, beneath is a constant turmoil - rolling, twisting and full of confusion. It is like the rolling thunderclouds in a storm - unable to pinpoint and distinguish each individually. Charged and seemingly volatile, lashing out when the conditions are just right.