Toolbox 3: Suggested internal responses to common critic attacks

 Perfectionism attacks:

1. Perfectionism. My perfectionism arose as an attempt to gain safety and support in my dangerous family. Perfection is a self-persecutory myth. I do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved in the present. I’m letting go of relationships that require perfection. I have a right to make mistakes. Mistakes do not make me a mistake. Every mistake or mishap is an opportunity for me to practice loving myself in places I have never been loved. 

2. All or none and black-and-white thinking. I reject extreme or over-generalized descriptions, judgments, or criticisms. Statements that describe me as always or never this or that are typically grossly inaccurate.

3; Self-hate and self-disgust and toxic shame. I commit to myself. I am on my side. I am a good enough person. I refuse to trash myself. I turn shame back into blame and disgust and externalize it to anyone who shames my normal feelings and foibles. As long as I’m not hurting anyone, I refused to be shamed for normal, emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate this self-hate habit.

4. Micromanagement, worrying, obsessing, looping, over-futurizing. I will not repetitively examine details over and over. I will not endlessly second guess myself. I cannot change the past. I forgive all my past mistakes. I cannot make the future perfectly safe. I will stop hunting for what could go wrong. I will not try to control the uncontrollable. I will not micromanage myself or others. I work in a way that is good enough and I accept the existential fact that my efforts sometimes bring desired results, and sometimes they do not. Universe, grant me this serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

5. Unfair devaluing comparisons to others or to your most perfect moments. I refuse to compare myself unfavorably to others. I will not compare my insides to their outsides. I will not judge myself for not being  at peak performance all the time. In a society that pressures us into acting happy all the time, I will not get down on myself for feeling bad. 

6. Guilt. Feeling guilty does not mean I am guilty. I refuse to make my decisions and choices out of guilt. Sometimes I need to feel the guilt and do it anyway. In the inevitable instance when I inadvertently hurt someone, I will apologize, make amends, and let go of my guilt. I will not apologize over and over. I am no longer a victim. I will not accept unfair blame. Guilt is sometimes camouflaged fear. I am afraid but I and not guilty or in danger. 

7. Shoulding. I will substitute the words “want to” for “should” and only follow this imperative if it feels like I want to unless I am under legal, ethical or moral obligation. 

8. Over productivity. Workaholism. Busyholism. I am a human being, not a human doing. I will not choose to be perpetually productive. I am more productive in the long run when I balance work with play and relaxation. I will not try to perform at 100% all the time. I subscribe to the normalcy of vacillating along the continuum of efficiency. 

9. Harsh judgments of self and others. Name calling. I will not let the bullies and critics of my early life win by joining and agreeing with them. I refuse to attack myself or abuse others. I will not displace the criticism blame that rightfully belongs to my original critics onto myself or current people in my life. I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.— Jane Eyre.  

10. Endangerment attacks. Drasticising, catastrophizing, hypochondriacizing. I feel afraid, but I’m not in danger. I am not in trouble with my parents. I refuse to scare myself with thoughts and pictures of my life deteriorating. No more homemade horror movies and disaster flicks. No more turning tiny ailments into tales of dying. 

11. Negative focus. I will stop anxiously looking for over noticing and dwelling on what might go wrong or what might be wrong with me or life around me. Right now I will notice, visualize and enumerate my accomplishments, talents, and qualities, as well as the many gifts life offers me, like music, film, food, beauty, color, books, nature, friends, etc.

12. Time urgency. I am not in danger. I do not need to rush. I will not hurry unless it’s a true emergency. I am learning to enjoy doing my daily activities at a relaxed pace. 

13. Disabling performance anxiety. I am reducing procrastination by reminding myself not to accept unfair criticism or perfectionist expectations from anyone. Even when afraid, I will defend myself from unfair criticism. I won’t let fear make my decisions. 

14. Perseverating about being attacked. Unless there are clear signs of danger, I will thought stop my projections of past bullies, critics onto others. The majority of my fellow human beings are peaceful people. I have legal authority to aid them my protection if threatened by the few who aren’t. I invoke thoughts and images of my friends’ love and support. 

Toolbox 2: Human Bill of Rights

1. I have the right to be treated with respect.

2. I have the right to say no.

3. I have the right to make mistakes.

4. I have the right to reject unsolicited advice or feedback.

5. I have the right to negotiate for change.

6. I have the right to change my mind or my plans.

7. I have the right to change my circumstances or course of actions.

8. I have the right to have my own feelings, beliefs, opinions, preferences, etc.

9. I have the right to protest sarcasm, destructive criticism, or unfair treatment.

10. I have the right to feel angry and express it non-abusively.

11. I have the right to refuse to take any responsibility for anyone else’s problems.

12. I have a right to take any responsibility for anyone’s bad behavior.

13. I have a right to be ambivalent and occasionally be inconsistent.

14. I have a right to play, waste time, and not always be productive.

15. I have a right to occasionally be child-like and immature.

16. I have a right to complain about life’s unfairness and injustices. 

17. I have a right to occasionally be irrational in safe ways.

18. I have a right to seek healthy and mutually supportive relationships. 

19. I have a right to ask friends for a modicum of help and emotional support. 

20. I have a right to complain and verbally ventilate in moderation.

21. I have a right to grow, evolve, and prosper.

Pete Walker CPTSD

About loving feelings

It comes and goes, doesn’t it?

Sometimes related to people and how theytreat us, and sometimes not.

Sometimes related to the moon, to personal finances, to the questions of life, to nothingness, to everything, to the seasons, the time, to the food we ate, to….

It would appear as if the art of loving is not whether you love or not (we all do in our present way) but whether you trust that when love leaves,

it has a reason and it will return again.

Always. 

We humans are instruments for love by design. 

(So is the whole universe!)

When love blows across us, naturally we sing a love song

And when there is no love wind to blow, though it leaves us strange and willow-like, love has gone to an empty field where it fills its wind sails again

so that it might return and blow across our all too hungering instruments one more time. 

What shall we do while we wait? 

We shall weep of course — something as lovely as love leaves a gaping hole when gone. 

We shall remember love in our hearts and wait with ourselves as we wonder in question and doubt until we remember, “Love always returns.” 

~Carol Ruth (The Hide and Seek Game of Love)

Toolbox 1: Suggested Intentions for Recovery

1. I want to develop a more constantly loving and accepting relationship with myself. I want to increase the capacity for self-acceptance.

2. I want to learn to become the best possible friend of myself. 

3. I want to attract into my life relationships that are based on love, respect, fairness, and mutual support.

4. I want to uncover a full, uninhibited self-expression.

5. I want to attain the best possible physical health.

6. I want to cultivate a balance of vitality and peace.

7. I want to attract to myself love friends and community. 

8. I want increasing freedom from toxic shame.

9. I want increasing freedom from unnecessary fear.

10. I want rewarding and fulfilling work.

11. I want a fair amount of peace of mind, spirit, soul and body.

12. I want to increase my capacity to play and have fun.

13. I want to make plenty of room for beauty and nature in my life.

14. I want sufficient physical and monetary resources.

15. I want a fair amount of help, self, human or divine to get what I need.

16. I want the Universe’s love, grace and blessing.

17. I want a balance of work, rest, and play.

18. I want a balance of stability and change.

19. I want a balance of loving interaction and healthy self-sufficiency.

20. I want full emotional expression with a balance of laughter and tears.

21. I want a sense of meaningfulness and fulfillment.

22. I want to find an effective and non-abusive way to deal with anger.

23. I want all these for each and every other being.

Preparing for my next EMDR

 So I will have my next EMDR session on Friday from Sapporo. I’ve decided that I am going to work on my abandonment in romantic relationships. My last session was on abandonment in my very early childhood and as I met with Eric on Sunday and talked to him again last night, I am working through these feelings and I find them very relevant.

Last night I cried in my shower as I recalled the day when Angel proposed to me. I don’t even remember the exact date because it just didn’t mean that much to me. How ironic. I used to be such a romantic and never bothered to remember the day he proposed, our first date, and the day we got legally married. I was 29, absolutely beautiful and lonely. I was defeated by all the failed relationships I had. I went to his apartment to replace his bedsheet, because he had been using a really beat up one provided by his landlord and I got a new one so that it could fit better. It was the day before he had to leave for a work trip to KL and I just wanted to see him. When he saw that I changed his bedsheet, he proposed to me. A part of me sank that my proposal just happened like that—it was a result of me performing and taking care of him, not that he wanted to give something to me. But I still said yes, because I believed at that point in my life no one else would choose me. If I wanted to stop being alone I’d have to say yes. After the proposal, I cried a bit, but it wasn’t because I was going to marry the man of my dreams, but because I was finally not alone.

In my 2-hour phone call with Eric last night, I told him that the abandonment with my husband became much more constant after I was pregnant with my second child. There were times when I was verbally attacked by a total stranger, sometimes even out of racism or sexism, he would do nothing, say nothing even when he was there at the moment, and nothing after the incident as well. Then Eric told me that’s when he felt that my husband should have no place in this world. He told me that whenever someone mistreats his wife, he’d confront them to a point where his wife actually would get angry at him for being so confrontational. When I heard this, I can’t remember if I had said it out loud but I wanted to say that no one in this world has done that for me. It made me feel that I am just not worth protecting and it’s probably just my destiny that I cannot change. And it just broke me. The following day I felt pretty depressed mostly because of this and didn’t want to do much in Sapporo. I walked past a Louis Vuitton store and I just couldn’t resist the urge to buy another LV bag and spend some big bucks on myself. Yes, I bought it.

When I was 19, I had an online relationship with a guy from Kansas. He was 21, a high school drop out, totally broke, but really smart. We didn’t meet on some dating website or anything like that. I had a blog online and he came across my blog and we started our conversation like that. Even though we had never met in person, but we really loved each other. He was in so much denial and he kept telling me how fucked up our situation was and that I should be dating and hooking up with men in my life. I wanted to go visit him in Kansas but he wouldn’t let me. I did date other men and made out with other men in my life and eventually fell for one unavailable man after another. This guy from Kansas and I almost met when I was about to study in the City of Power. At that point we were only 80 miles away from each other. And yet, he dropped all contact with me again because he thought I was depressed. Eventually when we reconnected again in 2012, he told me he really did love me back then but our distance made it too painful for him to admit that. Then we had a pledge to marry each other by the time we turned 30 if we were still single. He said he’d move to wherever I was living, even if it was somewhere as expensive as San Francisco. 

I had dated many men before I got married, but I never had penetrated sex until I started dating Angel, because he was safe. Before Angel, I only had one “official” boyfriend from 2008 to 2009, but even with him we didn’t end up having penetrated sex because for some reason, I always knew he wasn’t 100% mine. He was in touch with a girl from his hometown who he later married after we broke up. All other men I dated were never committed; we kissed and made out and had oral sex but all of them left. I may have been the one leaving only with two of them; the other couple dozens of men all left on their own. They ghosted me.

Of all the men I’ve been with, the one that hurt me the most was Ken. Our thing dragged on for about two to three years, and yet when I thought we’d finally kiss for the first time and it’d be the most magical thing in the world, he got me almost completely naked without kissing me once. We spent the night together in each other’s arms but he just couldn’t allow himself to be vulnerable. Eventually he married a woman that had all the credentials he asked for. That made me feel that the only reason he could not be intimate with me was that I had no money and my family was broke. Seeing him marrying her made me believe that I should also just marry something who’s checked the financial box and a part of my dignity is associated with money. That’s why whenever I feel bad I’d look at how much money I have and buy something. 

 Last night Eric and I talked for two hours on the phone. He was in KL still jetlagging. There are some highlights that I want to journal about.

1. He told me that when we had our last hug in my car, he felt a sensation in his head. He said it felt like an electric current instead of from head to toe, it was from left to right. It felt so good that it made him wanna do it again. He asked me if I felt any physical sensation when we were hugging, I said of course but it feels a bit different each time. In that hug my physical sensation felt more like I was melting.

2. So I told him if he wants to do it again he should come to Hokkaido. He said he doesn’t want to incinerate his marriage. I said I don’t think anything sexual would happen. I said that before we first met up in June, he also said that we should meet when the timing is right. And when we did meet, nothing happened. He said that’s because he made sure nothing could happen. He said that when we took the Ferris wheel it was already somewhat dangerous because so many people would make out in the Ferris wheel. I said but we took the Ferris wheel to see the lightening and to look at the buildings in the neighborhood. He said, “sure we took the Ferris wheel to do an aerial survey.” He also said that my trip in Hokkaido is for myself so if he was here then I wouldn’t be able to think about a lot of things.

3. We talked about relationships, therapies, neurodivergence and life. He said when he was back home in MN, his mom’s short term memory is declining very quickly. It makes him realize we all go into decline eventually and nothing is permanent. You’d never know when you’re gonna die the next day so the best thing you can do is to cherish the beauty in every present moment. I said we finally have something to agree on. When I heard this, there’s some confusion in me. If I were the beauty in his life, would he cherish me? Or would he just keep me in the friend zone and keep me far away still?

4. From our recent conversations and our meet up, I still feel that he was keeping me in the friend zone. I cried at the end of our last meetup on Sunday. I told him the more you talk the more I wanna cry. He asked me why I was crying. I said I don’t know when we’d see each other again and he’s so funny. He held my hand and said, I’m sorry that there are things that happened in your life that made you think I’d abandon you, even after all the things I’ve told you. He also said the City of Rain is really close to M. It’s probably the closest city to M and it’s much closer than the City of Palace (where his wife is from). Or we can meet in a third country. 

5. We talked about emotional attunement in relationships. He thinks there’s no perfect emotional attunement and I agree. He thinks perfect attunement would require at least one person to change their priorities in life and that’s self erasure, and I agree. But I said I think it also depends on the inner work of the two people, whether the two people are growing their inner selves together. He gave an example from Gottman’s book—the husband wants to go bowling with his friends tonight but the wife is really mad about a broken faucet at home. The husband went bowling anyway and said he’d fix it when he comes back, but the wife just isn’t happy that it wasn’t fixed right away. I said in this case, first they can simply hire a repairman to do that. If money can solve the problem then just do it. If they don’t have the money, the wife needs to do some inner work. Why does it trigger her so much that the broken faucet has to be fixed right away? Is there some unresolved trauma that causes her emotional flashback?

6. I said in my marriage I was willing to give up my social life, my career to make things feel safe for my husband because my priority was to make it work. Erik said that’s why I feel so much resentment now that he didn’t do the same for me. I said no, it wasn’t exactly that. Our relationship was still alive before I conceived the second child. All the abandonment started to happen after I got pregnant with the second one. There have been times when I was verbally attacked by strangers for racism, sexism. Even though he was there, he did nothing said nothing and even nothing afterwards. That’s when I felt truly abandoned.

7. He said that’s the part he couldn’t accept. He said if someone mistreats his wife, he’d get so confrontational that his wife would get angry for how confrontational he’d get. This is the part that triggers me most emotionally. In my whole life, no one, not a single man has ever stood up for me once when I’ve been mistreated. It makes me feel that his wife is so lucky and I just don’t deserve that in my destiny. It also makes me feel that he’s gonna stay with wife forever and what he and i have is gonna die. Hearing this makes me feel that I am so unimportant to everyone.

First meal in Sapporo

 My first meal in Sapporo was Yakiniku Like. I was really craving yakiniku and it was indeed delicious. This restaurant wasn’t even rated more than 4 stars on Google but it is awesome. The interesting thing about yakiniku is that you have to play with fire to get your food. Cooking with fire was the whole reason why humans evolved into who we are today—before humans learned to use fire, their diet was so limited and they couldn’t eat meat. Without protein human spine could not be upright. And yet look at the civilization today; we don’t let children play with fire anymore and most kitchens in the world do not have a gas stove. IH heaters have replaced most fire stoves.

I remember playing with the fire a lot when I was a kid. I learned to use a lighter before I was in the first grade and I could cook leaves with a candle. I once set the floor on fire in my mom’s office and quickly put it out on my own. These experiences definitely shaped my vigilance and life skills, but kids these days simply can’t have access to these experiences. I don’t even know if they could learn to eat yakiniku. 

There are many tourists in Sapporo. Most of them travel in pairs. Some are just BFFs and some are romantic couples. I was once one of them, but now I don’t feel jealous looking at those couples—I now know that nothing can be guaranteed forever. Maybe what I see is just a transient moment in their lives where they are traveling with someone but it doesn’t mean they will forever be like that. Maybe they look happen on the outside, but that might just be because they’re with someone just so that they can avoid being lonely. I have been through all of those things. On the other hand I still want to believe in a happily ever after. Maybe some of the couples are really happily ever after. I saw a couple in their 60s shopping in Tanuki Koji. The wife found the second hand store and excitedly pointed it out to her husband, and the husband excitedly joined her. That kind of emotional attunement is exactly what I hope to have in life. I wonder if they have kids.

Sapporo 1

 I have just landed in Sapporo. While I was on the plane, I kept repeating the last few chapters of Pete Walker’s CPTSD audiobook. I cried a lot, and napped some. I barely had sleep last night. I went to bed at midnight and automatically woke up before 5am. I originally planned to wake up at 6:10am and drive myself to the airport at 6:30am. Oh yes, it was my first time driving myself to this particular airport for international travels. Interestingly I was alert enough to drive myself there safely.

While I was waiting in line for immigration, there was a family of three—a dad, mom, and a child who seemed to be mentally disabled with scars on his head and a brace on his arm. While they were waiting for the immigration officer to check their passports, this child was curious and wanted to check what the officer was doing, and his mom stopped him a few times with warnings. This child seemed to be 8 to 10 years old but he was scrawny. Upon seeing that the tears just rolled down my face. 

Even though the mom warned her child a few times, she wasn’t really scared or angry. She was smiling a bit. Everytime when Little O is disturbing other people, I get really triggered in fear and then feel angry. I get terrified by his behavior because I’m afraid someone else would get so triggered and become violent with him. But now I know from Pete Walker’s book that it’s an emotional flashback. This kind of paranoia is not necessary. When I saw that disabled kid’s mom being so gentle with his behavior, it just made me cry. 

The dad is also a small guy, but he was leading his family, standing in the front. He was paying attention to his wife and his kid. I wonder if they’re happy together. I think they are because if they weren’t, the mom wouldn’t be so emotionally stable. Maybe the dad can be emotionally attuned to the mom so they can raise this challenging kid together with fulfillment.

First EMDR

 I just had my first EMDR session on Saturday. It’s somewhat magical. As I followed the therapist’s hand with my eyes, a lot of feelings really showed up, but most surprising of all was my fear. I was feeling so much fear after just a few rounds and I do indeed have many layers of fears and anxiety. I could even feel that the anxiety was located in my back. Then I had a lot of tears because the therapist would ask me what thoughts came into my mind and I talked about my abandonment from my very early childhood, as early as one year old. 

I think a part of my anxiety is associated with Eric. After not having talked for a couple of weeks, he landed in the City of Rain on Friday and we had dinner last night (Sunday night). We hung out for about 4 hours, and he said that I was disconnecting from him and I told him I was only reflecting what he was making me feel. He gave me a whole account of his entire travel and how busy he had been with flying and going back home to visit his family also kept him very busy. After dinner we took the ferris wheel and we tried to do karaoke but the booths were occupied so we just took a walk. Then we got back into my car and we continued to talk in the car. Eventually he said that I should take him back to his hotel so that his wife wouldn’t freak out. I also cried when we had our last hug before he got off the car. I gave him a smile and he said “that’s the smile I like” and I said, “I’m about to cry” and I started crying. It’s hard for me to identify the exact thought that led to my tears; it was complicated. A part of it was that he made me so happy the whole time we were hanging out and we were laughing so hard and that no one else can do that for me in my life. Another part of it was that I didn’t know when I’d see him again, and he said his city was so close to mine and that he wants to set up a company in the City of Rain to invest in solar equity. He said I could visit him or he would visit me or we meet in a third country. He also thought that I had serious paranoia about abandonment and after all the things he’s told me I still thought that he would abandon me.

Another part of me is sad because I don’t know what to want. I am typing this entry at the airport alone. I am traveling to Sapporo alone. This is my first time traveling by myself in the past 10 years and also my first time to visit Hokkaido. The ironic thing is that before I got married, I was so sick of traveling alone, but now I actually crave it. I don’t want to tend to anyone else’s needs anymore besides my own.

COVID again

 I am currently having a ten-day road trip with my kids and my parents. I’m the only driver and I’ve driven to places I’ve never been to before, entirely thanks to Garmin GPS. Today is Day 5 and I’ve been fighting COVID for three days now. This reminds me, in June last year, we also caught COVID on the Alaska cruise, or actually we may have caught it in Vancouver before we boarded the cruise. The kids had high fever and Angel stayed completely horizontal at the hotel almost the entire week we were there. When he gets sick, he can just completely forget about the world and get as much rest as he needs. Then who had to do childcare? Obviously it was all me, even when I was sick too. A year later, I’ve caught COVID while traveling again, but this time without Angel. The work I’m doing is nothing less than what I had to do this time last year when we had Covid, but at least I don’t have to see him being bedridden the whole time, not even being able to stand up to make some milk for the kids. He is weaker than a woman and I’m just absolutely fed up with that.

While being sick, I’m still the only one driving, taking care of the kids most of the time, getting my sleep disrupted by the kids, figuring out the logistics for everyone. It’s a lot of work and sometimes I wonder if life would be better if Angel was there. The answer is no. Because that would mean I’d have extra emotional burden of living with his selfishness, severe limitations—he absolutely does not think of anyone or worry about the kids basic needs when he’s sick. He simply passes the buck to me and he’s not gonna spend extra money to make my life easier. That’s what happened in Vancouver. I took the kids to the Science World on my own and it was my first time visiting and driving in Canada. I went to find guavas and some specialty snacks for the kids because they were too sick to eat normally; I had to get them things that they really loved to keep them hydrated. While I was still fighting COVID last summer, I still took the kids for a hike in Alaska and did a 16km bike trail in Anchorage, being the one to pull both kids in a Burley. Then my knees busted from that bike ride.

My road trip right now is not easier or harder than the trips we had before with Angel. It’s not easier because I do have a bit more work to do without a lousy backup; however it’s easier because I don’t need to feel lonely while my partner is right next to me. That kind of weight is the heaviest of all—you have a partner but you feel absolutely lonely and abandoned and neglected. I’d rather be alone and free, although I’m not exactly free yet because Angel is stalking our divorce.

There’s a typhoon near where we are right now so we arrived here in a big storm. When we tried to go out for dinner from our resort it was storming so badly but now it’s quieting down. If the weather is better tomorrow, I hope to be able to connect with the ocean, the mountains and the sun in this beautiful place.

Grieving

 "Grieving" as an action has always been a pretty abstract concept for me. After having a discovery call with my new therapist who will give me EMDR treatment and starting to read "Complex PTSD" by Pete Warren, I've decided to start grieving and writing down all of them. The first thing I'm gonna write about tonight is Eric, after getting some guidance from ChatGPT. ChatGPT tells me that there are things I can grieve about Eric but I don't need to shut the door and walk away and kill the tree that we have. Eric and I haven't had a real conversation since July 1st when he was hiking in Malta and tried to get to the top of the cliff so that he could get signals to talk to me; after that he doesn't really initiate texting anymore. Sure, one can say that he's busy traveling in the UK, Portugal and his hometown. He's also meeting up with his wife in Portugal but he's leaving there before his wife does. I have no idea where he is right now but I just feel that he is not there, or can't be there for me. Sometimes I still catastrophize and think of the worse-case scenarios--him falling back madly in love with is wife, his wife is pregnant, he's having group sex somewhere, he's intellectualized his way out of us--believing that there's no future between us and what we have isn't real, or that he thinks everything was just an ideation or misunderstanding.

This kind feels like the anxiety I had for 2 years after moving into my current home; all the thoughts I had were magnified terrors and obviously they didn't happen, but I had so much anxiety living in my own home and had to leave whenever I had a day off. Therefore, I want to write about the things I'd like to grieve about Eric, completely in my own words. ChatGPT tells me that I can grieve without having to shut down, so I'm going to try.

1. When we met on June 16 after 12 years, we had a very long hug. I cried in your arms and you were emotional, trembling with some laugh. There were a lot of feelings mixed together--the day before I was physically attacked by Angel, so many things, more bad and good, had happened to me, and maybe you too, in the past 12 years, we still felt each other so intuitively, so deeply, and I don't believe it was just a fantasy. That morning you asked me if I'd be away from my neighborhood enough so that we could have a proper hug. Our hug was more than proper. I completely melted. I parked my car in front of your hotel and as soon as you saw my car, you walked out. I got out of the car and rushed to you and we hugged without saying a word.

2. The day at Sutro Baths, which I already wrote about in this blog. If I don't go back to read my writing, I wouldn't remember much about what we talked about, but I remember exactly how I felt. It was safety, luck, and lots of care. Everything was working in our favor--no rain at all, which totally defied the weather forecast and a perfect sunset. That morning when I got into your car, I asked you, "if there were no tomorrow, would you still take me to the same place?" without actually knowing where you were taking me, and you said, "Yes. I've always wanted my ashes to be spread into the ocean so if there were no tomorrow I'd still want to be on the beach."

3. The things you've waken up in me over the past few months of chatting--all those 3 to 4 hours of late-night phone calls that neither of us didn't want to end but had to because otherwise our bodies would be too messed up. You made me remember what it felt like to connect with someone on my intellectual, verbal and emotional level. I finally remember and understand what it feels like to be truly understood and be wanted to be understood. I've spent my whole life polishing my verbal skills in two languages so that statistically over 2 billion people should be able to understand me, but really, no one else can understand me or has a strong desire to understand me besides you. I thought if someone had the credentials on paper then they'd have the capacity to understand me, since I'm so good at explaining things and it's what I do for a living. It doesn't work that way. For someone to understand me, they also need to have the desire to do so, and you did. You did 12 years ago, and you did now. I don't know if you still will in the future.

4. There are some things that I wish we could do together--we talked about going for a scenic drive and sharing our music tastes, doing karaoke together, and that if we ever kissed for the first time, we both know it'd be different.

5. Your tendency to intellectualize and complicate everything makes me want to shut down first and then enlightens me after some delay. You've given me some really good ideas--you told me that I need to make sure that my kids have someone who share their vibes to hang out with, that I should wait for maybe a year before I really decide to buy that luxury condo, about mental health and HRV (I actually just bought an Apple Watch Ultra 2 so that I can start monitoring my heart and HRV).

6. Sometimes when you shut down or hide behind your jokes and sarcasm, I see through them too, but sometimes I feel your fear too and that makes me want to distance myself too.

7. There are things you've said to me that I'll cherish forever: "I wanna protect what we have too", "I have all these mixed feelings but I feel happy most of all and that alone is enough to push down the other feelings", "What we have is much rarer than falling in love", "There's no word for what we have because most people have never experienced this in their entire life", "If you ever feel that I'm distancing myself from you, it's because my structure doesn't allow it and I'm afraid of losing you if things are overheating. I never want to lose you again in my life and I want you to remember what I've just said", I said, "I've already forgotten about it. I need you to say it again, and I will need you to say it again and again in the future" and you said, "OK".

It's already 2:20am. I miss you so much.

What if someone’s life is simply too much?

 What if someone’s life is simply too much?

I’ve been looking into EMDR therapists and have found someone who can work internationally. I don’t know if it will work well for me but I’m willing to try. My current talk therapist told me that EMDR can be used to treat PTSD, depression, anxiety, traumas, etc. ChatGPT tells me that there’s some preparation work to do and I also need to have a discovery call with the therapist I’ve found, so I started to dig into all the past traumas that I think could still have an impact on my anxiety, depression and resentment today.

1. Obviously domestic violence when I was growing up and also a few times when I didn’t quite follow my father’s instructions and the consequence that he was terrified of the most happened and yelled at me when I was a teenager. Those consequences weren’t such a big deal but because he had traumas associated with those and when my inattention resulted in the consequences he freaked out. This has led to me to believe that if I make one tiny mistake, a disaster could happen, especially if a behavior affects others or makes others angry. This causes lots of anxiety for me socially and also when I’m educating my kids’ social behaviors I panic a lot because I’m so afraid that their behavior could invite violence responses from others. 
2. I’m traveling on a cruise right now and sleeping in the same room as Angel and my kids. I paid for my parents for another room with my aunt. Tonight I just have this feeling that if my parents finally die one day, I probably won’t shed a tear because the feeling of relief would be much greater than the gratitude I have for what they’ve given me. At this point of my life I have given too much to them. To clean up their financial, emotional and logistical messes. They never do inner work, never grow, never change. I just don’t want it to be my job anymore. 3 days after we get off the cruise I’m actually doing another road trip with them and with my kids, without Angel. I wanted to do the road trip myself with the kids but my parents occasionally could be of some help with the kids, e.g. if I have to go to the ER then they can stay with the kids.
3. Because of my trauma with domestic violence as a child, I was motivated to move to the US just like Darren Hayes because what I saw in media was always happy families and eternal love in Hollywood. Oh that’s another thing I have in common with Darren Hayes—he had the same American dream like I did that eventually shattered so he moved to the UK. He found his first home away from home in the City of Gold as well. That drove me to learn perfect English, to fantasize white men to be my saviors. I wanted to be American so that my destiny could change as a result of my new identity. 
4. Lots of traumas and betrayals in the US and with American men. Let’s start from Jes. We obviously loved each other but he refused to acknowledge it and kept telling me how fucked up the situation was and that I had to make out with other men in my life. I did and moved on and fell for other men, and then got hurt again and again. A part of me and me for many years hated him for being so cowardly and just let me crash and burn on my own. Even when we were only 80 miles away from each other while I was depressed, he didn’t want to meet me because he couldn’t face the truth, the suffering I had in my life. 
5. There was Ivan when I was in the City of Extremity. He and I were together for a year but never had sex. He never tried to make it special for me because he was actually emotionally attached to another woman who he later married after we broke up. Non-committal men have traumatized me too many times which led me to marry Angel, because no one else wanted to commit to me. Angel committed to know because of what he knew about me on paper, even though he didn’t really understand me or feel me or empathize with me. It feels like, only men with emotional disability would perceive me as normal, lovable. If a man is not emotionally disabled like this, they’d be terrified by my emotions. I know this is a toxic thought but too many people have told me that I’m too much, including my own family. 
6. I used to believe that once I had kids I’d never be lonely again. However, Little N’s health conditions upon birth absolutely terrified me and gave me severe anxiety because I was so afraid he would need a heart surgery. The heart condition he had, if not healed on its own, would require a very complex surgery. I cried so hard so many times after he was born, and my first time being in an ambulance was when they transferred Little N to a medical center. I was always alone in these hospital visits, alone in my late night research, alone in my imagining of the worst case scenarios. Angel was always tired and had to sleep at 8pm every single day. He never intuitively held me once. Even when I told him my worries, he just couldn’t feel me and would dismiss my worries with meaningless things like, “it will be ok” with no expression on his face or he would just ignore me.
7. After Little N’s heart condition healed on its own, Little O was diagnosed of autism. All the problems related to schools, that he had to transfer 3 times to be in a kindergarten that accepted him, were handled entirely by myself. I was so devastated but I wasn’t allowed to be sad or devastated for a minute, because all I focused on was to solve the problems. Angel was absolutely useless in my meetings with the school principal and psychologist. I did all the talking and when I cried, Angel sobbed next to me but without tears. It was as if he didn’t know what to do so he just copied what I did. I had been utterly, truly abandoned in those situations by Angel. Because he absolutely didn’t have the capacity to deal with our challenges. I was hoping that his parents could offer me more emotional support in the process because Angel couldn’t, and they abandoned me too. They’re a whole family of emotionally shut down people and they’re not even aware of it. On top of that, they have judged me and been condescending about Little O’s disability. When I had a fleeting idea of getting Little O a 7-year-old birthday party at a play center with catered food, Angel’s parents’ response was, “Given who he is, what’s the point of it? Are you just trying to show off?” And they have engaged in many micro aggressions towards my ethnicity and socioeconomic background over the past decade. Those are my traumas too.
8. Little O and Little N’s behaviors in public have caused other people to blame me for their behaviors and we have been criticized countless times by strangers in public. These are ongoing traumas that might very well still happen in the future. In all these traumas, Angel was always spared because he looked different and didn’t speak the language and even when we were in his hometown, people still blamed me but not him, even though he was sitting right there. We’re looking at traumas that aren’t exactly just my kids’ behavior in public; it’s also my skin color and my gender. I have been suffering from micro-aggressions for decades but didn’t know that until recently. These aggressions were the most severe when I was with Angel’s family actually, rather than my time alone in the US, ironically.
   
   I have been through so much and I personally don’t know a single person who’s gone through as much as I have that can still have a happy ending. Maybe Darren Hayes? But he’s already 52 years old and he’s finally finding happiness when half of his life probably has already passed. Many people in my situation would have just given up and just keep living their life day after day without the intent to change, to be happier. They would tell themselves that this is the happiest, best life they can have. I used to think that way too until I decided that I’d be happier if I were alone. I wanted and still want freedom, whether there’s a man in my life or not. I have been telling Angel to just set me free for years but he never understood what I meant. He just told me that yes I could be free. It’s better to be alone than to be with someone who can’t feel you at all, who just can’t hold you when you need it the most.
   
   At this point of my life, I still have no one who can fully understand me, let alone be with me. I am typing this entry at a bar on the cruise at midnight, because I can only do so after the kids are asleep, with Angel.

Unlovable

 I just finished reading Darren Hayes’s memoir, Unlovable. I absolutely love the book, still love him and his lyrics and music. I resonate with so many areas of his life as he laid out in his memoir:

1. Domestic violence growing up while being the most sensitive child of all three. His sister didn’t have a childhood in order to protect him, to give him one. I did the same thing for my younger brother.

2. He’s verbally gifted—did well at school and really has a gift in lyrics and words. Obviously he’s also musical and sings really well. In my case I have a musical talent but the values in my family and society didn’t let me pursue them professionally.

3. A compassionate persona developed as a performer—even though I’m not an entertainer, my job as a teacher, especially my previous teaching job in a profit-seeking private teaching out-of-system business indeed made me a performer. I was paid based on how many students I could attract and I was often teaching over 100 students in one classroom. In my 3 hours of class time, my job was to pump up their dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and adrenaline. Everyone felt and received so much love from me and never realized how much pain I have always had and have been chronically depressed.

4. Transactional relationships—Darren Hayes kept everyone in his family on his payroll for many years, including his abusive father. So do I. To this day I’m still paying for my parents. Previously I used to pay for my brother’s education from time to time. We think it’s love.

5. He divorced his partner for 17 years. Even though his partner was absolutely kind and his best friend for life, he couldn’t stay in the relationship anymore because there wasn’t anymore emotional resonance or attunement. We’re the kind of people who just feel too deeply to be content in a safe structure, because it is really suffocating and devastating if we have to keep ignoring what we really feel. 

6. I learned about EMDR treatment from his book and I’m seeking out for it. The journey he has had in therapy so far resonates with mine. I’m not as dependent on therapies as he is, but I read a lot of books and find resources for myself for the inner work and I cry when I read about how he had to revisit his old traumas and take care of himself, because I’ve been doing the same but it just seems never ending. 

7. At the end of the book, he has learned to choose himself. He said for the first time in his life, he wants to live now. That’s exactly like what I told Eric a while back when he said that he felt that I was more confident. I told him I wasn’t sure how to gauge confidence but I did know that when I was in my 20s I was more afraid of living than dying but now I’m more afraid of dying than living.

This memoir is absolutely inspiring, especially that when I was a child, his lyrics in Savage Garden were my safe havens, and today the same lyrics still are.