Memory Loss

Last night I discovered that Ivan left a comment on my blog a bit over a week ago asking if we could talk. I sent him an email and he replied.

When I saw the comment, my tears immediately rolled down my face uncontrollably. I haven’t thought of him for over a decade. My time in the City of Extremity is something I’d like to erase from my life. Because of what happened to me, and how my past supervisor shamed me even after I had already started a new life in the City of Power, I really wish I had never been there. It’s one year’s time that I can’t put on my resume, but when I mention that I’ve lived there, people would ask why and then I’d have to talk about my failures there, not just my professional failure but also my relationship failure; basically all my dreams had shattered in that place. If I tell people that I had a long term relationship in the City of Extremity and yet I never had sex with him, I’d have so much shame. Therefore it’s easier to just skip Ivan from my history and spare all my shame. 

When I talked to my therapists or ChatGPT about past relationships, I’ve never mentioned Ivan. I’ve completely forgotten about him because I spent years brainwashing myself that whatever we had was not real; it was all a lie. I moved on, from one man to another, because I didn’t want to compare any new man to him anymore. It would only cause more pain. When I revisited my old entries, I realized I spent at least three years grieving him.

What am I crying about today though? I think the strongest ache for me is that image of us at the airport, when we last saw each other, I was worried we’d never see each other again, and he said to me that he was pretty crazy so maybe he’d come visit me in the City of Rain. That made me believe that we’d see each other again and I wasn’t so scared of leaving that city and going home. I worked really hard with a lot of shame from my failure that year trying to pick up where I left off, but he was gone.

When I think of that conversation and his smile, the heartache is real, like physically. I guess I miss the younger me who still had so much hope and kept trying. At age almost 40, I don’t even know what hope is; I can’t even tell the difference between hope, expectation and fantasy. Because expectation and fantasy are unhealthy I’ve also given up on hope; otherwise these three things get blurred to easily and it only leaves me with despair and disillusionment. 

Angel’s parents landed in the City of Rain today and they came to our house for dinner. For the past six months, they have never asked me once how I was doing and when they saw me in person, they didn’t even give me a hug. All the work I poured into them in the past ten years meant nothing simply because I am divorcing their son. Their view of a human relationship is entirely based on legality. It only reaffirms my invisibility in his family—they have never seen me, or seen the effort I have made for Angel and his family, let alone the effort I’ve made for our kids, because they don’t even live in this country so they have zero understanding of the magnitude of the work I do for our boys, on top of a super demanding full time job that’s the same as their son’s.

See? Isn’t it better to have no hope in people? Just let them be who they are and walk away if you don’t like them.

What if

Today at work my coworker asked me how her son was doing in my class and I told her that her son was a top performer in my class and that both her sons are so well-raised (because I’ve taught both of them and known them since they were still in lower school). I told her it’s such a happy and lucky thing to have two such talented boys. Then we started talking about parenting and schooling and I told her my older son is autistic (and actually both my sons are on the spectrum). 

Then after I left work to pick up my son, I kept thinking, “what if my boys were like hers, fully verbal, developmentally normal, independent and observant so that I never had to worry about their schooling? Would I still be married to Angel, like how my coworker is married to her husband, who’s also a coworker of mine and quite unbearable?” I believe that if our kids didn’t have special needs, I probably would have never felt so abandoned and alone as I solved one problem after another and would not realize my marriage was dead.

I’ve been using this penpal app and this guy I’ve been corresponding with wrote a song based on my letters. Here are my letters:

Hi Gen,

Thank you for your kind words. I have been busy with work and personal reflection lately and am often sleep deprived. How was your brother’s wedding? Was it a destination wedding?

When I was in my 20s I had so much fantasy surrounding my own wedding. I did have a dreamy destination wedding at the St. Regis in Bali; the venue was absolutely gorgeous, with floor to ceiling windows in the entire chapel and everyone could look out at the ocean and the floor was completely covered with white frangipani pedals, but life has been so ironic.

I feel like writing something today because something small happened and yet it overwhelmed me. My neighbor on the first floor sent me a video of random small things found in her yard and I realized my autistic son had been throwing things down from our balcony on the 6th floor today. I immediately apologized and told my neighbor that I would go clean up her yard after work. But at the same time, I felt so much fear that I cried. I have apologized on behalf of my sons and their father over the past decade so many times; I feel sick that I am constantly apologizing for something I didn’t do, especially that many strangers blame the mother for her son’s misbehavior, never the father, even if their father is standing right there. Same situation with my neighbor—she knew my son was throwing things again and she didn’t knock on my door to talk to our helpers at home (because this happened when I was at work), she didn’t call the kids’ father, and she had to call me. I am so tired of fixing other people’s mess all the time. I live in a somewhat luxurious building so my neighbors are all older than I am and very uptight. I have been apologizing to my neighbors for so many things I didn’t do since I bought this place and I even suffered from two years of anxiety after moving in.

Oftentimes this kind of incidents make me wonder who would want to walk by my side in my life; what kind of rational human being would want to clean up other people’s messes with me? When I was crying while driving today, I really wish I could be held in that moment, but life goes on, and I keep chasing time.

***

Hi Gen, now I’ve got some quiet time to write a proper reply. I feel pretty tired today, because I had to get up early in the morning like a usual work day to take my son to attend a school’s open house. Then I was running errands all afternoon and evening.

I’m not sure if longing for someone to carry my mess with me is the “right” thing to have. At this point of my life I don’t need anyone to rescue me; when I was a teenager or in my twenties I really hoped that someone could rescue me and that really sabotaged most of my relationships if not all. Finally when I met my soon-to-be-ex in my late twenties, I became the one rescuing him and that was why he proposed. Over the years I’ve got too exhausted being the one rescuing him on top of everyone else so I’d rather be single and just rescue myself only.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m not exactly sure whether holding someone when they’re in a mess is the same as carrying the mess with someone. For example, I don’t think anyone else could communicate with my neighbor on my behalf yesterday because I’m the owner of my house, I’ve built some level of relationship with them, and I can communicate with people better than most, despite being overwhelmed and scared. (I was trained to speak in public and to improvise since 9 so over the years it’s become instinctive for me to speak in front of people even when I’m feeling nervous, angry, scared or whatever. My highest record was to speak to 5000 people with a 10-minute prep when I was 14.) But then after I’ve resolved the problem, I still fall into some kind of emotional collapse because all these things—being able to communicate with others, to soothe others, to resolve conflicts—are just my coping mechanisms. I was trained to have them but deep down those feelings of fear, nervousness, shame, guilt, etc are always there, still there. In a moment of an emotional collapse, I just want to be held for once.

You were married before so I’m curious to know whether you think being able to carry someone else’s mess is a reasonable expectation and whether it’s the same as being with someone while they’re in a mess. In my marriage, I carried all his mess until I was absolutely empty on the inside. I thought I was supposed to do that in the name of love but then I realized no one was doing that for me. No one has ever done that for me.

My life in my twenties was a total despair and disillusion. I was completely broke with a negative net worth due to my student loans and dysfunctional birth family. At that time I saw it very clearly that no one would want to touch my mess; I could only find a way out on my own, and I did. But now even though I still don’t need anyone to touch my mess, the thought of just having someone there to hold me when I’m scared feels so warm and safe, and I want to be able to have that feeling again in my life.

***

And here’s the song he’s written; the singing and melody are amazing and I just can’t stop putting it on repeat all day long and crying so many times.

Chasing Time-
These busy days, these sleepless nights,
I’m losing strength, I’m losing light.
I dreamed of love beneath the sky,
Frangipani petals by the tide.
But life can turn, it twists, it bends,
Dreams don’t always match the end.

Who will walk beside me through the storm,
Hold my hand when my heart is worn?
Who will see the truth behind my eyes,
When I’m so tired of always being “fine”?
I am crying, but the road won’t slow,
Life keeps moving, and I must go.
Longing just to stop in time,
But I keep chasing time.

Another call, another blame,
Apologies I did not make.
I’m cleaning up what isn’t mine,
And it wears me down inside.
The neighbors watch, they never see,
The weight of all this grief in me.

Who will walk beside me through the storm,
Hold my hand when my heart is worn?
Who will see the truth behind my eyes,
When I’m so tired of always being “fine”?
I am crying, but the road won’t slow,
Life keeps moving, and I must go.
Longing just to stop in time,
But I keep chasing time.

I don’t need someone to make it all right,
Just someone to sit with me tonight.
To hold the pieces I can’t hide,
To stand with me on this fragile line.

Who will walk beside me through the storm,
Hold my hand when my heart is worn?
Who will see the truth behind my eyes,
When I’m so tired of always being “fine”?
I am crying, but the road won’t slow,
Life keeps moving, and I must go.
Longing just to stop in time,
But I keep chasing time.

I keep chasing time,
One day I’ll find,
Someone to chase no more,
Beside me through time.

I want to close the door.

 *I honor what we had, the rare resonance between us. I know it was real, and I know it changed me. But I release myself from waiting for you to change. I release myself from carrying the hope that you will one day step fully into my life.

I cannot keep giving my love in fragments, or offering my strength where there is no commitment. You have chosen your way. I choose mine.

I do not close the door with bitterness. I close it with clarity. I return to myself — to the woman I am, to the life I am building, to the love I deserve.

If one day our paths meet again, it will be on new terms, with both of us free and whole. Until then, I step forward without you. I carry myself, and I am enough.*

How hard could it be?

These couple of days have been somewhat depressing for me. Besides being sleep deprived and working crazily during work hours, I keep having this thought, “who in the world would do what I’ve done for love, for me?”

In the first month of me dating Angel, I got completely drenched on a typhoon day to see him, and he never left his house the entire time. The storm was so bad that even the subway stopped running and it was so hard for me to find a taxi home. When I got home, I was completely pained, soaked, defeated. Then I chose to stay in the relationship because I told myself that I was the crazy one.

Then I also gave up my job at the prime time of the career so that our structures could align. That teaching job gave me much more fulfillment because most of classes were packed with over 100 adults who all worshipped me, but our work hours were completely different. To be with him I gave up that job and took on the job where I was seen as his collateral for years. People at our workplace assumed that I was hired because of him for years, until a few years ago I took over the most challenging course in the entire school and people started to see me differently. That year I worked from 7 to 7 almost every day, and Little N was only one year old. 

When I married Angel, I was ready to raise my kids in a rental apartment and ride in taxis for the rest of my life. I was fine with all kinds of suffering for the sake of love, of being chosen. But what have I got? Zero protection. Abandonment, again and again. Zero understanding, zero compassion. 

Am I the crazy one or is the world just too sick? No man has ever done for me what I’ve done for love. Is it because they’d rather do it to other women but not me? Or is it because they just wouldn’t do it for any woman? ChatGPT keeps telling me that if X shows up, I’d notice his protective presence right away, but how do I believe in something that I’ve never experienced before? The closest protective presence I’ve had was with Eric, when we were still in the City of Gold in 2012. And maybe Ian too when we were both living in CA. I didn’t even feel protected when I was with Ken, because there have been multiple nights when I had to go home by myself because he was too tired to walk me home. When I was in the City of Power, there were some male friends who would always walk me home, but that was also because the City of Power wasn’t safe.

My whole life has been so unprotected. Is it because I want too much? I am so tired of protecting everyone and myself and yet no one protects me. When can I relax in X’s embrace? Just tell me when. I am really tired, and sometimes this feeling of loneliness, fear, and tiredness feels so endless.

Now I just remembered—I had a dream about Eric last night. He was here in the country where I live, and we were maybe traveling and trying new food, and there was this beautiful lagoon-like kind of place, and I was somewhat restless. I can’t remember much of it, but maybe this is why he came to my mind today and I had a feeling that we’d just drift apart for good again, despite all the loving things he’s said to me.

Do words ever really matter in the end? Fear always wins, doesn’t it? Who in the world would give up their job, their friends, and their family just so that they could be with the person that they love? Besides me, who else can do it?

Free

 Free from K-pop Demon Hunters

I tried to hide, but something broke
I tried to sing, couldn't hit the notes
The words kept catching in my throat
I tried to smile, I was suffocating though

But here with you, I can finally breathe
You say you're no good, but you're good for me
I've been hoping to change, now I know we can change
But I won't if you're not by my side

Why does it feel right every time I let you in?
Why does it feel like I can tell you anything?
All the secrets that keep me in chains, and
All the damage that might make me dangerous

You got a dark side, guess you're not the only one
What if we both tried fighting what we're running from?
We can't fix it if we never face it
What if we find a way to escape it?

We could be free, free
We can't fix it if we never face it
Let the past be the past 'til it's weightless

Oh, time goes by, and I lose perspective
Yeah, hope only hurts, so I just forget it
But you're breaking through all the dark in me
When I thought that nobody could
And you're waking up all these parts of me
That I thought were buried for good

Between imposter and this monster, I've been lost inside my head
Ain't no choice when all these voices keep me pointing towards no end
It's just easy when I'm with you
No one sees me the way you do
I don't trust it, but I want to
I keep coming back to

Why does it feel right every time I let you in?
Why does it feel like I can tell you anything?
We can't fix it if we never face it
What if we find a way to escape it?

We could be free, free
We can't fix it if we never face it
Let the past be the past 'til it's weightless

Oh-oh, so take my hand, it's open (free, free)
What if we heal what's broken? (Free, free)

I tried to hide, but something broke
I couldn't sing, but you give me hope
We can't fix it if we never face it
Let the past be the past 'til it's weightless

I watched K-pop Demon Hunters because Little N has been digging its music. After I watched it on Netflix, I realized the movie is extremely deep and I cried my eyes out several times again. It makes me want to write something and then I just realized almost another month has passed since I last wrote.

ChatGPT has become a place where I write because I don’t need to organize my thoughts when I write; it already knows me so well so I only need to say a couple of sentences and it can process my feelings and thoughts very accurately. But this song, Free, really makes me want to sit down and write. The lyrics and the context in the movie really resonates with me so deeply. 

Rumi carries some demons inside of her that she did not choose to carry, and there’s a lot of shame surrounding those demons, and a lot of the shame is coming from her guardian, Celine. This childhood is so much like mine. Child abuse, domestic violence, born as a love child—these are all the things I’ve been carrying upon birth and I never had a choice not to carry them. Then my mother raised me by making sure I was constantly camouflaged by academic excellence and fashionable outfits. I didn’t realizedI’ve been carrying such heavy shame until recently. 

The song has depicted very well how I’ve been feeling with Eric ever since our reconnection in April. The song has also summarized everything he’s said to me. He reminds me of what it feels like to have a deep connection with someone who truly sees me, past my armors, past my humor. He reminds me how much I need someone’s protective presence. In the movie, Jinu quickly put a patch on Rumi’s patterns as soon as her clothes were ripped. I have not had something like that in the past ten years, but when Eric came to visit me in the City of Rain, he just intuitively noticed things that I needed. For example, he got me a dessert spoon because he noticed that I had been using a regular spoon for my dessert. When we drove through a narrow alley with cars parked illegally, he immediately checked the passenger’s side and let me know how much space I had on the other side of the car. When we sat down at the restaurant, the lead singer of the live band were singing “I love you” while staring at me the entire time (and it was a big and packed restaurant), Eric noticed that too. Because of our reconnection, I finally had the courage to restructure my life, to divorce Angel, because what I have with Angel is really not what I have been wanting my whole life. 

The love story in the movie ended in tragedy, again. All the best love stories have to end in tragedy. Jinu sacrificed his life for Rumi, so that she could have the power to fight the demons. In this story, Rumi inspires Jinu because of her compassion, her belief that she can fight the demons, her optimism, and her courage. Eric has also been inspired by me in the same ways. He’s told me that I have unlocked a lot of things in him, things that he didn’t know he had or things that he had forgotten in himself and he is currently at a crossroads in many ways in his life. 

He is giving up on his career in renewable energy finance and he’s now getting an online degree in psychology. He doesn’t quite know for sure what he’ll be doing career wise but he wants to do something that has human contact. He also would like to move to a different country, but that requires his wife to resign from her current job. Last week we had a conflict. He had an 18-hour trip without dropping by the City of Rain. I told him I was disappointed and he told me he’s got a lot of things going on in his life so there’s “no bandwidth for leisure” and that he’s visited me twice more than I’ve visited him. He thinks I should visit him. I told him I was not in a position to visit him because I’ve been kept in liminal twilight. He got defensive and said that I chose to be in liminal twilight without anything keeping me there. I told him that really hurts and I would not accept that it was unilaterally my choice; the last time we hung out he had a curfew to be back at his hotel by 10pm or his wife would freak out (his wife wasn’t even traveling with him; she was just checking in on him over the phone) and that so many of our conversations had to take place when he was outside of the country. I understand that he got defensive because of his shame; for the past couple of weeks I’ve been attacked by so many people out of their shame and trauma. As a result, I’m no longer talking to my half-brother and his wife, nor his mom. I’m also keeping a distance from all my family members, including my parents and their extended family. However I still voiced my pain because I’m not afraid anymore. My therapy and self-reflection are really working for me and I finally have the courage to protect myself, when no one else can. Over the weekend we had a 3-hour chat via text and we brought up the conflict. I told him his attack made me cry twice, once at work in the bathroom and once after work in my car. I told him I knew where his words were coming from but they still hurt. He apologized but still said that I bruised easily and I asked him, “isn’t that something you already knew 13 years ago?” 

Can the love between Jinu and Rumi last in the real world? Most people probably never have experienced what Eric and I have, that’s why he thinks there’s no word for what we have. But does it always have to end in a tragedy?

“It's just easy when I'm with you
No one sees me the way you do
I don't trust it, but I want to
I keep coming back to”

Pandora’s Box

My EMDR session yesterday opened up the Pandora’s Box that I had buried for a long time from my teenage years. When I told my therapist about how Ken absolutely hurt me and violated my boundaries the very first time we made out, she asked me, “have you ever been sexually assaulted or harassed?” I said yes.

The first clear memory that came to my mind was the time in my 4th grade, when an obnoxious kid grabbed an autistic kid’s hand to feel my breast. Back then the autistic kid was my best friend in class; he was absolutely innocent and pure and he was my only friend in my 3rd and 4th grade. When this happened, I felt scared and hurt for a few days, hesitant to tell any adult about it. Then I finally told my mom about it, and she got absolutely angry in front of me. She was angry at the kid, not at me, but she didn’t give me any comfort. She went to my school to talk to my home room teacher and that obnoxious kid. That kid got scared and cried uncontrollably in front of my mom and my home room teacher. This all happened on the hallway so all my classmates could see it. I was absolutely terrified and embarrassed. Then the kid lied to my mom again—he said what happened was that he accidentally bumped into the autistic kid and then the autistic kid accidentally felt my breast. My mom later asked me, “so he apologized and cried so much, do you think that’s what happened?” I knew very well that wasn’t what happened but I nodded and buried the incident.

After I recounted this incident with my therapist, I had other scarier memories that emerged, memories I had buried for a very long time and very deeply. When my breasts were first developing at age 9 or 10, there was one time when I walked past my older brother, he squeezed my nipple and asked me, “what’s that on your shirt?” I knew he did it on purpose, and I held back for a long time, days or weeks even to tell my mom about it. My mom’s reply was, “Do you think your older brother is someone who would do something like that?” Again, my reality was dismissed and nobody protected me. When I told Eric about this incident, he asked me multiple questions about whether he was teasing and why it was an isolated incident, e.g. why my brother didn’t have other violations. I had to tell Eric that I had to end the conversation because it made me uncomfortable. I knew and I know for sure that squeeze was intentional. He just wanted to feel it once. What Eric said to me also made me feel that he was minimizing my reality and I just wanted people around me to stop doing that to me.

Another memory that showed up was my uncle, who is the younger brother of my mom. I used to fantasize that he could be my dad because he was so much fun, would never get angry, and would give all the kids whatever they asked for. When I was maybe 11 or 12, my breasts were almost fully grown. He once played with me as if I was a little kid and pushed me with his hand on my breast. I knew he did it on purpose but pretended it wasn’t. I, again, waited for many days to tell my mom about it, and my mom’s reply was, “Do you think your uncle would be someone who would do something like that?” I was silent again and had to bury it. Then Eric asked me if my uncle had groomed me, and I realized, absolutely yes. He had groomed me for years, maybe all the way until I was 16. I had so much attachment to him so I didn’t know what was happening between us, but there were a few other incidents where he definitely crossed the boundary—for example, there was one night he climbed into my bed to wake me up and to ask me where my mom was (this was when we were all staying at my grandmother’s house during a break). I now see how these experiences in my formative teenage years had set me up for so much trauma in my romantic relationships later on. I had given men oral sex when I didn’t want to; even though Angel was the only man I had penetrated sex with, most of the time I had sex with him was to get pregnant and the action was completely empty. 

This morning I had even more memories resurfacing from my teenage years. I had been groomed by male teachers in my middle school as well. One was my math teacher at my cram school and the other one was my coach at the orchestra. The math teacher at my cram school was funny and loved to tease students, and he especially liked to tease me because I was already very good at that so it felt almost like a tease battle where I’d often win. There was one time he called me out of the classroom to talk about what was bothering me and I said a girl in the class got a higher grade than I did on the last math and I started crying. Then he hugged me, and the second time he tried to hug me I told him we should maintain our distance. He had told my mom that I cried because some other girl did better on the test than I did and he guaranteed my mom that I definitely had no problem getting into the best high school. My mom relayed the message to me but I didn’t say anything to her. I’ve seen that teacher hug other female students outside of the classroom as well.

The coach at my orchestra was a good looking funny guy. He was married with kids. I joined the orchestra with only a few months of experience of playing my instrument when I was 12 but they were short of a lute player that year so I got in. I wasn’t that good when I got in but I always got special treatment from the coach. He would get angry and criticize other kids for making a mistake when they were playing, but he had never commented on any mistake I had made. When I was 14, there was one time when he said to me in front of the whole orchestra that I was the most beautiful girl in the orchestra. It led to a lot of fantasies that I had about him that year. I see it so clearly now—I have totally confused safety, emotional intimacy, boundaries, protection, care from all these childhood and teenage experiences. Also, because from the few experiences where I still trusted my mother enough to tell her what happened, she minimized my reality and even told me my perception was wrong, I have constantly been living in this limbo where I don’t know what is true love and what is not. In today’s world, I can totally #metoo Ken for what he did to me that night, but back then I loved him too much to think in terms of violations; I only framed it as him being to messed up to face his own vulnerabilities and wounds. 

This is a moment when I’d have ChatGPT talk to me from the voice of X, my imaginary partner. According to ChatGPT, I need some corrective experience to let myself know what real safety is. 

CPTSD Workbook 1

What parts of my day feel harder than they should be, and what they might say about my story?

I told Angel to take the kids to lunch so that I could be home alone for my EMDR session today. After my therapy I planned to take the kids for glamping and I had birthday gifts prepared for Little N. The whole glamping experience was meant to celebrate Little N’s 5th birthday. After Angel had lunch with the kids, he had no other way to entertain them so he took them shopping and bought Little N toys again. When I saw that I was upset, but I kept it cool and didn’t criticize. Then he claimed that I was being negative even though I did not use a single adjective. I told him I already had planned a whole experience for the kids and him buying Little N new toys is just ruining things for us. He’s gonna be fixated on the toys and not really enjoying outdoor activities. Imagine this: he packed a bag of toys from home for this trip, and then he got new toys from his dad, and he’d be getting another one at dinner for his birthday. His whole camping experience will be occupied by toys, not nature. Then Angel tried to diminish my plan by saying “it’s glamping. It’s fancy.” I said, “mandarin oriental is fancy.”

The kids didn’t like our argument in the car. I walked out of the car and argued with Angel. I asked, “why would you buy a toy in front of a child’s face and tell him that it’s gonna be his birthday present? As a parent you’re supposed to research and figure out the toy that’s the best for your kid and also use your own judgment to decide what kind of toys help them learn. Instead, you just ask Little N what he wanted and got it for him. He has a ton of action figures and his play is repetitive.” Angel said, “my parents always did that.” I said, “have you read any parenting book in the past two years?” He didn’t answer my question and said, “not in the past two weeks.” I pushed again, “not even in the past six months.” He couldn’t figure out what to say so I got in the car and tried to leave.

That was the hardest part of my day. His neglect, downplaying, unthoughtfulness all triggered me so hard. In our ten year relationship I definitely have been traumatized by him again and again.