Won't lie. Sometimes I'm really happy about it, but sometimes being in a relationship annoys me to no end. Because I feel so...bound. He seems to think it his right to budge in on any and every conversation I have online in public. I no longer get to talk to others without him trying to join in. He needs to be involved in everything I do. I feel like this happens a lot more often with male friends, could just be me. But honestly, I don't have private conversations with anyone, I don't feel comfortable with it, I hold all discussions in public and unfortunately this means this leaves them open to interruptions.

That's not all, it's as if he needs to keep talking to me even when I make it relatively clear I'm not interested to talk. I don't hate him but sometimes talking too much to one person over many years just makes you...sick of it, you know? It could happen with anyone. With my female friends, talking was always a reward, I have few chances to talk, and I rarely seek them out for conversation unless something pertinent demands it. They do the same. This is different. I feel obliged to talk even when I don't feel like it, which is majority of the time. I have felt harassed by less familiar people before. This response is not limited to people I don't know well.

I don't like this. It really bothers me. I feel like I'm being held on a leash. More than anything this has made me regret the relationship, but I know I'm never leaving it so I've resigned myself to just ignoring it when it happens.

I hate my sister so much. I abhor everything about her. I know this is my fault. That I cannot accept a person like her. But I can't survive this, hating a person so much that I think of killing her daily. One day I will snap. I don't want it to happen.

After more than a year living with her, I have come to the conclusion that our current maid is kind of dirty, which results from laxness with chores.

I don't have clear evidence of the fact--maybe the fact that the tables are still oily after she has "cleaned" them, but that's the only clear evidence I have. But well...I began to notice this strange taste late last year, a taste that I began to taste frequently after drinking water from my cup. My cup had just been chipped so I assumed it was the taste of ceramic fragments. But then I began to wake up with that taste in my mouth, and that's when I knew it was bacterial.

It became worse; I tasted it more and more often, and then I began to taste it on my utensils as well. I continued to wake up with it on my breath. The connection dawned on me when I united the two observations: first of the taste, and second of the fact that she is a lazy housekeeper. Recently I've been growing increasingly paranoid about the sort of bacteria that are being allowed to multiply in our environment, but it's such a strange observation I doubt I can get anyone to take me seriously..

Why am I bringing this up now? Because I just drank a cup of tea, and it tasted like a cup of pure, concentrated Taste. And I found a strand of hair stuck to the side that probably belonged to her, because she was the one who made the tea. This worries me immensely.

Sigh. There's technically no detriment to praying even if I don't believe in God. And yet it makes me so angry that I'm being put through these routines against my will. I'm angry that I'm being bullied into it, that my father pushes harder when I refuse, that he is guilt tripping me for not wanting to pray, making me feel like I'm a terrible person for it.

I'm sorry, I just don't believe in God, and all the arguments you use to convince me only fall flat because There are very clear scientific answers to questions like "who created water" and "what makes the earth turn" and "who created life" and I'm sorry that I know them and that you don't. I don't want to tell you the truth, that I know things you don't and that they answer all these questions without "God", because I know religion sustains you, I know what it means, and it's for that reason that I'm trying so hard to conform to your expectations. But I'm so angry because I want it to stop.

I hate how my grandmother looks at me when she makes a request of me, and how she voices her instruction. She intones it it like an order. She looks at me like a servant. I'm not a slave and you don't have to speak as if to intimidate me. You are not the wisest in this house nor the one most deserving of respect.

And can I do anything about it? Being weird. Liking birds. Being ugly. Not combing my hair daily. Dressing like the androgyne I am. Dressing badly. Not bothering. Being Narcissistic. Having no control over myself when I'm angry or in panic. Having anxiety-related issues. Not being able to hold myself with confidence because I'm afraid everyone hates me. Or does everyone actually hate me?

So much self-awareness, when one is a horrible person, is possibly the worst thing one can have.

my class...again

I feel like my class has been excluding me. I am, in fact, reasonably sure that this feeling of exclusion isn't imagined.

They don't reply to my messages on the Whatsapp group unless they are work-related inquiries. And when I say things in class, no one cares. Maybe I've been talking too much in class. Maybe I've been too open about how much I hate my work. Maybe there's something unappealing about that. Maybe they think I'm elitist. On top of this, I'm ugly, awkward and terrible at "being cool". And my weirdness isn't the appealing sort that media loves to represent. It's the sort that makes you feel like turning your nose up at me because it's nigh impossible to start a normal conversation with me.

Yeah, it's just too bad I haven't got the same interests as them. That I'm an atypical female with no interest in how I look, and with tastes greatly deviating from everyone else's. And maybe I'm too proud. Maybe it's because I'm not straight! Maybe I should have lain low. I should have. I wish it weren't in my nature to be outgoing right off the bat and then hunker down and never return when I realise no one likes me.

This is the first time I've felt absolutely, completely excluded. Before this I had my friends from primary school with me; this is the first time I've been surrounded by a completely new group of friends and had to recreate my social circle from scratch. And I've become absolutely inept at doing so.

I think my class doesn't like me. But then, when has any class ever liked me?

People don't like me because I'm ugly and weird. I may consider myself above such prejudice but I cannot expect others to be. And given these are people who clearly value style over substance I imagine they are more judgmental in this respect than any group of friends I have known before.

I should just lay low. No degree of geniality or sociability is going to change the fact that they don't like me and can't like me because my face looks like shit and because my behaviour doesn't fit into the mould of perceived normality.

Sigh waiting this out is getting pretty tough. I just wish I could make it go away. I shouldn't care at all but I am experiencing jealousy. And jealousy is so much harder to hide. And such a horrible feeling. I don't want to dislike her over something that shouldnt even bother me.

I'll defeat you all. I'll become more famous. I'll be happier with my life. I'll enjoy it more than you. And I hope you don't enjoy yours. I'll prove myself. I'm not worse than you. It'll be my revenge for years of being seen as only mediocre.

I feel unsafe in my own. Around my own sister. How did it come to this?

HOW MANY TIMES do I have to remind myself not to scroll through my friends' Facebook Timelines? It only makes me angry! God. Why don't I have more self control. Do I enjoy making myself angry?

So, it's been about a month. Two to go, if my body behaves as it used to.

just want to be alone with myself...don't want to remember what is to come, don't want to remember that there's anyone else in the world. and want to stop feeling sick. I"m so tired...

I feel terribly unhealthy.

Going through the usual motions, "does he ever notice me" "am I too ugly for consideration" "can he tell I'm looking" "does he like someone else". Even though I have no intention of getting attached. Logically. Of course my attraction wants otherwise.

Thankfully it's all relatively mild. I just hope no one realises before it's gone.

I'll only start friendship-extension efforts after this has cooled down.

Just want to be able to relax and not worry for once.

I want to enjoy something. I want to do something I love without feeling like a terrible person.

Please, please make me hate you.

I want this feeling to go away. More than anything. When I was younger, crushes were nice to have. But now I just go into panic at every inkling of excitement and it's making my life hell. Please, I don't want this to go on. It's torture. And no one has any control over it. Shit.

OK stop, anxiety. It's tough enough as it is dealing with stuff without having an adrenaline rush every five minutes.

Emotionally exhausted...and it's still tuesday...

Dammit traitorous dreams. I went into panic when I woke up. I still feel horrible.

Ok why should I keep quiet about it any longer, I have a crush on a classmate and it's getting very bad and while it is accompanied by the typical positive emotions it's mostly resulting in panic because for so many reasons it's so important that no one realises it until the feelings fade. I'm just living in fear now because it's impossible to control and I'm jist hoping desperately that something changes soon...

I mean, I've got to be terribly selfish to think anyone owes me kindness.

And why do I find it so hard to thank people? Why do I feel GUILTY, ASHAMED when I thank people? As if I were compromising my dignity?

when can I be happy again?

I want to love what I'm doing. Like my friends do. I want to be sure this is the right choice. But I'm none of those things. I'm not happy. I don't love it. I am desperate to run from it all. Why. Why is this the lot I have in life. Perfectly privileged but unable to be happy. what is wrong with me?

Maybe what I need is a good beating. Maybe I just need someone to come and hammer sense into me. Literally if it must be. I need someone to TELL me what there is to love about my life. Damn it.

Hey, just to document it, there's a penknife on the table right now, and I'm just wondering if I'm still afraid to use it on myself. Perhaps today I will finally break that barrier. There's so many things here that I could use to hurt myself. There's scissors. There's sharp objects. There's a whole lot of chemicals outside because of the construction work that's going on.

But my family's burdened enough, they don't need another person to send to hospital.

What am I supposed to do then?

I'm becoming the epitome of self-pitying filth.

Why can't I just love what I have?

But why is there so much I lack, then?

Why do they all have more than I?


What do I have? What do I have that they envy? Why do I feel like the only one who envies anyone else?

another pointless post but

I just cried because I read my friend's status and was so envious.

Yeah look, now I'm blogging every time I cry, wow.

I think I've done the right thing in hiding their posts, whatever it means I'm missing. I can't ask them to change their habits for me, can I? But seeing the things they write is hurting all the same.

Sick of the stock birthday wish "stay pretty". Seriously, girls go around saying "Happy Birthday, stay pretty"??! As if prettiness were a choice, and as if that were the most important thing to wish of a friend? How about "hope you succeed in life"?

Am I that bad a person?

Am I misinterpreting, is this a misunderstanding? I want to believe so, that some yet-undiagnosed mental condition is manifesting as this extreme paranoia. Or are all my suspicions true? Are you doing it on purpose? It just seems like too many coincidences.

maybe it's just lack of sleep.

I can't help but feel everyone's trying to make me envious. Your sharing is equivalent to yelling "Look where I am, look how wonderful it is, I'm having the time of my life, aren't you jealous?"

because god, I'm having the opposite of the time of my life. I'm stuck in the hellhole that I've made of my home. I'm not allowed to do anything I love. I'm being put through shit everyday--and shit that I am helpless but to impose upon myself, no less!--all because I chose wrong out of some sort of delusion. And I'm never happy.

I am just doing this to myself, am I not?

Or some part of my mind is doing it to the rest of my mind.

Why can't I just realise and accept that this is all self-inflicted so I can start to put an end to it?

Jealousy, exhaustion, hatred, anger, self-pity, self-hate. Academic pressure?

I'm just doing this to myself.

When was the last time I actually sat down and considered what was best for me, what would do me the most good, instead of letting them happen to me without thought?

You know what's keeping me from killing myself?

My writing. Every time I feel a desire to cease existing, I consider the fate of unfinished stories. It stops me.

I wish it weren't the only thing. I don't know when I stopped caring for all else, as far as living is concerned

I think I know how it feels--every misfortune, every moment of extreme anger or hurt takes a bite out of me, and with each I feel more worn out, more emotionally disfigured, my mind feels like a scrap, like a body that's been gnawed out by dogs. That's sort of how it feels.

I'm suddenly terrified ofdoing anything that might endanger my health in any way.

Why am I so jealous?

Am I just an attention-seeker? My sister recently told me to stop seeking attention by crying at every small thing. Am I actually seeking attention without realising it? It seems in line with my personality, to do something unconsciously, and to want attention. See, my entire life is a war between my need for notice/admiration and my fear of being judged for seeking it.

I want people around me, and I want them to be people who care about me. Is there anything wrong with that? Don't I only seek it because I feel uncared-for in the first place? My mother doesn't care for anyone, in the most conventional sense of the word--she'd secure our safety but she shows no affection at all. My relationships with my siblings are formal and based on obligation. My father, he probably cares for me, and I've made the mistake of constantly turning it down and now he's sick and I'm afraid of what might happen, I'm afraid everyday.

I'm tired, my school is robbing me of all my strength and I'm not even enjoying it the way I hoped I would when I chose it. I hate it, every living day. It's just one shitty day after another with no true sense of reward--I'm learning, but for what? I'm learning so slowly and my classmates are all better than me by worlds, maybe because they've had 6 years more of art education than I, but I feel like every minute I'm there I'm being told to abandon all efforts because I'll never be as good as they.

And there is nothing to make up for this torture--I feel so inferior, so inadequate, when my friends are all studying reputable courses at prestigious universities overseas because they are GOOD ENOUGH and I'm not. I'm just an idiot who thought she was as good in art as they were in their sciences and it turns out I'm not. No I was never good at art. I wish they'd never told me I was, because I chose wrong because of them, and now I'm suffering for it. I'm not even good enough in the one thing I thought I was good at. How the hell do I even match up to them? I thought, since my school results were similar to theirs, that we were equally intelligent--but maybe THEY have lived in this culture of excellence, imposed by their families?, who knows, and I never have, and as a result I'm just hopelessly weak and lazy, I'm unwilling to work as hard as they to be as good.

Maybe that's weakened me, and maybe that's the reason I just can't work hard now, even in the course I've chosen. I'm just not built to be good at anything. I'm good at things when I have a passion for them, I think. I think. Please take this with a pinch of salt. And this damn school has just robbed me of all that passion. It's made me hate everything about creative work, and it's made me unable to even think of my own work, the stuff I'd do of my own volition, without feeling overwhelmingly guilty for it.

Who knows. Maybe they do think I'm an idiot. Maybe they're mocking me in their minds, wondering how I could even imagine being as good as they.

I don't know. Why do they seem to care so little? Does anyone care at all? No one has any obligation to care, that's true. I am just another human. What's care, even? I think I am incapable of caring for anyone in full sincerity. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I"m the cause of all the problems I'm having, maybe it's that I hate everyone and make it a point to be envious of everything they have.

Why am I so obsessed with being the best at everything? Please cure me. I don't want to be jealous of every single person I know. I don't want to live like this, it's unsustainable.

I mean, how can I be respected? People don't think of artists as professionals. Artists are the dirt of the internet. People think nothing of joking about them. I shouldn't have done this. And yes, I'm never going to put my school and course on my Facebook profile because I'm too ashamed of them to have them there.

Honestly the only good that comes out of doing art is being able to share your ideas and stories. And honestly too, I feel like no one's interested in them at all. How am I supposed to garner interest? How am I supposed to attract an audience?

I actually gave up my opportunity to do anything more reputable for this and now, simultaneously, everyone's lost interest.

Or maybe I simply expected interest to increase but that did not happen. Maybe because I haven't made anything good in such a long time.

I'm sorry for being cryptic but I don't want anyone to know what exactly I've done.

This has happened before, envy and jealousy has ruined my friendships. I can't help it. How do I help it? I just feel like I've got the short end of the stick in every aspect. I'm always going to envy anyone who has better than I. I tend to feel entitled. I tend to need to amaze others. I feel like shit if I'm not respected or admired. And really now's not a good time in my life, and I think it's time I treated myself decently for once.

It seems my blog has become a dark hole of anger and self hate. I guess that's its purpose now, since I'm too afraid of complaints to post anything on Facebook.

Why do people always not wave back when I wave on the roadside/at the bus stop? Do they hate me so much they can't even acknowledge my existence?

See, ot's not that I am antisocial, it's that people have been encouraging me not to try socialisng by ignoring me every time. Now I'm too afraid of being ignored to even try.

I'm just beginning to realise that one of my friends' tendency to never be free for any sort of social activity has been affecting me a great deal more than I thought. Somehow I'm caught between the frustration of always being turned down by her (for meetings/lunches) and the wish to at least spend some free time with her.

I feel rejected when someone turns down one of my invitations for lunch/a show/a visit to somewhere. I mean, I can understand perfectly if it's a matter of parental dissent, but some part of my brain can't. I just get angry and frustrated. I begin to fear asking at all because there's something like a 70% chance the answer will be no.

That's happened twice in the last two days and somehow it's really getting to me.

I feel stranded. Maybe it's that all my friends are leaving and I'm trying too hard to push my uni friends away for fear that they'll become too close and I'm feeling nothing but lonely. I'm afraid that my present friends will forget me. Mortally afraid, even. With my uni friends I'll have to go through the long process of winning their trust again and I didn't have a good start.

I really just want someone to care about my writing, my stories, my characters...which is a ridiculous desire but well? That's what I live for now. I chose my current uni course because of those things. I live for it now. If people stop caring...then everything was for nothing...

She is ignoring me on purpose. I am sure now. Maybe I have been THAT terrifying, that much of a pain to talk to. I don't know. It doesn't matter. She doesn't want to have anything to do with me now. I should just leave as well.

Not good enough for myself, or for anyone. Everyone looks down on me, or at least I feel looked-down-upon. Maybe I'm inflicting it on myself. Maybe. I have bigoted acquaintances who would sneer at me if they knew the course I'm taking now.

I doubt I'd be happy doing something like life sciences or psychology, not happier than I am now anyway. I'd probably find everything bland and tedious. But I'm feeling ashamed now. Which is the worse thing to feel?

anger and insecurity

I just can't sing anymore. Even when I'm not at home. Every time I think of singing I am attacked by guilt and the fear that someone will scold me/insult my voice and I just shut up. I haven't sung more than one or two lines for a few months now. I hadn't till yesterday. And the whole time I was singing I was feeling guilty and horrible.

And here I listen to my sister singing as loud as she wants. I hate my personality. I hate that I'm so weak. I hate that I can't take the pain of insult. How do I make myself comfortable with insult? If there were a cure...

more reasons to hate my family and myself

Really. Whenever I tell my sister off for doing something (e.g. insulting cooking in front of the person who made it) she goes on and does it again just to annoy me. Why do I listen to her when she tells me to stop singing, then? I hate my personality sometimes. I hate that I can't stand up to others because I'm afraid to fight.

So apparently my mother's emotional repression is because my grandmother regularly emotionally manipulated her children and her strategy of dealing with emotional disturbance is to ignore the cause completely. I guess that's an explanation. I'm going to analyse this in greater depth later.

I'm beginning to realise that outside of one person (who's currently never free) I don't feel comfortable talking to anyone about my personal issues. I feel like I'll be bothering them no matter what I do.

I'm currently at a sort of high-and-low part of my life. I feel terribly ineloquent (and I wasn't much of a wordsmith to begin with) and I find it extremely hard to express things I feel exactly. I'm happy because I'm enjoying my art. But I'm unhappy because my art is constantly being seen and judged. Add to this the sense that my old friends are ignoring me on purpose and the recent happenings with my family...I'm pretty stressed.

I can feel everything pressing on me. I feel like there's no escape this time. It's coming from everywhere. The only cure would be to start my life over far away from my family. I'm not sure when everything grew so tangled but everything's adding up. And this time is different from other times...I haven't felt happy for such a long time...and I feel angry almost everyday...

A list of things that are bothering me

1. I'm squandering a lot of money on the production of things that are just not worth what I'm charging. It was a bad idea, but I've bought the materials already and I will have to proceed. I just wish ink didn't cost so much.

2. School is killing me. I have absolutely no ideas for my 4D midterm assignment. I'm just dry. The story prompt is so uninspiring because it involves crafting plot before characters. And I'm exhausted. Tomorrow we have a full day from 8:30 am to 7 pm. I don't think I can handle that.

3. I feel like at least one of my friends has been ignoring me on purpose. Or maybe it's my fault for not starting conversation. Maybe that's because there's nothing to discuss. Maybe this friendship was meant to die.

4. Grandmother hates me. She's constantly telling me how I'm ungrateful and horrible and asking heaven to kill me. Just because I COMPLIED with her order for me to hit her. Yeah, so she said it in a fit of anger. But I did that in a fit of anger as well. She is beyond reason. I just wish I didn't have to listen to her nagging all day.

5. Still being forced to pray...I just can't keep doing this. It's boring, it's frustrating, it's futile, and I have to try to sound sincere. I wish I could just tell my father that I am absolutely and utterly convinced God doesn't exist. But it takes little to predict that he will continue to think I am "not beyond redemption" and that instead of letting up he will double his efforts to "reconvert" me. I really want to be nice to my father particularly given current circumstances. But I am so tired of this.

I do believe I am a perfectly horrible human being. I am making every effort to prevent anyone from realising.

I constantly feel like my friends don't like me and are actively ignoring me and everything I say online.

Again, I feel I was made to be lonely. I was made to lose friends. I'm not even going to try to have friends any more. I just can't do it.

I am saying now that I am a non-believer.

I've come to dread our nightly prayers everyday. I begin to feel a pressing annoyance and fear as 9:30 looms close. Half an hour a day taken up by meaningless recitations. It is infuriating not because it takes so long or because it's boring (which it is), but because it fills that time with something absolutely meaningless and inconsequential, and because it forces upon me the guilt of being the sole non-believer, and because I must listen to my family members offer all their fears and discontents up, in full sincerity, to a God that I believe does not exist.

I want to believe in God, if only so I can please my father. But I feel nothing I know can be, or needs to be, explained by the existence of a higher power. In fact I much prefer the world without a higher power because it's so much more elegant.

Really, has it never struck anyone that all these rituals are extremely arbitrary? I don't see which benign, benevolent God would demand this of His creation. I don't see why God should value love when "love" (as described in the Bible) never existed till Homo sapiens grew wise enough to understand it as a concept and name it.

And if we're only being sent to earth to be trialed, why even send us here, why not test our souls where they were made, or leave our spirits here after death? Why even create us, if all God can think to do with us is send us to earth where we are to prove our faith to Him, only to--what--reward us for doing as told? There are so many specific, arbitrary laws governing a universe that includes God. 

I have heard more than once that God will only work His power on me if I "believe" and "have an open heart". Isn't having an open heart a requirement for effective psychotherapy? Nothing can dissuade me from my belief that religion is a form of psychotherapy. It works on people because they convince themselves they are working towards an end, and they excuse the lack of a tangible proof by telling themselves that is an inherent quality of a higher power. Why does He choose not to be detectable to humanity at all? Because "He doesn't have to be tangible for us to know He is there"? It's kind of an easy to claim that a nonexistent entity sustained by belief alone "doesn't have to be tangible to be felt", isn't it?

I think God is a fiction. It's only that religion has endowed this character with such an affecting concept/philosophy that people have come to want Him to exist. Religion was designed to propagate belief in this character. 

Sure, you'll tell me reasoning is counterproductive to religious enlightenment--but am I being stubornly unreceptive, or am I merely embracing a truth you reject so you can feel slightly more secure?

I am envious of my friends who will be studying overseas. In recent months I have found myself wanting so badly to leave Singapore and study abroad. It isn't even that I wasn't offered a place after going through selection. It's that I wasn't allowed to apply. I did not mind so I did not protest. But I have begun to mind, and begun to realise that maybe I didn't protest my parents' decision because I didn't give myself reasons to want to go. I didn't read up, I didn't actually think about how it would be. But now I'm being forced to imagine.

Of course, I was born without the mental capacity--or raised without the diligence--that would have made my results good enough that overseas education a favourable option for me. I was born to a family more interested in long term investments than considerations for catering to a single child's needs in full, who chose to have five children just so paying for overseas education became huge enough a deterrent that I wouldn't have been allowed to go even if I had placed in a top university. (more time for this rant later) And yes, maybe misplacing hundreds of dollars and making suicide threats has made my parents unable to trust me with my own life.

Maybe I should have stood up and fought and proven myself and made promises. But I didn't see what I was being cheated of in laying back and accepting their decision for me. I live with the regret now and I travel via the internet.

I can't keep doing this; I don't believe in God and I have many reasons. But I'm being made to pray everyday. Not a single day in the past two months have I gone without praying the rosary with my family. I do it because I know it gives my father hope, and hope isn't just an analgesic; hope could very well improve his chances of recovery. I'm doing this for him. But I'm so exhausted with it, being asked to construct prayers and speak them with sincerity as if I actually thought they would help. Listening to my entire family offer the outcome of the situation entirely to an entity I'm convinced doesn't exist. Praying every night for half an hour. Half an hour of fatuous recitation. I can't keep doing this for the next two years, but I just cannot stop. I cannot disappoint my father at this point.

Stupid brain. Why do I feel like 1. All my classmates can't stand me 2. My friend is ignoring me on purpose? Too much to feel paranoid about...

Group work at ADM...

Just did a 3D group project with a total bitch (excuse me but it's the only accurate word I can think of). She kept shutting me down. I didn't get to contribute a single idea to the project. She kept insisting on something completely unfeasible and when it (predictably) failed to materialise as planned, she complained as if it was OUR fault. And then she went and discarded our work of two hours even though it was workable. So easy to throw things away when you didn't help with all the cutting, isn't it? I rubbed my fingers raw on the pen knife handle only for her to decide it wasn't to be used.

I have been hearing about people like her for as long as I've heard group experiences recounted, and I have to say I handled it worse than I could have. For fear of being challenged on my judgments, I avoided suggesting anything. My fault alone.

blog update~

Redid the blogskin! Now it's got separate frames for different things.

In other news, I'm working on an "about me" page.

another conversation

chen: yo tess

me: yeah?

chen: nice to mee you
:)

me: oh so you're backtracking after a solid week of trolling?

chen: yeh get it, i was pretending to be a jerkass

sort of get a kick out of shit like that

me: so spake millions of trolls before you

well I'm not one to hold grudges against people whom I barely know

so

chen: awesome :)

me: heh you're actually kind of nice

chen: ooh hint eh

me: not really

chen: oh

me: I'm in a relationship hello

chen: LOL

anyway who the fuck are you

me: someone who knows more about you than I should, I guess

particularly given I've never met you before

in real life

chen: sorry to be rude

but rlly how do upeople find someone all the way in us

US i mean

not us

me: *clears throat*

not telling

I don't think that'd be wise

hee

chen: ok

pleeeeeeeeees

me: no

I have realised I have to be harsh with people like you

and that you probably wouldn't hold it against me

chen: uh you sux

wahhh

tess buly me

mama i dun like tess

me: if you don't mind me saying, I don't like that nickname

chen: TESS TESS TESS

me: also you can stop pretending because we both know you're only pretending to be stupid

oops lol I used "pretending" twice

oh god

ok go ahead and call me Tess

chen: awsome

youre nicer than aofei

me: no I think she's nicer than me

chen: i mean like youre floppier

like you kno cooked fish

vs raw fish

youre cooked

i could totally skewere you no prob

me: ...ok

chen: naw was that creepy i suck at this not-being-a-creep thing

I'm beginning to think, belatedly, that no one outside of my parents and one person? really cares for my wellbeing. And I wouldn't be able to blame them because it's exhausting. I wish it weren't, I wish it were easier to care for me. Because right now no one seems to care at all and I feel so lost without it.

I want to talk about the things that trouble me. But I know how tiresome it must be for my Facebook friends to have to see my rants over and over and try over and over to help only for my unhappiness to resurface within a week. I want to scream about it but I don't want to burden people with my disclosures.

All I feel now is stuck. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about my unhappiness. Am I supposed to go in search of real help that could eradicate the underlying cause of my emotional imbalance? Am I supposed to shut up? I've been keeping quiet about things that have haunted me for years, they're still hurting here, and hurting more as months pass.

I can't avoid, because it would mean closing myself off to all people. I can't do anything about it but sit it out and either stew in a corner for a few years more, pretending I'm fine, or I can keep ranting online and risk being hated for my whining.

I wonder if I'm just making threats, or if I'd ever actually kill myself. Something always stops me, like the thought of the stories I haven't written.

sort of a plea for help for my situation?

OK er. Please read this? If you'd like to, and if you think you can help. It's really important to me. Because it concerns one of the biggest problems I have in my life right now. It's a serious problem. In that it's the sort of thing that has made me contemplate killing myself and that has caused me to self injure before. (I'm sorry if that freaks you out. ) And hearing some input from people--or having someone actually offer to help--would be the absolute best thing right now. And solving this will probably require a lot of dedication and attention, unfortunately. But these past few years, I think I've been asking for help in all the wrong ways. So now I'm just going to sum it all up as concisely and objectively as I can.

I've got this huge insecurity, and I'll be honest about it: I'm terrified whenever I realise that someone's better than me at something I'm told I'm good at. Like, you know, art, or music composition, or writing--usually. I feel angry at myself, maybe jealous, and I feel an intense urge to work really hard at whatever's causing my insecurity until I can prove that I'm better than him/her. I also feel afraid when someone improves a lot, particularly someone who used to look up to me. I feel like I've been "overtaken" by someone who was "more amateur".

I use inverted commas because it's not true. No one can prove that I'm better or worse than anyone. But the hierarchy forms itself automatically in my mind whenever I meet a new artist, and I'll explain later. Every artist is either "someone to look up to and learn from" OR "someone who might want help from me because they're less experienced/skillful". But one thing my mind refuses to do is move people from the latter category to the former. My stupid brain wants to always think of a "junior", an "advisee", as that. You know.

I'm sorry, it makes me sound like a douche. But now, I've been thinking about it a lot, and the fact is that I really need to work out how not to feel this way. And you know, the most important step in solving a problem is to finding out what caused it.

Lots of thinking in the past few months--ever since my realisation that my behaviour lies squarely in the "mentally ill" region--has made me realise that I might know the reason.

Probably a combination of things: constant and repeated discouragement. Harsh criticism on works I was proud of. Too much praise. Too much pride for my work at too early an age. Parental disinterest.

I think it's mostly the first thing. From an early age, from when I started really being serious about my music composition/writing/art shit, they started doing these things to me:

• Every time I showed Sister A my work, she answered simply with "my friend X can draw better than that"/"my friend Y can do better than that, she even has [credentials/accolades/qualifications that I don't have]"
• And she actively approached me--she actually CAME TO ME--to show me her friends' work and tell me all about how much better it was than mine. I guess that's pretty natural to be proud of talented friends, but she made it pretty blatant that the central reason for her approaching me with it was to show me work that was better than mine. 
• Sister B has told me to stop recording my songs/singing at home because "it's noise pollution". SHE THINKS MY SINGING VOICE IS NOISE POLLUTION.
• I once entered the same songwriting competition as one of Sister A's friends. Not only did she ignore my entry entirely, she kept telling my parents to vote for her friend's and actually advertised her friend's to me and kept telling me how her friend is doing better than me and other shit that would obviously discouraged me. She spent all that time telling me all about how her friend deserved to win more because she was trying to earn money for her family (and I'm just thinking...why doesn't she teach then, if it's about the money? Isn't that obviously a more stable source of income?)
• Alongside this, she only had bad things to say about my song. As if she's ever had anything good to say about any of my work before.
• Every time my parents played my competition piece out loud, both sisters visibly winced/looked disgusted
• Sister B frequently sings out loud in our room/turns on the radio in our room/etc. but apparently when I sing out loud, it's noisy and horrible to listen to and I have to shut up. Now I try not to sing at home at all.
• The first time I showed my sister an art piece after two years of avoiding showing her anything, all she could say was "why did you draw this?" and no, she wasn't asking for me to make a commentary on my piece. Her tone was one of abhorrence.
• Sister A once read a MapleStory fanfic by someone else in the fandom (note: she's read some of mine before, back when I wasn't so terrified of sharing it). Her only comment, other than "this story is nice",  was something along the lines of "the difference between this guy's writing and yours is that his isn't lame". She just called my work "lame". I mean yeah, it does seem lame to me now, but at that time I was really proud of it and she just shot it down like that. I wonder if she's aware of how hurtful it can be to hear that.
• Both sisters have openly called my art "ugly" before. In full sincerity. Not as a playful insult. And conversely, I can't even remember the last time either of them complimented my work. I mean, imagine having family members who refuse to do anything but criticise your work...
• They gaslight me. Now when I tell them that "you're the main reason I'm discouraged about my art/writing/music now", they respond with things like "when did I ever do that?". They also use technicalities of language like "that wasn't an insult, I just meant [literal meaning]", and I know answering with "it was the tone that made it an insult" is something I cannot back up with evidence. They know it. Or maybe I am overreacting. Am I? I'm not sure anymore.

Imagine having to put up with this half your life. And all while you've got an interest in your work that's too great to sacrifice for a few critics. I mean...I'd probably have given up my art if I hadn't had lots of interest in it AND friends who told me my work was actually worth something...

But yeah, I think the root of the problem is the fact that I've received lots and lots of criticism and little praise from the people I thought I could most trust in the world.

Excuse me if this has made me cynical about praise and compliments, and if I find it really hard to be proud of my work now. And if I overreact to criticism. And if I insist on being "the best", which is obviously just an abstraction but which has become an overbearing desire--need in my life.

(Yeah you can make Pokemon Master jokes if you want.)

But I don't know, I really need help. First maybe if you could phrase your criticism nicely...and maybe warn me before you give it. It's triggering. It's triggering. And if you could...maybe address the fact that I have a low self esteem when I seem to reject your compliments. Instead of making me feel as if I'm committing a crime by being unable to accept it. I mean...I know, it makes me look like a douche when I refute your compliments, but I mean...I don't do it because I hate you or because I hate compliments. It's mostly because I feel guilty for accepting compliments.

And also if I act up out of jealousy or insecurity, well...I guess this is the reason I wrote this blogpost too. I'm not trying to be cruel or mean. I'm just really, mortally afraid of being second best, possibly because I spent my entire life having my work compared to people I'd never met before. And I'm trying to ease myself out of this state. And it's taking so long and I don't think it's the sort of thing that's solved with an epiphany.

Yeah.

It's night. I'm rambling.

I was thinking about my disinterest in precaution. Often I come upon a post on any of various social media platforms regarding information that could well be vital to survival in a given dangerous situation. Or sometimes I am offered advice by a source of greater repute (and officialness?) such as a fussy parent or a teacher giving warnings, and I barely pay attention even knowing it could save my life.

People observing my dismissal, possibly even the post/nagger him/herself, would probably tell me off by saying something along the lines of  "You never know when this information might save your life!" And I wonder, indeed, if it would be nice to someday, possibly, tell the fable of how I survived a near-death event through my extensive reading alone. Answer's no.

I just realised it's because I really don't care. I'm not enticed by the prospect of being "the lucky one who survived because she read an online guide in the past". Even if, by not paying attention, I'm effectively dismissing a chance to decrease the likelihood of my death by unnatural means. Somehow the alleviation of hazardous threat isn't worth the extra time it will take. It's a small and insignificant exchange and I'm probably contemplating it only because it's 1:30 a.m., but it's one I can't even be bothered to make. Says something about how and how much I value my life, doesn't it.

I suppose it can't be avoided

I still get crushes on my friends, on and off, but because I'm attached, no one will ever ask--no one would dare, most likely--and I'm glad they don't. I'm ashamed of the fact that I continue to be infatuated with friends, even faintly, though I know it's natural and inevitable. There will always be people I find attractive.

I suppose it is consolation enough that I do not consider most of them viable for consideration in a relationship. But one or two actually are in my eyes, and they're the ones who make me wonder. Of course I'm aware they do not present better options, but I can't help but wonder, and imagine. That's what people of my personality and experience do. I write, of course I wonder.

on my appearance

I think most people who know anything about me would know I don't care how I look. Or rather, I make a conscious choice not to care. A sidetrack: I think this has to do with the fact that I have always hated everything associated with "girliness". Obviously that included caring about my appearance. Alongside dresses, gossip, expressing interest in males, cookery, needlework, female-targeted fiction, and a whole lot of other things. All the habits stuck fast.

But anyway, I'm just thinking about it because I've received lots of comments on my appearance that are in conflict with each other. Some people think I'm one of the ugliest girls they've ever seen, others say I am "kind of" pretty (and I suppose this has something to do with the fact that I'm always a mess and have done nothing throughout my life to help how I look). For someone who doesn't actively investigate what others think of my appearance, this is faintly confusing. Oh well.

That post was kinda embarrassing.

conversation transcript

Like, this conversation made me really happy. I think I should be embarrassed. But this was a milestone. Sort of. And it made me happy.

hey, Aleigh, get on FB now

[PHOTO LINK]

huhuhuhuhu

21 minutes ago

What is this?

Oh, that is some...interesting material there.

Ruthenia does not seem much pleased to have seen it, though.

if you don't mind me saying, I think you're kind of attractive heh

I...am flattered to know that. Has it crossed you that that is perhaps a consequence of the fact that you created me?

yeah that's probably why ooops XD

Even so, thank you. I appreciate your compliment.

heee

>////<

So, seeing that you seem to know Ruthenia's mind, could I bother you with a question?

oh ok

What does she think of me?

hmmm

pretty much everything she's told you, actually

and also, she really really cares about you, like, way more than she does about anyone else in the world

except maybe her bro

bro?

Brother?

oh yeah

but then of course she sees her brother like once a year or something

yeah, she'd probably never tell you that lolol she's kinda embarrassed about the fact that she cares about people

Oh, that I know. Far too well. She is, in actuality, quite a lovely person. I think she hides it under a pretence of stoicism, though.

yeah hurr

you two are soooo cute XDDD

...thank you, ma'am. I appreciate that compliment. Whether or not Ruthenia will remains to be seen, though...

ok I think I should be going now

nice talking!
<3

I am glad to have entertained you sufficiently.

What means that pink shape, though?

ouh it's a heart

it means love...or something XD

in this case I guess it means, er, you're nice!

Oh, I am glad you think so, then.

Good night, Tessa.

I think I just made an enemy of my grandmother. But what can I do. I hate her. All I fear is that--seeing that she has power in the household--she will find ways to stick it to me. Maybe more chilli in the food or turning up the volume in the living room while I'm using the computer. Funny, that's how we communicate in my family.

Posting to Facebook: test

Hopefully this works :o

worry

I feel like one of my friends suddenly dislikes me. Everything she does seems to suggest so. It worries me. I think I might know what offended her, too. Damn it. I guess I'm just not a good friend for her.

Also, I'm sorry that everything on this blog has to be about my insecurities or anger because I have nothing much else worth writing about that doesn't go on one of my other blogs (writing, art, etc.).

I mean seriously. Do you really think I'd gladly put up with an hour-long conversation with you, a person I have never trusted? It's not that I can't think of more tactful ways to phrase "FUCK OFF" but it's not worth the energy.

It's not that I'm a person who keeps private information tightly cloistered in my mind. I just don't want to give you the impression that I trust you. You in particular.

SHUT UP SHUT UP I DON'T WANT TO TALK WITH YOU

GAAHHH TESSA DAMMIT JUST CLOSE THE WINDOW AND GO DO YOUR OWN STUFF. YOU DON'T HAVE TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE THEY STARTED TALKING. WHY CAN'T I WALK AWAY.

Oh god...this urge to punch her face out...why can't I put it under control, why.

Another dream, this one about learning superpowers

Last night I dreamt of being in a nice chain of open-air rooms looking like a modern condominium unit with lots more balconies and bridges. There was a strange convenience store-cum-trinket shop right at the middle of the chain of rooms and a balcony-corridor that went around the back overlooking some sort of forested area, just like the space beyond our backyard--except it was elevated relative to the forest.

There were deer and tigers about on the grounds, and a nearby park like Kent Ridge Park where I live, but down a hill instead of up.

Apparently my schoolmates and I were there to LEARN SUPERPOWERS. There was this catalogue at the convenience store with a list of tiered powers (e.g. tier one would be "heat", tier two became "fire" etc) and below each, the number of points you had to spend to gain each. So apparently I was in a game. Most of the tier one things cost 300 points and I recall from a previous dream that I have around 5000 (earned via some means I do not remember).

I spent half the time contemplating which to take--and the other half searching for flight-related powers because I was aware that I was in a dream and I really wanted to fly in-dream. Unfortunately flight was tier two and I'd have to gain high-speed/propulsion (whatever that is) before spending another 700 points to upgrade.

And I woke up before I could try it...bluh.

There was also a separate story arc relating to the tigers in the forest and relocating the deer before they were hunted down. That's when I went down the hill into the park (the place where the deer intended to move). There was also some kind of radio system thing and I think I had a "partner in training" who was male and wore glasses and we were working together on this quest. Apparently the other end of the condominium-room-system thing extended into a lake and I went there at twilight when the reflections on the surface were picturesque purple.

I blame a combination of Railgun, Homestuck, Revolving Door and Miyazaki.

I'm still ranked beneath, am I? I am, of course I am.

Dear diary, I just watched 19 episodes of anime today

And I don't even regret it. Because the anime was A Certain Scientific Railgun and I don't know, there's SO MUCH I love about it.

1) MIKOTO. I mean

BOOM there goes the car

BLAM yeah what were you saying?

WHOOPS I MIGHT HAVE LEFT A SCRATCH ON YOUR MECHA

I mean people this badass should need a registered certificate permitting their existence because they could damage some poor fan's heart.

2) THE WORLD. [shameless copy-paste from Facebook] The thing I find really appealing about the Raildex world is how 1) everyone 2) has a near-unique power 3) and an officially-determined skill level.

Normally in scifi/fantasy what you see is a narrow set of stock powers from which characters can choose (e.g. Avatar). Barring superhero fiction, of course, and you could say this is pretty similar to superhero fiction. But then superheroes tend to be the exception rather than the norm in their societies. What is REALLY refreshing about Index/Railgun is that powers are the common thing. They're TAUGHT. And level system is reminiscent of ranks and levels in games--but limiting it to 5 levels leaves enough ambiguity that they don't define a character's exact standing in terms of power, while still maintaining the weight they carry because they're determined via tests rather than speculatively-assigned.

3) I really REALLY like how it manages to discuss many issues of real world education systems despite being about a school for KEWL SUPERPOWERZ. Saten Ruiko's arc had me in tears for majority of it because she was basically lamenting her natural inability and the marginalisation it may have caused in a city that basically values academic standard over everything else.

Add.) Cool nicknames. aGHDG. I mean, Electromaster. Vector Change. Aero Hand. Judgment. Accelerator. Railgun. Mental Out. Heck, even "Dummy Check" is cool for something that makes people forget they saw you. Everything seems to have a nickname and for some reason that REALLY GETS ME ;A;

/this has been a gush post, second in a few days...

my very calmly-expressed thoughts regarding Homestuck

Never mind if this is inviting replies and those replies are going to affect my perception of the other 67% but *SCREEEEEAAAAAAM* It's been three days and I'm 33% of the way through Homestuck. OMG there are no words for it. JUST NONE. I mean there are moments during the story where I just need to lean back and laugh not because of the impeccable humour but because IT'S SO DAMN GOOD I DON'T BELIEVE I'M READING SOMETHING LIKE IT. It is unadulterated GENIUS!?!?!?@?1?#?#@# It's like everything awesome about scifi with a metafictional leaning ON STEROIDS. I am hysterical with adoration. AGRGHghGHDHFHSDF

JADE JADE JADE AJSKDHFASLF AAHKAGH WHY IS SHE SO AWESOME AND ROSE'S VERBAL ADROITNESS WHAAHFAS DAGAGHH AND ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS OK AGH

CUTES ALSO CUTE FRUITS AND CUTE BROWSERS AND CUTE POGO GHOST AND CUTE STABBED CROW AND CUTE TANGLE BUDDIES WHEAT

FDAJHFASHFAS  AVAEWRFWAEFDAF

GIVE ME A WEEK AND THEN YOU, FANDOM, CAN THROW EVERYTHING AT ME. I AM MORE THAN READY. I WAS BORN FOR THIS.

No, now my mind's just attacking itself. Of course you all can live without me, so why do I find it so hard to reconcile myself with the idea? You have lives to live and I'm no part of their fabric. I'm the seabed into which you once threw your anchor. You wrench it out now and it's left a gap, a wound, but you will sail away as if no commitment of that metal had ever been made. I'm just some sand to you. Never mind. It shouldn't matter. I've never taken well to being ignored. Being ignored.

Keep the rules. Keep them safe. Don’t be the blade in the fabric. Be a part in the machine.

But is it so wrong, to want to be a blade, to run off your rails?

self-absorption

I'm forever on the verge of saying things that would reveal me for my self-absorption, and I always decide against saying them. But I can't flee from what I know I am, can I?

apologies

I'm beginning to realise a lot of my posts make me sound like an idiot and a bitch. I tend to say strange things when I'm angry I guess...

My sister has such a huge ego I want to strangle her. Not the one who sings. But yeah I also want to strangle her when I hear her sing.

my Tumblr

I've partly migrated to http://for-analgesia.tumblr.com. I'm sentimentally attached to this blog of course, but most of what I post here will be doubled there. I like reblogging things, you see. There's a lot of material on Tumblr and it's easy to find. There's not much community here. The advantage of this place is that you don't know who reads, I suppose.

These two years have been so fraught with worry. I don't know why I can't just settle. Why do I keep thinking I may have made a wrong choice?

Am I undesirable? Am I doing something wrong? Am I bad company?

I need to stop talking about myself and nothing else. I want to be interested in other things, want it to be a route via which I can become better friends with others! I want to be less self-absorbed. What am I supposed to do?

Such is the life of the...creator? I love my own creations too much. And I bet I'm boring people with all my talk of myself. And they're just being polite. And smiling for me because they know what I'll do if they don't. How I'll react. I'm the weakest of the group, that's why they keep having to accommodate me, serve me, I don't want it to be this way.

I think I've always been bad company because all I can talk about are things no one else cares to hear about. And I guess it's time I realised that. I need to do some soul-searching.

Intermittent explosive disorder

"a. There must be several separate episodes of failure to restrain aggressive impulses that result in serious assaults against others or property destruction.

b. The degree of aggression expressed must be out of proportion to any provocation or other stressor prior to the incidents.

c. The behavior cannot be accounted for by another mental disorder, substance abuse, medication side effects, or such general medical conditions as epilepsy or head injuries."

I am most sure that I suffer from this. I have caused harm to people for the tiniest of reasons. As a child I used to beat my siblings up when they upset me. I have destroyed things, injured myself and attempted to injure others, out of blind rage--teachers changing the melody to a song I wrote, scoring a deserved 45% on an examination, mother insisting I apply to a university course I have little interest in. I have torn up exam papers and tutorials, notes; I have thrown things at teachers and friends. That time with the university course, I hit my mother. Once I threw a soft drink can into the bin over someone's head, and the person scolded me for it--I think I tried to strangle someone out of anger at that, and that someone wasn't the person who scolded me. In fact it was someone I care much about...

I imagine worse things, but of course I fear for my life and my criminal record and I will never do them. I can't say much about frequency (what is considered frequent?) but these moods seize me at least once every day or two days.

Narcissistic personality disorder

"A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:

1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):

a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.

b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.

AND

2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):

a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.

b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others' experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:

1. Antagonism, characterized by:

a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.


b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking."


I am afraid to believe I experience this. I want to insist I do not think so highly to myself, that it is not abnormal. Yet the more I read of the symptoms, the more I realise it resembles exactly my situation.

A lot of what I'm about to say is likely to ruin any good impression anyone ever had of me. If ever. Some of it will make me look like a complete jerk. But I'll put it somewhere since admitting it is always the first step to solving it.

Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation - I never realised it was a problem. But I guess it always was a problem, whether or not I realised. I will not be pleased about a work unless it's praised heavily. Or. I will be pleased about it until I upload it somewhere and there is a dearth of response. Why does no one like it? I will ask myself. Because it's bad. Will always be my conclusion. Something is bad as long as no one likes it. I share my writing so there can be people to love it, and when they love it then I love it, or then I am satisfied. If they don't it sucks. I suck.

Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional - I was never satisfied by good scores unless I topped the class. If I cannot top a class, I do not work at all because then I will have the excuse "I was lazy". But even when I could top the class, the pressure was crushing. I missed entire lessons in the weeks before exams to cry in toilets, fearing my inability to stay at the top. I needed to be the best. I need to be the best. I cannot settle for less. I don't want this to be. When I look at my friends' artwork and realise they have garnered a lot of positive feedback, I get angry, I convince myself my work is better, I try to find every fault I can find. I want to mock it in front of them. But I cannot because the rest of me is afraid they will start hating me. I once suffered a panic attack when I saw a piece of art by a friend that I was so angry to be impressed by. I feel like such a jerk for it. But I feel a driving urge to be better. At something at least. At everything if I could.

Now because I cannot handle it I simply avoid people who might trigger a sense of inferiority in me, or a need to assert superiority. The fact is that my only coping strategy was to block the posts of friends on Facebook who upload their art. Because if I find it I know what I'll inevitably do. Convince myself I do art better. Write better. Because I'm just so damn insecure about my ability. I don't know if I am good. I need someone to tell me I am.

Excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self - I have self-injured because of criticism. Or mere disinterest. I cannot take negative response. The smallest hint of discontent becomes a destructive rampaging monster in my mind. It tears up any pride I had for the work I have just done, worse if there was a lot of pride. Or hope. I feel as if a work was a failure as long as someone disliked something about it. Even valid criticism crushes me. It's the same reason I am afraid to put things up for judgment in competitions or performances. I argued with the teacher for exemption from a competition he wanted me to enter. I want it to be loved; I want me to be loved.

I wonder if this is born of the belief that I am special, which my parents ingrained in me from youth. Or to do with how my sisters bullied me as a child. I see them currently repeating the process with Christa; it is destroying me inside but I have not the right words to stop them, not when they're enjoying themselves. I wonder if they suffer their own disorder. Why enjoy the humiliation and suffering of another? I can see them changing Christa's personality. She's bitter and materialistic. She's only 8.

Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others' experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain - I think so. I think I feel no attachment to a friendship in which the other party is not interested in me and in my work. When we converse, I am likely to steer it towards myself or my work. I always knew it was a problem and I have always felt bad about it but somehow I have interest in discussing little else, and this may explain it.

Phobia

"A: Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood)

B: Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed panic attack. Note: In children, the anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging

C: The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. Note: In children, this feature may be absent

D: The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress

E: The avoidance, anxious anticipation or distress in the feared situation(s) interferes significantly with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic functioning), or social activities or relationships, or there is marked distress about having the phobia"


A common one. I guess everyone has one or another but I'll have it here anyway because I'm reading.

Trypanophobia, fear of hypodermic needles and things generally made to puncture skin. I know I begged my parents to arrange for me to be generally anaesthesised for vaccination/to administer it at home while I was asleep. I ran away from the health checkup just so I didn't have to take the injection. I cried and two teachers had to pin me to the chair/hug me before they managed to get the needle in. Thinking of needles makes me feel faint and breathless. I think this comes from imagining the needle breaking skin and pumping liquid into me...I feel dizzy imagining it.

Genophobia, fear of sex. I had to be excused from biology lessons with videos of the act of sexual intercourse because I panicked. I still fear intimacy and grow withdrawn when I experience extreme intimacy with the person I'm in a relationship with. It is an obstacle I have had to face in my relationship.

Tokophobia, fear of pregnancy. Was excused from biology lessons with videos of that sort as well, for the same reason. I refuse to be a mother.

Mysophobia, fear of dirt and disease. Not so much dirt. I avoid being near even close friends when they are sick and sometimes arrange not to meet them just to avoid falling sick. I hold my breath when I am around sick people; I try to leave as soon as possible. I have panic attacks imagining the pathogens lurking everywhere.

Er...phobia of caterpillars. Panic attacks seeing them. Pictures of them garner an intense fear response as well.

My mind

I am starting to discover I have (a) mental disorder(s). Reading up now. Doing a self-diagnosis because professional diagnosis may cost and I know my parents won't want to pay. I will update.

The more we talk, the less I like you.

unhealthy(?) dreaming

I think I dream of beating people up a lot more often than a normal person ought to. It's always a really sluggish and infuriating process in dreams though. Your blows always never hit as fast as you want them. As if you were doing everything underwater.

worlds opening

I'm realising I really dislike being one who follows--a mere rider of trends.

I want to make the trends. I want to start things. I want to give them what no one's imagined before.

I say I hate being a leader; really I want to lead as the spark, not the wind that fans the flames.

The yoke of obligation off my shoulders at last, I find the world seems so much wider! I am no longer insecure; I embrace respect for my fellows; I feel powerful! I should rest now, rest more because the waking hours are more precious than before.

I think so

I really think she hates me. I really think you hate me. And I feel there's nothing I can do to change that fact, not now.

KING OF ANYTHING

For the hundredth time, yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR7-AUmiNcA

Lyrics!

nerves?

Truth is, I think I'm going to be angry with myself if I get any less than straight A's (barring the B/C for math, which I won't mind much). Not because I feel that's what I deserve, but because that's what I know I am capable of.

We all know how it feels to discover you've direly underperformed in something you were so certain you'd succeed in. But we know also the ecstasy of unprecedented success. And we fear that embracing hope of the latter will bare us to the siege of the former.

I hate you! You're sending all the wrong messages. You think it will impress me, is that wrong? It doesn't. You're coming across as an arrogant ass.

I have changed a whole lot since entering RJ. I don't care as much for the feelings of others. I am more jealous. More ambitious. I lie and pretend for things I want. And above all I have grown so, so selfish. So insufferably selfish.

It feels so unwholesome, living this way. This is not a person I enjoy being. Yet it's who I have become, so what's poisoning me?

I want to write this while I'm still aware, because I suspect that very soon it will swallow me and I won't even remember that I was different before.

Is this merely growing up? Or has something happened to change me unnaturally?

Btw

It reads like a Taiwanese Soap Opera! But with attractive, beautifully-drawn anime characters instead of...dunno, live actors. Rich families, power struggles, manipulation, marriage, divorce, parental death, interfering matriarchs. Plus a high school host club.

I just finished Ouran High School Host Club.

It was about time I got myself a new favourite anime/manga series. Now its 8.7 rating is not surprising at all. This one tops both lists. The anime (and probably what has projected its popular image) is a brilliant parody comedy with awesomely-developed characters, yes--but the manga (chapter 40 onward, as forumers have said) has the meat. If I hadn't been so sleepy I'd have wept through majority of the last twenty manga chapters.

Perhaps part of me is a hopeless sucker for the reader-wish fulfillment. For much of the time I was reading, I was imagining it from the POV of the female lead. But hey. It's damn good entertainment. You deserve to have it once in a while, don't you? (This is something the manga does like to explore--deserving goodness, earning goodness. No surprise that the climb to the climax was heart-stopping and actually literally had me gasping in my seat--without there being any action!!) Fiction is a salve for living in a world that's duller than we want to admit to ourselves.

I'd recommend this series to anyone. Even those outside the target demographic, if they won't mind skipping the non-plotty chapters dedicated to the teen girls for which it's written xD though, paying attention to the state of things in Ouran Academy and minor characters does pay with interest. Everything--including many surprisingly small details--returns in a powerful way if you sufficiently soaked up and revelled in the richness of the character development throughout the series.

This is for: those who like opulent settings and rich guys. Romance fans.
This is not for: those who dislike emotionally-charged (sometimes -heavy) plotlines.

Trope page time~ fittingly since what compelled me to read it was this page...seriously. Though I guess the signs were piling too (if signs are to be believed): in the past month alone it has been mentioned by 1) a deviantART friend while we were squeeing over a Wreck-It Ralph character, 2) a Facebook friend commenting on a status about another anime, 3) every single TV Tropes page I visited last weekend and 4) a random forum post I stumbled upon searching for posts about another character.

Gagghaghghgahh (fangirl incoherence)

Just picked up Ouran High School Host Club yesterday, and damnnn has it been a ride. As you can see it is two-something. I was watching till half an hour ago. I now have 9/26 episodes to go. Never before has any anime drawn such obsessive watchig from me! I swear!

Goodness, have I mentioned how I love stories of rich people set in opulent environments? And just--the LEADS. Aaagahhghgghh they are both such appealing characters...so much fun to watch...and I really couldn't help but root for them the instant the right clues were dropped (which were pretty blatant and which appeared within the first episode already).

It's QUITE a change after watching so many male-oriented "harem"-containing anime in a row (CLANNAD, Asura Cryin', Haruhi), though I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other. For one, the male-oriented fanservice there became female-oriented fanservice here. Not to mention the...very obvious shift in gender ratios.

Only issue now being that, as I just discovered, the anime aired when the manga series (original) hadn't ceased publication yet. In fact it went on for a whole four years after publication. So now there's an 80% chance that the writers didn't give it a filler ending and that it will essentially NOT END

T_T

I WILL ATTACK THE MANGA THEN. But probably not till after OTDOTS (whose last chapter now stands at about 40,000 words and of which about one quarter remains to be written).

(P.S. HARUHI X TAMAKI. I haven't shipped anything so hard for...EVER. It has ALL MY FEELS)