This milk is bananas

So I've been browsing YouTube videos, and I keep running into this commercial. It's SO CATCHY!!!! And I've been watching/listening to it for a while now. It's in my head, and I'm even listening to it as I'm writing this post. It got an upbeat to it that give a little fun in my day XD

Speaking of milk. I am beginning to swear off milk and any dairy product.

Why? Because it's scary, disgusting, and unhealthy. I know, right, it's completely opposite to what the milk industry told us. Who would have thought doctors have been telling you the wrong thing?

Growing up in Viet Nam, drinking milk every day isn't a thing. I don't exactly go without milk, as I eat yogurt and have condensed milk now and then, but milk in a gallon or dairy products aren't a daily staple, and I have never eaten cheese prior to moving to the States. Again, it's not that it's because we don't have them, we do, but dairy products are a luxury, not a necessity.

Normally, an average family will consume more vegetable, fish, and fruit more than meat. And don't forget rice. Why? Because in Viet Nam, vegetables and fruits (some of them) are generally so much cheaper than meat. How much cheaper? Think $1 for 1 kilogram of vegetable vs $10 for 1 kilogram of meat. Fishes are usually $2/3 a kilogram, and fruits are anywhere from $1-$5 a kilogram; and Viet Nam is a poor country, so yeah, you can see why meat is a luxury. It also make sense why we're so much more healthier than meat eaters :) We have so much variety of fruits and vegetable that it's easy to live on cheap vegetable and fruits and still gets all the necessary nutrition, and even sometimes more.

As for milk, like I said, Viet Nam is a poor country, we don't really have fridges to store food for another day or week, so we can't just have a gallon of milk laying around. When I was growing up, my Mom would occasionally splurge and bought my sister and I to a big, fancy market (big and fancy for poor Vietnamese, but those markets are generally just the normal Meijer and Walmart to Westerner), and bought us a pint of fresh milk. It usually cost her about $4 for that pint, so we only get to have it about one every week or so. What is more the norm is condensed milk, and the can of condensed milk cost about $2/3 for one, and we uses it to make Vietnamese Coffee, a most wonderful concoction :) And occasionally, when my sister and I got sick, Mom would make hot condense milk drink for us (2 tbsp condensed milk with 8 ounces of boiling water). And another rare treat would be yogurt. But it's not the rich, creamy yogurt you westerners are used to, Vietnamese yogurt (or Da Ua) is very thin in texture, and it's mostly sweet with the crunchiness of ice (as it's mostly water, think watered down ice cream), and our ice cream is similar to our yogurt, sugar and water with food coloring and then freeze, so yeah, the rich and creamy texture of western yogurt and ice cream is not something an average Vietnamese person would ever get exposed to.

Asians rarely consumed dairy products is because we have no need of it. As babies, we would drink our mother's milk and gets weaned around 1 or 2 years old, then from that point on we don't really need milk, as Vetnamese diet are rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, fishes and lots of herbs and spices (again, because they're extremely cheap and much more available than meat). With its tropical climate, fruits and vegetables are so easy to grow, hence it's much more affordable to a normal Vietnamese family, though it had changed in recent years, as I went back for a visit sometimes around 2008, and the price of a kilogram of vegetable is around $22 in Vietnamese currency, due to the tourists that had now become the source of income for Vietnamese people).

Food in Vietnamese culture have been influenced over hundreds of years, but it enriched our food cultivation instead of drowning out our history, and we're very creative when it comes to cooking food and making do with what we have. There's so many ways of making a meal, and I remember having so much variety of food types when I was growing up (my Mom is such an accomplished cook), though like I said, our diet are mostly vegetable and fruits and many type of fishes. Soups are somewhat a stable in my family's meals (it's so easy to cook: prepare the veggies, boil water, throw them in with seasoning and you're done, plus it helps picky eater like me washes down dry dishes), and in fact, I preferred soups with my meals, because it enhanced the flavor of rice, and helps me eat faster (soupy rice goes down the throat easier without much chewing XD I know it's bad for your tummy, but I was a kid, ok? Not to mention, my stomach is strong because of it).

I remember growing up, having 1 meat dish a day is already a lot, and with how expensive it was back then, my Mom had to work a lot to make enough money to feed my sister and I; and the both of us have bottomless stomach. I would ate the normal 3 meals, then have snacks constantly between the meals, and was still hungry. Despite how much my sister and I ate, we were scrawny little things, with bones and skin. You'd think our mother doesn't feed us, but we ate almost all hours of the day. Mom used to joke the only time our mouths wasn't busy chewing is when we sleep.

So yeah, with how expensive dairy product is, it's rare for us to have it. But we don't need it, because as you know, Asian people live a long life, with strong constitution, and being sick is rare for us (beside the common cold), with beautiful skin and hair, and we look younger than our age. All that without milk. So maybe you should be rethinking about chugging down that glass of milk, eh, eh ;) ;)

Dairy in Asian isn't a normal occurrence, not to mention sometimes it's view as a weakness (there's an insult to grown people about their breath still smelling of mother's milk = weakling, wet behind the ears. Yeah, we Asian are long winded with our hinted insults xD We tend to not tell you straight out that you sucks :P)

Historical timeline of milk doesn't say much about dairy in Asian culture (except India), because to us Asian, cows are farming animals, and if it give birth to baby cows, it means the income/labor force is increased once the baby cow grow up = we don't mess with the baby cow's milk source. And we generally don't drink cow's milk is, well, because exactly that, it's cow's milk xD

Most Vietnamese people drink water, or rice drinks (this is also how mothers who doesn't produce enough milk feed their babies in my country, by cooking rice with extra water, and feed the baby with this mixture, it's very nutritious and will be covered in another post), and thanks to tea culture introduced to us by China, we either have iced or hot tea in addition to water :)

I remember when I was growing up, I was a very healthy child, albeit very scrawny. I rarely got sick, and I ate a very healthy diet. I misses the meals from back then, the variety of fruit and vegetables, and the thousands of different dishes that came from that. I misses the food the most living in America, because despite the oriental markets that is all around, there isn't as many ingredients as I used to have (well, duh!), and they're quite expensive ($3 for a measly 2 ounces of Vietnamese herbs). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my life here, it's the food that I misses the most XD Well, I do have a bottomless stomach after all :P

But yeah, Asian cultures have been doing fine without milk, until the introduction of westerners, and even so we don't actually have much to do with milk, and we're still fine. What I want to do most is to be informed about the products that I put in and on my body, and I'm glad that with today's technology and widespread of information, I can do that easier than the previous generation. I hope you'll be able to do the same, because knowledge is power, and you have the ability to get that kind of power easily :) Eat healthy, my friends, because you deserved to be taken care of, by you!

Borderline Personality Disorder

Getting diagnosed with BPD was, like my previous post said, both a relief and a source of worry. I saw myself fluctuation with great frequency between opposite spectrum of emotions, and it's a relief to know that it wasn't of my imagination. That I wasn't defected in the way that I thought I was.

Everybody have their own insecurities, and feelings different emotions at once, but BPD suffers worse than that. It's a mental disorder, and I'm still conflict with myself knowing that I have a faulty brain, but it helps in knowing to keep watch on myself and understand the reason why I felt and behave the way I do.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, BPD accurate name for the illness, and actually is misleading, BPD doesn't have an actual name for it yet, as it is still relatively not widely known, despite numbering 1 in 150 people estimated to have BPD. I've been reading a lot of articles about BPD, and it seems that the world either thinks BPD sufferers are either poor victims who needs lots of understanding and care, or BPD was born evil.

A lot of people thinks BPD are crazy, and does not want to tolerate BPD's misbehaviors, and That person with BPD intentionally manipulate you because they're insecure, and they often have bad relationships, and they have a progression of how the relationship evolves.

Loving someone with BPD is a roller coaster ride, and not many people have the strength or will to be able to do it. Knowing this, I understand why - when I look back - I pushes people away. I was scared of them getting to know me, and I felt that they cannot handle me.

To explain it in further details, BPD is emotional PTSD, to which a person have trouble with controlling their emotions and feelings and it affects how they think and act.

This list is copied from Dual Diagnosis, and I put in my answers to these things:

The DMS-IV outlines nine symptoms that identify borderline personality disorder. In order to be diagnosed by a mental health care profession, one needs to be at least 18 years of age and exhibit five or more of the following symptoms:

• Extreme reactions to real or perceived abandonment. The feeling of being abandoned is perhaps one of the most indicative markers of borderline personality disorder. Whether real or imagined, a person suffering from BPD may show intense, often inappropriate, reactions when he/she feels abandoned. (This is true, for when I perceived that someone I love wanted to leave me, I would have anxiety attacks, beg and cry, anything to keep them with me.)

• Torrid relationships. A person with borderline personality disorder often has intense emotions about friends and others close to him/her, in particular lovers or caretakers, which may correlate to fear of abandonment. Feelings may constitute extreme love (idealization) or hate (devaluation) and are subject to change without notice or predicating event. People with BPD may also seem overly reliant or dependent upon friends, lovers, or family members. (Hard relationships, yes, when I either relied upon them completely, or tried to do everything on my own.)

• Distorted self-image. Often feeling like he/she is “bad” or “evil,” a person with BPD may show signs of low self-worth or value. This disturbance in perceived identity is frequently negative or pessimistic and can shift suddenly. For example, someone with BPD may have extreme feelings about how they are unloved or worthless triggered by an event in which a friend is five minutes late for a lunch date. (This applied. I've always have a thought/feeling that I'm a terrible existence, that I'm a poisonous person, completely evil through and through, the worst human have to offer.)

• Impulsive or dangerous behavior. Impulsive or risky behavior often includes sex, substance abuse, binges, or charging a lot of money on credit cards. These behaviors are often considered to be dangerously impulsive and can put oneself or others at risk. (Impulsive, yes, as I completely get absorbed into doing something, like chasing down a 'perfect' wine when I saw an ad; but never have I been promiscuous nor abused substances like the thing suggested.)

• Recurring suicidal thoughts. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that living with BPD can manifest into destructive behavior, such as self-harm (cutting) or suicide attempt. (All my life, I've felt like the world would be a better place without me. I felt happy imagining how beautiful the world would be, and how free I am if I don't exist. I have only three times thought of killing myself, but the thought of I shouldn't exists was always in the back of my mind.)

• Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom. Those suffering from BPD may often feel disillusioned or unfulfilled with their places in life. (The emptiness scares me. This black hole I felt in me that I didn't understand and didn't know how to deal with. This black void that threatened to swallow me whole and reduced me to an empty body. It has been with me for so long.)

• Inappropriate anger. Referring to the earlier example about a lunch date, a person with BPD may yell at a friend for being late. It’s possible that, going to back to unstable relationships, he/she may immediately switch feelings about that person and illustrate devaluation as a result. (I experience this often with my parents, whom I would suddenly have an intense rage whenever I hear their voice or see them, and I felt like I would explode whenever that anger comes on. It's understandable, since they were the ones that the beatings came from when I was growing up.)

• Intense and highly unstable moods. Those with BPD often display unpredictable and erratic behavior as the result of varying moods. (Yep. I swing from extremely happy and sociable one moment and then 'leave the the hick alone' the next.)

• Stress-related paranoia or dissociative symptoms. This symptom is marked by a loss of reality or perception. (I daydream a lot, and often time feels like I'm barely there in body.)

I now operate on three mode: feelings everything under the sun, feeling nothing at all (the empty vessels that barely function), and (what I'm trying to cultivate) is feeling overwhelmed with so much feelings, but a little detached while trying to understand and processing those emotions and thoughts.

BPD attitudes can range from everything is their fault to everything is your fault. It is not intentionally, or a mean to manipulate you, it's just our way to trying to live up to a 'normal' standards, and feeling like we have to have an answer for everything, even if that answer was wrong, but it's the best one we can find at the moment.

Personally, my life is a rainbow, without the appreciation for the beautiful colors that no one have a name or description of. I confuses myself on a daily basics, and my goal is 'conquer the world' in one moment that changes into 'I want to go to the moon NOW'. It's exhausting trying to keep up being me.

Relationship with BPD are complicated, and unpredictable. It's how people are attracted to us, because we're exciting, but it is a wear and tear ride that not many can continues. We're extremely smart, and we have a way with people, but often it's how we want to be alone: because people see the happy mask, and they didn't see the person underneath crying their heart out. It's exhausting to have the mask in place, and we usually want to be in our shell, being protected from others and protecting others from ourselves.

We are crazy, but we do love deeply, and the reason we're so caring is because we do not want others to feel the same pain we do.

I've always felt this way, but my diagnosis was only recently. I have a long way to go to overcome this, but it felt tremendously good that I am aware of this, that I am aware of myself. And it's been so helpful in knowing that this can go away with work. I'm determined to be the best that I am, and I know that I am worth it.

An open letter to Non-BPDs

Getting involve with myself

I've always been a private person, so it's hard for me to open up. On the outside, I'm a sociable and nice person, easy to talk to and I laugh a lot, but not many people knows the person inside. More often than not, I feel trapped behind my mask.

Growing up in a traditional and strict family, I've never had a chance to learn how to express myself. It's always about being nice, being what others deemed 'good', and pleasing others so as not to embarrassed my family. It's always about making it so that others will look at our family and say "you have good children", or "you've taught your kids well", so I guess it's not really a surprised that I learned to bury everything inside and came across as a 'happy' person to the people I've met. I have acquaintances, and people that I enjoy spending time with, but I can count fewer than five the people I've opened myself to. The number is 4, to be exact, and even then they don't really know all of me. It's like I'm condition to not let anybody close. I automatically veered somewhere else when someone gets close enough, an instinct to shield myself, and even worse: the need to protect those people so they do not get hurt by me. I've always feel that I'm a terrible person, that my existence brings pain to the people around me. I've always felt that in me exist a black void that will swallow anyone coming close. I'm being melodramatic, I know, but it felt like eventually, I'll poison everyone within reaching distance. So I preferred to be alone. I closed myself off whenever socializing turn into making friends, I flinch away from any detail about myself and my life, I get good at changing the subject, and I'm good at putting the focus on the other person.

As I gets older, I keep experiencing conflicting feelings. I love to have friends, doing fun things, and live life to the fullest, but I hate getting close to the people and letting them know me. I have hermit tendencies whence I can barely stand to go outside, yet I have the deepest urge to go out and do things and be outside of these familiar four walls. For the longest time, I didn't realized I was experiencing depression. I think myself a weird person for not being able to understand the basic human emotions sometimes. It's like I'm so private that I don't even know my own thoughts and feelings. It's scary.

Being an Earth Dragon, I have grandiose ideas, and the feeling/thinking that I'm invincible and that I can do anything and everything; yet I'm restricted by my own inability to function like a normal person, and it gets so frustrating. Then I would look down on myself, the vicious cycle of beating myself up and feeling worse about myself would make it so that I only goes out of my room for food and personal hygiene. My room is my sanctuary, but I know I'm trapping myself in here instead of living a life that I've always dream of.

When I get diagnosed of Borderline Personality Disorder, I was both relieved and worry. Relieved that I finally get a name for this thing that is me, that I could research on it and understand it more; but I also got worried, because when I was growing up, not being 'normal' was a big stigma, and it affects my the other members of my family as well, and Asian society does not look kindly on those who have defects, be it mental or physical. Being in American society does help, but I do not like the fact that the doctors here is too happy to give out pills - I have an aversion to pills, both because of my upbringing, and because of my view on drugs that could alter a person's brain chemistry (excuse me if I'm skeptic of pills for depression that also make people more depressed and have suicidal intents). Also, having my own person experience of three different type of anti-depression, I'm not too keen on trying the fourth time.

One thing that I found that works for me, and soothes me is writing. I tend to write fiction a lot, and try to write a journal now and then. But I will always distract myself with something else, like new healthy ways to eat, makeup, crunchy way of living, and the biggest distractor: gaming. It would get so bad that I woke up and the first thing I do is jump on a computer and play for a bit before going to brush my teeth, and I would stay up until 7 in the morning to play game. I barely eat enough to have the strength to pull another nighter. Gaming distract me from real life. It's so easy devoted to gaming when there's a step-by-step to do list so I know what to do and where to go, and the NPC in the game is either your enemy or your friend, with very clear defined roles - and both your enemies and friends think you're the most amazing person that existed. I have no trouble while gaming, because with a few push of a button, and an easy multiple choice, I can obliterated evil and save the world. My character doesn't need to eat, my character doesn't need to sleep, my character make friends on her way to the next destination without efforts, friends that will always be there, my character can make a decision, then with a reload will be able to choose another option, and the only ones my character is hurting is the red name enemies, who is clearly evil and has no other purpose, so the choice is easy. And my character can change her appearance, and the world she lives in have beautiful, lush surroundings, and she can get there through a fast travel portal.

Through my character, I live through that dream world, and I neglected myself, my health, and those around me. I have told myself to love myself more, to do things that would make me happy. Playing game makes me happy, but it's a short fix, because I get tired, and my body doesn't take well to weeks of having little sleep. I also understand that it's not real happiness when I'm only happy for a few weeks, until my character gets good in a game, then the game became boring, and I went in search of another one to bury myself in. Sure, it's extremely fun, but I want a full life. I'm a nerd and a dork, but I also want to do stuffs that mean something to me, and playing game (I understand) is only a passion while it's distracting me. I want a lot more from me than this. And first, I have to learn to love myself, to actually taking care of myself as an adult. Taking care not only mean physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. I want to do more, and be all that I can be. I don't want gaming to distracting myself is all that I am. I want more. I want all of me.