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.
No comments:
Post a Comment