Log 3
[Personal Log]
I am so tired.
So tired-bone-weary, skin-stretched tight, bloodshot eyes tired. My family has fallen apart completely. We used to hold together so well while we’re in public, but now we don’t even have that façade. I am dealing with the loss of what could have been a close friend, and I worry for my little sister.
I don’t know what to do.
My depression and mania that I have managed to evade for so long is back, taunting me from the shadows only to disappear as I look over my shoulder. I am tired of parents that only say ‘I love you’ when you bring home good grades and high test scores. I am tired of my sanity being governed by avoidance of everything, and occasionally taking a handful of little white pills. But living in a hallucination is twice as painful-a lesson learned from former drug use that I have managed to hide and bury deep. My bones hurt, as if my skeleton is being pulled apart.
I wonder what life is like-true life. Life without a sociopath father, or a psychotic mother. A life where I am sane and capable of love and having friends and being a loving sister. A life where I don’t have to worry about manic depression.
…
I occasionally dream about perfect happiness.
But that’s a feeling I can only vaguely remember from times spent in that little house in Shangfeng, climbing that mountain named ‘Young Girl’s Wish’, and living in that tiny little apartment in Shanghai.
And all this? My life?
I have seen it played out in movies. Sick little fantasies played out by beautiful but tragic famous actresses who have never had to suffer a day in their charmed lives.
What do they know of being denied a parents’ love?
What do they know of having their mother attempt to kill herself in front of you?
What do they know of a father who expects you to be a mindless, pretty, little doll?
What do they know of having everything you love taken away, destroyed?
What do they know of the fear of losing their sanity?
What do they know of having to depend on foreign substances to maintain sanity?
They don’t.
They don’t know.
Oh… if someone were to read this, they would lock me up in a mental institution. Or at the very least, I would be discharged from Starfleet.
Funny.
There exists the sentiment that we have come a long way as a society, and that we are approaching a harmonious, educated, and open-minded utopian version of life.
But there are a few things in the way.
Instead of doing things the hard way and trying to understand the complexities of mental illnesses, of the suffering that people like me have gone through, of addiction, we prefer to push these issues away into the back of our prisons and the back of our minds. Even politicians are wary of such things, and stick to security and taxes in elections and debate.
But I try. I try to understand.
I spend every waking moment when I am alone picking apart my psyche, trying to understand every facet of my old addiction and my supposed mental illness, as it is called when a mind deviates from the norm.
What do I fear in myself? What do I have nightmares about? What am I most frightened about concerning these drugs, about my own sanity? Would I go back and change things?
I ask myself this. I question all of my old assumptions. It is painful. But I bear the pain of tearing open old wounds to stitch them up correctly. I know I am trying-even now, after so long. It is a painful, awful process. Some days I am okay, and some days I am not. Sometimes it seems like there are more of the latter than the former.
But I am trying.
And this fight with Charlene has helped me realize that I am far from being healed.
But I am trying.
I am so tired.
So tired-bone-weary, skin-stretched tight, bloodshot eyes tired. My family has fallen apart completely. We used to hold together so well while we’re in public, but now we don’t even have that façade. I am dealing with the loss of what could have been a close friend, and I worry for my little sister.
I don’t know what to do.
My depression and mania that I have managed to evade for so long is back, taunting me from the shadows only to disappear as I look over my shoulder. I am tired of parents that only say ‘I love you’ when you bring home good grades and high test scores. I am tired of my sanity being governed by avoidance of everything, and occasionally taking a handful of little white pills. But living in a hallucination is twice as painful-a lesson learned from former drug use that I have managed to hide and bury deep. My bones hurt, as if my skeleton is being pulled apart.
I wonder what life is like-true life. Life without a sociopath father, or a psychotic mother. A life where I am sane and capable of love and having friends and being a loving sister. A life where I don’t have to worry about manic depression.
…
I occasionally dream about perfect happiness.
But that’s a feeling I can only vaguely remember from times spent in that little house in Shangfeng, climbing that mountain named ‘Young Girl’s Wish’, and living in that tiny little apartment in Shanghai.
And all this? My life?
I have seen it played out in movies. Sick little fantasies played out by beautiful but tragic famous actresses who have never had to suffer a day in their charmed lives.
What do they know of being denied a parents’ love?
What do they know of having their mother attempt to kill herself in front of you?
What do they know of a father who expects you to be a mindless, pretty, little doll?
What do they know of having everything you love taken away, destroyed?
What do they know of the fear of losing their sanity?
What do they know of having to depend on foreign substances to maintain sanity?
They don’t.
They don’t know.
Oh… if someone were to read this, they would lock me up in a mental institution. Or at the very least, I would be discharged from Starfleet.
Funny.
There exists the sentiment that we have come a long way as a society, and that we are approaching a harmonious, educated, and open-minded utopian version of life.
But there are a few things in the way.
Instead of doing things the hard way and trying to understand the complexities of mental illnesses, of the suffering that people like me have gone through, of addiction, we prefer to push these issues away into the back of our prisons and the back of our minds. Even politicians are wary of such things, and stick to security and taxes in elections and debate.
But I try. I try to understand.
I spend every waking moment when I am alone picking apart my psyche, trying to understand every facet of my old addiction and my supposed mental illness, as it is called when a mind deviates from the norm.
What do I fear in myself? What do I have nightmares about? What am I most frightened about concerning these drugs, about my own sanity? Would I go back and change things?
I ask myself this. I question all of my old assumptions. It is painful. But I bear the pain of tearing open old wounds to stitch them up correctly. I know I am trying-even now, after so long. It is a painful, awful process. Some days I am okay, and some days I am not. Sometimes it seems like there are more of the latter than the former.
But I am trying.
And this fight with Charlene has helped me realize that I am far from being healed.
But I am trying.