Wow, it's' really been long since I've updated about my life. And huge changes have happened during his hiatus that definitely changed the course of my life in future. Too many changes, I don't really know where to begin. Little by little I guess:

I took a Leave of Absence.

And it came and went.
I'm currently back in school again, a whole new me and a whole new beginning it feels like.

Maybe more about it in future posts.
Let's talk about the now. I like to live in the now, to remind myself to be in the moment every now and then. I was always living in the past before, and there was no space for Hope and Forgiveness and all things bright there.

My friend deleted her blog recently. And while I understand why, it still makes me a little sad. I must admit that I have also on and off moments thinking about shutting this blog down, since I'm pretty convinced that no one reads it haha. But I just can't bear to do it, so I will persist until a good reason comes along.

I've always been religiously reading her blog, much like a stalker haha. I will miss it, and I'm secretly scared inside. Thinking, now what? I will no longer have such easy access to what's happening in her life, I wonder if it will change anything about how our friendship works. Actually it's a silly question, isn't it? Of course it will change. I may have to put in more effort, to find out from her and get my updates periodically. Or, I may just end up slowly inching further and further away from her life. Previously a part of, an intersect but now separate. Friends turned strangers. Oddly familiar, but soberingly distant. What I choose to do now is important. And I will try my best.

I've also made the decision to sponsor a little girl from Uganda today. I feel so excited about it, and it was surely a more emotional and life changing decision than I had expected. To know that I can make such a big difference in another's life, I truly realize how giving can provide such joy more so than I usually experienced upon receiving. I look forward to getting mail from the organization soon and I will blog about its credibility and my experience soon.

Till the next post.

'Kindness should become the natural way of life, not the exception'

Dear Miss ED,

I don't really recall the exact moment when you entered into my life. Somehow, before I even realized what was going on and grasped the gravity of the situation, you had already become an important presence in my life. And slowly, you came to dominate not just my actions in the physical sense, but also mentally by influencing my thoughts, my behavior and my mind. Whenever I try to trace back and figure out why things have turned out the way they did, I always remember a little girl. A little greedy girl. She ate and ate because the food was so delicious, she couldn't help but spoon more and more of it into her mouth. Before the family went home, she went to the toilet. The stench of the toilet made her vomit the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. That sounds like a horrible experience right? Strangely, the night ended on a pleasant note. My mum, fearing that an empty stomach might make me hungry later in the night, bought me some more food to eat. And I remember thinking, how nice it was that I was able to taste and stomach more. More delicious tempting food.

Perhaps then, it was just an innocent thought. But the realization that I could eat and eat and eat beyond what my stomach can hold, combined with the fact that purging came easily and without discomfort, stuck with me since then and I believe laid down the stones for the path I eventually chose to take with you by my side.

In my primary, secondary and JC days, you were just a small voice that sometimes appeared when I was feeling sad and lonely. I felt comfort in you, but of course the larger part of me could tell that you were up to no good. So I kept you at bay, only allowing your approach in times when I couldn't cope and just needed a friend. Meanwhile, unknowingly I started to create the perfect foundation on which we could build our relationship upon. The building blocks of our relationship were made up of overwhelming negativity and self-criticism. You took in all the hurtful comments and chanted them incessantly in my mind. And for the longest time, I didn't realize that these voices came from you. Because of that, I believed them to be true. I thought that I knew myself, and I thought that since these thoughts came from within, they were without a doubt the undeniable truth about my own ugliness that others have yet to discover.

You took the steering wheel when I embarked into university life. I remember distinctly the focus on physical appearance. And I spent three months before I entered university, surviving on only fruit juice and soy milk at my temporary job. But I felt good about myself. And as I received more compliments, you urged me to continue and told me that it was the only way I could be well-liked as I try to recreate myself in this new chapter of my life.

The fasting stopped once I entered school, but you didn't let that stop you. Joining RAG dance made me feel happy because I never thought that I would be able to pull this off, or even better, excel in dance. After all, I was the kind of person who failed terribly in something as simple as mass dance during my secondary and JC days. But beneath the happiness, you started to convince me that I was standing out from the rest of the girls, and not in a good way. They were all so petite and slender, moving with grace while on the other hand I was like an elephant. Fat, clumsy and just looking like I don't belong. Moments after moments of me having such realizations (that actually came from you) made me feel like I needed to do something to stop myself from becoming fatter than I already was especially when I felt like I overate. The fear would sink its teeth into me, and I would quickly make a hasty retreat to the toilet and frantically purge out what I had just consumed. After which, I always felt relieved that I managed to remove food from my system before it got translated into widening waistlines, growing arms and expanding thighs. But there was also guilt which you used to your advantage. It was minute at first but accumulated at an exponential rate, this crippling guilt that I am now so familiar with. This behavior slowly gained rhythm and became a habit when it used to be only accidents that were few and far between. The more I engaged in it, the more I loathed myself. And more often than not, it would strike myself how much of a disgusting and pathetic girl I was.

Throughout the school year, bad things seemed to happen one after another. Like a steady stream of never ending blows that don't appear to be stopping any time soon. A one-sided crush, a broken friendship, bad grades, fighting with my sister. My problems seemed to escalate in severity as I slowly realized that my sister could be depressed. After she was diagnosed for a few months, my grandmother passed away from this world. Along with my problems, you became stronger and stronger and made yourself seem like the only support that I had in such tough times, the only constant in this sea of change. Blinded with the thought that I was still in control, I let you tighten your grip on me, twisting and distorting my views. I was the one who let you do this to me, and all the while I denied with all my might that this pair of handcuffs were cutting me bloody. Instead of chaining me to a support and preventing me from falling, it was slowly but surely draining my life away.

You may have thought that you had already won the battle. Luckily, I was starting to realize that something was very wrong. Perhaps my body just couldn't take it anymore. I started to feel more and more difficulty in purging. After a particularly bad case of heartburn in which my mum finally registered the significance of your presence, I began on the slippery road of seeking help. But things did not get better, and you continued to consume me from within every time I fell and cut myself bloody on the rocks. My fear of food, of you, and the constant struggle between the two faces inside of me made me tire. When I started on my 6 week long attachment at the retail pharmacy, this fear stopped me from eating, along with the fear of not being able to purge after a few unsuccessful attempts that happened. It was horrible, having to resign to fate that the food was just not going to come out. And I dreaded that feeling, where the food would feel like an alien being growing in my stomach, threatening to burst and split open my abdomen. I hated this feeling which was making me sick to my core.

So during the 6 weeks of working, I was happy because I wasn't bingeing. But little did I know that my troubles were far from over. I lost a significant amount of weight in a short period of time, because I only ate breakfast if I were to eat at all. My lowest weight was 47kg on the scale in my room and I would weigh myself so many times a day on all the scales in the house. It made me happy every time the number on the scales went down, and upset whenever it went up. The scales dictated my mood and my life. Everyone around me started showing signs of worry on their faces. I remember the fear in their faces whenever they looked at me, wondering how much more I would lose. These faces grated on me, and made my heart ache with pain even while I was euphoric about my weight and eager to lose more. This pain made me sober, and that was just enough to stop myself from becoming more and more like a ghost of who I was.

Still, the pain wasn't enough. While I tried to eat more, I could not control how much more. I binged eat my way back to my original weight, and my mood sunk lower with each gain in weight. I was back to square one. Doctors came and went, and I despaired of the possibility of ever getting out of this nightmare. Days were dark and these days dragged out longer and longer. My health started to fail me, dragging down with it my concentration and ability to focus in school. Tests and schoolwork began to snowball and overwhelm me completely, striking fear in me even before I ever got to starting any attempt to catch up with the rest of my peers. Everyday, I let tears wash my face and thoughts of death numb my pain. I could not see any path ahead of me, and every day I felt less and less alive as you grew more and more powerful.

So here I am now. In the end, I have had to take a leave of absence, so that I can fully concentrate on eliminating you from my life. To me, this is a heavy price to pay, but I believe it is a worthy price in order for me to survive. I had naively believed that you were my friend, but from the moment you appeared, you clouded my senses and planted a seed that grew as life rained on me, sapping me of energy and making my days without sunshine a never-ending bleakness.

I'm sorry but you have to go. I am tired of struggling, and it hurts that I have allowed you to grow so strong such that you could lash out at not only me but those I love around me as well. It hurts to the point that I could kill myself, just so that I'd be able to kill you as well and rid my family and friends of this wretched curse. But now I know, that you're not worth it after all.

So goodbye, miss ED. This is my chance, and it know that it is time to let go of you. You may raise a fit or throw a tantrum but know this, I will no longer let you define the person I am and the person I can be anymore.

I'm scared but I want to start my life again, a new face forward.

Goodbye forever
J

I'm sitting here in medicine library and I'm thinking to myself, what did I just do?
Today I ate:
Two slices of white bread. Y'know the gardenia enriched kinds. Knowing that it was unhealthy, white bread is pretty unhealthy. All the refined and processed grains are. And I knew that. But that was what I ate. Two slices, each coated thickly with margarine and packed full of raw sugar grains that I smother on the surface.

Then I ate:
One ba zhang. As I removed the slick outer wrapping, I felt the grease on my fingertips. And yet I still continues unwrapping, then proceeded to finish the whole damn thing. Fatty meat and all. Glutinous rice is very very difficult to throw up, been there done that and failed terribly.

Then I ate:
One Island Creamery mudpie, and one scoop of Apple Pie ice cream. Why? Why did you have to get out of the train at Botanic Gardens? Why did you have to walk over to Island Creamery and stuff yourself full with fatty milky thick clogging ice cream?

Then I ate:
One Salmon Brioche Eggs Ben at Coffee Bean. Thick and creamy scrambled egg. With a poached egg. And smoked salmon. And plentiful hollandaise sauce.
Then I ate:
One Salted Caramel and Tea cupcake. In secret. In hiding. Because I don't want anyone to see that I've yet again failed to control myself.

Then I think:
I don't ever wanna eat again.

And inside I laugh at myself. I scoff, I sneer, I smirk. Because I am weak.
And today might happen again

because I am weak.

I think, I may likely be able to skip dinner today. But tmr?

Tomorrow is another damned day, and I'll have to fight against biochemistry, my own body wanting to eat and me? I'm weak, powerless. And an utter and total failure.

I realised, I really don't wanna go home anymore. Because home is filled with temptations, some cereal here some bread there, and then let's take out some frozen stuff from the freezer to deep fry. Because I can and then I will, because I can't stop myself, that monster in me that just wants to eat and eat and eat. Eat myself to death.

But then I realised, looking at today, what is the difference? I can't hide anywhere, I have no respite, no shelter, no pause button that I can press. Everything in motion all at once, school, friends, family, and this fucking bitch of a disorder. And I try to hold all this weight on my shoulders, and face the world with a smile. But I'm tired. And I'm broken. I'm broken.

I know that I'm still able to hold myself back. Okay, maybe I don't know that but I think so. But sometimes, and more alarmingly these times are just growing and growing, I think I'm halfway there.

I'm halfway gone.

I don't know what to say anymore.

It's like someone stole the words from my mouth, before I start to speak. No.. it's way before that. The thoughts are plucked out from my mind just as they are about to form, and my tongue is like a flaccid mass of tissue, red raw tired useless.

I don't know anything anymore.

The only thing that comes pounding through, ringing clear, like the sound of a car crashing in a foggy night, is unabashed hatred.

I fucking hate myself.
I hate it so so much.

I hate you. I hate you.



Sometimes I don't know what to say anymore.
Then I think, if I should say anything anymore.

Now, I don't even want to say anything at all.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't loved. I wish that nobody cared about me. Then noone would feel my loss, because right now:

I wish I could disappear off the face of this planet.
I wish I could say goodbye.

Today I woke up, and I looked at my calender. Whenever the holidays are here, I realise that I never really keep track of the days. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays etc, all passing by in a blur. Not sure what possessed me to look at the calender, maybe some inner alarm clock pulling its hair out and ringing at the top of its lungs: NO TIME LEFT!

Damn, and I'm nowhere near completing my preceptorship report. What happened to 'I must finish the report 2 weeks after precep ends' ? Meh, I'm way too ambitious then hahaha because that was before holiday spirit set in comfortably in some corner of my brain, happily deleting all urgent agendas and motivation to do any serious sort of work.

School's starting real soon. And I don't even know what kinda mod I want to take zzz. Thinking about DSC2006, but I've been getting mixed reviews online so I'm not sure what to expect from this mod.

The Human Condition is a really interesting Korean variety TV show I've been watching. (Y)
Random.

I think I'm kinda all over the place at the moment. Hope that I'll be able to pick up all these scattered pieces in time, and gear up for the new sem. The future does not look rosy, that's for sure D:

But I think no matter what, we'll always make it through.

I'm definitely regressing. In my head, is an image of myself like some character out of a horror flick. You know which character I'm talking about. The one who's not the protagonist. Probably the best friend of the protagonist or maybe even the enemy. Who unfortunately is doomed to a bloody and merciless ending while the protagonist emerges (albeit bloody, dirty and unkempt) very much alive and triumphant over evil after the finale scene. In my imagination, I'm clawing desperately and digging my fingernails into the dark dirt, while some evil satanic creature/supernatural force refuses to release its grip on my ankle, and instead pulls me slowly and tortuously into a dark dark abyss. Typical scene heh.

Pretty melodramatic, Ikr. I think I'm kinda known for being overly dramatic sometimes haha.

It's a rather confusing period of time for me. School's starting. On one hand I kinda feel excited, but on the other hand, the cloud of doom lurks ominously above my head.

I have no idea if I will be able to cope with the new semester. I certainly hope I can, but I wouldn't put my money on hope.

So many things to do, yet so little time. Somewhere in me, I think I'm deliberately wasting time away like letting tap water drain continuously into the sink. Seeing it run, losing track of when it started running, how long it's been running and how much has run out. Maybe I can deceive myself a little more.

A little more time,
then maybe I will be alright.

New earworm: Everything Has Changed by Taylor Swift ft. Ed Sheeran! Quite surprising haha, I'm not usually a fan because most of the time I find myself being all skeptical when listening to the lyrics. But I guess the romantic in me hasn't completely died and withered yet haha.

Love Story is too much for me to handle though. -.-

It's really been a while, since I last blogged. Many things have happened since then! I've been to SGH, facing my problem. There, finally acknowledging that yes I do have a problem. And now I'm coming to realise, overcoming it might not be as easy as I used to think. But that doesn't mean that I'll give up. It's just such a struggle all the time, and I find myself stuck in the same pattern over and over.

Regardless, I still believe in brighter horizons ahead. So many things out there for me to experience, to live, to breathe, to feel alive.

I really want to go for summer school! Haha random thought.

Precep was really memorable for me. Tiring but really fulfilling, and I definitely enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Kinda missing it as well. But not really the mask wars. >:/ Heh, all those kiasu aunties stockpiling and acting like bitches and emo blackmailing me. What'll you do with all those masks now that the haze is now gone? Hopefully gone for good, though it might be temporary. I hope it's gone for good!

Helped out with rag the other day as well. Makes me really nostalgic thinking about all my experiences in uni haha.

Interesting note to myself: Why do you always dwell on how you were in the past? Sure, that makes up who you are. But it's only part of it. It doesn't define you forever or brand you with characteristics that you can't erase. Look at you now. Live in the now.

Open your eyes and see.
Everything has changed.