The Woman Who Belongs To Nowhere (8)

Jangan kira, ketika digelapi

Kami mati, ketika dunia menghilang

Kami kehilangan kehidupan

Topeng-topeng tak berguna

Melupakan bukan jalan

Menyembunyikan bukan jawaban

Bersahabatlah dengan kami, bayang-bayangmu

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

As my previous post said, Bayang-Bayang Retak *there I said it* was that school anniversary drama that I wanted so badly to participate as in my stories before. Yes, it was that event that my dad had his hand to completely ruined my chance and the first time I experience, what, depression? On a high school student? Even then and now I would “you’ve gotta be shitting me”. I used to think I was that unfeminine and strong girl, there was no way I wanted to be weak. But then, I didn’t even know about it and I had no one to actually talk about my thoughts and feelings. Certainly not my parents who were the source of my distress or my sister-figure who got busy with his date nor my cousins who enjoyed priviledge and affections from my dad and my aunts nor my friends whom i got jealous because they were lucky to participate while I got stuck with my parents.

The drama was a story about humanities’ collective consciousness vs their subconsciousness (typical good vs evil, light vs dark, brain vs heart, jedi vs sith) with one side was influenced by the Devil. The orchestra and the choir was pretty awesome.

Yep, while looking for my old anatomy ebooks, suddenly I was overwhelmed by the thoughts of revisiting the songs from the drama, Scene 83 was the song which described the willingness to embraces weakness/darkness while Scene 87 was the song of the rejected darkness/subconsciousness arising. I definitely should make a post about that while still remembering the complete lyrics, the script was in my house, tho.

The last I left my post with the arising feelings of despair, hopelessness, loneliness which couldn’t be curbed by any other means. My housemate had successfully calmed me the first time about my growing and steady anxiety about being accepted into residency. However, there was this underlying emotions of fear that couldn’t be resolved and it was peaked again when I started to think about the future. I finally opened up to my housemate because I desperately needed help to calm my mind which began to spiral out of control. And fortunately, my housemate succeeded to calm me for a while before I started to overthink about completely anything else. By this time, I realized that I became a little bit dependent on her, which was comfortable and not comfortable. Comfortable because I finally had someone that I could trust, someone that understand me and can tell me the world and I are okay and I believe it. Uncomfortable because I knew this was temporary, that everything would come crushing down again, everything would be gone.

After I told my housemate about #everything, I got several tips on how I managed my feelings from my housemate. She even lent me a book by Thich Naht Hanh, How To Fight *my housemate asked it back to lend it to my senior, okay right, fine!*. My BFF also recommended some books to help me battling these, what, anxiety? Factfulness by Hans Rosling and Victor Frankl’s A Man’s Search for Meaning. My housemate also recommended Factfulness, she probably thought that I was on my edge because all that fear, worry, despair and hopelessness were from my own thought, and the book could help me to see that the world or the reality wasn’t as bad as I thought. So guys, if you have anxiety, overrhinking or depression, I really recommend the books that I mentioned before. Also, I went back to my hobby, which was reading novels and astrophysics books. Ahhh, it felt sooo great to read those stuffs again. *I probably should quit becoming a physician, took a degree on modern physics and went after my old flame and declared my no-longer-existent love to him, achieved Ph.D and won Nobel, perhaps*

Also, my housemate also recommended to listen to TED talks and started meditation. Or maybe after I saw how calm she was, I kind learnt how she managed to do that, several of them were listening to podcasts and meditation. So I started to do that. At first, I did the anapanasati meditation which take focus on breathing. I used to do this long time ago when I diligently went to temple every week during med school. Then, I tried vipasanna/mindfulness meditation. Although the meditation went good, but I couldn’t sleep at night because I was hyper aware of my feelings and my fears and the overthinking became a little intense, although it wasn’t as stressful as it used to be. I resolved to do meditation every day and guess what, it never materialized.

Trying to hold my breath, let it stay this way

Can’t let this moment ends

You set off a dream in me, getting louder now

Can’t you hear it echoing?

My favorite TED talks usually around about astrophysics, depression, mental health, anxiety, psychology and self help. I desperately wanted to help myself and not to dwell in a state I had been in the last 2-3 years. Then, peace went by and my feelings got more stabilized.

However, after a period of peace, I started to overthink again about entirely new stuffs. I was right, I started to think about I had no place to come back if I became a radiologist, but more so that someday I would be alone again fighting my own demon because there would come time to part with my housemate, who provided me with warm and comfort I never knew I craved all time. By this time, I noticed that every single time my senior visited us or my housemate was gone for her business, these kind of thinking pattern just like to burst out and causing moderate distress and insomnia. However, as a compensation, I felt more patience in front of the patients *although lashing out still happened twice or three times in a very uncooperative patients*. Even the nurses noticed my general mood had been improved and I told them my housemate helped me to resolve several personal issues.

Several next months, my general mood had been improved. At first, because my housemate birthday was coming up, I was excited *too excited, I thought* to gave her gifts. However, I didn’t to gift only, I wanted to give my gratitude to her, that I was deeply thankful for her help and I considered her my best friends, no, my sister. So I planned a series of birthday meals which spanned for several days, extending it past my own birthday since it was nothing too special. I questioned her several things about hobbies and things that I could predict what I could give her as a present(s). In the process, I found out that cooking had became my new hobby, aside from reading. I like cooking because i’m dying to try several food, but I’m also too curious to make several food which I know I don’t really prefer, but cooking and giving it to someone…it gave me peace, even for awhile.

Right, about my housemate, I just gave her a decent, partially failed meals on birthday occasion, no fancy cakes or selfies or whatever, because I wasn’t in favor of that kind of noise and also because I was numb to such festivities. Now, I think about it, I don’t even remember what I gave her or half of meals I cooked for her.

My mood continued to stabilize even further, there was nothing that triggered my anxiety. Then, as we entered my birthday, my housemate celebrated it with my coworkers being disguised as lunch, until I saw that hugeee birthday cake. Yeah, I wasn’t used to such kind of luxury. And for information, I spent the night before watching Avengers Infinity War so when Thanos clicked his fingers, it was on the moment that my life that crap 27 years snapped away. I initially planned to just relaxed in my own room, cooked meals and went to sleep. I just found out that I could watch Avengers Endgame since the digital was already available but due to some misunderstanding….never mind. I was late several second when Thanos clicked his fingers but yeah, just a practice before the upcoming new year. I hadn’t had the chance to do it last year due to new year eve night shift, but I WILL DEFINITELY DO IT THIS YEAR, MWUAHAHAHAHAHA!!

That birthday cake was biggg, chocolate cake covered with even more chocolate biscuits, not to mention we ordered some meals, in the end, I gave the remainder of the cake to the on duty nurses, GP and midwifes, and they all congratulated me. Although I used to think that my birthday was no longer special and I didn’t even want to acknowledge it, or congratulated myself, it just felt a nice change usual pace. Oh yeah, my BFF also gave me Factfulness hard cover and Captain Marvel’s Cinemags that I already forgotten about that and I gave her chinese tea pot because I promised myself to give her that as a token of gratitude for helping me during stressful time. Funny things that we miscalculated each other birthday. As a top of cherry, my senior called me to give me birthday greetings. I MEAN, WHAT!!!? No one, and I mean no one had ever done that before, aside from my parents. I was really happy.

My coworkers also had birthday in the same months so again my housemate and I planned to give her birthday cake and home cooked meals, and we did it successfully. It was on this time, I think, my housemate invited me to her wedding.

Although I knew it was coming from my overthinking the previous months, it still shocked me to the core. My biggest fear had been realized and the countdown to doom had been started. Trying to control my feelings, I asked about when she moved out. She said she didn’t know, probably on June or July but mostly waiting for the right time. I should had congratulated her but I blurted out that I was afraid of being left. I’m pretty sure by this time I was acting too childish by saying I felt being left alone. How did it feel like having someone you like/love/care only to lose them shortly after? What should I do if I breakdown like before and how did I supposed to find comfort? The unimportamt thing : I thought they were way too fast, yeah, then again I always told such opinions to other friends too. So there came, a feeling of impending doom, a fear that everything would be destroyed shortly, a fear of losing everything.

I didn’t remember what I told her or what she told me, but I enetered my room, cried while pulling my hairs for some times then in desperation to escape the illogical pain and to prevent it from resurfacing again, I finally dared to do it. To reach for help. What I did was redownloading online medical services app *I had used it to order medication online to be delivered to my home.* However this time, I chose to have consultation online with psychologist. I couldn’t do help myself, all of my defense mechanism had been failed me and I was miserable so yeah, finally I did it. My housemate knew that I planned to consult psychologist online, aside from confide on her but I never did it. I knew there were chances that I wouldn’t accept or listened to psychologist’s advice as I said before to my senior, but you know what? F*ck it, let’s do it and let’s hear what they will advice.

I eventually had my first consultation with a female psychologist, I told her about my housemate leaving me, she then asked about my relationship with my parents and also my job rejection which still left me in ruins. The whole conversation consisted on 2 sessions, total of 1 hour and 20 minutes or so, because a session was limited to an hour. I told her I felt left and afraid of losing my housemate, that no one would be able to encourage me and I had no one beside me if she gone and I had another problem. My parents was not my number on choice to seek comfort and I lost contacts with many people. I told her that I felt lonely and hopeless from the job rejection and that could have bigger implication on my future, the future I believed that I didn’t have anymore. I told her that I didn’t want to stay longer in my current place but I didn’t have any choices nor optimism that I would do well in other places and still very hesitant about going back home and stayed with my parents.

I kinda hoped that the therapist would say quite more, but mostly she read what I wrote, made several questions and told me she understood my feelings. Uh, okay? So she told me it was very understandable that I found comfort on my housemate after a very long time while my parents couldn’t even give me that. A fear of losing someone who could protect me, who gave comfort, who were meaningful and mattered to me. I was losing her in far more personal way, yeah, then I admitted she became the sister-figure, the sister that I wanted but I would never had. So, therapist told me to rely on myself, to had courage on myself, to had confidence on myself. I never realized that my support system was so fragile to the point of non-existence so when my housemate came by, she became the center point of my support system. If she left, there would be no support system. The therapist said that I couldn’t forget that my self was the most important and to tackled that anxious feelings, I would suggested myself and my mind with positive thinking, like “I can do it.”

Uh, just like that? I was a little annoyed but that advice but I still listened to her. I told her I had a great difficulty on doing the positive thinking since I lost hope since the job rejection. I couldn’t be grateful about the 2 jobs I had right now, those great working environments, coworkers, superiors and the salaries. She still said that I should believe in myself and started there. And that my housemate leaving didn’t mean the broken communication. I wished so since I had the tendency to lose contact with almost everyone, because I didn’t do well using messaging apps. My therapist still suggested me to create a positive mindset so I could build my self reliance. Doing my hobbies, exercising and reading about self developments. I took that into account and tried hard to follow it.

Trivia : several days after that, I told my BFF and my housemate that I finally had therapist. They were generally supportive. My housemate told that such kind of parting was still a long way to go. Little did she know, for me, it could be easily occured the next day or the next month or the next hour. The long time didn’t mean anything since it would still happen. And I need to be ready.

To be continued….