misery

I recently reminded myself that journaling is a good practice for my mind, especially since I often find myself with nothing to do these days. This is a huge turn of events, considering just one year ago I was so socially busy I found myself unable to free time for myself at all. As embarrassing as it sounds, reading my past few posts made me realize my eloquence has severely deteriorated from lack of usage. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to start regularly journaling once again, and hopefully restore my writing back to how it once was during my college days.

However, before going forward, I feel obligated to do a quick recap on the past year's activities. Firstly, I can say with confidence that my battle with depression has finally come to an end. There are many unpublished drafts detailing my struggles with misery, which at its worst lasted from August 2014 to April 2015. Retrospectively, these were the worst months of my life filled with the widest range of turbulent emotions and physical issues: disgust, despair, jealousy, self-loathing, insomnia, anorexia. I felt so ruined I was ready to give up everything for the sake of happiness. Hence, I feel compelled to post at least one of these considering they contain some of my most honest and heartfelt thoughts chronicling the most troubling times in all my years of living.

This entry was started in the late spring and was never quite completed, but I did my best to summarily give it some semblance of ending.

I read over the last post I made, and realized I haven't made much progress at all these last few months. In fact, browsing through my various unpublished drafts, it's pretty apparent that my depression has just been spiraling downward into a pit hole of sadness.

So I live day-to-day in perpetual misery, doing whatever it is I do to distract myself from facing reality. I watch anime and read manga. I stay at work late. I drink when I'm alone. It's so terrible I know, but this is what I do to keep myself from falling into despair.

But, there are a few minute details that I understand now about myself.

1. I seek attention. As I grow older year after year, I realize how much more difficult it is to make friends. Not convenience friends, but lasting friendships that prevail through the weathering of time. What I want most are friends that understand me, that I know I can count on in times of need. I value friendship more than anything else in the world. This is what my heart yearns for, and the primary reason as for why life is so tough these days.

2. When I'm unhappy, I tend to self-destruct. In the early stages of my mental collapse, when my so-called friends fell short of my expectations, I began to shy away from them. It's a protective mechanism, but that only made me all the more unhappier. I wanted people to notice me—that I was unhappy and missing from their lives. But that never happened. Life moved on, and nobody cared whether I was there or not. Week after week I would pull away from them, wallow in my own self-pity, and then rejoin them when I was feeling better.

As time went on, the times I did this became more frequent and noticeable, but still nothing would change. This went on for months until one day... I suddenly realized that I've gone too far—something had changed. As much as I tried and tried, I tried to bring myself back, but it was too late. I had moved out of the inner circle that I had worked so hard to be a part of.

3. I think the absolute worst in people. I bottle up all my negativity hoping people don't notice. I act as though everything is fine, and, at least in the beginning, I was really good at it. But as everyone else grew closer as I became more distanced, my negativity began to slowly leak out from within me and people certainly began to take notice.

I couldn't help but question how they could continue on as though nothing had happened though I had disappeared from their lives. My speculations turned into spitefulness that I so desperately tried to contain. At first, it was a slow progression of passive-aggressiveness, coming out as what I perceived to be sharp words I didn't mean to say. This endless cycle of internal conflict continued to increase in frequency... until I one day in March, I broke.

I tried so desperately to be someone I'm not.
I grew tired of it.

When my Australian friend came over, he told me something I thought to be ridiculous. He told me that I love misery, that I'm addicted to misery, that I wanted to be miserable.

And lately I realized that it might be true.

suspension

The title of my post is suspension. You know, the chemistry term used to describe a heterogenous mixture of dispersed insoluble particles in a liquid (ie. milk). That's the state of mind I'm feeling like right now: neither settling nor dissolving.

For the past several months, I've been depressed, ranging day-to-day from mild to extremely severe. My mood swings are wild -- I could be happy one moment, and two minutes later extremely bitter. I would say this ranks up as one of the most (if not the most) challenging times of my life. For the first time ever, I am unable to control my emotions, and in my frustration, I lash out to the people seemingly closest to me. I can't bear the sight of certain people; even thinking about them will make me sick.

I don't think I'm the type of person to rank people, and I've been thinking about that a lot recently. In the past, my mentality was in line with my ideology: I want to give everyone a chance, invite everyone to every event, treat everyone fairly and equally -- because I know how it feels to be left out. Nowadays I've done a complete 180 degree turn: I only want to stay around people I like and push out everyone else. Whenever I end up compromising on what I really want to do, I end up making myself miserable.

How could I have changed so much in such a short amount of time? I've become the type of person I bitterly loathe: selfish, obsessive, passive-aggressive, jealous, and entirely unconfident. I struggle every day secretly hoping to get closer to someone and getting depressed or angry when I don't.

As much as I want to believe I'm beginning to get better, my life thus far has been a turbulent mess. I don't know how I can deal with all these emotions; I think I must be going insane. Hey world, what am I supposed to do?

change

It's been so long since I've been here that I had almost forgotten that this blog still even exists. As I reminisce about the college life I've left behind, I've also realized that I've forgotten how to express myself through writing. The only reason I've returned is, as usual, because I've been feeling rather distressed this entire past weekend. I have been experiencing "feelings" that have left me somewhat confused and sad. Originally, I had wanted to write about it in an effort to understand and sort it out, but now I can feel my mood lighten already. I'm thinking about starting up a personal journal to jumpstart my writing once again.

So what's changed?

Just one year ago, I started on my study abroad program at HKU.
Last December, I officially graduated from college and embarked on a two month long journey through Southeast Asia. Then, the following four months I was depressed and unemployed.
Suddenly last June, by God's grace I landed a 12-week contract as a QA Engineer in the Bay Area. And now, I am a full-time employee at this software company.

Time flies fast. There is so much to be thankful for. I have an income, I have friends, and I have my own place to stay. I haven't had such an optimistic outlook in life in a long time.

I hope it continues this way for a long time to come.

abandonment issues

I'm realizing more and more that I have abandonment issues. I never really had a big problem with being alone in the past two years, but living abroad seems to create a larger psychological toll. After traveling around with exchange friends for the past month, I'm feeling a significant "rebound effect" whenever I'm by myself and have nothing to do. That feeling of "aloneness" after knowing what it's like to not be alone.. it's a strange feeling.

2 hours later: Before I had the chance to post, I went out for a run at Stanley Ho Sports Center. I'm glad I did, because it helped me to overcome my "low." Sometimes it's better not to think too much, and just do. Life is strange.

passion

I just wanted to say.. I'm jealous of people who have passion.
Despite whether they succeed or not.
Despite how ridiculous it might be to have dreams.

People that know what they love to do, and do what they love, those are the people I admire the most.

My wild expedition to Hong Kong begins in three days. Shall I start a new travel blog, and take you with me on this magnificent journey?

confidence issues

Well, blogging every week didn't work.. back to once a month. Or rather just whenever I feel like it. (I'll definitely pick up once school ends!)

Last month's post was a truly sincere and profound post, where I came to terms with where I am with life and the direction I'm taking. It's felt like a huge burden has been lifted, knowing that the pressure of success is not as important to my future aspirations as I had perceived it to be in the past two years.

I'm also starting to understand that I have huge confidence issues. For the past year and a half, I've periodically felt depressed at my utter uselessness and inability to succeed. On Saturday, my sister really kicked me hard to pursue an internship; she helped me to realize just how poor of a job I was doing. I'm pretty envious of her ability to win at life, and I really do think it has to do with attitude. Then, yesterday I met up with Jason at his apartment for the first time in years and learned about his passions in life (which are surprisingly similar to mine). The big difference though is that he seems to have the will to succeed it--I can really picture him going out into the world and making a difference.

I guess what it comes down to is desperation and motivation. I can't let my insecurities get in the way of my aspirations; I just need to go out and do it, no matter what others think of me. I simply won't allow myself to get stuck and backslide rather than move forward.

deep thinking: insecurities

So I came here today because I read this article: http://99u.com/articles/6947/What-Happened-to-Downtime-The-Extinction-of-Deep-Thinking-Sacred-Space

I've thought about making some thinking time for myself for a while now, but because I've been so busy I've never gotten around to it (ironic right?). I'm not sure what I want to accomplish, but organizing my thoughts and updating this blog regularly does seem like a good idea. I guess today's a good day to start, even in the midst of some crazy project coding I've ever done in my short life.

Actually, before I start, I want to remind myself that it's not simply me-time that I want to strive for, but me AND God time. Well, here it goes...

Lately, I've been very frustrated and feeling insecure about my future as a software engineer. As a senior, I'm starting to see everyone around get full-time internships and jobs, and despite attending all the career fairs, I've received zero interviews this year. I'm really feel the pressure now because everyone (including my parents) is always telling me, "you're a Berkeley CS major, it's easy to get a job!" Well, bad news is I'm nowhere near getting a job... not even a measly internship. What does that have to say about my position and competency as a near college graduate?

It hurts because now that I'm here, I've come to understand just how good other people are at computer science, and just how bad I am.  It's depressing because I feel my very own uselessness whenever I have to work with other people. I don't know how to talk to professors and recruiters, I have no passion for the subjects I'm learning, I see my GPA dropping semester after semester.

Computer science is really hard. It's so difficult to manage that it interferes with my everyday activities, ranging from archery to cooking, sleeping to alone time with God. It's got me wondering, if I'm so bad at CS, why am I even doing it in the first place? Everytime I think about this question, I seem to make up a new, different answer, the true purpose seemed to have changed vastly from when I first started.

One of the reasons was so that I could secure a job. But then what? I don't want to sit in the cubicle for the rest of my life, forgoing all the hopes and aspirations I've established long ago. Maybe my job can be temporary: work for a few years, and when I have enough money, start traveling and finding a new, better occupation. But when is enough money enough? As I grow older, I have become much more demanding (with expensive hobbies as archery), how much worse will it be when I will want a car or maybe even a house? Money can't make me happy, but everyone needs money to live. Where can I find my balance?

Over the years, I've began to wonder if I'm doing the Berkeley CS degree for my pride. At UCSD, I did biology--for what other bigger reason than because they're renown for it? Though I hate to admit it, I know that I've let my pride get in my way in the past, and I truly hope I'm not paying the price now because I want to pretend to be someone I'm not.

The biggest issue I'm struggling with now is that I never asked God if it was His will for me to choose computer science. Since arriving at Berkeley, I've been relying so much on myself and my friends, looking at the world from my acute perspective of the future rather than the grand scheme God has planned for me. Rarely had I ever asked myself, how can I use computer science to glorify God? What are the implications for going down this road; is it a dead end? I want to see farther ahead, for what I am able to do for the wider, unprivileged people out there who face oppression every day--not for the me who wants to live an uninspiring life of comfort and security.

After compiling and writing down all my thoughts, I see now that I must have chosen computer science for myself and my expectations. Everything I'm doing now is done because it's expected of me. But the me I'm becoming and the me I want to become are worlds apart. This is not the hero's mentality. This is not the path I was meant to tread on. But you know... God uses people's mistakes and often strengthens them through rituals as these. Yes, taking up computer science seemed to have led me far away from my original aspirations, and yet, perhaps God isn't done yet. In the midst of my insecurities, I'm learning to trust in Him.

Where will it lead me? Where do I go from here?