A Way Out

August has come to an end. It’s been three months since I’m in therapy. I’m on medication and I have therapy sessions with both psychiatrist and psychologist. Overall it’s okay. One thing hasn’t changed though; I still cry whenever I talk about my mother.

Until my mid twenties my world heavily rotated around my mom. I regarded her validation above everything which made my life really hard. Based on my unprofessional analysis, my mom has narcisstic traits and is mentally unstable. Oftentimes she sees me as the extension of herself. I am not my own person and my opinion is never valid in front of her.

Now that I ‘lost’ her, I needed some time to reflect and restart everything in my life. I’m struggling with my sense of self. I feel like I lost myself somewhere along the way and I just ended up here. Alone like a stray, trying to find a way back. I dont know if I’m genuinely happy or just faking it. I always feel like happiness is fleeting constantly. There are moments that I thought I was happy but then I would go back to the same dark room again.

I’ve been re reading my old writings just to my surprise that I didn’t even remember what I wrote or even felt those emotions in the past. It’s an absurd and weird feeling to realize how much I forget about many things that have happened to me. I learned about myself through my old writings.

Nowadays I feel so empty. I feel like in a limbo. I feel like I’m trying to grasp something out of thin air. I feel so unhappy but I can’t pinpoint the reason. I feel so alone. And lonely. Yet in my loneliness I can be in comfort. I truly dont understand myself. I’m looking for a way out of these feelings. I can only wish for better days. I hope everything will be just fine.

You

I could write so many things about you

For that you are my muse

You are my past, present and future

You breathe a life into my existence

And for that I will pour all my love onto you

I want to love you harder everyday

Harder ’til you get sick of it

Harder ’til I can’t do it anymore

Harder ’til you believe me when I say

“I love you, deeply.”

Lotus

I am the seed, buried deep
forgotten in the quiet dark
where the weight of the world presses close
and the light feels like a dream
I barely remember

I’ve known the mud
felt it cling to me
its cold embrace, its heavy pull—
I’ve lived in the shadows
where silence is louder than hope
where roots tangle tight around my heart

But I am not just the mud
I am not just the dark
I am the push against the earth
the reach through the cold
the climb toward something brighter
even when I can’t see it

I am the stem that rises

slowly, painfully

through the murk, through the fear
through the nights that stretch too long

I am the small defiance
the quiet fight
the stubborn need to grow

And when I finally break the surface
I feel the sun touches me—
soft, warm, like a promise kept

My petals unfold
wide and white
reflecting the light I thought I’d lost

I am the lotus
born from the depths
carrying the shadows with me
but not letting them define me

I bloom because I’ve risen
I bloom because I’ve endured

And in my petals, you can see it all;
the mud, the dark, the fight
and the beauty that comes after

My Redemption

I called my mom. She’s been trying to reach out to me so I finally called her. I had many reasons. One of them being genuinely missing her. I also had many questions to ask to her.

It turned out calling her wasn’t a mistake, asking questions and expressing emotions were. I asked why she didn’t tell me that she was getting married. She said she’d told me. Sounds like denial. I told her I was sad that she told me to unalive myself last time we spoke. She said I didn’t know how she felt at that time. Strike two; defensive. She said I always blame her and I behave like this cause I have money now and she doesn’t. Manipulation and gaslighting. The final act of her narcissistic opera that day was anger. She exploded. Good performance though. Real dramatic. Sadly I decided that it was going to be the last time I watched it. I’ve had enough, genuinely.

My anxiety that day went downhill. My heart beat so fast that my body was trembling. The sadness was overwhelming. Knowing once again my mother abandoned me, this time not only emotionally but physically as well. For she has moved into a new home, new country, with new husband and (step) children who probably won’t disappoint her in a way that I did. I don’t know if I will ever meet her again. At this point I think she’s gone.

I was tired of crying though. I pity myself. I could be having the time of my life I thought. I’m still young and bright and there are so many people out there who can give me adequate support and love. It doesn’t have to be my mom, does it? She can’t even love herself properly so I shouldn’t expect her to love me unconditionally. Unfortunately love is conditional and transactional to her.

Step one of my redemption was trying to accept everything. I made a list of things I can and can’t control. I can control my action but can’t control people’s behaviour and their reaction. I tried to let go of my expectations. I used to expect my mother to understand me. Now not anymore.

Step two was taking care of myself. I’ve been wanting to go to karaoke and sing my heart out. I said fuck it I’m going alone. Why am I so afraid of doing stuff alone? I crossed between continents with little support alone. I’ve always been independent since I was a kid. This shouldn’t have shaken me. I stood my ground and planned my day. I went to karaoke. Singing my heart out? done. With that same mentality I managed to go to the archery place. If I had never gone there I would never find that I was actually not that bad in archery. Mission accomplished. I felt happy.

Step three is being consistent of doing step two. I want to take care of myself everyday. I want to live my life and not just trying to survive. I want to feel and express my emotions. I want to eat my favourite food without being called fat. I want to go out and date without being accused as a whore. I want to study at university without being pressured. I want to do things I enjoy without being forced to be perfect. I want to breathe. One day at a time, one breath at a time.

I am finally free of my narcissistic mother and her judgement. At the age of 28 years old, I can finally plan my life. It’s not too late. It’s never too late to heal and change.

Something in the Rain

This city, in the winter, smells like a mixture of firewood ashes from the chimneys and pinewood trees. It was a foggy day; 3 days after I confessed my feeling. I was sitting at a tram station waiting for him.

Looking back, I wasn’t sure when exactly I started to like him. Yes, I had interest in him though I never realized that those feelings have been bottling up into a crush. I think I was in denial at the beginning since he’s good friends with a guy I was closed to. I didn’t want to make things complicated between the three of us. Moreover, I was in the process of forgetting my previous relationship. Everything was tangled together.

This was the first time I fell for someone this fast. I hardly knew anything about him. I think it was about the contradictions, which was funny cause he said the same thing about me the other day.

If you take a glance at him he may look like he’s a tough stone to crack, yet he’s actually funny and easy to talk to. He looks like he’s living a carefree life yet he’s passionate about something and is really good at it. People who don’t know him may think that he’s emotionally numb but he’s a guy who took care of 2 cats and bawled his eyes out when one of them died.

In some days, in between our conversations, I could never read or predict what he was gonna do or say. I knew that he’s bad at expressing himself and honestly it made things difficult for me at first. I didn’t know how but I just knew that deep down, he’s just as lonely as I was and he needed someone as much as I did.

He promised me an ice cream the day before so we bought it and went sitting at a park. We started talking a lot about almost everything. Suddenly it rained and we were stuck.

He promised me hugs as well so there we were, sitting side by side, concealed from the rain, hugging each other. The park bench felt smaller but my world felt a little wider. The air outside was cold and damp but inside I was warm and fuzzy.

That was the moment when I thought,
“I guess this year wasn’t so bad after all…”

It wasn’t bad at all because of him.

Autumn

Autumn came; barging in without a warning. Long gone the summer breeze and early sunrise, replaced by strong wind and cloudy grey skies. The chirping sound of birds is now replaced by the creaks of fallen leaves everytime I take a step. Gloomy days and depression started creeping in.

The euphoria of this year’s summer ended earlier than I expected even though my expectation was at the lowest. Everything I’ve built throughout this summer started to crumble slowly, juxtaposing the vast change of the seasons. It was surreal. I felt like I dissociated from my body when I watched things fell down before my eyes -from my relationship to my mental state. Everytime I thought I hit a rock bottom I slipped away and fell a little deeper. In the end I got stuck with nowhere to go.

I was extremely scared. I feared that I would reach the point where I’m completely numb. To the point where I can’t feel even slightest bit of pain. I was fearless when I felt the friction of sharp blades against my skin yet I feared that I would end my journey here, miserably and alone. It actually took a handful of bravery to be a coward. It took me numerous attempts, ugly cries, and series of relapse to be so close to give up. I’m glad I failed.

Everything never goes according to plan with me. Things I plan are never realized and the impulsivity within me always wins. For years I’ve been letting myself decaying inside and the moment when I decided to rise struck me like a lightning. Though the interval of taking the decision to overcome everything was short, it was impactful. In a flash I found myself sitting in front of two strangers, talking about my struggle in the past months, years. They asked me why I never came running before. I made up same lame excuses I always tell myself; no time, no money. In reality I think I was again scared. Asking for help is never easy.

It’s been a week and I’ve been documenting every emotion I have day by day. After taking some pills and forcing myself out to socialize, I think I’m somehow better. Being left alone with my thoughts is not as frightening as before. The pain isn’t so vivid anymore. Now that the lucid dreams are gone my unconscious self felt a bit at ease. There’s still an emptiness that fills up about half of my cup. I wonder when it will go away completely.

I convinced myself that what I’m dealing right now is the aftermath of my psychological breakdown. I’m no longer in the prologue or main chapters. The stories are done or so I hope. And now I just have to write the epilogue.

The fight still continues to this day…