Friday, June 26, 2020

AUGIE JEONG

Tina told me about a show called Love Life. It stars Anna Kendrick and is about her going on dates and being in different relationships until she, apparently, meets The One. Also, according to the show, by the time you find The One, you would have been in seven relationships, fallen in love twice and been heartbroken twice. I'm watching it now, courtesy of VPN and Tina's HBO Max login details. In the first episode, it snows in New York and she goes to karaoke and has a meetcute with a guy and as Tina very accurately predicted, I was reminded of my own adventures, and I keep squealing at the episode. As you can well tell, I am very much in love with being in love. 

Over the course of this week, I've also finished watching Lenox Hill. That's a hospital documentary on Netflix, which I would say is the best Netflix show this year. It follows two neurosurgeons, an ER doctor and an OB-GYN through their lives in Lenox Hill, a hospital in Manhattan. It shows how the doctors are skilled beyond measure with their deft hands in surgery, or with coaxing women in labor, but also how human they are. They constantly try to help patients who come in from off the streets, suffering from drug abuse, without proper insurance coverage, etc. Sometimes when their patients suffer or die, you can see how the doctors have to soldier on bravely, looking hopeful for the sake of their myriad other patients, whilst inwardly smarting from the pain of seeing tumors recur, family members devastated and not being able to help. I really enjoyed it because it provided such an insight into hospital life, with very real people issues. The OB-GYN is an African-American lady who has so much on her plate, and she always talks about how she wants to be a part of the representation for young black girls who want a medical career. I loved the series. 

I talked to my therapist about getting on anxiety meds because of my panic attack. She doesn't like the idea because from the work we've done together, she prefers that I get attuned to my feelings, not avoid them. I understand her concern but I also told her that my panic attack was no walk in the park. It gets so exhausting, to coax myself for hours to be okay with literally not breathing properly, to sit with a sadness that sometimes I'm scared I may not even be able to handle or tolerate. I'm so tired and sad at the slightest things that people can so easily not think about. I'm sad at the fact that I only found out about heavy things and feelings at 25ish. Before that, I had a rather comfortable life. I'm sad that kids get much more stressed these days, at younger ages, because of issues like the world literally burning up, then also economic inequalities and racism, and so many toxic things. You want to protect younger generations from the full knowledge of bad stuff, but you also don't want them to be complicit in discrimination and benefiting off their privilege. 

Oh my God, there it goes again. The high-functioning depressed person in me has rambled on about the depressing reality of life. Why does anyone even let me get away with this? Why do I have to face my deep feelings when literally no one else seems to have the same depth of feelings? Who signed off on this? I'm going to end this the same way I always do, which is that I need to sleep it off. 

Oh yeah, I'm probably deferring my studies to the January semester because of COVID and visa issues, in case you needed a reason as to why I am always in this funk, that I cannot seem to get out of. Why does my therapist not want to give me medication? I am not completely okay!!!!!! 

I don't want to be me anymore. Sometimes I think I'm one move away from completely losing it. I want to check into a mental health facility, but what I mean is I want a month-long holiday by myself in an isolated place like Bhutan, when actually what would happen is I would get mistreated by the paltry mental health services in Singapore, and my life will spiral ever out of control until I die of a cliché drug overdose. So, the lesser evil is to carry on with capitalism and earn money and pretend earning money and being "productive" makes life worth it.

I would like to remind you that Lyssa and I have both biological parents who have had mental health issues (and our mother had cancer) and neither parent has ever gone to therapy nor tried to solve their issues in a healthy way. Both Lyssa and I are not in terribly great places in our lives. If you are considering having children or you do have children, please be open to constant checks on your own states of mental health, please and thank you.

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