have you ever hated mirrors because they reflected your existence? it's easy to pick out flaws when you look at something long enough. i know that, because i felt compelled to point mine out every time i see myself. i'm aware of the location of each flaw in every inch of my body.

the confidence i possessed vapourised, my good days too fleeting. and on normal days like today, i wake up filled with disgust at myself. i don't put on make up because i can't stand looking in the mirror. the moment i do, i start sobbing uncontrollably.

i don't want to be left alone. the voices charge at me when i'm alone. i've never been good at dealing with failures, much less resisting the deafening, pernicious whispers. they are reiterating, "you'll never be good enough." i'm on the verge of losing it, my world is crumbling.

i'm drowning i'm not going to be ok
please save me please stay please

i'm gonna cry

just how hard is it to...

You liked me. You liked how I rose above my struggles. You liked that I never let poverty come in the way of doing what I love. You liked my dreams. And I liked you. All of you. Even the parts that couldn't love. Your touch stained my skin, your existence my breath. I struggled to breathe — a rare occasion where I wanted to — for with every breath, I tripped on the familiarity of you. The exact same air of familiarity that choked me.

I can't let you in. It's dark inside. Trite as it sounds, I can't let my awful thoughts taint your beautiful soul. You don't understand. When I am the light, I am easy to love. I'm a good listening ear, I laugh heartily, I run around, I'm affable and gregarious, I eat a lot. When the switch turns off, I grapple with my issues. Suicide attempts. Eating disorders. BPD. But come what may, I took life in my stride. I always dealt with my issues my own way, and I survived 21 years somehow.

But I'm still a victim of my twisted mind, and I will die suffocated by my thoughts. I never intended to let anyone stay because I know I will die by my hands someday. I can't hurt those who love me. I don't talk anymore because I don't need anyone. The same way no one needs me in their lives. I am fine on my own.

Humans are the most adaptive spices? Bullshit. Have you met the demons that torment me? I tried to drown my demons with liquor, only to find that they have freaking learnt to swim. I joustled and I hustled yet with just a yank, they drew me over. I'm hell bound; it gets darker each time I blink. We're on the same sides, my demons and me.

It's woven in my soul — I am my demon now.

Bear with me, this post is going to be as raw as it can get. I know people have been commenting that I gained weight, I look fat now etc. While my weight gain is evident — something I don't deny — it's also inevitable now that I started eating healthily. Yeah, those days when I was stick thin, when I fitted into size 23 jeans, when my thigh gaps existed, I was eating only one meal per day or even less. I was constantly faint from hunger and unhappy because I was never "skinny enough". Skinny? That's just a word.


The first half of 2016, I travelled a lot — Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Taipei. I saw the world for the first time and discovered that there's more to life than just starving myself to be skinny so that I can look good for the camera. I couldn't believe that I missed out on how beautiful the world, and life, can be while I was stuck in a gloomy place filled with self-hatred and hunger pangs.



I stopped living for Instagram, Facebook or the guys I wanna impress and instead, started living for myself. I began eating the standard three meals per day: a day-to-day routine of a typical person, something I should have done long ago. I wasn't watchful of my weight because I was so afraid of going back to that dark place but fear proved to be unfruitful in staying healthy. I couldn't control my eating once I started — bingeing was common amongst people recovering from eating disorders, I learnt — which resulted in the extreme weight gain of almost 10kg over the past 9 months.



I lost confidence when I was supposed to celebrate me becoming clean of my disorders. I refused to meet up with anyone because I was so afraid of getting judged. I cried disclosing my weight to my mom — it seemed like no matter what I do, I couldn't lose weight. I became obsessed with weighing myself daily, noting down every 0.1kg gained or lost. I bawled looking at my reflection and at a point, refused to look in mirrors because of what they did to my self-esteem.

When I was struggling with my disorders, I was unhappy. Now that I'm clean, I'm still unhappy. I couldn't understand what was this paradox until I realised, neither do I need to be skinny nor force myself to eat three meals per day. What I need is be healthy. Not skinny, not binge-eating in an effort to stay in the normal weight range. Now it's an uphill battle of me trying to lose weight I gained from binge-eating the healthy way —  not over-eating or starving myself, but eating clean for the well-being of my body.



The other day I was chatting a close friend and we both agreed the fastest way to lose weight is to cut down on food intake but that's not the healthiest, and I swore to never go back there. I don't want to return to those days when I sobbed because I ate two meals, when I screamed at people for questioning my diet, when I stood on the scales and pinch every inch of my body. Not those days. If I have to hate my own existence so that I can look better in photos, NO THANKS I'D RATHER NOT. 

If you don't think I look skinny enough for you, I don't care. I'm not trying to be condescending, the fact is I can't afford to care — to this day, I have to look in the mirror every morning and tell myself it's okay to look meaty, it's okay to gain weight, it's okay to feel fat once in a while as long as I don't let these thoughts linger in my head. I repeat to myself daily that people who love me will still do despite the number on my weighing scales and people who don't, what are they still doing in my life? If someone can't feel happy that I'm healthy and only praise me for how I look, I don't need that sort of superficial person in my life — my mind is doing enough damage to my self-esteem on normal days.



Losing weight the healthy way is going to take longer, but ultimately, I'll be happier and healthier. There's no point in looking good but hurting my body because I'm not getting any younger and my body is not going to repair itself once I ruin it. A moment of beauty is not worth the long term damage I'm doing to my body, and this post serves as a reminder to myself too.

I am not my disorders. My weight doesn't define who I am. It's okay to take baby steps as long as I don't give up. I will get there someday. It's okay to give myself a break sometimes. On the bright side, I can finally find clothes that fit me because I'm no longer eerily tiny!

I feel disgusted. A few months ago, I thought I have finally recovered from this illness that has haunted me since I was 13 but as I started putting on weight, it happened again. I can't stop weighing myself, I can't put down that measuring tape. I spend my free time looking at myself in the mirror and criticizing every flaw I could find.

I have no one to turn to anymore because I don't know how to tell people that it doesn't work and I've lost hope. I can't even bring myself to write about it because I feel like such a failure. All the time I wasted seeing my counselor didn't help at all.

Perhaps what scares me the most is the fact that no one might ever understand... Or even try. I hate being brushed aside, I hate it when people tell me I just need to change my mindset. Mental disorders are such a bitch; you keep telling yourself that it's all in your mind but it starts affecting you physically and when it consumes you in every part of your life, you're forced to admit that it's no longer just in your head.

How is it not affecting my life when I get panic attacks even while taking public transport? The anxiety sets in even when I think about getting on a crowded bus. People keep telling me to see a therapist and I'll get better but how can I afford long-term therapy?

Every weekday I get up and go to work. It's almost like I'm on my autopilot mode. But I can't escape forever. Autopilot on, I feel nothing. Autopilot off, terror sets in. I hate that even mundane things like walking home frightens me and I have to constantly look behind me or even run to my void deck to feel safe.

Why can't I just eat without worrying about the oil in my food? Nobody else feels grossed out eating the same food, so why do I face this problem? And I don't get why can't I just go exercise instead of freaking out about my weight gain. I don't even understand myself, how do I expect anyone to understand this disaster that I am...?

Why can't I feel comfortable in my own skin and why can't people let me be without trying to change me? It took me so long to grow this little bit of self-confidence but you had to destroy it with one sentence but I don't blame anyone. The smallest thing can be my trigger and it's just so shitty.

Is this just a relapse or are my monsters here to stay?

At 8, my parents got divorced and fought over my brother and my custody. My father wanted the custody because that was the only way for him to keep the house we lived in. My mom almost went to jail because of him. He bribed my brother to tell him details about our meeting with our lawyer. He lied so many times. My mom won our custody in the end but I never won the war.

I grew up believing that my father never loved me. As I became older, I came to terms with it and I learned to forgive him. I told myself it was done in a moment of folly. But that doesn't change the fact that at a point in time, he loved his house more than he loved us.

At 12, something happened in my mom's family that caused me to have to go live with my dad. My mom never believed me regarding that incident and to this date, I don't think she does. The person who caused this misery left our lives but this incident never left me.

My mom trusted an outsider over her child. As I became older, I came to terms with it and I learned to forgive her. I told myself it was done in a moment of folly. But that doesn't change the fact that she didn't believe me when I needed it and blamed me for the incident for a while.

Now that I'm learning about the media and stuff like that, I know how damaging it is for children those ages to witness scenes like these. Much less be a part of it. During those tender ages, I was highly impressionable. Although I never admitted it, the truth is that those incidents shaped me. I became really insecure.

If a parent who's supposed to love their child wholeheartedly hurt them, how can anyone love me? As a result, I always try to find other people's hidden agenda and it made me really unhappy. Till this date, I can't bring myself to believe that someone can truly love me.

At 14, someone told me "You may have depression. It's not normal o be this sad, all the time." I dealt with the aftermath of my parents' divorce seven years late. I tried to be strong for my brother for the longest time during the divorce. I remember holding him when he cried, I remember hugging him tight. But somehow, at this age, I had a meltdown. I couldn't take being strong anymore and I questioned myself and God daily - why can't I have a perfect family as well? Was it something I did wrongly?

I was trying to figure out my life and I was so lost. My secondary school friends would definitely remember this period because I cried so often. At school, at home, in public. Just anywhere over anything. I could be laughing one minute and sobbing incessantly the next. I didn't even have a reason for crying - I just sobbed my heart out.

I remember sitting in a corner at Escape Theme Park bawling my eyes out. There was no reason for the breakdown. I completely turned into another person and I couldn't recognised myself anymore. I knew that I have lost myself and it was a scary time for both me and the people around me.

I starved myself so that I can look better because I always believed that I was fat. I thought that if I became skinnier and prettier, people would love me more. I was never satisfied with myself and if you've been reading my blog, I guess you could tell too.

I questioned my existence daily and I let the mean anonymous remarks get to me sometimes. I remember someone leaving me an anonymous comment that went "why don't you go kill yourself?" And it got to me. I didn't see a purpose in living anymore and I hated myself so much. 

I tried to kill myself on several occasions. Fortunately for me, my friends were there and they saved me. It got so bad that on some nights, I had to stayover at my friends' houses so that they can make sure I'm safe. Till today, the only times when I feel completely safe are those nights when I have company. I don't wish to go into details because those are just fucking bad memories but slowly, I picked myself up and got better.

However throughout these years, I never stopped hating myself, never stopped hurting myself. I hurt myself and made sure I left no marks behind because I didn't want anyone to worry. It didn't help that the friends I had during this period of recovery weren't very encouraging and made me doubt myself more.

At 18, my cousin committed suicide. I only met him once in my whole life but I really got affected because I knew if my friends weren't there on those nights, that could have been me. I saw how my aunt cried over her child, I saw how much he meant to the people around him and that's when the thoughts I have of killing myself slowly left. I didn't want the people I love to suffer.

But tonight, I had another outburst. Just a few hours ago, I gathered my belongings and tried to leave the house. I didn't have a plan and I didn't know where was I heading to. I just knew I needed to get out. I said tried because my family held me back. Then, for the first time, I admitted my suicidal thoughts. I finally told them of the dark places I've been residing in.

But they didn't understand. My brother didn't say anything. In fact, he hardly does and I worry about him sometimes. My mom, on the other hand, lashed out at me. She said I only was using this chance to get pity because I saw that she was nagging. She told to snap out of it and get over it. It wasn't the reaction I was expecting.

She said I know nothing because I haven't experienced life. I know I may have not fully experienced life but I have gone through a lot more than my peers of the same age and she can't deny that.

She asked me, "If you are stressed, what about your cousin?" My cousin has a GPA of near 4.0 in a prestigious course in Singapore, and he's really smart and hardworking. I admire him a whole lot but I hate the fact that they think business courses are the hardest. Us as media students have it tough too. But that isn't the main point - she didn't understand that this outburst wasn't just because of an exam or stress.

She made countless unkind comments even after my brother tried to stop her and much as I love and respect her, she's wrong. I knew I had a problem. I always knew. It isn't normal to hate yourself so much, to have such negative thoughts so much. It isn't normal to have anxiety attacks so bad your heart races and you start crying over nothing. It isn't normal to restrict yourself from eating. It isn't normal to hurt yourself.

I chanced upon this comic a while ago titled, "if we treat mental illness like physical illness" and it spoke a lot to me.

I really hope that by penning my thoughts, I can get through it eventually. They say HOPE stands for Hold On, Pain Ends. So hopefully, I'll get the help I need and I'll recover real soon.

There's so much more that I want to say but I'll end it here for now. Thank you for being on this journey with me and I will be writing a lot more in time to come. :)