Today, I nearly met an accident. While preparing to cross the road, I suddenly slipped and fell. My right leg was bent inwards and I grazed my foot. I was very thankful for many factors that I was able to sit down in front of my laptop, typing out this story:

1. I practise yoga and so my hip and leg, especially my knees, are somewhat reasonably flexible.
2. I did not sprain my right ankle! Hurrayyyy!!! I do not want two sprained ankles!!! Thank Buddha and all gods for that. I am very grateful.
3. The traffic light was red and cars stopped.
4. When I fell, I was right at the edge of the pedestrian pavement.

​It happened so fast that I was caught off guard (well, I guess it is called an accident for a very good reason) and the strange thing was I was not playing with my phone while it happened, and I wore good trekking sandals even though it was raining and the floors were wet. Previously, I sprained my left ankle and I was wearing flats and missed a step on a -5-step staircase. It was really a freak accident.

On my way home, I was pondering if I should tell my toxic mother. I was mentally prepared that she would be nonchalant about it. I was spot on. As usual, my self-centered mother would share about her own experiences about bicycles. Well, the bicycle will hit your body if you are on a bicycle but I was down on my knees, which means the car will knock and smash my head completely had it been green light and I slipped out into the road.

She was preparing herself to go to airport to send off my sister. I told her that I will not go because my right foot is swollen (it is now slightly – there is no need for me to force myself to show my face for a business cum leisure trip that my sister is going).

But today’s episode made me think about two points in life: one, never ever play favouritism. Be it at work, at home or any social situations. It hurt others. Since my primary (or elementary school for those in America) school days, I have experienced how the school bully tried to ostracized me when I decided I was not going to be part of her gang. And I survived lunching on my own – I developed a sense of pride and backbone because I dare to stand up for myself on something that is wrong. My current boss plays favouritism by giving plum projects to others (and of course I am mentally prepared this might happen also in my new job), but of course the situation that hurts the most will be your family members. I googled “parental favouritism” and found that it is a common issue with loads of information written on it by professionals.

I was sad for a moment – about 10 minutes? But decided it was not worth it. My self-awareness is telling me I am becoming like my mother if I choose to continue to wallow in self-pity, and fail to see that there are others out there who are responding with the correct behaviors to similar situations. I decided to focus on the positive things. Instead of telling myself that I am pitiful and cannot get my mother’s attention, I focused on the fact that I will be moving out latest by 2019 first quarter. I count the positive things in my life — I am financially independent. I have my own social network – not big but they are good and willing to listen to me when I am down. I am not going to destroy these relationships with my negative emotions which might spiral out of control again.

Another interesting thought that came across my mind was the fact that I made the decision not to include my family in my solemnization should I ever get married in this lifetime. So, I went to google again on the topic of foreigners marrying overseas. Although there will be more paperwork and fees, since I never wanted a wedding dinner especially at this age, the ability to solemnize your wedding without your parents as witnesses is fantastic.

It is true that what you reap is what you sow. If parents do not give them emotional support during their growing years, the children will grow up cold towards parents. My parents provide the basic necessities – true, I need these to grow up to become an adult. But emotionally I am impaired. I know I have negative thoughts and seeing myself a shadow of my depressive mother, I do not wish to pass my genes down to the next generation. Likewise, what I am doing now is the basic obligatory duties – I bring them to see doctor, do the administrative stuff when it comes to health insurance and give them monthly allowance. However, I will not spend time with them. I will not go holidays with them, nor go out with them. Emotionally, I have decided to cut myself away from them. So, what you reap is what you sow.
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Should I have happiness entering my life, I decided I will share with others rather than my family. I think it is more worth it. And after switching my thoughts around to a more positive mindframe, it does help. I count my blessings: I am grateful I can earn my own keep (I think I should be able to nail the job I want), I am getting my own house (a shelter and a sanctuary for me to really rest after work), I found my spiritual guidance (Buddhism plays a very important role in my life when it comes to decision and correcting my own negativity, especially depression) and I am able to plan my own lifestyle very soon. Currently I am occupied with CFA preparation and hopefully I can pass both Level II and III in one go, which will leave approximately 6 more months which I will devote to my renovation work before I leave this house. I should be happy and at this point, I do not want to be pulled down into this dark spiraling negative feeling anymore.

I am sorry for missing in action from this blog for so long. However, recently I have received a few comments from readers who left comments and messages to me, telling me that they could feel exactly how I felt when I was writing those posts.

I want to dedicate this post to you for writing back to me. THANK YOU. Your post meant the world to me and I am glad that I am not the only one who felt this way, and similarly, hope you too. Although we never meet each other in real life, but I hope that through this website, we can support each other through life’s journey ups and downs. Post-suicide, I realised the power of sharing your life experiences, pains, sadness is really and truly great. It draws the power of others who understand you from the internet and give you strength, in a strange way.

Besides thanking readers who wrote to me, I wanted to explain a little about my life and what I was tied up with. The past one year and 2 months had been busy and full of anger, sadness and happiness as well. Job-wise, in my earlier post, I have already indicated my unhappiness. However, I do believe when one door closes, another door will open. I am reaching the end of my current job and hopefully can move on to a new one with better environment, boss, colleagues and a job that challenges me in a good way to showcase my abilities. Hence, to me, work now takes a backburner.

Studies wise, I am still ploughing through my CFA studies. It has been tough but I am trying to squeeze in more time to study even on weekdays. So, although life is not much fun now, I do ensure I still exercise thrice a week, if not at least twice, to keep my body and mind healthy (it is really true that exercise does keep depression in check).

Family wise, I regret to say that my father was recently diagnosed with colon cancer. Despite the fact that I do not receive much warmth and support from my family when I was sick, I still decided to help out because you just got to help out when the times come. Thankfully because I am reaching towards the last leg of my work (serving notice period), I am able to squeeze more time at home to handle administrative work such as ensuring finances are all properly done for health insurance claims, making sure all appointments are arranged properly, and keeping an eye on my father while home. I also help to clean his post-surgery wounds (because my mum just cannot bear it especially during the initial days when it was pretty raw).

I am actually going through this whole process without much sadness. It is more of taking this as a project that I am planning out the next steps to take kind of feeling. The only time I broke down was during the initial days when my father was discharged and I was really overwhelmed with the fact that I had to squeeze in time to clean wounds in the morning when it could be spent on studying (yes, I studied one hour before I get ready for work in the morning). The only thing I was very thankful to myself was the fact that I was very disciplined and started early. Since last year, I kept forcing myself to study and do as much exercises as early as possible. Now, I would say I still try to keep the weekends free as much as possible for study.

The good thing is my father’s wounds have recovered pretty nicely. So I believe by the end of April, the wound dressing routine will be gone by then. The next phase will be chemotherapy but by then I will have left my job and have more time at home to juggle my studies and my father (for medical appointments etc).
The one last thing that I hope to achieve is to secure a good job by early May. It is really kinda unexpected, but I never thought March/April will become so hectic for me. But I am glad everything is working out okay for me. Sometimes, I really think you just got to focus on thinking a few steps at the moment and leave the rest to later to sort out as things go.

After this month, I do want to return to my once a month temple ritual for much needed praying to calm my soul.  And to regain some sanity after this whirlwind is over.
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And I promise to update my website more often with good stories and experiences to share. Thank you to those who take the time to read my website and I hope to continue to hear from you.