My Life Story27.sep.25

I'm not going to be too formal here. The only reason why I'm writing this anyway is because I was in the shower and I had a 2 hour long monologue in my head about the entire course of my life and it's almost 2a.m. right now, but I need to dump all of this. Shit. Out. Really. I think the turning point was texting Nathan yesterday night but I'm not sure (more in my diary later maybe). Gonna line this with subheadings, quotes, evidence, everything. Let's go!

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Contents

• The past week, part 1: Connection
• The past week, part 2: What I've been up to
• The past 3-4 months away from school: What I've been up to
• Age 13-16: Friends
• Age 13-present: Doctor
• Age 11-present: Mind My Business
• Age 13: Sexual Harrassment
• Age 12-14: Another World
• Age 10: My Plan to Die
• Age 10: Academia
• Age 8-present: "Lateness"
Age 7-present: Food
Submit
Age 7-present: Food
• Age 7-12: Religion
• Age 7-13: Anger
• Age 9: School Life
• Age 3-10: Home Life

Outside the Narrative

• Fun Facts About Me
• Ritualistic Behaviours

The past week, part 1: Connection

Of course I'm going to start with what's most recent. Yesterday (25/9/25) I texted Nathan. I imagined myself texting the exact words I did before I actually did it, as usual. I thought it would stay in my imagination. It didn't. Summary: I told him I might kill myself, he preached about God (which I don't mind, I knew he was going to. And also he claimed to not be preaching. Spoiler: he was.)

Then there was Niko's rant about Kayshef again. I felt happy that Niko still trusts me to that extent, but it still bugs me that I can't give proper comfort without lacing it in intellect. These were the most prominent advice / insights I gave him:

unrelated side note: im hungry but i wanna starve. eating these past few days has been making me feel more guilty than usual NGL

• maybe the way to move on is to just accept that you do care because from what I can see you keep denying that you do care, maybe not consciously but by saying, “I shouldn’t care by now” you’re invalidating your own care which creates this internal war which ironically keeps you focused on that war of why you shouldn’t care instead of letting the care sit in the background while you eventually move on

wow im such a hypocrite

• right now you should understand if you truly want closure or reconciliation, because if you want closure, that’s completely valid you’re trying to round up the end of a friendship so you feel more whole and it’s part of grieving a relationship, but if you’re looking for reconciliation, I think you need to reevaluate your reasons for doing so. Like you said, you never really knew him, and that mystery was what kept you chasing after him, and so maybe him still being a mystery even after the friendship has ended is also still causing you to chase him or a dynamic that was familiar, so if you truly want reconciliation, reevaluate if you want it because you’re chasing a dynamic that’s familiar and just want that back and to finally feel like your guilt can be absolved of, or because you truly want a friend.

The "you" here refers to Niko, if that wasn't obvious enough.

The past week, part 2: What I've been up to

FUCK. my cs assignment due tmr AND it's a 2d array but its ok imok omg hekp me i still need to draft two full emails to finalise my role in the ngo it's only two BUT OH MY GOD

I reinstalled MIT app inventor. Yes that DUSTY old thing. I found my old apps that I created and just found out that any packaged .apk file can be put onto Android while for the App Store it has legit quality control (not surprising), which makes me want to go back to making apps again and maybe actually publishing one onto the Play Store. Then ACTUALLY dive into python and do some real work and stop playing around...

Also been singing a lot this week. Recorded the cover of "Man Who Stays - Jake Scott" but changed it to "One Who Stays" (spoiler: I'm not a man), mainly because this song was what triggered the feeling of memory formation, and also practised the riff from Ahyeon's cover of "Monster - Shawn Mendes/Justin Bieber" (Naturally I compared my recorded version to my brother's).

Also kinda finished up Add Math trigonometry past year questions, and reflecting a TON, as you can see now.

The past 3-4 months away from school: What I've been up to

Watching a ton of uni lectures. A TON. Here's my unupdated list:

Also been trying to do the coursework cuz it's SO FUN?? I didn't expect learning to be so fun and honestly I haven't loved learning this much in very very long.

Age 13-16: Friends

I feel so cold I wanted to run on my treadmill after breakfast but I don't want to get out of bed. I ate breakfast and then oat biscuits at 9-ish. And now I wanna eat lunch I don’t know man I just feel like eating something I don’t even feel hungry I honestly feel kind of full from breakfast but I want to feel something idk oh yeah I saw another two of my friends hanging out together too, niko and this other girl. Guess I’m just a little shit who’s refusing to commit to friendships.

You know I’ve felt this way about Niko n this girl for a while now cuz they hang out together so regularly but whenever I ask Niko to hang out he goes oh haha no I’m busy then posts 10 stories of him hanging out with who knows who

And then that trip those girls went on to a different state and I don’t know man they could be hating the trip the whole time and posting that one snapshot of them smiling together for all I know but everyone’s going out together and I’m just in my room I can’t even make myself get out of fucking bed and the only thing I know how to do is just learn and create more output. These fucking teenagers all go out together all the time it’s been like this for so long and I’ve never been in any of those. Maybe once or twice, before I cut that friend group off because that friend said to me, “I was only friends with you because you seemed lonely” like bitch shut the fuck up I was alone because I liked it. It was just low stakes. Like the only time where I could just exist. and even then I was loud and sociable and every teacher’s favourite and well known for my awards a public speaking and performances you mean jack shit to me. Honestly I didn't give a defensive response either that time. That’s just my internal hurt that I’m verbalising now.

I just told her that’s a messed up reason I think I don’t rlly know I was 14. And she said all kinds of backhanded and shitty things to me like when I was paired to walk with a kid in a grocery store (we were part of student council camp and the older students take care of younger ones) and we bonded well and the kid liked me and we took a pic together for fun and my friend here saw it and edited my pic and made me bald and turned me into a meme sticker and sent it in the group chat and then I didn’t make much of that but then the next one was with the kid and she called me a pedophile as a joke and I said that wasn’t funny because that’s a kid and I was just looking out for them and also when we were hanging out at lunch we were talking about our sense of humour (we hung out in a group) and she said, “you know Vyonnie you’re actually a funny person” and then I was surprised I was like really and she said, “no, like your person is funny, like your laugh is funny the way you talk and walk is funny”.

She was super competitive too. I’m competitive too, but I haven’t acted like the way she did towards me since primary school. She would always ask, “what did you get?” On a test and if she was assigned leader of a project or something she would purposely give me roles lower in status in the name of “giving people a chance” even though it wouldn’t benefit the group project and she would make a face of contempt whenever I was praised by a teacher for my grades or whatever. I did get it, I guess, her mom was a doctor and gave her quite a lot of academic pressure. When I did tell her about all of this she just told me to stop being friends with her if that's what I wanted and there was this implicit message of me having "impossible" expectations for everyone else and that's why no one stays. And that whole you’re intelligent and get good grades thing. She also said people found me intimidating which was surprising to me. Oh she also mentioned something about how me crying makes everyone uncomfortable and looking back at the chat now I was so immature and evasive in this convo. ok but I really understand myself here because 2 years later I STILL don’t know how saying “I don’t like my group” is rude and hurtful (it might’ve been to the people in my group back then, but this girl wasn’t even in my group). Ok wait i read through the entire chat rather than just these screenshots and okay the transcript is, more forgiving.

I don’t understand why people hate me. I’ve tried looking for years and years and years what the FUCK is wrong with me did I say the wrong thing am I delusional am I so arrogant am I as intelligent as they say and if I am why do you hate me it’s not like I’m emotionally unavailable in the traditional sense either I know whe to open up and how much to make it authentic just not complete and I listen and I listen and I listen and I understand and I don’t impose judgment or unwanted advice I listen and I sit there and exist and I give philosophical discussions and fruits for thought and laughs and joy at the smallest things and maybe that’s just how I see myself in friendships when in reality I’m missing a larger piece of how I’m treating my friends. It's not like I'm particularly performative either. I'm just civil. There's just a discrepancy between how I talk to myself versus the world. Just because I don’t share what hits me doesn’t mean I’m inauthentic or performative. I’m fully unabashedly myself around people regardless of the aftermath.

And the one time niko n I hung out this year, that ONE TIME was us sitting in a family mart for 7 hours with 2 hours being both of us watching kpop demon hunters together and the rest of the time being him talking about his own isolation and loneliness and how he feels like he’s masking in front of everyone and how he feels so lucky to have me as an authentic friend who listens to him and y the end of it I was so drained that I couldn’t listen or empathise anymore + it was beginning to piss me off how he would blame everyone else around him and refuse to take accountability for himself for his life circumstances maybe I was beginning to feel angry only because I was tired and didn’t really mean that, I didn’t say any of that out loud I just grew unresponsive and by that point I said I was tired and he said, “yeah I get it, it’s not like you’re my unpaid therapist or anything haha”. who fucking says that?

I don’t know. That’s just my perception of things you know? I could be an unreliable narrator or maybe their perspectives are different but I won’t know because when I ask they won’t tell me what I did wrong or how I could change.

I asked the second friend group from 14, and they said “you always say things like “this is so easy! how did you get [their score]?? this is how you do it—“ and they said I was very condescending towards them and looking down on them for their grades but the thing is they tak like tha to EACH OTHER they say to each other things like “that’s so easy how did you make that mistake hahaha” or “oh! hahaha [agreeing that a score was low when a person rants]” actually my authentic self wouldn’t say those things, I just followed the way they spoke to fit in with their culture better and reduce conflict but apparently it’s a problem when I say it because my grades are actually high to them :/ I realised I was wrong though the things I said, regardless of whether they said it too or not were really mean, I just didn’t realise it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t hurt people so I apologised for it but those friendships still ended because they still resented me. Then this girl who was hospitalised for anaemia who confided in me about anxiety and some teacher forcing her into the sun while fasting, that time I just listened and I never told anyone about that time. Then one day we were grouped together along with some other students in a group project worth 30% of our English grade but she was in hospital and I asked her multiple times if it was ok to allocate her work or if it would be too much, or when she would come back so I could schedule for our roles and see if we could present together. But she was very flaky about the topic she would say things like “maybe next Monday” or “idk bro let you know tomorrow” (then ghosts me). And a few days before our presentation deadline I was getting scared especially for my grade so I asked my English teacher, “will it affect our marks if [name ] can’t present with us?” Because I was genuinely scared for my marks and I wanted to know for the sake of my grades and also she herself didn’t know if she was going to make it and also group participation was a large part of the marking criteria and my English teacher said no (the reason I asked is because my eng teacher previously asked me multiple times if she could make it, and talked about our score being affected). And then I went back to class and told the rest of the group what I asked the teacher and her response just for transparency but they ended up telling that girl what I said and she got mad and hurt but I couldn’t understand why (I mean, if it was my intention to hurt her and if I knew what I asked was hurtful I wouldn’t have told everyone). So I asked her why and she was flaky about this too. I was crying as I had

oh and for the group who made condescending remarks to each other? They just started excluding me without an explanation. They sat together, didn’t speak to me for weeks, laughed together, and one time I even overheard them saying and laughing about how “they don’t have their math teacher anymore”. I still can’t believe that after excluding me their final conclusion of me is “their math teacher”. So one day I just went up to them and asked if they were avoiding me. Maybe that was too blunt but I said it while smiling. That ended in this annoying confrontation with three, maybe four girls in front of me yelling in my face about how I wronged all of them. "Even Nadia! Even [insert name] says you [insert wrongdoing I wasn't aware was a wrongdoing]." To be fair I was yelling too. I remember asking, "why didn't you tell me that [specific action of mine] had [specific impact on you]? I couldn't have apologised for something I wasn't aware of." and they started talking about this narrative of how they don't owe me an explanation. Yeah.

It can’t be the case that everyone around me just happens to be an asshole. So there must be something wrong with me.

Niko says everyone from this school has traumatised him and that they’re all assholes. But he’s the same. Not exactly, and not him as a person, but the pattern. I don’t see anyone as an asshole. I just think everyone is a normal teenager here and that I’m not normal somehow. A lot of them call me insane already anyway because I cry a lot or like to sing out loud when I’m alone or study during free periods and talk to myself to think during tests and make direct eye contact with people. Also there was another friend group at 13 who would pick apart my appearance a lot. “Look at YOUR eyebrows, they’re so…” “So what?” “Like, bushy.” And then another: “I can’t borrow this to you! You can’t wear it anyway like not to mean you’re, yknow, but you’re a different size”. Oh there was also some mention of my skin too but I think all three of them commented on it at some point.

here's more commentary on emilia that I wrote in may:

i feel like a bitch lol? I haven’t spoken to emilia since that day she denied me the bm padlet. it’s not like I’m not talking to her exactly, I wouldn’t be against it if she initiated, but I have too much pride to initiate myself. she seems like she’s hoping I’ll start talking to her because that’s what I’ve always done but again, pride. What a thing. Actually it’s not the fact that she didn’t do something for me that I would do for her without hesitation, lher denial is valid. It’s just her reasoning that I’ve deduced feels like she has ulterior motives. I feel like as a friend, she’s not rooting for me, as if she deliberately wants me to lose. I guess I can call myself a hypocrite, because I’m equally competitive but I’ve never sought to deliberately harm the standing of another. only to rise above them. It’s different to me. Maybe I’m just trying to justify my bad actions but that’s truly what I think regardless.

Tbh I don’t think I’m the prideful one in not taking to emilia. She once spoke to me about this friend she once had, yen win, who they used to be so annoyingly loud in class as they sat beside me one time I physically told them to shut up and that was before me and emilia started becoming friends. After we were, they weren’t anymore, and when I asked her why she just said it’s because emilia told yen win not to do some things and yen win just stopped talking to her aka emilia is under the assumption that she lost a friend by setting boundaries and while that is totally believable because both emilia and yen win are crowd followers, the kind I hate the most, and I would see why yen win wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to emilia after a boundary was set because no offense they really weren’t that mature. They might be now but I’m unsure, it’s unclear. Anyway, but you know, I said I stopped talking to her for a day ever since she denied me the bm padlet right? So knowing her she probably flocked to the people close to her and told them about how transactional I saw our friendship probably, which is understandable like it’s healthy to go to the ones close to you for comfort and shit talk ppl who are on your mind, but I feel uneasy with the fact that she probably thinks I stopped talking to her for that sole reason when I really know her so much deeper than that and my reasoning is so much deeper and + I did talk to her, softly, two times, I gave her a chance to respond as always but she ignored me. That’s pride on her part, not mine. Should I have communicated? Yes, but I won’t with someone who will never understand. Who pretends to understand just to desperately keep someone by their side. Speaking of that, the moment we stopped talking to each other, she flocked to yen win again and she even went over to yen win’s seat on the opposite side of class when emilia is in reality my seatmate. Tbh my rehearsed line is that I don’t care, because I had an Ann Liang book in hand and it was devastating and it was bomb, but also I do kind of care about the way people look at emilia cosying up to other people, particularly the ones she “didn’t like” and then look at me and “connecting the dots” aka that me and emilia maybe fought maybe and probably aren’t friends anymore. I don’t want other people to look at me and make negative assumptions. But anyway, I’m not really affected either way, cuz people are still drawn to me as usual. I spoke to caylyn and rianne and we had fun doing triceps and playing hamburger and talking about life and aspirations n I’m so happy abt that. I also spoke to Ellie about school stuff. People love me, regardless of “who I hold close”. Tbh, emilia isn’t someone I wanted around in the first place anyway. Harsh and selfish as it sounds, the people you hang with constitute your social ranking. Ya so that’s what’s on my mind today

But you know, me talking to everyone again simultaneously, putting up my hearty laughs and smiles and initiating fun and meaningful conversations and fun games with the vast majority, it’s making me feel fake. I don’t want to be perceived that way, I don’t want people to see me as “oh she was emilia’s friend but she isn’t anymore that’s why she’s latching onto everyone else”

I wonder if emilia was ever a friend. She’s caring more about having anyone around her, following the crowd just to seem less lonely than to confront me about anything or communicate her feelings. But am I thinking too surface level about this? Shouldn’t I be thinking in her shoes? But then again, I’m so tired of it. I sound like I’m self victimising every time I say something bad about her to justify why I shouldn’t be her friend anymore. //

I don't know. I'm tired. I don’t want to act so human.

Age 13-present: Doctor

Okay so I KNOW the title says age 13-present but that's just the timeline when it stopped being just my parents asking me for medical advice (age 9-12 was purely just my parents asking), and became literally any adult around who knew them (relatives, their friends...) and wanted to outsource their health concerns to ANYONE but an actual. doctor. Like, they get some minor discomfort and tells me to point out what medical issue they have/if they have a medical issue at all.

Some real examples (names changed because I cba to remember these adults + dialogues changed for comedic effect):

They go "omg my arm hurts when I raise it like this but only the bottom part not the top am I dying tell me what's wrong!!" and I go "No u are not dying that is your TRICEP and most likely you've overstretched it or overtrained it in a limited time with no usual flexibility/training exercises and so the pain comes from your muscles not being adapted to that strain"

They go "omg this part hurts is it my heart m I going to die??" Like... no steve that is your STERNUM and more likely you've just overworked yourself... and I noticed these adults always like to say their heart hurts and immediately think they're having a heart attack. They go "BUT THIS IS MY HEART! THE HEART IS ON THE RIGHT I LEARNT THIS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL!" Like, no susan, your heart is located in the centre but tilted to the left due to varying thickness of the left and right ventricles...

And if they DO go see a doctor they come back to me with their diagnosis and go "the doctor said the body is attacking itself, what does that mean m I going to die???" INSTEAD of. ASKING. THE. DAMN. DOCTOR. And for the record, I DO NOT KNOW if you're going to die or not, do NOT hand me that responsibility because then you'll say, "but she said I was FINE!" No. I am not going to be responsible for someone's possible death. And also for the record, what you are describing is an autoimmune condition where your immune system containing white blood cells specifically lymphocytes wrongly flag your usual cellular antigens as a foreigner and therefore attack it. One Google search won't kill you!

This is just the physical health side. Don't even get me started on mh oh my god the amount of misinformation that people come to me with is actually insane like WHAT is your source?? TikTok?? How about. You go see a doctor instead of asking someone who's your age divided by two for something people go to grad school for?? These people literally go, "ask her! she knows! saves your money!", says I'm knowledgable enough about these things, but then say I'm apparently not knowledgable eough to know MY OWN experience???

Age 13: Sexual Harrassment

I'm not talking about Cheng Hei anymore, I'm talking about my own. (do I put a smiley face here?)

So basically at that age (12 to 13) I was going from elementary school to high school, so, new school basically, and I went with two other friends of mine from the same school (one I’ve known since kindergarten, the other was my best friend from 10 years old, both girls), and we had this "friend group". But I wanted to meet new people and expand my social circle so before the first day of school I texted everyone in my class (I had their contacts from a class gc) and introduced myself.

There was this boy in particular, 16, who immediately started this, “we’re already friends” thing and I just went with it. After about 2-3 weeks he kept venting and ranting to me about the weirdest things like his mom (I was on vacation and it was LATE and he was texting me in very vulgar language):

pictorial evidence

his ex (he called her really vulgar things ("crazy" etc.) without explaining the context), and about how he (ong I’m actually cringing) was so “touch-starved” and “lonely” and I was like ykw this is the typical teen male so I just listened to him vent and rant because hey I was 12-13 and this was a new "friend", so I honestly felt kind of obliged to just be there.

and he also sent very suggestive jokes which I couldn't understand at first (he still had the audacity to EXPLAIN the "joke".):

pictorial evidence

And then about 1-2 months went by and he began doing these weird touchy gestures. Nothing major, but like acting “cute” or pretending to be a cat and scratching me and my friends because he would joke about having these triangular shaped nails and at first I told him to stop but then it just became routine and I fell into the role of acting like that too, a little, just to get him to back off.

Then there was this one time he was crying and obviously I saw him as a friend so I listened to him because it was cocurricular time (I joined dance club at the time) and all my friends left already so in the class it was just me and him because it felt wrong to leave someone like that and we were sitting across from each other right? His chair in front of mine and mine in front of his, and he (CRINGING AGAIN) held my hand. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO, RESPECTFULLY (as a kid with a huge tendency to people please and with poor asf undeveloped boundaries)??

It was really, really weird to me but like, he was crying so I just let it go as a one time thing. Then that day he thanked me for staying w him blablabla and I was just whatever, THAT was a weird experience but it’s a one time thing. Then the next day at lunch he sat next to me again (me and my friends n him sat together for lunch) and he held my hand again under the table what the actual fuck.

He repeated he was so “touch starved” and “lonely” and ??? BITCH I WAS 13 ok cut me some slack so obviously I just froze up. I don’t eat during lunch so I just. Laughed with my friends as usual. They saw the hand holding but didn’t comment. Then this whole hand holding, acting like a cat, scratching me, and then eventually like, touching my thigh even, leaning on my shoulder, all this shit just unfolded and I just didn’t know how to stop it or say I was uncomfortable with it because I don’t know, I felt obliged to just accept it somehow because I was his “friend”.

But then he started taking pictures of me while he did all that to me and sending them to other people in our grade and even TEACHERS and even my friends and saying things like “jealous?” Or suggesting I liked him or that we were doing something more (I DID NOT LIKE HIM FOR THE RECORD IF THAT WASNT OBVIOUS. HE WAS 16 I WAS barely 13...also, I didn't know he was sending ANY pictures of me to anyone. I thought it was only to one third party, but I found out two years later that it was nearly everyone).

So eventually one day I just, cut him off, I blocked him everywhere I moved away when he sat with me, I pried myself away from him physically and he asked why and I just said stop it and he got mad at me for some reason and twisted my finger with intent to break it but a teacher walked by that same moment and he stopped.

You know what? For these four years I've just accepted his reasoning for why this all happened (he said I led him on. I DID NOT LIKE HIM.) and also felt like I was the cause of all of this so I shouldn't be labelling it as some kind of negative event, just as a "failed friendship".

im so dramatic lolol

In fact, after that whole ordeal (the day after he tried to break my finger in particular. im especially mad about that because what if I couldn't play music anymore?), he came to school with a marred fist, and everyone gathered around him. He was talking about how he punched glass because I hurt him. Of course everyone went with him. Honestly though, I was just in disbelief (comedically, internally) because of how ridiculous his narrative was, but it still made me doubt myself.

Ok but also that situation actually made me avoid boys for a few years like two years and I only partially recovered cuz I wanted to play football but it was an all boys’ team but since I was the only girl and a beginner I needed to prove I could do it so I set aside that avoidance and dove head on into the games with SO MUCH contact dude it was crazy and then after that year I was less averse to proximity with guys but then I realised I was avoiding male friendships which I directly noted in my journal entry one day so I purposely sought out the most friendly looking boy according to my intuition and started talking to him and eventually that led to a whole other thing but I’m not gonna get into that YET. (Spoiler: that boy turned out to be Kayshef).

my ears r ringing help

Age 12-14: Another World

I'm aware that I'm going to sound crazy here. But this is still part of my life. I really love the world, here's what I mean: the world makes silly jokes with me. Like when I used my tarot cards and asked “how do I feel?” And the card that came out was anxiety (9 of swords) and it literally flew out of the deck. And when I asked, “how do I get first place?” It gave me practical advice on working hard, and when I asked, “really? That’s it?” The card that came out was “NEVERMIND THEN. DON'T LISTEN. LOOK WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT.”

And when I’m angry, I always partially "kill" my piano (that's what I call playing very harshly lol sometimes I get scared the strings will break) and it always tells me to stop (I know it doesn't literally tell me to stop but the way it behaves can be interpreted as such like when it starts buzzing) but then after that we reconcile (aka it goes back to normal) and I play mellow songs again.

Basically...personifying objects to be my friends. But it's not just with objects, really. It's the weather too. When I'm sad, it knows, it starts to rain. When I'm happy, the sun is warm, not the blazing hot kind, the kind that knows. When I'm angry there's thunder, and etc. I told one of my friends this once when I was 14, and she said, "Are you sure it's not the weather that's changing your feelings instead of the other way around?". If my feelings precede the weather change, how is it the weather that's changing my emotions? Surely it can let the same feeling persist, but I doubt that it's what causes my feelings. "How would the weather know how you feel?" Why not? No one really knows how the world works or where the universe really came from. Why not? It can be a mirror and painted to be whatever you want it to be. So why can't the weather change and say, I understand?

And it's with animals. Mosquitoes? Bargain with them. I won't bother you if you don't bother me. Mutually uninvolved, problem solved. But there was a more playful one who just wanted to read what I write and listen to what I learn. It would hit behind my drawings or camouflage against black objects whenever my mom was nearby because it knew she would kill it. When she was gone, it would come out. It stays there, it stares, it listens. It was in my room for a week. It was terrifying to have such an unpredictable insect in my room for a week, but it was still a life, so I let it be. Why not?

Moths and butterflies? They're trying to tell you something, show you something. Follow them. If they just want to fly in circles, let them. Laugh with them. They're trying to tell you to look outside, the world is much bigger than this, everything always ends up ok in the end. White butterflies are encouragement, dark butterflies are a warning, colourful ones were a gift. I did this a lot when we went to the field for PE, so a lot of the people in my year would look and think I was crazy. I didn't really mind. It reminded me of the quote, "Anyone dancing will be called insane by those who can't hear the music.".

It's with every animal, really. Birds from outside my window looking in, looking at me, and I know they understand. They talk to me without saying a word. I know hey're listening even when I'm not saying anything. How? I just know. The little prince, "What's essential is invisible to the eye, and only visible through the heart.". No words need to be spoken to understand if someone is listening. No words need to be spoken at all. You don't need to see or hear or think. Just be, to know. That's the state I'm in whenever I see the world this way.

But this is just the world right now, the "real world". I didn't always like this world, so when I really hated it, I created a new one. When I was 12 I started to make up whole realities with people with names and places I can remember with specific circumstances and very specific things and I would slip in and out of the world. There were multiple, but one of them involved this tree from my primary school field and I always looked out of the window (I sat next to it in class) to look at it, and I called it the “7 days tree” where I just stare at it to enter the world (I used to document what happened in that world in a notebook, I still have that documentation but I'm not going to share it lol...).

I kind of grew out of the 7 days world when I entered highschool, but I still had another world that I would "enter", it just didn't have a particular name or story, it was just another reality, almost. Whenever I "entered" these world it would be extremely immersive and real, as if I were actually there and usually if whatever event that happens there affected me, it would spillover to reality too, like if something happened there that made me cry, I would start crying in the real world too while still being in that world...

Around 13-14 I only really "entered" that world whenever I just didn't want to deal with life. Not in an avoiding responsibilities kind of way, but more like, "what's the point in staying here?" if there's really nothing going on or if I'm alone for an extended amount of time and I don't need to perform anymore. One of my teachers at the end of the year told my parents it was me "sleeping" in class. I was confused initially and I asked, "when??" And my teacher said, "you know, in the middle of class I would see you just lie down on your table and sleep for 10 minutes and then get up." (For the record there usually is no class when this happens/ I already know everything the teacher is going to teach and the teacher knows it).

Well anyway besides the "worlds" I also made up people/animals outside of them to exist independently. I remember most notably this spirit fox-like being that looks like that blue spirit fox from Elena of Avalor the Disney series, and its name was Rin and it sometimes would give me answers to exam questions if I asks nicely...Well, that's what I like to think. IN the past when I was stumped on questions I would "look for" this animal I made up and ask it for the answer to which it would almost always reprimand me on not preparing properly for the test and I should just find the answer myself or to take this time as a lesson, but sometimes this fox does comply and give me the answers (which actually almost always surprises me because they're always correct, and I know there really is no "spirit fox" and I was the one who got the answer myself, but it's just a curious thing to be able to ask some imaginary presence and be able to enhance memory. I actually very recently, today, 17.oct.2025, I used this in my IGCSE Bio Paper 4 test. I forgot this word, "lignin" but then I remembered this fox I used to talk to when I was little for exam answers to I tried it out in this exam, and it worked.)

I remember I spoke to this "fox" a lot especially during online class (11-12?) and there was one time Nathan texted me asking me why I always smiled randomly or spoke to people out of nowhere during class and I had to. Realise what was actually happening lol...That led to me setting reminders on my calendar, "don't smile today" every day.

In hindsight I realise now that maybe all of this only ever existed because I have no friends. But I do, so many. Too many, a lot of people tell me, but what is a friend if I don't let them know me the way that I am instead of the image I choose to curate?

Obviously I don't do all of this anymore, personifying objects maybe occasionally (in a funny way usually), but the worlds, the fox, the people, I just left it all behind. Also just for clarification I don't actually see any of this but I imagine seeing it so it's as if I actually am but I know it's part of my imagination, and the "fox giving me answers" thing is just like hearing music in your head, that's how I experienced it.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: by “I hear it” I mean it in the same way ppl say, “I can hear you saying that”, and also like music playing in your head/ an earworm. I can just imagine sounds very vividly, it’s the same with visually, I can imagine anything very vividly and I can let it stay in my head or pull it out as like an AR kind of thing. That’s what I use to draw, like when I look at a reference photo and then at a blank piece of paper, I pull out the visuals I imagine from the reference onto the blank sheet so that’s why I can draw well, because I can replicate exactly what I see.

Also, the spirit fox thing and the other worlds, I really stopped all of that by the end of 14, I just remembered in that test that I used to ask this spirit fox and since it was an important test I thought why not try it again if it works? And it worked, so I was right, that’s the first time I’ve used it in like 2 years.

And also what happened on oct6/oct11 are different from the daydreaming in the shower. What happened on oct6/oct11 was like the thoughts were happening and I was just a channel and I complied, it’s like I wasn’t actually thinking and I wasn’t immersed anywhere, I was just kind of out of it and moving on autopilot, in this world. The entering alternate worlds (again I stopped this by the end of 14) and also the daydreaming in the shower is full immersion in an alternate timeline where I actually feel like I’m there and I’m in control of myself in that world.

Age 8-present: "Lateness"

I can't answer the question, "why are you late?". I don't know myself. If I really knew the true cause, I wouldn't be late. So the below will be a series of experiences that sometimes happen, sometimes overlap, sometimes switch. It's not a concrete answer, and it doesn't fully describe my experience either, because I can't really put it into words that anyone else will understand. Maybe the reason why all my reasons contradict each other is because I'm lying to even myself. I'm not choosing to be late. I'm not.

What they call my "chronic lateness" isn't even recent; it’s been there since childhood but increased incrementally as I grew older. When I was younger, I was always early to school but late to tuition (punished by standing 1-2 times but I just laughed and talked to my friends while doing so and engaged in class normally) and then lockdown started and I started being late for online school and then online tuition and then 13 I started highschool and started being late for highschool.

I originally thought I knew the "starting point" and that it was at 13 when I was nearly late to school but told myself, “It’s ok I can slow down. I’m not going to stress over a 5 minute difference in arrival time” aka I thought I started being late cuz coming early was too stressful but after noticing the pattern dates back far earlier than 13 partially negates this theory. And at first it was 5-10 minutes, then I got suspended earlier this year (2 week suspension for being 5-10min late) and it became 2-3 hours. And by increasing gradually it also meant not just late to tuition, but then school too, but then every event except competitions and exams.

And so they say, "So you're late to everything else because they're less important to you? Because school and everything else are not your priorities?". Honest answer? Yes, they are not my priorities when compared to exams an competitions or personal commitments. But speaking from assumption here, isn't it natural to have events you deem more important than others? So surely this can't be the reason for my "lateness" because otherwise everyone in the world would be late to every event they deem less important.

So they say that mindset is a lack of respect for everyone, for teachers, for my schoolmates, for those who wait, for thinking that "just because something is less important, you can be late." But the reality is to be early takes a lot of effort. I can't just wake up at a normal time like 7 or 6 or 5 and shower for a normal amount of time (15-30min). When I explained I take 1-2 hour showers and around that time to get ready, people ask what I even do for my showers to take tat long, and I say, I think. I think a lot. They ask me, "why do you think?" I say, "becasue I like to think." They ask, "So you can stop thinking?" Yes, I can stop thinking. But to what extent? How can a yes or no really capture my control over my thoughts? No one has that much control over their thoughts, "I think..." is an illusion, but that's not the debate here.

I can't just get ready and go. If I do, there has to be a sacrifice of some kind. I need to wake by 4a.m., what if I leave something behind? I can't tie my hair, everything is out of place, I don't want to leave the house, it has to be right. What if it's not? What if my mood for the whole day is ruined and I can't get back up again? What if the day goes less than satisfactory and the next follows suit? What if it turns into this endless loop? Is it worth it?

Honestly, each time it feels less like avoidance of something I dread and more like thinking so much that I lose track of urgency. When I said this, they said, "So you just choose to be late?". How else can I truly articulate this? They ask me, "What do you think about then?". How do I articulate this? I think about everything and anything. I think about past events, I think of possible future events, I let thoughts run without me consciously thinking them, and yet it's not as if I lack control over them, I can choose what to think sometimes, but why choose when my mind knows best what to think in that moment? I can interrupt the loop but it doesn't feel right, it has to complete.

I dont know, I feel like I can control it but choose not to which makes me think maybe they're all right and I'm just choosing not to be punctual and that it's a lack of discipline. But it's kind of like those moments from oct6/11 except a little different. During oct6/11 where I was kind of moving on autopilot and thoughts came to me, they weren't very clear, I just complied with them. But the thoughts during my showers are very clear. It's like I'm in that exact moment my mind decides to think up. It can be a neutral moment, it can be something I can see happening, anything. If anything, it's like entering an alternate universe (sometimes it really is but I mostly stopped that by end of 14).

I can interrupt these thought loops (not the ones on oct6/oct11), but immediately after I interrupt I kind of get this whiplash kind of feeling where it's like, what just happened what do I do? Then I look around and suddenly remember what I was doing/what to do next and continue my routine like wash my hair or smth. But if I dont consistently interrupt (I tried this once, where I interrupt every thought by screaming the same thought repeatedly, "URGENT URGENT URGENT" so I remember the urgency to get ready but as you can imagine that's not very sustainable), they will come back and I get pulled in again if I'm not very aware. I realised what helps for ALL (oct6/oct11, car, shower, etc.) is looking at myself in the mirror. It's like reminding myself that I exist beyond my thoughts and that I exist corporeally, and it pulls me out of it.

I noticed another pattern too and that is after every part of my shower routine I will wash my hands with soap even tho the water is running like after I wash my hair, wash hands with soap, then brush my teeth, then wash hands w soap etc…and even if it’s not between routines during the same routine I will wash hands with soap every time I touch the shower head and also I’ll wash my face repeatedly because it just doesn’t feel clean idk (I just realised this when I looked up at the clock yes there is a CLOCK in the shower it does not help a lot, and realised ~30 minutes had passed while washing my face).

I had the chance to observe myself yesterday in the shower because in the middle of it I suddenly realised the thought pattern I was trying to describe was happening in real time again, but what I realised after I had that realisation is that the realisation itself turns into another thought loop that I get immersed in. It's a fine line between just a thought and a whole thought process and it happens automatically. I also realised afterwards I usually just have no recollection of everything I was thinking about unless if I explicitly tell myself to remember, which made me finally realise this isn't thinking. It was daydreaming. Only remember if I tell myself to remember, sometimes remember without that reminder to remember, immersed as if it were reality, can't tell the difference between just thinking or not, no control over what goes over my mind but in control of what I do, that's exactly how I dream.

So now that I've made that connection, maybe this section is more relevant now. Also, important distinction here.

Age 10: My Plan to Die

This section does not explain the reason why I made this plan, because I still don't know that reason myself. What this section discusses is my history with SI and SH.

Basically when I was 10, I used to cut, right? And I told two kids. Both of them mimicked me. My mom found out I was doing the same through one of them, ww. I asked ww why she did it. WW said because it was because she felt guilty that I was doing it and that she didn’t know what to do but didn’t want me to feel alone. I wanted to be grateful. But I couldn’t help it, I was guilty. I was so remorseful.

Both those kids, I can’t blame them, but I guess in a way they forced me to force myself to stay alive because I knew they would’ve mimicked whatever came after that. And you know, my mom found out about me cutting and I still remember in my room she asked me what I used to cut with and she was screaming and crying and she held up a knife and yelled, “was it this? Huh? Was it this? You want to cut you cut, I’ll cut you myself!” And she threw it. She told me the world would see me as crazy and that she was already being very generous with her viewpoint of me. She said if the world found out they would call the police and throw me in a psych ward. I didn’t know what that was at the time, obviously. I was scared. I don’t really know why. She made it sound like prison. Like I’d done something wrong, but it’s just me to myself, so why do you have to intervene? Don’t I have the autonomy of choice?

That's what I thought, and I really hated this event, being "discovered", in particular. Not because of the actual event itself, but because I already planned to die that Friday. Which Friday of which month of which day, I don't remember that, but it was a Friday. I chose that day because I wanted to spend the week giving away stuff and also I wanted to tell Nathan something, but I'm not sure what it was now. I think it was sometime after my birthday because of the method I wanted to use. Speaking of methods, I had a convo with Niko quite recently about it too, but more specifically he asked me what I was contemplating on doing to kill myself (I know I shouldn't have sent the list, I asked why he wanted to know and he just said it's not because he wanted to off himself, but because he wanted to know "what was going thru little Vyonnie's head" so I told him.)

So speaking of that conversation I had with Niko, he sent this:

BUT LIKE HERES MY CATCH FOR U

how tf were u not scared of pain

I just wanted to die. It's the last pain you'll ever feel. Sometimes I still think about what I would've wanted someone to say to me, or do, or anything, and for a long time I couldn't think of anything, but in that conversation I realised it was because I didn't want anyone to do anything. Anyone finding out would jeopardise my plan to die, and I was set on dying. But it was as if I wanted someone to know, just so I know I've left some part of myself behind in some way before I go.

It was like I wanted to replace the emotional pain with something physical and so I cut, but what it did was dull everything. It dulled emotions generally, and was also the last barrier to actually killing myself (instinct of self-preservation). But after my mom found out and because my peers mimicked me, I couldn't die. I needed a reason to cling onto life, and it needed to be larger than my life itself, otherwise it wasn't good enough a reason. That's how my goal to change the world started to form.

Well, a little less secondary, but after I stopped cutting, I couldn't stop hurting myself completely, so I actually learnt how to hide the scars better. I switched to scraping, scratching (I recently found out this left a permanent scar on my left hand, but it's not that visible so I guess I don't care).

Age 10: Academia

I Am Not Jessica Chen; much of what Jessica feels throughout in this book definitely is almost exactly how I relate to academia as well, especially around the start of this year (2025) but most prominently during primary school.

I even connected with the cheating out of desperation; that day when I cried in school for two hours and George, Emmanuel n who was that other guy oh yeah Brandon wrote me apology letters (I think I still have them? I put them in my smaller blue diary but I’m scared that my mom might’ve thrown it away; that notebook alone stores about 2 years of my primary school life!).

Well that whole ordeal was entirely my fault and I’m not even saying that self-deprecatingly, I’m saying that truthfully, because we had Chinese 默写 and thought out the whole year I’ve been getting 100%’s in every one of them, and my teacher recently told the whole class that they should be more like me. That day I mixed up the dates for our moxie, like I thought it was on a different day than when it was actually on, so I panicked.

Chinese was the first class, and I only found out the date for moxie was actually that day ten minutes before class. I only had ten minutes to memorise two Chinese paragraphs. I read through and memorised the best I could, but there was this nagging desperation of I need to keep my record of all 100%’s, so I wrote down words I thought I might forget onto my table lightly with a pencil and told myself, “I won’t actually look, it’s only for backup.”

And soon the teacher came in and we began writing. In the end, I managed to memorise the whole thing entirely on my own and got every word correct without looking anyway, and I felt happy about it after that. I had agama after that, so I left the class to go to the designated spot for it (everyone else had pendidikan moral so they stayed in class). But as I was walking back to class I had this weird feeling that something was wrong and I remembered I forgot to erase the words on my table.

As soon as I stepped into the class I was yelled at by my teacher. Turns out my classmates saw what was written on my desk and immediately jumped at the opportunity to report me because those were words from our moxie. That was before I knew my classmates would frequently look through my things to get intel on me (my thoughts in this section.). Safe to say that moxie in particular was not a hundred, and I cried for two hours after that, insisting I didn’t cheat (because technically I didn’t, but I knew it was wrong to even have a backup in place in case I needed to).

Also when I was ten, Nathan, yes that same Nathan, suddenly took first place in our first term test ranking, and me second, winning by 0.84 points in our average (dude how do I still remember that number lol), and there were people actually celebrating about it, saying things like, “Wow, see, Vyonnie wasn’t that smart anyway”. But what infuriated me the most was what Nathan did afterwards, he walked up to me, held out a hand (wanted to do a handshake) and said, “Good game.” (SHUT UP NATHAN!!)

I hated him for so long after that. I spent 3 months off grid, off my phone, studying for hours every day, determined to win back first place. I remember I eventually got first place in our second term test placement and the annual placement (meaning my winning was more solid than his winning over mine lol, that’s what I always told myself), but before that period, after Nathan got first place, my classmates would constantly compare us and talk about how “I couldn’t even measure up to him” and also there was one time this guy George was yelling at the whole class to say that everyone should root for Nathan because he’s much smarter than me, and then he went, “I bet 200 Nathan is winning the next round! Any higher bets?” And that stated a betting pool against me. Well it’s a bit ironic because after that Nathan and I became best friends but still.

Age 7-12: Religion

I’ve been apart of 4 religions in my lifetime, maybe more. I’m born as Islam, and my parents are Islam, but they follow Buddhist concepts, and so I’ve been taking Islamic studies since elementary (6 years) and my mom was Buddhist who converted to Christianity so in kindergarten for ~4 years I would go to church and I read the bible when I was 6.

But also, my first contemplation of suicide was in primary school, when I joined religious studies class for all six years. When I was nine, I learnt that kids under 12 who pass go straight to heaven without judgment. So I contemplated ending it because I was terrified of the concept of hell (and also because I generally wanted to end it lol). That was until I learnt ending it would send me straight to hell. So then I was stuck in this limbo. Eventually, I decided I wouldn’t believe in god or heaven or hell (atheism) because I was too scared of it all. Of course, paradoxically, being scared means I still believed.

Later from ages 11-12 (around mco), I stopped talking to everyone (mostly my family). But one day I was in the piano room as usual and relatives from overseas came to visit. I was told one of them was a piano teacher, and I was forced to let them in (physically, into the room). They pretended to talk to me about piano and how I was so "good" at it, but later their true agenda was revealed, and that was to "exorcise" me.

Typing that out feels so bizarre, but really, they said things like, "the reason why you don't want to talk to anyone is because you're posessed by Satan, but it's OK, because Jesus loves you!"

Oh and also, later in life (14-15 years old) I picked up the daodejing and started picking up Taoist concepts of not doing and contradiction and removing desire for credit, grandiosity etc, and I do still see the wisdom and power in that, but I can’t bring myself to fully commit to it without feeling like I’ve betrayed my own self (It was the same with reading A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle.)

Age 7-13: Anger

I was a very angry kid. I used to say that I was loud and outgoing, I always spoke to everyone around me, my classmates, I had a habit of “parading”. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I loved to strut around and especially around friends, I would say things like, “I’m gorgeous” or “I can’t believe I’m this intelligent”, basically praising myself a lot out loud and laughing about it with friends who called me confident, but in reality I wasn’t at all, I hated how I looked, I hated myself, I just hated the idea of being seen as insecure and shy and timid even more, so I performed.

I also literally performed (winning in math competitions, olympiads, dance performances, winning in every competition I joined every year and I joined EVERY competition (singing I won first place three times, storytelling, speech giving, dance etc) and I always went on stage to receive accolades for academics or those competitions or for being a role model student, so everyone knew me, even if I didn't know them.

That made me exposed to the limelight, at least in my eyes, like everything I did was magnified and bound to be noticed + scrutinised by everyone around me. I never had performance axiety on stage, it was off-stage where I really had it, in general life.

But going back to the topic at hand, I was an extremely angry kid. I yelled a lot, especially in school, but somehow the teachers never cared about that, and also never got me in trouble because I was the “good kid”. I remember this performance particularly well, where my teacher asked me to help her carry some books to her office and as I walked in front of her there was a piece of trash on the ground and I picked it up and threw it into a trash bin nearby because she was behind me and watching me. She didn’t say anything about that, but I knew it solidified a good impression of me onto her.

I was even violent sometimes, I remember getting into fights because I was defending someone or stopping gossip, or even because I just really hated a person (this was only one time, but I really hated Nathan and I thought he stole something of mine and I got really angry, I lifted a chair and motioned to throw it at him. I didn’t actually throw it, and he was laughing at me, but still violence).

Well, I’m not violent now though sometimes I do get angry like that, but the most I do lately is yell, and I rarely do that now. I recognised those behaviors were problematic by the time I turned 11-12 and changed for the most part. There was only one time I remember, when I was 13 that I was particularly ticked off. This was after I confronted that girl who was badmouthing a new student.

She was saying how she was such a horrible person and no one should be friends with her because she swept rubber dust onto her side of the desk and didn’t care, and I told that girl that the new student probably wasn’t doing that to intentionally contaminate her space, and most likely didn’t know that they were doing something that made someone else feel like that just by sweeping rubber dust, and I told that girl to talk to the new student about it, so the new student will stop sweeping rubber dust to her side and maybe she’ll gain a new friend.

She scoffed at me and started this whole argument which I unfortunately escalated because well I never turn down a good debate (I never engage in arguments now, I realised soon after that they were a waste of my energy and also a very immature way to handle conflicts, but I still love a good intellectual debate.), and she started crying because I said, “Well at least my brain is better than yours.”

VERY bad comeback, but also she was insulting my intelligence (explicitly...in hindsight I was just defending myself by listing my credentials and all the tests I got 100% on...) and that’s on my top ten list of things I absolutely have zero tolerance for), and she started crying because she interpreted that as me saying she has no brain, WHICH IS NOT WHAT I SAID but also I know I hurt her but she didn’t even give me room to apologise

She started yelling in the hallway about what I apparently said and everyone came to her defence and after that incident I was ostracised by all my classmates. So that ostracism, in turn, made me really resentful and bitter somehow. I would always study alone while they laughed to each other as a unified class about school events like class trips or tests or homework.

One time, I was reviewing slides, taking notes and retaining content, the usual routine in class, when they suddenly started laughing and speaking REALLY loudly about this highly trivial thing, I don’t even know what it was, but they were so loud that I couldn’t concentrate at all and I needed to fully focus every time I studied, and after about 30 minutes I just absolutely snapped and stood up and yelled, “CAN YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP.” Well they shut up but that just made the ostracism worse. That was about the last public display of anger from me, from 13.

Age 9: School Life

I remember this friend in particular very well, Gaby Seow Jing Yi. She wasn't a friend. She only chose to get close to me that way because she thought it would help her become more intelligent or that I would teach her any school material she needed help with (I would've helped even if we weren't labelled as friends...), but OF COURSE that's not how academics work. SHe tried to reach out to me pretty recently with small talk, I don't even know how she got my contact. Is she ok?

She would always find every reason to not be seen with me, though there was this "friend group" thing again (why is it even a THING. why can't people just be friends?), where there was also this other girl, Julia. Honestly, both of them were extremly edgy and Gaby especially always tried to act rebellious to seem cool and Julia would follow. It set me off but my rationale was that we were friends right?

Speaking of Julia, I didn't hold that big of a grudge against her as I did against Gaby, but she was definitely a bystander. She would copy my EVERY move, it was honestly unsettling. Where Gaby tried to avoid me, she tried to get close to me every chance she got, and always chose to sat next to me when we got to choose seats. When I stood, she stood, when I sat down, she sat, when I raised my hand to asked a question, she raised her hand. I tried to test it out a few times to see if I was just imagining it, so one day I stood up to "go somewhere" and stopped midway. I looked at her. She walked the same way as me, right behind me. It was just weird.

Anyway, back to the exclusion, like there was this one time she was braggig about hosting this party somewhere and then after she finished talking about the details she looked at me and said, "oh, I'm not inviting you though." It was recess. I asked her why. She said, "because you wear glasses and my brother doesn't like it". I was immediately (INTERNALLY) like, "nope, YOU don't like ME, not your brother not liking my glasses." But I just laughed and said, "that's so ridiculous" and she was laughing and agreeing, but of course it was false.

But I knew it was all petty, kiddy stuff. I didn't mind, I just wished she would've been honest. Here's what really set me off about her:

1. She was the one who locked me in the classroom.

   It was just a joke, she said. I don't remember doing anything that made her do that to me, but I remember how it went down: it was after school, I was copying 家课, and she suddenly ran out the door and I heard this gust of wind that it caught as it swung shut. She was yelling at someone else to hold down the back door when I tried to exit through it. I think I was crying, but I don't know why. She was laughing and calling me an idiot and telling me to kill myself, but in my mind I just saw it as projection so I didn't take it personally, but it still hurt.

   After that, the discipline teacher announced over the speakers that I was missing and she quickly ran down the stairs. I didn't really care, I just took the chance to quickly get home too. I ended up walking faster, and at the gate, her mom was talking to mine, and I arrived first at the scene. When she arrived there too, she immediately yelled, "No, mom! I didn't call Vyonnie an idiot!" and I started laughing at her because she just confessed? She did it because she thought I told on her.

2. She used my fear of paranormal to get me to self-harm.

   Like I said, she liked to act edgy or mimick her older siblings because she found it "cool", so she would bring ouija boards or scary things to school and dare me to go against these superstitions. I forgot what the actual event was (maybe it was charlie-charlie), but I was peer pressured into participating in it, and she said, "oh, did you draw blood?" that same week after the event.

   I asked her what she meant. She said, "oh, it's the purification ritual. if you don't do it, you're in danger. me and julia already did it." I asked her what the actual ritual was, she said, "You need to cut yourself and smear your blood against your left thumb." I asked her how to do it. She said, "any way, you just need to have blood." In hindsight, it was ridiculous.

   I knew it was bullshit, but I was too scared to listen to my rationale. The next day at tuition I took a nail ?? (I remember it was a nail, but could've just been any sharp object. I think the nail was loose from one of my tuition centre's cupboards), and I just, drew a line across my thumb, because I thought, "ok, if I can't escape doing something like this for such an invalid reason, then I'll at least do a shortcut by doing it directly on my thumb like she told me to".

my head HURTS. 5.18a.m., but i need to finish this. i can't ruminate on all of this anymore. nvm i need to do my cs assignment BUT i still wanna write about nathan in a completely new section because yes i do feel like he was part of a LARGE part of my life. and i didn't touch on the wow. kids are so mean sometimes and i was such a bitch?

My classmates also frequently looked through my things when I was out of class but somehow they were in (in most instances I was out for agama), to get intel on me (I have no idea for what? To see what extra workbooks I did or how I studied? To find some kind of wrongdoing to vilify me*?), and this was ongoing for a few years.

When I was nine in particular, there was this boy (Zhe Xian) who one day thought it was a brilliant idea to not only look through my bag “as usual” but to dig out my diary. He read it to the whole class. As usual I was walking back from agama that’s why I was out of the classroom and I saw everyone gathering around him, he was standing up and he raised my diary high into the air and was announcing every word loudly. Everyone started laughing at me when I walked in and obviously I was mad in that situation. I snatched my diary from his hands and said that he was invading someone else’s privacy which is more humiliating for him than what I wrote anyway.

Age 3-10: Home Life

Part 1 of this section here because it has a very dramatic "woe is me" vibe which is not what I want to convey, this is just for context surrounding this section.

But there was one time I went on a trip with my mom and her friends and their children who were about the same age as me, and this was the experience: I remember sitting on the couch outside reading while all of the kids were in this one room (Age 8) and the adults outside were praising me while criticising their kids like “look! She’s reading while you’re all on your phones”

Their comments, while well-meaning inadvertently just made them kind of dislike me but in reality I wasn’t really reading, I was just pretending to? Not really pretending on purpose but I couldn’t focus because I was sad and my mind was on how happy they were while I was alone.

Eventually, the adults coaxed me into playing with them and kind of forced them to play with me (they were playing uno) but I was performing the whole time and I felt so tired that I didn’t want to socialise (I still did anyway) and even when I was in the room there was just this hierarchy that formed that I wasn’t even a part of. I was part of the game, but I wasn’t a friend.

And because that was the experience on the trip, by the end of it, I begged my mom to bring me to the playground near the hotel downstairs because I wanted at least one positive experience out of the vacation and I knew she wouldn’t refuse in front of her friends.

So she eventually brought me down and she was watching me play and I asked her, “why don’t you play too?” And so she went on this playground thingy and she didn’t know how to use it and she fell down and hit a metal bar, and when she stood up and crutched her head, there was blood, and I was obviously panicking and I told her to quickly call someone but she said it’s ok but I kept nagging her to call someone or at least go back to her friends to get medical attention until she eventually did.

I always felt guilty about that incident, and she always brought it up whenever I asked for anything else in the future, like, “I’m not [giving you what you asked for], remember last time I brought you to the playground because you were so annoying and insistent about it and I hit my head and it was bleeding?!”

There's this old iPad I used to use when I was younger that stores certain childhood photos and videos of me. In most photos, I was in kindergarten and I remember. In the photos I look happy, but I was performing happiness, I was exaggerating it for the camera because that's what the adults wanted to see, that’s what would make me stand out, that’s what would separate me from those “shy kids”. That was what I thought as the photos were taken.

Then in some I was tired of performing. Under the sun, every kid was expected to pose. I was tired. I frowned on purpose while striking the pose and I cried after that and I remember that day I was told I was too sensitive. But I didn’t want to pose or perform anymore, 6 years old, I just wanted to get out of the sun and sleep.

Everywhere I look now, I realise I’m just a performance. I’ve never been human. Not once. Am I even human? I’m not human. I have humanity in me and that’s a defect because I’m not human and I never was. I’m a performance, I’m entertainment, I’m a tool, I’m discardable, I’m expendable, I’m just a walking cinema screen. Everything I do must create useful output, and even as I try to challenge that notion, I realise I can’t, because no matter what, I will create useful output in some way. My drawings, my art, my music, my soul, do I have a soul? My machines, my work, the science I love, can I even love? Do I love what I say I love or do I love how I can feel a brief window of humanity when others notice my useful output from the things I love?

Then that video where I was trying to create a song at 6, I was performing then too, I was performing for my mom. I had a purple hula hoop and I was creating a melody with incoherent lyrics. I was smiling and going through the hula hoop while singing. “Bringing, brinking like a dinosaur, AH!!!!” While laughing. It seems like a regular kid moment but I remember what I was thinking.

In that moment, I thought, “Mom, can you look at me?” So I created a way for her to notice because I realised no matter how loud or well I sang, she wouldn’t listen. So I fell down onto the smaller mattress and said, “Mom, can you please move the video camera?” I asked two times. She said, “Ugh!!! I’m busy la!” Then I went up to the desk where she was at and I started laughing because she would only respond to the laughing child. The crying one was a problem, that wasn’t good entertainment. Then I asked again and she eventually moved the camera when I said, “Look! You ruined my brinking show!” And she moved it to my direction but I kept saying, “No! No, it’s wrong!” It needed to be right. I was getting frustrated but I needed to smile. Eventually she got it right, she restarted the video.

There was also another video.

The context of that video was I found this children’s book at age 7 and my reading level was well above it but it was a new book and I was curious so I opened it up and told my mom to listen to me read it. Actually, I remember I wanted her to read it to me because I would read in books that parents read bedtime stories to children and I wanted to experience that but she didn’t get the hint so I started reading instead. I read the story. Performance again. She was recording me. I thought, “I don’t want her to record me, I don’t want her to just store this as a memory as it’s happening, I just want her to listen to me, not document me just because she finds this cute.”

And I wanted to believe in her. I wanted to believe she was listening while recording, so after the story was read and I realised there were questions at the back, I started to ask her questions about the story. I was cheeky at first. “Who stole Jerry’s pot of porridge?” (Or something like that, I’ll need to rewatch to know the exact question) and my mom just kept repeating “duck” for every question as an answer and at first I was like, “Nooo (in a silly/teasing way).” Or “And what?” While smiling and eventually when she just kept repeating “duck” I got really hurt and it channeled out as anger and I wanted to show her that I was genuinely frustrated so I stopped smiling but she saw it as just another cute mood.

I stopped asking her the questions and I saw another story and I really wanted her to read it to me so I said, “Who will read the next story?” While smiling and I looked at her. She didn’t respond, she was still recording. I gave up. I said, “The end.” And smiled and closed the book.

I keep thinking about how maybe I’m not seeing the bigger picture, maybe I did something horribly wrong somewhere or the way I acted set everyone off, or something I said or did was so bad that ostracism was natural, or maybe I was insensitive to everyone else (well everyone always said I cried too much and was too sensitive though which made them not want to be around me apparently), and that I’m not reflecting on myself and only remembering the situations in which I was wronged. Maybe it was all my fault but I’m not self-aware enough. Am I self-aware enough?

Fun Facts About Me

• I love brown teddy bears...I have about 12 in my room rn lol
• I am extremely scared of thunder/lightning. I WILL cry if I see a bright light streak nearby with loud subsequent thunder thanks.
• The first formal book I've ever read is an animal encyclopedia at 6 years old (because my mom said, "are you sure you can read that?" 🙄)
• I am TERRIFIED of all animals, no matter how big or small despite really loving them...
• I try my best not to hurt bugs/small insects and while I AM scared of them, I'll try to blow them away instead of potentially hurting them, but sometimes I panic and accidentally...(you know) them and I always get super guilty about it like if I get to live, I just took away those little bug's rights to live and that's not fair.

Ritualistic Behaviours

• counting from 1 to 10 then repeat but it has to be until 10 because it’s a complete number even thought it’s not a good or bad number, it’s complete
• using only my left hand to touch certain surfaces and not my right and feeing extremely disgusted if I use my right and feeling it’s contaminated
• needing to have my trophies out in the open where I can see them because if I keep them hidden away it might affect my potential
• only writing positive experiences/things I’m grateful about at the start of every physically written out journal entry before I can touch on any negative experiences and written neg experiences must be kept minimal/less than pos experiences because otherwise the next day might be bad/I would be in a bad headspace
• every time I’m afraid something that’s not aligned with my beliefs will happen, I take a star out of a jar of stars that my best friend from last year gave to me, write out what I want to happen, refold it, put it in a secret compartment in my first ever music box that I’ve had since I was a toddler, close it, turn the music box manually until the song plays three times to guarantee what I want to happen will happen
• needing to have my table completely empty except for my pencil case when taking exams because the first time I did it, I got 100, and I feel like if I don’t repeat that (clearing out my table) it will bring risk of it not being 100 and I don’t want that risk to come from anything else but my own mind yk? also I have to bring this lucky charm that a friend gave to me when I was 9 and put it on the table with my pencil case to guarantee 100
• jade pt1: so I have this plate of crystals it’s like in this pentagon shape on a clear crystal plate/stand and every time I accidentally knock a crystal off i believe it signifies diff things but this time jade fell and it actually rolled under my bed that has never happened before so I was panicking ofc I couldn’t really recall what it stood for but I think it was like peace or something and it falling means something there was misaligned so I quickly searched for it under my bed but I couldn’t find it so I called my mom to help and she did
• my jade pendant fell today. It NEVER falls, it has only fallen once, broken once and I’ve worn it all my life and today I had my igcse malay listening so ya BOARD EXAM and I was borderline late I needed to actually leave IN THAT MOMENT but I was panicking like what did it mean was like my pendant mad at me I don’t want this to affect my headspace or score or my day and I wanted badly to clasp it back because thankfully it wasn’t broken but I needed to leave so I stood there frozen for a while and I noticed the counting again but I tried to stop it and I was thinking of what else I needed to take to leave and ended up leaving my phone behind and bolting out the door with my pendant in hand
• when I look for a spot to sit the table has to be empty and like sheen with no spots or signs of contamination or ill feel super icky or ill just not put my books or anything or touch it at all
• once I enter my room the door can’t be open for more than one second because I’m scared outside air will enter and contaminate my space
• never dragging heavy objects like a pencil case or book across a surface like a table because then dirt will be trapped under it and stick to it and it feels contaminated and I need to clean it
• always physically brushing off point of contact with another person like if someone bumps into my shoulder I’ll brush my shoulder like it feels like it cancels out the contact
• never drinking canned drinks from vending machines ever since I learnt abt botulism. one time I accidentally bought a canned drink from a vending machine and had to drink it, I physically couldn’t I had to clean the top first and then pour it out onto a cup and even then it feels so scary
• jade pt2: but my mom touched the floor and then was asking to get something like a hanger or stick cuz she saw it but couldn’t reach it and I was screaming because she stood up and was flailing her hands near my new pillowcase and bed and I told her to sit back down and I kept yelling it repeatedly until she actually did because it was so terrifying like the thought of her touching my things with hands that already touched the floor and I couldn’t give her a hanger either and she couldn’t understand why but it was because after I give the the hanger I know she would use it to touch the floor but hangers are meant to hang clothes so then what if my clothes get contaminated and I wouldn’t even know about it and so I got really scared and upset and I started screaming and crying for her to just take the Jade out because mixed in with the fear of a misaligned crystal it was actually too much and eventually she wanted to leave but I didn’t want her to touch the doorknob so she used her clothes to cover her hands but it’s only a thin fabric and she didn’t close the door within one second so I started hyperventilating like breathing so loudly and crazy I could actually hear my heartbeat and I was hugging myself and crying and screaming because the thought of her taking the hanger out and putting it somewhere and not cleaning it and touching doors without cleaning her hands doors that I would later touch maybe and the Jade was still under my bed and misaligned I didn’t know what to do so then at some point I asked myself wait why am I even crying and screaming about so I listed all those above again and started hyperventilating again and it was just this cycle and then i was thinking about how my tears would stain my face and I needed to get up to wipe my face and as I stood up I remembered the Jade and the hanger and everything and I started screaming again and I sat back down oh my god what is wrong w me lol? ? Also, when I was screaming my mom wanted to hit me cuz obviously right? I was screaming her response is valid. But then I started screaming more. I was actually terrified at the prospect of her touching me, not because it would hurt if she hit, but because she touched the floor. I was actually going to explode I feel like
• I almost never put belongings I value or at least like hold close a lot on school tables like I had my lip balm in my pocket and needed it taken out cuz I was entering exam hall but the only place to put were the canteen tables and in the end I asked one of my classmates if I could put my lip balm on top of her statement of entry so there was a barrier
• when my belongings fall to the floor my first instinct is to throw it away because it can’t be used anymore and i actually did used to throw away certain things but then at some point I forced myself out of it like one time my glasses fell to the ground n my immediate response was to throw it and hyperventilate and not touch it but it’s expensive n my mom would kill me n I literally couldn’t see so I forced myself to pick it up and clean it thoroughly and put it on my face so the next time I wear it I can be like “I already did it the first time, avoiding it now won’t erase that”
• when I spiral into deep feelings of hate or fear like when I’m thinking about my test results or something I said or done or thinking about what others might be thinking of me or how to face certain parts of the future and it gets too loud and physically shake my head to “shake off” the thoughts or I tell my mind to shut up out loud, It’s kind of like desperate impulse but I feel like I need to do it if I don’t naturally do it already and I also feel the urge to write something like maybe write my thoughts but in the end I don’t write my thoughts so I end up scribbling because it’s as close to writing as I can get or I write help over and over on/ crumple whatever piece of paper I can find usually my maths book
• when I was in the exam hall, test nearly ended with 6 min left to transfer answers aka HYPERFOCUS NEEDED the candidate beside me was shaking her leg deliberately in that anxious to leave motion and it was making me anxious so I looked straight at my paper but it was still in my peripheral and I was thinking I cant lose this moment over something so trivial I need my score to be perfect and so I put a hand to my eye to block my peripheral vision
• whenever words like “fail” or just less than perfect is said out loud and I can hear it, I repeat opposing affirmations like “100, 100, 100” or “I’m highly intelligent” because I saw somewhere that your subconscious picks up on things that your conscious mind might not and I don’t want such words to go into my subconscious and affect my external reality