Shadow ticks

Ticks! Everyday Shadow comes back from her walk and I find one or two ticks on her. Those little blood suckers are usually found on neck or on her legs. They are difficult to kill, squishing them between fingers does not kill them.

Her groomer and I agreed to have a close shave, meaning her fur is about 5 mm long. Her legs without a normal coat makes them look like chicken legs, they look so thin. The weather is hot and humid so fuck the looks and go for a more practical coat. She'll grow a fine coat in no time, until then, she looks pretty bald.

Cheers mate

Geez...after going on and on about how tired I am. I finally, doused myself with ice water, or what ever that is in the freezer... ice cream mmm... and actually sat down to plan for a trip to Perth.

My ideas flirted from one to the other, some wild and crazy, others mundane until my head was buzzing like an angry bee hive and threatened to have a melt down and turn into a blob of wax. Don't have a choice, made a list.

First: Airticket (okay... have to get one, called the travel agent. I was asked when I wanted to go, which date, what airline, if I wanted a direct flight.) Ooops! Had not thought about that. After moving all the paper on top of my table calendar, made a decision, called back and booked a direct flight (SQ ticket).

Second: Mobility in Perth. Rent a car! Now this is hard cos I am so fond of cars and when I finally get to choose which car I want to drive. There are so many dream cars, BMW Z4, Lexus, Ferrari. Whoa! Ok. Ok. I settled for a Toyota RAV4. Fun and sporty.

Accomodations: I'll be sleeping with my friend. Correction, I'll be staying with my friend. So that's covered.

Finally, I have to decided what I want to do in Perth. This one will have to wait a bit.

Aquarium: A contained microecosystem

Left-hander = Right brain dominant?

I am a leftie, according the scientific theories, I am right brain dominant. I stumbled across how different sides of the brain process information from the Internet.

Quite a number of my best friends are also lefties. Coincidence? I don't know. Anyhow, BK explains his ideas using analogies. We talk often in 'pictures' jumping from one mind photo to the next with apparent ease. But, DC does not use analogy much in her therapy. She just needs some practice, so be patient cos that's not the way she makes sense of the world.

But FRIDGE! Oh man! When I explain using analogies, I use situations whereby it's simple and easily visualised. I had problems making the picture cos:

1. There are many different types of fridges. The various different compartments. Need something more universal.
2. Must be very familiar with the features of the analogy you are using to explain. If dunno how a fridge work, a bit frustrating because I will ask how does a fridge function.
3. I usually don't care what is in the fridge, I use it to cool my drinks. So I really catch-no-ball.

When I had an inkling of what she wanted to explain, fish tank made more sense and it's easier, more visual.

DC put in good effort to change the way she usually explains things and it made sense to me more. FINALLY ....

Right Brain Inventory

• Visual, focusing on images, patterns
• Intuitive, led by feelings
• Process ideas simultaneously
• Mind photos used to remember things, writing things down or illustrating them helps me remember
• Make lateral connections from information
• See the whole first, then the details
• Organisation tends to be lacking
• Free association
• Like to know why I'm doing something or why rules exist (reasons)
• No sense of time
• Have trouble spelling and finding words to express myself
• Enjoy touching & feeling actual objects (sensory input)
• Trouble prioritising, so often late, impulsive
• Unlikely to read instructions manual before trying
• Listen to how something is being said
• Talk with my hands
• Likely to think you're naturally creative but need to apply yourself to develop your potential.

It is because of the random nature of my dominant right side, I must make lists and schedules or else I can't seem to complete any tasks.

Left Brain Inventory

• Verbal, focusing on words, symbols, numbers
• Analytical, led by logic
• Process ideas sequentially, step by step
• Words used to remember things, remember names rather than faces
• Make logical deductions from information
• Work up to the whole step by step, focusing on details, information organised
• Highly organised
• Like making lists and planning
• Likely to follow rules without questioning them
• Good at keeping track of time
• Spelling and mathematical formula easily memorised
• Enjoy observing
• Plan ahead
• Likely to read instruction manual before trying
• Listen to what is being said
• Rarely use gestures when talking
• Likely to believe you're not creative, need to be willing to try and take risks to develop your potential
  

Exhausion

Tired, just so tired. I want to scream, ENOUGH!!! No more, please.
Not knowing if I progressed or regressed. It's kinda my fault cos I never asked how I was doing.
Feeling emptied out. I have no idea how I am going to get through the next session.

Reasons I call it quits:

• Too tired: The emotional rollercoaster just drained me.

• Fed-up : Dismal - Why am I taking so god damn long?
  

• 1990 - 1994 : APC (4 yrs)
• 1996 - 1998 : Geetha (2 yrs)
• 1999 - 2005 : DC (5 yrs)

That's total of 11 yrs

• Too scared.
  
• Scared because :
• I don't understand the links between her sentences
• I've lost trust and faith and it hurts much
• I feel too close / too dependent
• As a result:
• I can't see her POV. I feel stupid
• There's a communication breakdown
• I keep losing my train of thought
• I feel I cannot discuss issues
• Physically and emotionally shutdown. I find it very difficult to self motivate to continue therapy.

Waraku Japanese Restaurant

Japanese food is my favourite. Just went to this great Jap restaurant called: WARAKU. The food is great but it get crowded on weekends. I like the sashimi there and it has cool drinks mixed with sake.

The location is nice too as after dinner, you can stroll along the beach, digesting the lovely meal while enjoying the sea breeze and the sky lit with stars.

Do or Do Not. There is no TRY. - Yoda

Fed-up with myself at my previous appointment with Dr C. I told her I wanted to stop but didn't know how. I told her I was scared and wanted it to be the last session.

I was beginning to feel like I am able to stand on my own yet angry at myself for being so dependent on Dr C. The crazy roller coaster because I feel emotionally attached to Dr C was making me feel extremely tired.

Hell! I have had therapy for more than 10 years. It's begining to be weary, thinking when can I stop? When can I be independent of regular sessions to fix my neverending issues?

Thus with that scaring the shit out of me, I made a hash out of the previous session. Could not express my ideas across, thus it made me very unhappy and feeling no closure at all. So called Ken up and asked him for advise. Told him I want to stop therapy but end it well. I do not wish for any unresolved emotions or issues that may haunt me later. When I am confused and need to explain myself, it usually ends up in an utter mess. Ken, who understands the situation gave me a few lines to say to Dr C.

Next smoked a cigarette to calm my nerves, I called Dr C. She agreed that I was rash and told me its ok to make another appointment. I told her I wanted to end therapy but acknowledge I still have issues to face. I also told her that I wished to set a date for me to end therapy and that I needed to discuss it with her.

I'll need to bring a notebook to jot down some sentences as I need to see her words and process them cos sometimes when we work on a sticky problem I tend to switch off.

Sad, lost and scared

No more Dr C. Damn! What I have done?!? Fear is just beginning to sink in. No idea what will happen. What will I do? I hope that I have enough moxie to get through this period.

Has it become an addiction? A crutch?

Those are the questions that pushed me to stop therapy. A dependence on Dr C to help me get through my shit.

The test of not having Dr C around a period of time. How I freaked out and pull myself together. I must admit it's not a great job but hey, at least I am still standing. I needed a lot of help from K. and BK.

Lost: I must admit that I am feeling lost and missing something. The regular sessions calmed the angry storms in my head. Although sometimes I feel worst when I leave the premises.

Sad that I said goodbye to Dr C which I worked closely since 1998. It's impossible but feel some attachment. Afterall, its within the small room that my soul was laid bare many times.

Me in black and white

Shadow looking wistful ...awww

Damn you transference

Damn it! I think I have transference issues. I seem to care much for Dr. C when feel affected by the death of her husband, Dr. L. The strong feelings and fantasies about the situation that had no basis in reality. Yo! I know that lah....I may be too sensitive but I know they are not real.

I am reacting to her in terms of what I need to see, I am afraid of or what I see when I know very little about her. This all happens without me knowing why I feel and react the way I do. Actually that's not true my dear. Dr. L death is also a slap in my face on the 'death' of my father. Oh yes, he alive and kicking (well not exactly kicking cos' he's too old to do that). But the animosity I have for him. He's not there and that's when I grieve for a father lost, Dr. L. Well this was clearly highlighted in today's last session with Dr. C. I guess it's one of the outstanding issues not resolved. But damn it! I am not ready to face it. It will come around and push me to the ground sometime in the future I am quite sure of it.

BTW I am not sure why the session today kept moving out of focus. I don't know why she talked about her new appartments and that the location were very noisy. She seems a bit perplexed when I have no idea where her appartment was. She said it was supposed to be behind my block. Well! I can only see HDBs, so unless she's moving into the 3 rooms HDB flats, I have no idea. Kekeke.

My God! Please don't get started on Internet and gadgets during therapy. I won't be able to stop talking about them. So anyway, I suppose I started it by bring my PDA out to show her Shadow's pic and picked up wireless Internet surfing somewhere in the building.

She asked which IP to subscribe to. She wanted to stick to Pacific Internet because she has a PI e-mail account! Aiyoh, Dr C. You can always use other web-based mail servers mah! Can even import all your e-mail contacts. Then just sit down for 1/2 hour and mass e-mail to everyone on your contact list from your new account. So they will all know about it. You can keep your old account for max 3 months in case your old e-mail account is used for other secure Internet transactions like banking. But knowing Dr. C, she'll rather get summons for late payments than conduct money transactions over the Internet.

I would recommend Internet wireless connectivity as it is so convenient, less hassle and less unseemly wires lying around. And the thing is Dr C, it is encrypted so no one can access your Internet or your files without the encryption key. If you are staying in a one-floor appartment, you should be able to have seamless connection, perhaps maybe the back toilet. I don't know .... I like to surf while doing my businesss in the toilet. So you see.... don't get me started on gadgets.

Anyway, we just ended therapy. Siew Lan advised that I make another just-in-case appointment in 1 months time but I decided against it.

Sure I have unresolved issues. But then again, I will always have unresolved issues. I just hope that DA, DM and DC have coached me well.

Sitting attentively at the balcony

Her coat is salt and pepper.
This picture makes her head look huge!

Shadow. My miniature schnauzer

I thought I had moved on

It gives me no pleasure to have the pain revisit me. It comes again this time when I have an appointment with Dr C. For me, the raw reality of seeing her suffer such a loss is too much for me to address honestly and fully. It demands vulnerability - the admission of weakness, dependence and the fear that I've come to the end of my rope.

That may be one of the reasons why I have decided to make the next appointment, the last. I am trying to skirt it and give excuses like: I don't want the relationship to be another Dr A saga. I fear I am getting too involved, too sensitive. I am running away as quickly as I can.

Be honest YY, will stopping therapy deal with my own grief. I have been avoiding the subject of how death has affected me because I care so much for Dr C. (Is this normal?) I have been hiding, talking around it, postpone the appointment, pretending that everything is as per norm.

The pain, the grief will never go away. I realised that it'll be like a scar, it may fade with time but it'll always be there. I think that unless it's met head on and allowed to run its course, it will never be allowed to heal. Every loss is different, the time it takes will vary with every person.

Life goes on for everyone, people initially felt sad about the destruction of the tsunamis. They are sympathetic and moved at first, but after a while even KW and BK grew tired of hearing me talk about it and I feel guilty that I am still struggling sometimes.

I feel that I need to move on and resume the pace at work, at home, and with friends. Once or twice a week, I still sit at the balcony unable to sleep, waiting for the sunrise. Other times, out of the blue, I'd feel a stab of pain. It's a bit dangerous when it happens while I am driving. Sometimes, it happens when I dine out with friends or family. A quote taken from the Internet:
"After all grief is the innate urge to go on loving someone who is no longer there, and to be loved back. And insofar as we hold ourselves back (or allow someone else to hold us back) from bringing this urge to expression, we will remain frustrated, and we will never heal."

On my own, I had to replay the pain in my mind. Had to face it, I tell you, it bloody hurts and each time I replay it, I feel so much pain and I want to retreat from the terrible sadness. There was only one way: To submit to grief and ride the roller coaster of emotions.

Like depression, I have to embrace it and make it a part of me. The need for humility. That I am helpless and hope to find strength within myself to hold on. I need to find other things to do, to force myself to keep walking. Taking up a course which requires me to visit the library is good as I love reading. Getting in shape by engaging a PT at the gym.

The feelings of lost has magnified my loneliness. It's so lonely especially during the weekends that I am visited by my old friend, "Depression". Never had I felt the urge to find a boyfriend. Pangs of isolation even amongst friends and family. Maybe I just need someone there to hold me while I cry - sometimes. Just maybe.

Bit by bit I walk on

I have been feeling bad. Still I try to do things bit by bit. Someone told me, just let go, why hold on to the pain?

Do they think I want the pain? I can't just let go, push it aside and get on with life. People think grief is like a switch. "Okay, so it's over, move on!" Many think that its only within a certain period of time. Like grief has an expiry date or something.

BUT IT IS NOT!

Some days, when the intensity is little. I feel okay. Other times, triggered by things, people or events, the intensity can be crushing. My heart feels like some vice squeezing it. A lump in my throat. My eyes brims with tears. I feel like curling up into a ball. It hurts and all of a sudden I feel alone.

But chewyi, this is not new to you!?! Yeah! I remember now, it is the similar feeling when I get depression. Not the anxiety depression ones, but the ones that destroys my spirit. The 4 years in Perth. I remember the times in which during lecture or tutorial, I would walk out, go to my car, curl up in pain; crying out for DA. The despair and hurt. It'll hurt until I felt numb. Cry until there are no more tears.

So, Chewyi, remember the pain. You've been through it and experienced even stronger and more paralyzing pain.

It will become more bearable. It goes into the background, lingering, while I pick up the pieces of myself and stumble forward.

Remember the pain.

Grief does not end

So it continues. It did not end. Its been placed temporarily aside. Know this Chewyi, you'll come across things like: pictures, sound, smell, places, conversations, that'll bring back the feelings of grief and loss.

Friends will get tired of listening to you again and again, the stories you rehash. You'll feel abandoned but they also have their limits of patience.

When grief comes, it is not just once, the intensity varies. Chewyi, when it hits really hard, just hang on! Sometimes, you'll feel normal and think normally. Other times, you get knocked off your feet by the sudden rush of sadness and feelings of isolation. It's ok Chewyi, you'll be in situations where you are surrounded by people yet feel so left out it hurts. Or something you see, hear, jolts your memory. You will feel the sudden stab of pain. Your thoughts will be disjointed. There'll be times in which you are utterly lost on what you are doing.

And the nights will be the longest nightmare. Weekends too. so fill them up with something. Memories flood back. Been thinking of Geoff, it was great having someone fo cuddle up to at night. It can be very lonely at times.

The truth about myself

The truth. How I react to the truth can either empower me or disembowel me. I need strength to face the truth and even more to come to terms with it.

Many a times, there will be masks, smokescreens and 'blindness' to block me from seeing the truth. I will know when I come face to face with it because just before facing it, there will be heart-pounding then heart stopping moment. When I come to the threshold. It will be a decision to make. To face it or to turn away from it and walk away. Too many times have I turned my back on it. But it has its means to make its way back and wallop me at the most unexpected time. It is also moments which I am most unprepared and at my most vulnerable.

I would reel from the impact of it. Surprised, shocked and filled with utter panic. Nowadays, my will to face it has given me surprising courage and resiliency to accept it. Sometimes it hurts too much or when the truth is too big for me to handle, I am able to KIV it, however acknowledging that I have to return to face the truth at another time.

The raw things about myself are often accompanied by strong emotions. These emotions tends to overwhelm me and sometimes I feel like I am drowning, other times I felt like dying is better than the fear of facing them. It is difficult to open and lay myself bare on the table. But only when I am able to see my most naked self and totally honest, am I able to do something about it.

Then from a well of strength I don't know it exists, I have to draw from.

The barage of emotions whether positive or negative are one of the pillars of strength, with the cold logic are all I have to make or break me.

I may be in pain but let it not incapcitate me.

Just saying! Not doing!

You know sometimes I keep saying I want to do this thing and start that thing but never actually do it. Reasons are plentiful, too busy, tight budget, too tired, too scared ... etc

They keep piling up and with increasing guilt and frustration cos they are always at the back of my mind, nagging. Sometimes they are quiet whisperings. But when they SHOUT! Man, that's when conflict arises and anxiety increases. It can totally consume me and sometimes my mind just shuts me down.

I start gym instead of moaning about my weak knees. (I've ACL reconstruction) Instead of complaining about my job and keep saying that I want to quit. I have decided to do a course which I like and will open up my options career.

Death changes a person

As events changes a person. The tsunamis disaster changed Dr C as it has changed me. She is grieving and her thoughts and processes are affected. I felt it the first time I met her after her return. The second and third time, it got to me. I find myself unable to work with her as every word I say has to be carefully thought out. In doing so, I felt restricted and tied up.

The issues I wanted to discuss were not appropriate to be raised during my time with her. Yet, they seem pressing to me. So I hold back. My friends say not to be bothered and go ahead and address the issues but I cannot. I just could not bring myself to talk to her. So I have to leave it at that. I have to solved them myself.

She's been a good coach and I can only hope that it will be enough to bring me through my own shit. But the fear of not having her physically around is very distressing.

I try to remember the encouragement, the advise, the tools she gave me. I try but I am so afraid. It's feels so alone sometimes.

Is there a God?

In the end, I had to admit that there were things that were beyond me. So I went looking for my faith again. I had never believed in any God. But in a desperate and shattered body, soul and mind, I went to an icon where I hope that God could be found - Church.

It has been years since I stepped into a Church. I went but couldn't enter. When I knelt I felt I gave a certain part of myself away. Placed myself in the hands of some other greater self. It was one of the hardest thing to do.

I spoke earnestly to God, not Jesus and all his saints, not to any of the written word. I had to submit and admit that there was nothing I could do and asked for help. Not to remove the pain, not to make things the way it was, but to help me find the courage to walk my trials of fire and in anyway to help her walk her own trials.

Perhaps she questions the existance of God. I mean, I'd ask if there is a God who took away my loved one. What kind of lesson is God trying to teach? It must certainly seem utterly unfair. Yet, as another soul in pain, I asked God to provide her the strength in the hard days ahead.

I felt an immense load being lifted off my shoulders as I knelt there and pray. Perhaps its God's work, perhaps its me admitting there were things that are beyond me.

Tsunamis

Dec 26, 2004 is a date I will always remember. Like many others directly or indirectly affected, I was unquestionably changed. The pillars of strength suddenly taken away. Lost and in grief. I did all I could to 'fix' my own emotions. Did all I could possibly think of to help. Yet, it just doesn't feel enough. The question : WHY? I keep asking myself. There is no answer. All faith destroyed in a sweeping moment.

I had to submit to the reality that there was nothing I could have done. So I had to find faith and hope in this desolate place in my mind. Shock. Pain. The feeling of extreme lost. All these prevents me from thinking clearly. I know my thoughts are off the track yet I couldn't find the strength to change it. Like depression, I had ride it through.

Coach

I have had enough. The recent months have been a crazy yo yo. I survived it. Friends were around me to help. However, ultimately I went through it myself. It was scary, so many doubts, so many fears.

It's my trials and have to walk it alone. Beside me is my coach. She's not there in person but she's here in my heart. I remember her words, her advise. They keep me going. I have learnt well, I didn't realise it until I was put to the test. So I walk my own trials by fire alone but with her presence beside me all the time.

I have other coaches. I still remember my first coach. I have come to accept that he is still very present in my heart. He scares me because he was the first one to break through to me. The power he wields, he doesn't know, is very strong. So strong it scares my shitless. The closeness I felt for him was the first relationship I had formed. So was my first bond.