Biodata: Name: Daphne Country: Malaysia Race: Chinese, Cantonese Dialect (but my mother has unknown origins as an orphan) Speaks: English (Fluent Enough), Malay (Not-So-Fluent), Japanese (Toddler Level) Understands: Cantonese, Bahasa Indonesia Favorite Color: I don't have a favorite, but I'm inexplicably drawn to white and indigo as of late. I wear yellow items to lift my spirits. Favorite Food: Anything that has a 'clean' taste and is easily digested Favorite Drink: Iced green tea with a teaspoon of honey mixed in. Hobbies: Gaia Online (like, DUH), reading, journalling, digital photography (purely for fun), pondering things, stargazing, researching foreign cultures, cooking Talents: Shoe-shining, seasoning food, coming up with redneck solutions to problems,getting along with elderly folk, child psychology, able to tell chances of rain without setting foot outside the house, has calming effect on reptiles? Failings: Getting along with peers, bad stamina, can't stick to schedules, shy, not very photogenic, unpredictable,fails at dancing anything but the chicken dance, tells jokes with a perfectly straight face and tone, quite unladylike at times, BLUNT. Slow when it comes to romance. Attracts: Dogs, obese otakus (6 so far), stray coins, bigger meal portions (I always get the bigger servings!) Repels: Cats, most girls
The next post contains angst and much ranting, so skip ahead to the third one on this page if such things are not your cup of tea. sweatdrop
wahmbulanceWarning: Super Angsty Long Post!wahmbulance Summarizing was never one of my strong points.
My family was broken even before I was born. My father married my mother just so that her family would fund his accounting studies abroad in the UK. He was poor - his father was only a shop sign painter, and well... my mother was reasonably well-off, was pleasant to look at and was reassuringly simple-minded. What did he have to lose? He dated her for eleven months and they got married.
He left my mother in Malaysia, got his pointy hat and came back a very changed man. I'll make this simple: he simply discarded the mask he wore around her. Now, my mother was born in 1950, and my dad is five years older. And they were Chinese. Which meant that my mother was expected to be subservient to his every whim and fancy. Which is what she did, and he would expect no less from her. She effectively became his slave, and all of her wealth was also his.
They left for Australia, and things kind of snowballed from there. My father was a chronic gambler, and would gamble the night away while my mother stayed alone at home. And then I was born. That didn't fix things. My father didn't care that his wife was going through labor and apparently continued to gamble all night long. And every now and then after my birth, an enraged man would storm to our doorstep, demanding to know my father's whereabouts.
You see, my dad used women for their money even before he met my mother, and he even did the same over in the UK. My mother was not the first victim of his ways. My mother was scared witless and would cry alone each night with no one to turn to.
I was two when they decided to return to Malaysia, and everything was fine for a while. That is, until my mother discovered that my father sold the house that they 'jointly' paid for (by 'jointly' I mean that my mom paid most of the cost) had been sold by none other than my father WITHOUT her consent to further his job as a remisier. And he lost it all, leaving him drowned in debt, and my mother's remaining money was used up in order to bail him out. He then worked as an accountant.
I was around seven years of age when I found a letter tucked away in the storeroom. It was addressed to my father and was written by an old flame of his, apologizing to him for aborting their love child and saying that he was right to have told her off for aborting the child. It sickens me to say that the letter was dated somewhere around the year of my birth. What made it more tragic was the Christmas card she addressed to "******* and family". She *knew* he had a family, and yet she allowed him to use her like that! I didn't blame her, I blamed my father instead. I kind of knew that he was rotten anyway.
I was twelve when my grandmothers passed away, one after the other. My dad became horribly paranoid and afraid of death, and his habits became unhealthier. He would overindulge in things like chocolate and root beer, and that's how he became diabetic. He became more selfish, thinking that nobody would be there to care for him when he dies.
My mother had taken to emotional eating, and her appearance had become drastically altered due to all of the emotional abuse my father had put her through. The pain eventually became too great for her to bear, and she started venting her frustrations out on me, calling me ugly, stupid and all manner of things. I believed her, and those words would become my inner soundtrack for years to come.
I was ugly, and it didn't matter since men were just beasts with base desires.
I was fine with being ugly.
I didn't blame my mother because I knew that she was not the root cause of it all. She went through so many things no woman should ever be allowed to suffer.
I was a Form 2 student (that's 8th Grade!) when I met my best friend, who I hadn't met since kindergarten. She was bubbly, sweet and caring, all of the things that were missing in my life. We were like Glinda and Elphaba in so many ways. Life became more tolerable because she kept me strong.
College. It's funny when I think back on how I allowed my father to enroll me in an Information Technology institute just so my parents would both SHUT THE HELL UP. I felt that they both expected me to clean up the mess that is their lives, because it is the duty of every child, and me taking up an intellectual profession in a cushy air-conditioned environment with a guaranteed 'ladder' was the way to go. It didn't work out due to the fact that they wouldn't spare computer labs for a class that contained only three students. I dropped out.
Art college, I was genuinely happy there but I was adversely affected by all the crap my parents threw my way. It was normal for my mother to tell me to be a whore - spreading my legs wide open should be easy enough for me to do. My grades suffered, and I dropped out for the second time.
I only felt guilty towards my aunt - my dad talked her into funding my studies. My aunt did more for me than my father ever did. I resolved to take care of her in her old age and leave my father to rot. He came into the world with a name and his parents' love. He would leave it with nothing.
Oh, and then there were the jobs I was forced into by Daddy Dearest. Something about how working would help me experience the hardships in life and all that tripe. It's amusing watching him trying to sound like the most noble person ever when I know exactly what he's made of. Countering him is twice as enjoyable when I've got all the cold, hard facts.
Too 'incompetent' for my first job. And much too 'cheeky' for my second. At this point, my dad finally gave up, and I took to sorting out my feelings alone at home. I just felt that my own inner workings were in a mess.
I eventually discovered that I wasn't being myself all of this time, and that I had been molded by my loved ones for their own personal gains - even my best friend. She enjoyed being around me because I made a pretty good foil, and she was quite unhappy when I started to care about my looks. I could understand that - she suffered from a bad case of middle child syndrome and felt that she would be more easily noticed when she was next to me.
I'm currently best friend-less, and her new best friend is less classically attractive than she is. It hurts having to move on alone like this, but I know that I'll be stronger for it.
All these events prompted me to write a fake journal in which I was still myself in different, kinder circumstances. What would I have been like? What would I have done differently? What would my alternate self have needed? I got my answers: I was not the person my family and best friend made me out to be. That 'self' was neither lazy, stupid or self-centered. She had her quirks and could be downright stubborn at times, but she was never, ever truly useless in any way. No child really is.
That was quite sobering.I realized that beneath all these layers of decaying paint and labels, I was still a blank canvas. Blank, undeveloped, but with limitless potential to change. Blank because I never had a chance to get to know myself. Blank because my visions were not my own. Blank because I never had anything to lose in the first place.
What I needed was a fresh start, a new beginning. A journey to find myself again.
This is the start of my hope. This is my Tabula Rasa.
Posted: Wed Apr 17, 2013 1:56 pm
emotion_hug
I appplaud you for being strong enough to go through all tha and still be able to accept yourself.
redface Thanks, I guess being an only child gives me plenty of time to think things over. 3nodding Reading the articles on Marc and Angel Hack Life and keeping a self-affirmation journal helped tons, too!
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:51 pm
I'm the second of two daughters of the "official" marriage... I don't keep a journal like that but it sounds like a good idea.
What articles are you talking about? I'm not quite sure what to do a search for...
I save these pages on my phone for offline viewing so that I can refer to them even when my dad hasn't paid the internet bill and the connection gets cut off. I view them in secret after my mom goes on another of her tirades and says things to put me down, when I'm feeling unsettled and unsure about my direction in life and when I'm waiting for someone or taking the bus.
How do I put this... It's like reading these articles helps me to replace my sad thoughts with much happier and positive ones! I find that I'm much better off when I shrug things off and do whatever my heart says is right. I used to lock myself in the toilet for hours and cry to myself, now I just read these little reminders and know that I am responsible for my own happiness. Happiness is a choice, not just a state of mind. smile
I hope you find these links useful! cat_whee
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:21 am
I'm so happy to meet a fellow Malaysian in the guild! biggrin
Happiness is a choice, not just a state of mind. smile
THIS. My counselor told me this a long time ago (seven years or so?) that I could be happy or I could be miserable. It was up to me.
My parents have tried to make me as miserable as they are. I've moved out of their house to my Grandpa's and it makes SUCH a difference to have love and encouragement...
emotion_hug thanks for the links. I'm checking them out tomorrow (I woke up in the middle of the night again).
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 12:37 am
Margravine Vittoria
I'm so happy to meet a fellow Malaysian in the guild! biggrin
Why, hello to you too! biggrin It's a pleasant surprise because we're kind of a rare breed here. 3nodding
@Gigi: Yup, it's true that misery loves company. I'm glad that you don't have to put up with your parents' emotional displacement anymore. It's not supposed to be a burden any child should have to carry. emotion_hug I was kinda curious that you replied at this hour since we live on opposite sides of the planet, LOL. Pleasant dreams!~ biggrin
Eiraelis
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Eiraelis
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Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2013 3:17 am
20th April, 2013 Saturday 5:18 PM [Cloudy]
It's been three and a half months ever since I cut myself off from what used to be my social network, almost 3 months since I created a new Facebook account and 15 days since I started to learn the basics of cooking on my own.
In all this time, I've been telling my ex-bestie and her new best friend less and less about my efforts to change my life for the better... Because the former would either find some way get some leverage on my newly developed skills and because the former can be awfully domineering at times. They have limited access to my status updates and pictures.
I'm not alone, though. I've got the nicest pet siblings a person like myself could ever ask for. whee They always keep in touch with me through Facebook, and whenever they pop by my city, they always invite me to hang out with them. My pet bro (he likes to be called Aniki) and his sis (I call her Aneki, the feminine form of Aniki) even took me on a trip to their hometown in Ipoh last October to cheer me up! Ipoh's a lovely place - I'd describe it as the Malaysian equivalent of Louisiana, where smiles and great food are found in abundance. biggrin
I'm also learning how to cook so that I can make them something special someday. smile I haven't got much on me, but I can at do at least this much in return! whee
Oh yes, where was I? Well, the domineering friend suddenly asked me to go on a girls-only shopping trip with her next week, and I don't have a clue why. She may be feeling guilty for inadvertently causing the rift between me and my ex-bestie and this might be her way of helping to patch our friendship back together again.
What she doesn't know is that it was her possessiveness that caused that rift to grow in the first place... Much like myself, she has dropped out of college several times and desperately needs a way to prove herself useful or capable in any way that she can. This aspect of her extends to her friendships, and she prides herself on being the better best friend. She lavished my ex-bestie with all the treats and attention that I could never afford, and well... the rift appeared.
I didn't call her out on her actions because I know that it hurts to be a nobody or feel to like one. I silently watched them drift away from me, watched as they excluded me from their outings, watched as my best friend grew more materialistic from being doted upon so much. I just turned silent - what kind of friendship requires this kind of competition anyway? And so for the first time ever, I cut off almost all contact with my best friend of 19 years.
It still stings a little.
And this person asked me out. I guess I'll just go and see what happens, see what has changed in both myself and her since the time I left them to find myself.
But if I see that I'll be exposed to more unhealthy competition and drama, I'm calling it quits.
Edit: The outing's on Tuesday.
Posted: Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:48 pm
Well as it turns out... I was right about some things and wrong about others, but boy do I ever feel like running away from that part of my life right now.
I won't ever be understood, and I know that. That's why I walked out in the first place. No matter how much they try to assure me otherwise, my place in life isn't among them anymore. They shouldn't have to put on reassuring smiles for my sake alone.
I'll still be that jigsaw puzzle piece that went into the wrong box. It'll be all for naught. Guess I'll save all of us the trouble and just move on. I've come this far. I mustn't give up.
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