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[rememberthepastme]

6/15/2020

So, I’ve switched to a new therapist named Jaime since GT kicked me out. No ill will towards my old therapist because it’s not her fault, but it still sucked. Looking for a new therapist was not a fun process. In any case, the reason I’m writing today is about a specific incident that occurred 2 days ago, on Saturday.

I had my first panic attack.

My family left to go to Florida for the weekend and a few days, so I invited Julia over to come hang out. We’re dating now. She brought an edible with her that she got from one of her friends, and we thought it would be fun to take together. I’ve taken edibles before, gotten high before, taken hits from dab pens, smoked, etc., so I wasn’t worried about it. But for whatever reason, this time didn’t go so swimmingly. It started off like normal, I began feeling the body high, I got pins and needles all over, my heart began beating a little faster, and I felt the cotton mouth. Then I felt the mental part, I had a looser track of time, my thoughts felt slow, and I had to struggle to stay focused on a single thing. These progressively got worse and worse. I first noted that it was hitting hard after around 30 minutes. Then, it was the highest I had ever felt after 45. Then I think around an hour or so after I took the edible, I began feeling a little ill. It manifested as a pressure in the back of my throat/esophagus, like I was going to throw up. I started feeling the cold sweats that usually accompany vomit so I ran to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet to get it all out. I had vomited from drinking before and in that situation, once you get it out you feel a million times better, so I was hoping I would vomit, take a breather, and be fine.

Unfortunately, that never happened. Nothing ever came up, and I never had the heaves that come with throwing up. Instead, my symptoms kept getting worse. The pins and needles turned into cramps, and then full on muscle convulsions. My heart sped up higher and higher, and my breathing became more ragged. It felt like I when you’re sobbing and it’s hard to catch your breath. My thoughts became even more clouded, and my hold on time and place loosened. Eventually I couldn’t keep myself over the toilet anymore, at which point I caved and called for Julia. She came running over, and started caring for me. At this point, I felt horrible. It was just a little edible and I was on the bathroom floor incapacitated because of it. I thought I would just wait it out and then have a funny story to laugh at afterwards. But I kept getting worse. Alongside my quickly loosening grip on time and reality, I began to feel as though I was throwing up. I mentally felt every heave and the bile in my mouth, and it spewing from my lips, though none of it actually occurred. Every thought I had turned into an intrusive thought complete with a scenario that played out in my head like a movie, every second. It was incredibly hard to stay in the moment and not lose myself to these runaway thoughts. Every single one felt real, and reality wasn’t much different. I likened it to Dr. Strange looking through 14 million futures in Avengers to Julia. I stopped being able to move entirely, and breathing became even more difficult for me. I felt terrible since Julia had to care for me, and every moment that I got worse meant that the situation would probably be even more traumatic for Julia. I could barely speak between my cotton mouth, muscle convulsions, ragged breathing, and runaway thoughts, but I began apologizing to Julia over and over. I also started to describe these symptoms as much as I could. I thought if I focused on externalizing them, I could control them as if they were nothing more than the physical aspects of my emotions. After all, a bad trip was just mental, right? I tried voicing this to Julia too, though I’m honestly not sure how coherent I was.

The symptoms continued to get worse. My hands started hurting because of how hard my muscles were contracting and trembling, and my breathing got to a point that made me feel faint. I was past just feeling like I had been sobbing. I also started losing the sense of feeling in my body. I felt cold and hot at the same time, and I couldn’t feel the ground under me. My vision tunneled until I couldn’t see anything but the singular point I was focused on, almost like the inverse of my ocular migraines. Once my breathing got really bad, I started to freak out. My thoughts turned to those of serious injury and passing out, so I started trying to control myself as much as possible. Julia laid me on the ground once it was clear I wasn’t going to vomit, and then propped my head up on something. (I never looked at what it was). I was trying to consider the repercussions of calling 911 at this point. I knew that American healthcare was terrible and if this whole thing was going to blow over I didn’t want anyone else involved. I especially hated the irony of involving cops in these times, because I much as I hated them they would end up showing if 911 was called. Even more than that, I knew that I was exactly the stereotype of rich white boy tries weed and has a bad experience. I vehemently hated the idea of being that person. I tried to downplay all the symptoms in my head and justify them, but it was clear I had little control and they kept getting worse. Eventually, my breathing got to a point where I was struggling to keep conscious. I finally gave in and told Julia to call 911.

This was when I started feeling like I was fighting to stay alive. I was still externalizing to Julia as much as possible, and I told her I felt like my soul was leaving my body, and I if I gave in even the slightest it would leave and I would die. I felt very, very close to death. I started conflating this feeling of fighting for my life with fighting against my symptoms. I had to prove that this was all mental, it was all for show, and that I was still in control. I first tried forcing my breathing to slow, but my heart was still beating so fast it felt worse than what I was doing before. So I tried moving. I was clenching and unclenching my hands at first, but when I felt as though I was going to die I attempted to stand and walk outside. I’m not really sure what the rationale was, I remember thinking if I made it outside I would have a greater chance of living somehow. I made it out of the bathroom and about 5 steps before collapsing into a chair Julia pulled over for me in the middle of the hallway. The time being propped up on the bathroom floor and walking to the hallway was probably the peak of the symptoms, as it plateaued from there. Can’t get much worse than feeling close to death, I suppose.

I started sobbing that I didn’t want to die to Julia. I was terrified, scared out of mind, literally. The crying made breathing even more difficult though, so I tried to focus on my movement. Eventually, the paramedics showed up and checked me out. They told me I wasn’t going to die, and coached me through breathing. They told me to focus on in through my nose, and out through my mouth. With that technique I was able to get my breathing under control to a degree, and I no longer felt as though I was dying. However the other physical effects were still there. They offered to bring me to the hospital, but they said they basically wouldn’t do anything for me but lay me down and give me oxygen, and I’d probably be fine after a while on my own. I chose to stay, and thankfully they said a visit is free. However, I’ll have to wait and see if I get anything in the mail.

After that, I calmed down and the symptoms mostly went away. I was left just feeling very high, though it certainly wasn’t pleasant. The pressure in my throat I felt from the beginning remained constant, and so I was terrified that it would happen again. I realized that even thinking about the attack instantly gave me trembling and constricted my throat a bit. This was about the worst possible scenario for me because the way I think is by playing out my memories in my head and envisioning new ones, so not thinking about a memory was incredibly difficult. I tried distracting myself by watching TV or tiktoks but ultimately I would remember that I’m doing that in order to distract myself from thinking about the attack, which of course would make it worse. Eventually I just tried my hardest to fall asleep, and thankfully I did. By the time I woke up, the high had worn off and thinking about the attack no longer made me worry about triggering another.

The entire experience was extremely traumatic and I don’t think I’ve really processed it yet. According to Julia, the entire episode from me calling for her to the paramedics leaving was around an hour, though it felt much much longer to me. I had no sense of time at all. In any case, I’m not gonna go near weed for quite some time.

[rememberthepastme]

4/5/20

Welp, the coronavirus has shut down the entire world and my mental state has been absolutely fucked. This semester was supposed to be my easier semester, only taking 4 classes with most of them being fun ones, but instead it’s been extremely difficult for me. As always, it seems. I think I had this grand dream of this semester being the one to finally make me happy, what with being able to pursue my own interests more and have more free time, but instead it’s solidified that I indeed have a mental illness; one that I have little control over. I’m still depressed. Having more free time did not change that.

Still, the semester was going better than the last, until I was forced to go home. Being with my family has been an entirely different set of challenges than the ones I faced in college. More and more, I’m noticing patterns in my family that have made me the way I am. While I’ve certainly become more aware of my own feelings and the processes behind them through therapy, it’s also made me more emotionally intelligent to my family, and it’s becoming harder and harder not to blame them for the way I’ve turned out. My parents have this idea, one that’s so ingrained into us that I didn’t even realize it wasn’t the norm until I began therapy, that you must always being doing something. Anything less than 100% productivity at all times is a sign of weakness, of laziness. And we get punished accordingly for it. When I first started in therapy, I hated the idea of blaming anyone for my depression (except for myself), but being with my family these past few weeks has turned me. I’m going insane here with them. I’m not the same person I was in high school; living on my own has made me realize that I only got through those times because my parent’s motivation became my own, and I was left with nothing at all for the things I wanted. In college, one of my big challenges has been learning to motivate myself without them, but now that I’m back home I feel like I’ve thrown all of that out the window since my family won’t accept those things, like taking time to myself or simply doing nothing as self care. But I can’t return to the way I was in high school because then I simply buried my feelings and ignored them, which only led to more anguish. I don’t know what to do, and I feel like shit because I’m fighting with my family so much about time and yet when I do have time to myself, I can’t muster up the motivation to work anyways. But no matter, my family will just think I’m lazy.

What’s exacerbated these issues is that my family is moving currently, so there is indeed a lot of work to be done and they’re not wrong in asking for my help, but the way they do leads me to feel worse than I have all semester. A week ago, last Sunday, I cried myself to sleep for the first time. It took all my strength to bring myself to call a friend for help, and all I could think about was how my parents would never know. Now, I think to myself that were the situation ever to arise, I could sometime use that as a weapon against my parents, as if it validates that I truly am depressed. My parents don’t understand emotions, but they do understand physical events, and while depression is a feeling, crying myself to sleep is physical, so it’s proof of my mental illness to them (and me) in some twisted way.

The final nail in the coffin for me was the discovery of an old journal, from long before I started this blog. It was the old rainbow one, the one I wrote in around 10-13 years old, when I was moving to India. I was going through all my old notes and things I had saved in my room, since I was packing them up, when I found it. Of course, I began reading through it for the comedy of the cringy things I had written all those years ago. Some of it was quite funny, but around halfway through I found the folded page. I remembered how I had had some very personal thoughts and didn’t want anyone reading them, so I labelled the page accordingly and folded it as a warning. At the time of reading, I thought that the personal thoughts I had written there was about Avery, the crush I had in elementary school or something similarly juvenile. However, I was horrified to discover that what I had actually written was how terribly sad and depressed I was feeling, at age 10! At first I couldn’t believe that I had misremembered so horribly since I had no memory of feeling the way I do now back then, and took it as a bad day and nothing more. But as I continued through the journal, more and more entries appeared using the exact same word. “Depressed”. Spanning 3 years, around 5 or 6 entries all talking about the same thing. You would think something so major would burn itself into memory, yet I didn’t remember any of it. And the straw to break the camel’s back: the very last entry in the journal. A story I had dreamed up about the end of the world. One in which every single character died at the end, but somehow through the story were going to find peace with their inevitable deaths. At age 10, I had the exact same fantasies/intrusive thoughts I get today. Fuck.

As I sat there reading the idea, I noticed a small note at the bottom about including a dream I had had about an elevator to heaven. While I still don’t remember that specific one, many, many more began to flood back to me. Dreams about heaven that was like a hotel in the clouds, a heaven that was like a school, being shot and watching my family grieve, and so many more I’ve probably forgotten. All of my dreams are vivid and unique, and tend not to follow patterns, so how could I have forgotten such a major trend? I always wondered what repressed trauma really meant, but now I feel like I’m beginning to understand it. I literally forgot about my own feelings for at least 3 years of my life, probably more. Rediscovering all of that, on top of everything else, was what led to me cry myself to sleep for the first time.

Hopefully I get to go back to school or an internship soon.

[rememberthepastme]

I just realized, isn't it interesting that this is the first post on here that isn't worrying about the past or future? I always worry and overthink the tangible things in my life and never really stop to introspect. I always thought of introspection as analyzing my actions in the past, not my past, present, and future feelings.

12/31/19

I've been thinking a lot about my own feelings ever since I've been in therapy, and its helped me to realize quite a few things. Lately, I've been thinking about my family. I've been on vacation for the past 2 weeks or so with them and whenever I'm back with my family I'm always exhausted by them, and I never stopped to consider why. My therapist told me to try and consider what it is that makes me not want to be around them. I think it's that I'm an introvert around them. That's the switch, somehow. Whenever I'm with my family I don't get any time alone except for when I finally go to bed. That's why I always sleep for very long times with my family, and why I feel so exhausted. It's just weird to me because I think of myself as an extrovert. I love being with friends and I hate being alone normally, and I usually agree with the whole "recharging your battery" through being with others. But when I'm with my family, it's the opposite, I recharge by being alone, which I very very rarely get to do. You know, when I was a kid I used to fantasize about being inside a box or giant hamster ball decked out with cozy mattresses and blankets on the walls, lots of books, my Gameboy and DS, and a TV for my Wii. But these weren't places I could enter exit, I always dreamed of them as permanent places to be, like I would never leave. I never considered until now how odd that was. If I'm such an extrovert, why wouldn't my escapist fantasy have been to be with my friends? Or at the very least include some way for others to join me or be in contact in these fantasies. My therapist talked about imagining "not flipping the switch" when I'm with family and seeing what that would be like, but I think I explained it the wrong way. I can't control whether or not I get tired, but its important to recognize when I do and how to fix it. Maybe this is a tangible thing I can tell my parents would help me.

[rememberthepastme]

12/31/19

I've been thinking a lot about my own feelings ever since I've been in therapy, and its helped me to realize quite a few things. Lately, I've been thinking about my family. I've been on vacation for the past 2 weeks or so with them and whenever I'm back with my family I'm always exhausted by them, and I never stopped to consider why. My therapist told me to try and consider what it is that makes me not want to be around them. I think it's that I'm an introvert around them. That's the switch, somehow. Whenever I'm with my family I don't get any time alone except for when I finally go to bed. That's why I always sleep for very long times with my family, and why I feel so exhausted. It's just weird to me because I think of myself as an extrovert. I love being with friends and I hate being alone normally, and I usually agree with the whole "recharging your battery" through being with others. But when I'm with my family, it's the opposite, I recharge by being alone, which I very very rarely get to do. You know, when I was a kid I used to fantasize about being inside a box or giant hamster ball decked out with cozy mattresses and blankets on the walls, lots of books, my Gameboy and DS, and a TV for my Wii. But these weren't places I could enter exit, I always dreamed of them as permanent places to be, like I would never leave. I never considered until now how odd that was. If I'm such an extrovert, why wouldn't my escapist fantasy have been to be with my friends? Or at the very least include some way for others to join me or be in contact in these fantasies. My therapist talked about imagining "not flipping the switch" when I'm with family and seeing what that would be like, but I think I explained it the wrong way. I can't control whether or not I get tired, but its important to recognize when I do and how to fix it. Maybe this is a tangible thing I can tell my parents would help me.

[rememberthepastme]

11/17/19

Well, I'm dusting off this journal once again because I officially have depression and anxiety, and my GT therapist told me to try journalling again. I'm coming back from the Chabad 18th Gala, which of course was great to be honored with an award, but now I have to face the week again and it's going to be a doozy. Now that I'm leaving a fun social event to go do homework due tomorrow late into the night, I know that my mood is going to shift very soon, and I'm trying to capture this moment before it happens. At least that's what my therapist recommends. It was extremely anxiety inducing to give a speech in front of everyone, as always, and orthodox Jews are a little too touchy, as always. But overall I had a good time, and the award being so big definitely makes me proud. But now I'm going home and working for at least a few hours before I can sleep since I neglected my work the rest of the weekend. My therapist recommended imagining as many scenarios as possible, good or bad, that could occur, in order to sort through my feelings and try and prevent the oncoming wave of depression a little. So towards that end, I could get home and figure it all out easily and be in bed by midnight. I might have to take a little more time to understand it, but I've had late nights before and I can handle it. I might get frustrated from some bizarre problem, but find the solution online even though I don't fully understand it. I might not understand anything and go to bed early feeling depressed, but I'll still have time to finish in between 3020 and 2040. I'm going to get through this. And one day, maybe sooner than I think, I'll come clean about my mental state to everyone.

[rememberthepastme]

02/04/19

Here's what I wrote when venting after I found out that Cris had attacked Daniella.

What the fuck is wrong with you. How can you be so horrible to the people who love and respect you and have been there for you every step of the way until we couldn't take it anymore. Do you know what you've put Daniella through? Do you know what you've put all of us through? We care about you so much that we can't stand to hear that you're destroying yourself yet again and we can't bear to support you in our own anymore so we do the only thing we can at this point to help you and you throw in back in our face and tear the group apart. You're despicable.

[rememberthepastme]

02/02/19

So much has happened to me it’s a little unbelievable I’ve waited so long to make another post. Let’s start at the beginning. I very quickly got out of that frat, thank god, and got on with my life. It was terrifying in the moment, but it makes for a pretty funny story now. That event doesn’t even begin to compare the trauma of what happened in my social life after.

So as the year began, I was looking to carve out my social circles. Obviously, I started with my GHP friend group as nearly all of us came to the same college. We hung out together for a little bit, but it just wasn’t the same and it eventually fell apart. After Wet Friday, where the group split apart and left me behind to go to sleep at 9pm instead of going to a party, I didn’t really want to spend that much time with some of the group anyways. 

I was spending a lot of time with Ruby, as we still had a good friendship, and she introduced me to the Gays, a group of gay students who had met in a collective groupchat before the year began. They were a very cool group and I really enjoyed hanging out with them, but as I made new friends some of them became closer to me than I was expecting. At the time my breakup with Savannah was still fresh, and I hadn’t put much effort into trying to spend time with her so we could remain friends, so when someone expressed interest in me romantically, I thought it would be a good chance for me to get over Savannah.

How wrong I was. That person was Cris, one of the most emotionally manipulative and damaging people I’ve ever met. I don’t remember exactly how we first met, but I do remember how we almost dated. This was now a few months into the semester, September I believe. Ruby had gone through a few boyfriends and was currently spending a lot of time with my roommate, so for whatever reason she came over to see Jared and brought along Cris, who I didn’t know all that well at the time. We watched some Youtube videos and I showed some of my favorite creepy ones, and while Ruby and Jared curled up together, she flashed shy smiles at me from across the room. I got the hint, and the next night I was hanging out with Ruby and Yasamin when she texted me asking if I wanted to come hang out in her room and watch some more creepy Youtube. I said yes, thinking that it would be nice to start a relationship and my friends were happy for me. 

I got to her room and we went up in her bed and watched videos on Youtube, then we listened to some music, cuddled a bit and discussed our lives. She revealed to me her cutting scars and how awful her life had been before coming to college, but she reassured me that she was much better now. However as the night went on Cris kept coming on to me more and more and the more we talked the more I began to realize how I didn’t really want to be in a relationship at the time. I excused myself and went home thinking I had made a healthy decision. 

Around a week later, Jared’s frat hosted a party that he invited Ruby and some of the others in the group to, including me and Cris. I came and had a few drinks, but as the night went on it became more and more miserable. Cris only had a single drink and was immediately drunk off her ass, which for her apparently meant rubbing herself all over me whenever she could. I was extremely uncomfortable and kept moving away, but drunk as she was, she didn’t pick up on that. I stopped drinking because I didn’t know what would happen if I became too intoxicated to stop her. Eventually Ruby and Jared began smoking cigarettes and were much drunker than me, and I had had enough. As I went to leave the party, Cris caught me and asked where I was going. I said I couldn’t stand the smoking and I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy the party. She responded with, “Well, maybe you and I could go back up to my room to escape this place,” or something to that effect. I was fed up at this point, so I pulled her aside and said firmly, “Look Cris, I like you as a friend. I am not in a place to be dating right now and I don’t think of you that way. I’m sorry.” She was rather shocked, and I quickly left. By the time I got back to the dorm, she had sent me a very large amount of snapchats apologizing profusely in an extremely self-demeaning manner. I told her not to worry about it, thinking about her mental health. 

The next day, she joined Ruby and I for breakfast and as we walked together, I noticed she was limping. I confirmed with others later that she had, in fact, gone home and cut herself after I left. This knowledge destroyed me, and I found it very difficult to spend time with her afterwards. When I did summon the courage to, she would repeatedly make references to still being in love with me and how I was one of only two or three people she had every truly loved. Every single time she became drunk, and sometimes even when sober, she would tell me this and then proceed to talk about how horrible she is and how she doesn’t deserve love. Much later, I found out that she stumbled upon porn that had someone that looked like me in it, and she would rewatch it often. It was exhausting being around her. 

Cris continued to antagonize the group and stir up drama, and it peaked when she slept with a frat guy and claimed that he had raped her. Now, I don’t know the exact details behind everything that happened so I’ll reserve judgement and give her the benefit of the doubt, but the people that were there say nothing of that sort ever happened. In any case, Cris’s mental health deteriorated rapidly. She began to cut regularly, and threatened suicide a number of times. Many members of the group spent night after night reassuring her and telling her that she was loved. After the 4th or 5th time, the group was at its limit. Almost everyone had been personally affected by Cris in some way, and no one had the emotional capacity to deal with a suicidal woman all night again. So backed up against the corner and out of options, Daniella called the cops and told them that Cris was going to kill herself. Cris was sent to the hospital that night and put on probation, meaning she couldn’t spend any time on campus that wasn’t in a class. She was furious. In the days afterwards, she would tell anyone that would listen how she wasn’t really suicidal and calling the cops was a huge overreaction, and whoever did was a piece of shit and a horrible friend. Of course, she somehow found out that it was Daniella and told her even worse things than she said in public, and demanded that Daniella pay for her hospital bills. When Daniella revealed this to the rest of the group, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Cris was more or less excommunicated and everyone agreed that it was better for everyone to cut her out of our lives. Nowadays she’s back living on campus, and I still can’t stand to be around her. If I ever see her I take extra steps to avoid such a toxic person.

That wasn’t the story I sat down tonight to write, but it will have to wait for another night. Just recounting that was exhausting. I hope I never have to meet someone like Cris again.

[rememberthepastme]

08/19/18

I think I just made a decision I’m going to heavily regret. I was walking back from the DramaTech social, feeling a little empty, like something was missing. I was so happy last year but this sudden shift to college and having the GHP group back together and finally confronting them about Judaism has left me feeling like something just isn’t right, but I can’t place what it is. I don’t understand, because I love being around my friends especially now that they’re not attacking my identity, but the feeling is still there. Maybe it’s just homesickness.

In any case, it was that feeling that made me choose to take the call from an unknown number right as I was about to enter my building. Ninety nine times out of a hundred it’s just a spam call trying to sell me insurance or some bullshit and I’d ignore it since it’s not in my contacts, but this time I picked up. It was a guy from AEPi, the Jewish fraternity. I had gone for the first night I was here and I didn’t really like it because I didn’t connect with any of the people, so I never planned on going back. But the guy on the other line was someone new and he offered smores, and my parents had told me that I was closing myself off at the Chabad dinner and that I would like them if I didn’t. So I took the offer and went back. At the beginning I was just talking to some guys like the first time, they were nice enough but I didn’t really connect in any meaningful way. It felt more like puppetry than genuine conversation. Everyone who talked to me had a part to play in some master plan and it was all orchestrated. But eventually I mentioned I enjoy playing Smash Bros and the frat set me up with someone else who enjoys it, and we hit it off after a bit. He seemed to loosen up after we had talked for a few minutes and the conversation seemed less about recruiting me and just about enjoying ourselves. I was having fun, so when the guy from the first night came over to the group and asked if I had seen the third floor of the frat, I lied and said yes. But he insisted and pulled me away from the group anyways. I was immediately uncomfortable with the situation and didn’t really know what to expect, but I didn’t know how to get out of it and I knew if I did I might not be able to rejoin the group I was in since I was the only freshman and they probably moved on to another to recruit. 

That is to say, I wasn’t expecting him to take me to a dark candlelit room with another frat guy in robes sitting at a table. But as soon as I stepped in I knew exactly what was happening and my heart rate jumped to a million beats a minute. Even then I was thinking that I could not sign myself away to this place with how I was feeling about it. The man in robes offered me a letter and fancy pen and asked if I knew why I was there. I shakily responded I had a good idea. He told me they liked me a lot and they wanted to extend a bid to me, pushing the paper and pen towards me. I responded that I wasn’t 100% sure about it, which is quite the overstatement, but the guy who brought me in reassured me that accepting a bid is non-binding. He continued that if I ever had any questions or concerns I could take it up with the pledge master and he “would sort them out”, not that I could still leave I noted. My brain stopped functioning from the fear and I didn’t know what else I could say, but as scared as I was I still heard my mom’s words that I should open myself up. “I had enjoyed the one conversation I was having before I was pulled away, so maybe I could learn to like being a part of a fraternity,” I tried to reason with myself. And after he implied I could leave, I didn’t know what else to do but sign. I took the pen and wrote my name with an unsteady hand saying, “Well, I guess if it’s non-binding...” It certainly didn’t seem like the kind of situation where declining was an option, and what happened next only solidified that notion for me. 

They turned on the lights and thanked me, then gave me a frat T-shirt. As the original frat guy who pulled me away walked me down the stairs, he asked if I knew what was next. I replied I had no idea at all. He told me he was going to put his hand on my back and lead me, and that I should keep my head down and just enjoy. As he lead me out and around the building, I knew that he had prepared all of this beforehand, which only made me wonder what would have happened had I had the guts to decline. He opened the door back inside and screamed something at the top of his lungs that I barely had time to process before he shoved me through the crowd and then turned a corner, dragging me under what I think was a bell. I didn’t get a good look exactly where I was because as soon as I was there everyone in the room, which is to say everyone in the frat, crowded around me in a very very claustrophobic semicircle. The pushing guy told me to get down and I knelt on the floor as the circle tightened around me, pinning me to the wall. They screamed something about a new brother and accepting the bid and began chanting and hollering and jumping all around me as I stared at the floor and tried not to have a panic attack. I suppose if I had been confident in my decision I might have been excited but all I could think about was how much I knew I was going to come to regret this. I just felt like a piece of shit and I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. 

The chanting eventually ended and gave me a little room, which I took as a cue to stand. Everyone cheered and I shook hands with what felt like every single one of them. As soon as was left alone for a moment I took a moment to collect the scattered pieces of myself and started to walk out, letting someone I had talked to before know I was leaving, because I was tired or some bullshit like that. As I walked out the doors someone new ran after me, and introduced himself as pledge master. I gave him my phone number and he told me that I would have to block off Wednesday and Thursday night but that would be last time they would be so strict with scheduling. I assume those are for whatever form of an induction ceremony there is, if that ordeal wasn’t enough already. He also added me to a groupchat and told me I should come back tomorrow and the day after, the final days of Rush. As he was finishing I still had all these thoughts of regrets and mistakes swirling around in my head so I summoned the courage to make sure with him that I had not committed to anything. He told me that the first semester of “pledging” is like a trial period and I can back out if I want to, but they would do everything in their power to make sure I felt comfortable there. He went into more detail about why it was so great for he himself as a freshman and why I should keep with it, but I wasn’t paying too much attention. As soon as he finished I wished him good night and came straight back to my dorm, dissociated on the bean bag for 10 minutes, and decided that I needed to write to process. And here I am.

---

After a long call with my mom, I’m gonna sleep on it and try it out. We’ll see, but I feel a bit better venting.

[rememberthepastme]

8/3/18

In two weeks’ time, I will be moved into my college dorm. It’s crazy to think about. I’m still in that limbo where I can walk back into the high school and feel like I don’t belong there and yet I still have dreams about being back there. None of this feels real. 

Savannah and I will be breaking up when we move in. We decided it was the mature thing to do, considering how much people change in college, and how we both want to explore ourselves without the burden of another. We actually decided to break up the very day that we move, so we can squeeze in all our last moments as a couple in the time we still have left. In my head breaking up means that we simply won’t spend the nights together making out like we do now, but we can still stay friends and hang out and all that entails. But I have doubts that that can last, and I hope that we don’t drift apart. I know so many people at college now that I wonder if it will be difficult maintaining relationships with all of them. I don’t want to be confined to one friend group, especially if I start to dislike them in the same way as I did freshman year of high school.

Speaking of friends in high school, that’s why I decided to write tonight. My sister is always mentioning to me whenever someone else talks about me, and she always describes it with the person having such reverence for me. And it’s not just her, Mr. Lossner told me the other day that the administration was still talking about me even after I’d left. Again, that hasn’t been the first time. It feels conceited to say this, but I love feeling like a celebrity. The idea that other people are talking about me makes me feel like I truly left a mark on the school that won’t be easily forgotten. It’s especially surprising to me considering how my I despise being talked about badly behind my back. I cut all ties with Maggie after I found out she shit talked my birthday freshman year, and it (among other things) lead to the development of my ever-pervasive fear that none of my friends like me and they only tolerate me. In any case, this notoriety isn’t going to continue with me into college. I hope that I can make my name known yet again by following through by dual majoring, but with a school of 20,000 students it can’t possibly be the same. I suppose I should just enjoy the guilty pleasure that I get now. At the very least, I know my siblings will continue talk about me in high school and keep my image alive.

I’m really excited to go to college, and I like to imagine all the things I’ll change about myself when I get there, but I’m scared that I won’t. I want to work out regularly, I want to be proactive, I want to be social and yet still do well academically, and I hope I can manage it all. I’ve certainly had the will before only to see the change never come to fruition. It’s the beginning of another chapter of my life, and so I hope it’s a well-written one.

[rememberthepastme]

2/11/18

A whole year. It's been a while, hasn't it? I just finished rereading through the whole blog, and I think I can confidently say that the reason is simply because I'm in such a better place in my life. Sophomore and junior year, especially before I started dating Savannah, were extremely tough times for me and I was at the lowest I had ever been. Now, reading back over my past sadness, I feel like a different person. I'm so, so, so happy with my life right now. I chose to pursue full-time dual enrollment at Tech and I have so much free time. I don't even have class on Thursday! I have a strong friend group at Tech, much more than the few people I knew last year. That also helps deal with the feelings of duality and separation from my high school friend group I was feeling last semester. Now I've found a whole new group of people to enjoy. I no longer feel like an awkward ass, I'm more confident in myself, and I understand my weaknesses (aka my first test curse, where I always do badly). I only posted here when I was feeling something I couldn't get out anywhere else, and now that I've got Savannah I tell her everything. I love her so much, it makes me wonder how I ever thought I was in love with Tori. To be honest, I think I blame it on my social ineptitude. To sophomore me: you can go to prom with someone as a friend, not in a romantic way you idiot. I suppose I needed it to fully appreciate my relationship now.

In current times, I just finished my research project on Mary Hughes. It's so cool to have a Wikipedia page. It's like being able to contribute to the vast knowledge stores of humanity or something. This is the first semester in a while I'm not taking a math class. That's weird, but also kinda fun. Also sociology is pretty fun too, especially when we're not learning about the theories anymore. Also also,, I got a scooter to ride around Tech and it makes me so happy. Its just so satisfying to fly by all these students and then step off and casually fold it up. It probably looks a little silly on the outside, but I don't care. It's certainly not the most bizarre thing I've seen at Tech, that's for sure.

I mostly came back to this blog because I was discussing journaling with Savannah. It's really fun, it's just a pain to do on my phone and I only really want to do it at night when I'm in bed and don't have access to my computer, so maybe the solution is to start an actual journal like Savannah. All I need is a notebook and a fancy pen I can keep exclusively for journaling and maybe I'll be able to make it part of my routine and I'll be able to keep up with it.

I look forward to what the future brings me.

:)

[rememberthepastme]

2/24/17

Well, it's been quite a while. I guess other things took precedence over daily updates. Oh well. A lot has happened. I asked out Savannah two weeks ago and were dating now, though we still have yet to kiss. It'll happen eventually; I'm not worried. Unfortunately, she can't go to prom because of a wedding, so I don't know if I'll go without her. It just seems mean to me, but I feel like I'm missing a crucial part of high school. I suppose there's always next year. Tomorrow is my interview for GHP. If I pass these, I get in. I'm a little scared, but I'm more confident than I was a few days ago. I really really hope it goes well. I'm still in the middle of writing Mr. Martin a program for Certamen, but I haven't worked on it in a long time and I feel guilty. It's just another lost project now, I guess. I failed another math test. Time to look for a tutor again. I feel almost desensitized to it now. I put in so much, and every time I somehow massively fuck it up. Every goddamn time. I've decided not to take ap gov or ap econ next year. I can't handle 6 aps and I don't want to kill myself. If I'm not going to go to Tech next year then there had better be a good reason for it, and I certainly can't do much if I'm at home doing work for all my classes. Fuck that. Robotics is over. Robot is half built, but the code is turning out quite nicely so we'll see how it goes at competition. I dunno what else to add, so I'll end it here. It's been an odd time in my life. I feel displaced, most of all.

[rememberthepastme]

9/22/16

I remembered. Also this is an excuse to not do work, so I’m taking it. 

Today, I finished making a binary counter for my traffic light in my Embedded Computing class, which means now it cycles through the patterns with the press of a button. I still don’t really understand how flip-flops work, but they do and I understand what they’re doing, so I’m not going to question it. The more I learn in this class, the more I realize what a blessing programming is, though. Hardwiring logic is really fucking difficult. I mean, it took me a whole week to have a traffic light that cycles through the light patterns with a button. That would take approximately 3 seconds to code in Java.

Today I also went to the baseball field (which I didn’t even know existed until today) and listened to a baseball poem. Or, rather, a poem satirizing baseball. I think. English is hard.

[rememberthepastme]

9/21/16

Uggggghhhhhhhhh. Junior year is whole new level of stress. I’m barely getting an A in Latin III, somehow, and I have no idea why. I always feel so confident when I take the test but in the end I fuck it up and get a 85 or something. I feel like I’m letting Mr. Martin down. It also doesn’t help that everyone else around me passes with flying colors and no effort. Why is it that I’m doing so poorly?

The same thing seems to be happening in all of my other classes as well. I try and try and try and yet I don’t understand why I’m doing so shit. I got a fucking 77 on the easiest multiple choice section for the Great Gatsby, half of which we did in class. How the fuck did I get a 77? Am I just that stupid? What the hell happened?

I recently went to a very informative college fair, the Asian American College Fair (hey all my top schools were there and I’ve probably lived in Asia longer than a lot of kids there). One of the speakers there recommended that I keep a journal of everything that happens, every single day. Even if nothing happened, just record the most significant part of the day in a short paragraph. This is supposed to be good practice for college essays, and will improve your writing. I’m thinking of doing that here, but I’m not sure if I will keep up with it. I’m pretty horrible when it comes to self-control. I also learned that I should write all of essays the summer before senior year, and that I should apply at the earliest possibility, which for Georgia Tech, my number one, is August 1 or something. It’s early. But it means that I won’t have to worry about colleges when my classes get really hard in the end of first semester or second semester.  It’s a good plan, but my summer is going to filled to the brim with either another internship or GHP.

Robotics is going well, but we still don’t have a coding laptop so the kids who I’ve been teaching have nothing to do. I feel like I’m letting them down as well. I mean, I started with more than double the number of people I’m “teaching” now. Everyone else has just drifted to more interesting activities. Plus 70% of last year’s code was written by either Matt or Ryan, and this year I’m pretty much alone. I’m terrified that I’m just going to implode and not be able to code anything. What happens when competition rolls around and I can’t fix the code? What happens when GRITS rolls around and I can’t fix last year’s code? For fucks sake I can’t even find the most up to date code for the robot. I’m fucked.

My Combinatorics class seemed really fun at first, but I missed half the questions on the first homework and now I don’t know what I’m going to do. The other students in the class with me have fucked off, I have no idea what they’re doing, the Piazza chat is completely dead because I’m the only one who answers questions, and now the professor hasn’t even responded to my email about getting the homework solutions. I’m completely unprepared the shitstorm that will be the first test on the 5th.

Well, I’ll try and remember to update tomorrow. I’m thinking shorter, daily updates are better than long rants because I can cover more things and spend less time writing these instead of working.

[rememberthepastme]

05/27/16

For the first time in a long, long time, I am ending a day happily. Today was Ashleigh, Elizabeth and Devon’s grad party, and I always seem to return home from social events like this worrying about my actions or being disappointed in myself for being awkward or something of the like, but tonight I feel good about myself. I carried an actual conversation with Tori, without any awkward pauses! I’m very proud. Somehow the conversation just flowed. In any case, it’s nice to be appreciated and to know that there are those who look out for you. I mean, 3 different people offered me graduation tickets. Clearly at least someone enjoys my company. I don’t know. It’s summer. School’s out. I should enjoy myself, and the feeling of having no homework (except for the massive amounts of summer work, but oh well). I just feel good for once.

[rememberthepastme]

5/17/16

I have less than a week left in the school year now. More and more my thoughts are turning to all the friends I won't be able to see for much longer. I'm trying to cherish the time I have left, but I can't help but think about how much I will forget, and how few photos and evidence of my time spent with them I have. I think I should add, as a corollary to my senior letters, a section about how I truly felt about them. As in, I'm always terrified about saying something wrong and embarrassing myself and I always feel sort of out of place, so I crave any sign that they enjoy their time with me as much as I do with them. If that makes any sense. It will be good to get that off of my chest before I say goodbye. In other news, I've been listening a podcast called the bright sessions recently, and it's really drawn me in. Psychology has always fascinated me, and so have super heroes so it was an inevitable mix. The subplot is superbly done as well. I really hope that I recieve letters from my friends. I'm terrified of forgetting them and having a full letter in their words about me would be so lovely. I'm terrible at reading social situations so I'm a little desperate to learn what they actually think of me. Plus it would give me something to go over and read and reminisce when I feel like remembering this time in my life. Especially one from Tori, something to document her side of the story, the story that I am horribly unaware of. That's the hope, anyway. Is it good that these posts have become shorter and less ranting? I think that's a sign that I no longer have to vent into a blank screen, which is probably better for me in the long run. I'm happy with this year. I'm glad I have the friends I do, and I wouldn't trade the world for them.

[rememberthepastme]

5/1/16

So it’s the day before the AP Chem exam, the first of 3 I have to take. After this I have APCS on Tuesday, and AP World on the 12th. That’s the one I’m most worried for, considering that I have had to learn everything myself in that class the entire year. Oh well. I’ll try my best, and hopefully I can manage a 3. I also miraculously exempted my Multivariable Calculus final. I got really scared after I failed the second test, so I studied really really hard. I went to the lectures over spring break and I took tutoring sessions at Georgia Tech’s facilities. It payed off in the end because I scored perfect scores on the next two tests. However, my test average was still an 87% and my grade in total was a 90.3%. I guess an A was the cut-off for exempting? I’m not really sure, but I’m also not questioning it. It certainly freed up a lot of time for me to study for AP Chem. In other news, Tori’s prom date skipped out on her. I don’t really know why. She’s going alone now, and she seems really bitter about it. Deep down some part of me wanted her to ask me, but it’s already too late and it would be cruel to put her in a situation by asking her. Besides, I know that she doesn’t want to go with me again. I’m okay with that. I think. I don’t know. Emotions are hard. Speaking of emotions, I’m also trying to write all my senior letters right now. If you’re reading this now, Tori, hi! I guess that means you got my letter. Tori’s letter was the easiest to write by far, mostly because I had so much to say. I just turned on the valve and let it all flow out. I’m think I did a good job of conveying my feelings and summing up everything I wanted to say. The other ones, however, are a little harder to write. I’m not really sure what to say, and I feel guilty writing so little. I’ve seen a lot of people on social media talking about writing pages upon pages and all I’ve written for most people is only half a page. I guess that’s all I really want to say to them. I’m feeling a little better about myself right now, and that’s good. I just hope this feeling will continue until summer hits, because I’m really really scared for the AP exams and finals and everything else coming up. In more social news, I recently went to Anna’s (the Russian girl) birthday party, but I could only stay for an hour because it was the same day as Tori’s. Anyways, there was this girl there named Shelcy, and I talked to her for like 10 minutes or something, short enough that I didn’t remember her named or have any sort of impression. Then, a couple of days after the party Anna emails me asking me for my phone number. Immediately I think of the party, and that it must have been someone who took an interest to me. Turns out it was Shelcy, and she’s been texting me on and off for around a week now. I’m pretty sure she’s flirting with me, but I’m notoriously bad at reading social situations so I’m not sure. Either way, I haven’t been returning the favor, and I’ve never been the one to initiate a conversation with her. I don’t really have any sort of interest in her at all. I’ll keep responding, but I’m not sure how to handle this kind of thing. I’m not sure about a lot of things. Oh well, at least I’m in a better place than the last post.

[rememberthepastme]

3/19/16

Another month, another post. I’m developing a pattern. This downwards spiral continues. I failed the second calculus test, and cried all night long. I can’t get an A in the course now. I didn’t do horrible on the third one, though, which is a little better, but I still feel horrible. Adding to that is my own awkwardness in social situations. I don’t understand how I can be so extraverted and need the social contact to stay sane and yet be so awkward. I never know where to put my hands, or my feet, or what to say. How was I ever so confident in myself only 2 years ago? Why am I like this? Why does Tori have to lash out and rip herself apart so I’m forced to watch, unable to offer any assistance as a friend because I’m too much of a coward to even support her? Gah! I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I still held out hope that maybe, just maybe I could go to prom with her once more, but it’s clear to me now that last year I was a last resort, and I failed as her prom date. Someone so awkward as me doesn’t deserve to go to prom. She’s taking another girl, one I’ve never met. She’s pretty; she’ll be a better date than I ever could be. I hate that I never reveal this part of me. To make up for it, I made this blog and its posts public, but to my friends I’m just as happy and fine as ever, even as I slowly wither away. I’m really, really struggling and I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m left alone when all my friends are in college and I’m still a junior in high school. More than anything I want to reveal myself. I want to get help, I want to talk about my issues, but I don’t have the courage. I’ve even begun setting myself up for it. I gave a friend my phone with Tumblr open for her to read, and I desperately wanted her to open my profile and read this blog so I could try and hide it but eventually let her read it so I could tell her everything and lift these weights off of my crooked back. But she didn’t, and I got my phone back without having accomplished my true intentions. So if you’re reading this, and I know you well, please, please, please talk to me. Help me. Save me. I need to talk, and this cold screen is the only comfort I have left to reach out to. I’m so confused and scared, and angry, and sad, so sad.