It all started with anxiety a few months ago
i would get flustered going through the simplest acts
like multi-tasking, being near people that made me feel negative in any way.
It felt like the only safe space was home, and i tried to stay in more
but life, or my lifestyle, still kept me out a lot.

I reminded myself to breathe
whenever it felt like too much for me to take,
i’d REMIND MYSELF TO BREATHE
In and out. Deep ones. Relax.

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Then came frustration
This was maybe a few weeks after
I felt so FRUSTRATED at everything
i was frustrated with how things ran, how things panned out,
and i’d be so close to losing it every time

I went loopy trying to figure out my emotions
was it my food? my drinking? my exercise?
was it what i’m doing for work, my purpose, my VERY EXISTENCE?!

i discovered that little dark hole that nobody wants to mention
I would stare down my balcony at night
and the ground far away and imagine what it would feel like
to just jump and rush to the ground
how crazy that would be

And my letting my thoughts wander into those dark places they tell you not to
i tasted the despair and misery that so many in the world must and have felt
I know just a little what it’s like
and i hope they can always allow themselves that for a while
before searching for the light at the bottom of the doorway

When we were in Penang i felt like crying all the time
but the tears just wouldn’t come
I told DB about it as i was desperate
Desperate to tell someone who would understand
I felt like there was all this EMOTION that wouldn’t let itself out and it was choking me
“It helps if you hug the ground and let it pass through,” she said
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m in a coffeeshop in Penang, in public, and the floor is quite dirty.”
She laughed and i felt better.

Anger was present throughout the months
The slightest thing made me angry, sometimes, NOTHING made me angry!
I felt crazy. I felt like punching things or throwing items out the window
but knowing how much i paid for them or how i’d regret it or feel stupid after, stopped me.

In Japan, i was so irritable that i surprised myself at how irritated i could get
I felt like Jun shouldn’t even be around me because i wasn’t at my best
and it was better if everybody was far away so i couldn’t hurt them
I told Lexie how he was so annoying but i still loved him that “i feel like punching and going down on him at the same time.”
“Wow i’ve never heard both those things in the same sentence before,” she gawked.

We fought almost every single day in Japan
about the smallest stupidest things which when i broke down,
realised it was all about miscommunication.
After all the fighting, we made love
And then, it was calm
The bedsheets were rumpled but the pure white made it seem peaceful
I stared at his face, and he at mine
And i started crying but i wasn’t ashamed because i’d stripped myself bare
“Why are you crying?” he asked
“… because it hurts so much.”
And i knew he knew it wasn’t about him.

There is nothing wrong with my life
I have such a charmed one, filled with so many people who love me and abundance in anything that i desire.

I have just come to terms that all these are just emotions
and they too shall pass.
They are what make me human.

After opening up to Jun, i had better practice telling more friends how i really felt deep inside.
How my anxiety turned to frustration and anger then sadness
How i felt like a psycho, like i had lost it
because there was nothing i could place my finger upon

Rudy and i had a conversation about the polarity of feelings in order for it to even exist.
If +1 is happiness, there must be a mirror in the same world, which would be -1.
That’s the simplest example of it, but it would be in all sorts of never-ending code, and feelings that could be replaced by another subject.

In our whole human life, we are bound to go through different phases and bouts of emotions and personas.
I am not just one type of Joyce. I am many types.
There is the me who is gentle and soft and loving, there is the me who is hard and steely and broody.
There are boundless versions of me all placed in my path to experience so i get to know each and every one of them.

I was just starting to accept the me who is in pain, and it doesn’t matter anymore what it is.
It is what it is.
Once i acknowledged that internally, my body felt more at ease.
Like i wasn’t resisting it anymore, and i could laugh at it, or at least, take things more lightly and just GO with it.
It will pass.

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
― Aldous Huxley, Island“

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