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closer-stars · 4 years ago

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Silence - Seonghwa

Member: Seonghwa Genre: Comfort, Fluff, mild angst? Requested: Yes Word count: 3.7k Content: Insecurities when it comes to picking at skin and lips. Seonghwa wants to help you. Food mention. The rest of the boys are touchy as heck. Stress. Note: This thing is long winded cause a close friend requested this so I wanted to make this something that they can read whenever it hits them especially when their stress is high. Also since this is comfort fic that they requested, I won’t tag for their privacy. The same goes for any comfort fic that might be requested in the future.

There was something about you today that Seonghwa couldn’t help but notice. He knows how stressed you’ve been lately. Too many things are happening at once in your life, and while you could manage a smile that reaches your eyes whenever someone asks if you were okay, the spark you put in your eyes dims once when they look away. Whenever you look at anything, your focus just isn't there. It was one thing to look at something and focus on it but it was another to look at it and look as if there was nothing.

This goes on for the next few days as he notices more things. You did say you didn’t mind physical affection and to an extent it was true. The moments where the boys come up to you with a hug, you welcome it, the moments where they lean their head against your shoulder, you welcome it. But when one of them try to reach for your hand, you find ways to slip away from doing so, sometimes opting to fiddle with your phone or with the zipper of your hoodie, just anything to give yourself an excuse to not hold hands with them.

A part of him wants to think it was because of how your exams were making you stressed and fidgety. He remembers how clammy you can get when you’re overwhelmed with your workload in the past. Yet another part of him counters that claim, even when you aren’t occupied with your responsibilities, you still slip away. You were a sneaky one in his books. For now, he’d support you quietly as you tackle each and every exam that lay ahead of your week.

On the late night study sessions you pull in living room, he would put a bottle of water by you and some snacks to help keep you alert and awake. After Hongjoong came into his life, he knew better than to argue with someone hardheaded. “Don’t forget to drink water too okay? You’ve been focused on that subject since this afternoon.” He says while his fingers thread through your hair, gently massaging your scalp.

“I just want to do well, Seonghwa.” You admit with a tired sigh. You lean back into his touch and somehow Seonghwa couldn’t help but think of you as a kitten who found relief with scratches on their head.

“And you will. Pace yourself okay?” He lets go of your head gently, pressing a quick peck on the top of your head. “I’m going to bed already, get some sleep also after that.” He advises while he stretches his back.

Your eyes graze at the amount of notes you’ve had spread across the table. “I’ll try.” You say, and even to yourself, it doesn’t sound promising. The stern look he gives you was enough for you to retract your statement. “Okay, okay. I will. Just wake me up when you do please?” Even if the exam is in two days and you’ve already covered a good percentage of the coverage, you just didn’t feel like it’s enough yet.

A sigh slips through the male’s lips and he nods. He can’t win with two stubborn heads in his life. “Fine. Good night..” Thus leaving you on your own with your notes.

So you continue to study, until you raise the white flag. You pack your notes in between the textbook, put away the bowl then head to bed.

The sleep you had feels more like a nap as Seonghwa gently shakes you awake. “Morning.. I made you breakfast.” He whispers, waiting for you to get up. At least you weren’t as difficult as San to wake up in the morning. Those words are enough to get you up from your still sleepy haze. The older male couldn’t help but chuckle softly at your excitement over his cooking, letting you get ready as he prepares your first meal of the day.

If you weren’t in school, you were with the boys but even then, you were reviewing. Your fingers constantly fidgeting against your own skin as you try to focus. Sometimes one of them would attach themselves to you, a welcomed distraction before more concepts melt your brain. But whenever you find yourself relaxing from their touch, their fingers would always brush upon yours and it always wakes you up, pulling away from them a little more. Even if Seonghwa had to do damage control with Wooyoung and San bickering, he easily notices your discomfort along with Yunho’s pout when you pull away. Before he could say anything, Wooyoung and San were back to bickering about what to play, causing him to turn his attention back to the two.

It’s clockwork from then on. Seonghwa preparing your meals day in and day out throughout the week. You getting next to no sleep as you prepare for each exam but as the week progresses, your mental state declines. You were starting to get impatient easily, you were berating yourself over the smallest errors, you even shy away from any sort of physical contact even if it was your love language. It was clear that you were on tunnel vision now. The stress was starting to take a toll on you and Seonghwa had to do something about it before you break.

The stress peaks when you are holding your head in your hands. Your nails dig into your skin as you try to keep your composure. Nothing in your notes was making sense anymore. Everything just seemed like jargon. He had your usual bottle of water and snacks in hand when he entered the room and saw your current disposition. He sets them down quietly and slips himself next to you.

He quietly calms you down: arms around you, hushing you like a parent would to their child when they were crying uncontrollably. You weren’t. You couldn’t get yourself to cry. The only thing in your system were the equations, theories, definitions, and the connections of one topic to another. “I’m here. Hey, talk to me..” He gently urges as he moves himself into your line of vision. You turn your teary face away from his line of sight as you try to regain your composure. Your fingers find themselves threaded through your now messy hair as you try to train your blurry eyes at your notes. Holy fuck why is nothing getting into your brain?

With a sigh, Seonghwa gently turns you to him, letting you cry against his chest. It’s obvious that you aren’t in the right state to talk so he whispers reassuring promises. “You’ll be okay.” He says softly into your ear as he rubs your back up and down. You were still shaking from the stress and how you were pretty much going through a breakdown. “Can you follow my breathing?” He asks softly as he brushes your hair delicately away from your face. Though you don’t reply, you try to focus your attention on his breathing, a feeble attempt to get your heart to slow down. Your tears and whimpers eventually stop and you still in his arms. “Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?” His voice never raises in pitch or volume. You nod at his offer. He asks once more if you would rather be carried to bed or stand on your own. You opt for the latter, not that it surprises him. You were a strong one after all. But the strong ones sometimes had their down days.

He walks you to his bed and almost immediately you plop yourself onto it. He tries to remember how your schedule would go tomorrow. Saturday. Rest day. He sighs in relief. He brings a bottle of water for you when you wake up. For tonight, your solace was in his bed and in his arms.

You wake up with a pounding headache. The thin sunlight telling you that it was morning. A dry groan as you try to push away the headache as you shift. Your hands feel the material beneath you and it hits you that this isn’t your bed. You look to your side and you're greeted by Seonghwa’s sleeping face. That’s when you remember what went on last night. “Shit.” You mutter, sitting up immediately. “What day is it?” You groan out, disoriented by the sudden rush of blood.

“Saturday. Your rest day.” Seonghwa returns, his voice raspy from having just woken up. You turn to the male who rubs his eyes awake then reaches for the bottle of water. “Drink. I’ll make us breakfast.” Glad to know it wasn’t only San who seems to go straight to the point when they wake up. You take the bottle and watch him stagger to the kitchen.

After freshening up, you see that your notes lay untouched. Some of the notes had tear stains, a reminder of what happened. Considering what had went on last night, you figured it was better to keep these out of your sight for the rest of the day. By the time the male calls for you to eat, you’ve put your notes on your table.

“Eat.” he says almost as an order. It was a hearty meal: rice, egg, meat, oatmeal and fruits.

“Did you just make an entire course?”

“Considering how you’ve worked your ass off the past few days leading to exam week. I have to step it up for you.” Seonghwa says as he slides onto his seat across yours, digging into his own meal. You look at your share in guilt but you start to eat as thanks. “You know..” He starts as his eyes stay on his meal. “Working hard is one thing but working yourself senseless is another thing.” He continues. “Getting good grades is important, sure but at the price of your own health?” His frustration was built from concern for your welfare and your recent habits. “Maybe that exam is important sure but really... Your health is more important.” He goes on.

No wonder his members found him scary when he was angry. He means well but you can’t help but be focused on your academics. That’s the environment you grew up in, unlearning that mentality was going to be hard. “I’m sorry.” You say softly as you eat quietly. You looked like a sad kitten that just got into a fight with their sibling.

He sighs. “Don’t be. I know how hard headed and driven you are. It’s like juggling two Hongjoongs.” It was a joke just to make you smile even a bit. “I’m just really worried for you.”

“If it helps, I kept my notes for the day.”

“Thank god.”

That makes you laugh. Feeling light for the first time in a while, you finish the food in a better disposition. The rest of the day goes by quietly and for the first time in a while, you find yourself completely relaxed. Seonghwa notices this before you do. Your fingers weren’t fidgety and you just look like you were at peace with your surroundings. He smiles to himself and slides next to you.

“Wanna play Overcooked?”

The following week goes by almost like a breeze. While you reviewed, you’d talk about it to Seonghwa to test yourself. Even if he didn’t understand any of these concepts you speak of, if it helps you then so be it. He asks you questions on certain topics, making sure you’ve covered everything. It does help you. Sure there were some topics that were tricky but you managed to get through the tests with a little more confidence than before. You had to thank Seonghwa after your exams. By the time you were done with your final exam, you felt a little dazed. A huge weight was off your shoulders and quite frankly, you couldn’t believe it. In your dazed state, you don’t realize your fingers against your lips, unconsciously playing with the skin. It was only when you tasted the iron on your lips that you realize the extent. So you suck on your lip, as you walk home.

On the way home, you couldn’t help but stop by a few shops to buy some snacks for yourself and Seonghwa. In one shop, you find yourself with front row seats to a couple’s PDA. On normal days, this wouldn’t have affected you but considering how you are now and your nervous ticks have affected you, it hits you harder than usual. You tear your eyes away from them, opting to look at your phone, thinking if there was anything else you think Seonghwa would like. It was a good distraction but it still lingers in your mind.

“I’m home.” You say as you put the snacks you bought on the counter. Seonghwa manages to welcome you with a proud smile. “Bought you some snacks too.” You add, gesturing to his strawberry milk tea among other things. While he was happy with your purchases, he catches the exhaustion in your eyes.

“You look like you need rest..” He takes the food you bought for him and also ushers you gently to the living room. He has you sit down on the couch, before he does as well. The way you just drop yourself onto the couch, your eyes trained up on the ceiling as your body practically melts onto the material has the male sighing.

“What?”

His eyes are trained at you. His gaze heavy with emotions that he had to keep at the back burner for your sake. “You know, I’ve been worried about you since you’ve been preparing for your exams.” He explains and you already know where this was going. Already defensive, you keep your hands in your pockets as you continue to keep your eyes up. The corner of your bottom lip is caught in between your teeth and it makes your dear friend tread carefully. “The boys asked me the other day,” he says slowly. “If you didn’t like holding hands with people.. I meant like, is it something you really don’t like to do with just us or really anyone..?” God why is it now that his speaking skills were going down the drain?

You had to admit, hearing him flounder for the right words was a little endearing. How were you going to tell him though that your evasion to holding hands was due to insecurities? The insecurities only rising when someone’s hand brushes against yours, when someone’s eyes flit to your bitten lips, when you see couples on the streets express their love to each other. Quite frankly, you found it so shallow and stupid to be this conscious but you couldn’t help it. The amount of times you wonder how it would be to be with someone, that question leads you to the imagery of being physically affectionate with them too.

“I just don’t like the idea of having anyone hold my hands that have been roughened by stress, I guess.” Even to you, you didn’t sound that convincing. You look at your hand, lit by the lamp near you. You could see the picked skin: some healing, some freshly picked at. They feel rough and downright uncomfortable. With the boys, they were already mere friends but they want to hold your hand, what more with a potential lover?

“What do you mean?” Seonghwa never really expected this type of answer from you. His eyes drift from your tired features to the digits that are up against the light.

“Don’t you think it’s gross, Seonghwa? The idea of holding someone’s hand that’s been picked at from stress or unconsciously? Cause I’m looking at my hands right now and I can even feel the unevenness from my lips too and even I don’t want anyone touching these.” You admit with a dry laugh.

It hurts him to know you see yourself like such. The way he sees you was far from it. He admired everything about you. Especially how you’re able to create things with your hands. How deft and agile you can be with your hands to get things done. How your lips were always expressive of your emotions. He realized how seeing your lips curve into a smile or how they let you laugh without a care in the world was his favorite. While others do say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, he wanted you to change that mindset one way or another. The boys saw you in an amazing light and for you to not see yourself as such, it sucks.

“Look at me..” Seonghwa says after a moment. You do, you drop your hand and you had a hard time reading his expression. “Do you trust me?” He asks.

“Seonghwa, if you’re going to give me some sort of gag gift from Wooyoung I swear--”

“I’m being serious, do you trust me?”

They weren’t joking when they say Seonghwa’s scary so you nod. “Yeah, I trust you.” You answer. So he pats the space in between you and him, gesturing for you to come closer. So you do. Your knees touching his from how close the two of you were sitting. He takes a deep breath, his heart racing but there weren’t any thoughts in his head except to reassure you. To reassure you that these perceived flaws will not be a big deal to the ones that love you unconditionally. His hands reach up to your cheeks, thumbs running gently against your cheeks. He brings his lips to gently graze against your forehead, to your cheeks, for a split moment you thought you would feel his lips against yours by how close he was to you but he presses a final kiss on your chin. He respects you so much to go past the boundaries of your friendship so he settles to end the kisses with one on your chin.

“We don’t mind your imperfections. I’m sure as hell that I don’t. Holding hands, to the boys and to me, is a way we show our appreciation.” His hands drop to his lap. “While yes, hugs, snuggles, nuzzling against you do express those. Have you ever understood why holding hands have been a little different?”

You shake your head. You always thought that such action would be for couples, always opting to link arms instead with your peers. His hands are then facing up, asking for your hands in his. You hesitate but slowly, you let your guard down, you let your hand rest on top of his. “Holding hands..” He trails off slowly as his hand slowly slips into yours. He doesn’t let your hands come into your line of sight. The insecurity of seeing how your hand looks was already understood in the first mention. “Is intimate. A soft way of saying, ‘I care about you. I don’t want to lose you. I want you by my side. Be with me in this situation.’ A reassurance. A sign of support. A sign of hope.” As he lists these various reasons, his hand would eventually shift around your hand, holding your hand in his in different ways. In one moment, his hand held yours tenderly, then his fingers interlaced with yours, then he’s linking his pinky with yours. He goes on to give your hand a gentle squeeze.

“If you’re worried about how someone will think of kissing these lips of yours.” he adds, making you look at him with a gentle nudge of his free hand. “You really shouldn’t worry about it.” He explains with a light chuckle. “The first kiss is rarely an ideal kiss.” Well, he had a point. “The succeeding kisses? They’re still an act of love. Though more intimate, I should say as compared to holding hands.” His eyes flit to your lips for a moment. He does understand your insecurities. He’s been there too; could barely look at his own face on any reflective surface. He didn’t see himself as someone visually appealing. It takes time and he knows that. “Will you let me help you? Help you through these habits and insecurities?” he asks, pulling back from you but still not letting go of your hand. You look at him, feeling oddly naked and vulnerable under his gaze but you nod. A glimmer of his usual bright self peeks through afterwards.

Without being able to see your hand in his, you bore your watery eyes onto the folds of his shirt. You couldn’t get yourself to look at his eyes, at his face, right now you felt so vulnerable, so naked and only because he had pressed kisses and held your hand. You didn’t see how he smiles warmly at you.

The next few days were calmer. Your skin is still healing from the picking you’ve done before that talk. It was the days after that proved to be a challenge. You were so focused with your readings that you don’t realize your fingers moving against your skin, trying to remove the uneven bumps that form as it heals. Seonghwa notices though so he brings a book with him and sits next to you. He even brought you a bottle of water with your favorite cake. The movement causes you to stutter in your mindless movement, bringing you momentarily out of your focus. Your eyes sparkle at the snack near you but you manage to focus on your work again with no problem. Seonghwa continues to look as if he was reading, thoroughly interested in what Thomas More thought of what a Utopian society could be. Without missing a beat, his hand slips into the hand that picks and fidgets. He pretends to not notice you looking at him with pink cheeks as he continues to read, pretending as if the book piqued his interest. His fingers intertwined with yours stops you from picking your skin and you reach for the bottle of water that he had already uncapped. It was only then that you realized how much you needed water. The beverage provides cool relief to your body and your lips.

You don’t notice how your lips have healed from the water he reminds you to drink, from the lip balms he suggests you try, but he does. He sees the improvement, one step at a time.

As thanks, you squeeze his hand gently. A silent thank you.

He squeezes your hand in return. A silent reassurance and a silent declaration of his love for you.

#ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #ateez seonghwa #seonghwa scenarios #ateez comfort #seonghwa comfort #my writings #i'm really not joking when 1-4am is my peak for these kinds of writings #anyways!#will fix any errors when i wake up

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b0rtney · 5 years ago

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Why I Do What I Do: 1. A Human Being with a Place of Birth

You can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you’re from, so today I’ll talk a little bit about where I’m from, and why I do what I do. This first part is about where I’m from as a human being.

I was born and raised in a nice little suburb of Missouri, about twenty minutes from downtown St. Louis.

For kindergarten, I went to a nice Henry school and attended a nice Baptist church on Sundays, and maybe one other day of the week if I’m remembering that right. These were the kinds of places that would make any moderate person’s skin crawl. My older sister would scream and pout when my parents wrestled her into a church dress, but it would be a scandal if she tried wearing pants– that kind of place. My parents got divorced when I was six or seven, and that kind of thing had every person in that church turning their backs on my family, the fact that my mom soon began working to support me and my siblings was, I’m sure, the talk of the congregation for a little while– that kind of place.

After my parents got divorced, I switched to another nice Henry school, and I moved to new houses: one for each parent. That nice Henry school didn’t work out for long. My mom couldn’t stand Henryity in almost any form anymore. And the tuition was too expensive for an electrician with a declining business and a brand-new real estate agent in 2007. So, public schools. My dad was zoned for a school with the best public schools around, so we used his address. Kehrs Mill Elementary was where I went starting in second grade, and where my brother went starting in Kindergarten. My sister started sixth grade at Crestview Middle.

I went about half the year friendless in second grade, and then I met Fernanda. She was the only Hispanic girl in the whole school (there was one Philipino boy, two Chinese girls, an Indian girl, a Middle Eastern boy, and everyone else was African American or Caucasian). She, kind of literally, yanked me by the arm and dragged me into friendship, and I’d never been happier. We played Warrior cats (yes, based on the books, don’t look at me like that every school had some kids that did it… although I think the part where we lapped water out of the sink and hissed at her mom was a little weird). We made up a version of “Cowboys and Indians” where we would be two Chieftesses with inexplicable numbers of children and no husbands, facing moral dilemmas like what to do with prisoners of war when they won’t hear of peace– while our brothers (my one and her two) tried to shoot at us with Nerf guns.

At this point, if you had asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I would have told you what I considered an impossible joke: I wanted to marry a woman, run an orphanage, adopt a bunch of teenagers and babies, and drive a van big enough to fit everyone in it when we went grocery shopping together.

In third grade I took a long test in the school’s brand-new computer lab and I scored so well that they took me, once a week, on Wednesdays, to a different campus with other kids that scored really well on that test and we learned about lazers and climate change and cloning and other things for “gifted” kids. But otherwise, third grade passed in much the same way as second grade, but nothing exists without complications and so there came along a boy named Henry. He was new to school and he had what could have been called a cool haircut, for 2009, and Fernanda loved him. I didn’t. But she did, so I thought it was normal to like a boy, so I said I liked him too. And then he said he liked me better than her because she was weird and I kicked him in the shin and said something mean that I don’t remember anymore. But Fernanda didn’t like that, and she didn’t like me. So at the beginning of fourth grade she told me she wasn’t going to be my friend this year so that she could try being friends with someone else.

So, I was alone again in fourth grade, for a minute. But by this time my real estate-mom had moved us to house number three (four, maybe?) since the divorce: a condo with blue carpets and mostly old people living there. This was where I met Branch, a kid from my class who visited his grandma in the condo directly above us. Branch and I each had a little brother, and by now my sister had taken to locking herself in her room and not talking to anyone, so Branch and me and our little brothers played “Hup-hups,” a war game where there were two sides, each with a commander and an infantryman who would respond to commands like “stay,” “go,” “attack,” and “attention.” It was pretty fun, so Branch told his friends at school about it, and they all wanted to join my faction, and this went on like a domino effect until I was running an army comprised of something like 30-50 fourth-grade boys, depending on the day, at recess. I don’t think I realized how weird that was at the time. We mostly just screwed around until another boy formed an oppositional army, calling themselves the Arachnids, because that was just about the biggest word you could know in fourth grade, and they started guerilla warfare. They would just straight-up attack us and try to hurt us. I would scream at the boys following me to run away, because I never wanted anyone to get hurt, but then the oppositional army leader had his arm around my throat and I was choking so I couldn’t yell very loud, and all the boys on my side just went to town attacking the Arachnids back. Somehow, none of the recess monitors– these were two grouchy old women who would always yell at me and Fernanda for trying to climb the trees– ever saw this, or stopped it. The violence continued until people got tired of it, and by the end of the year I was alone again.

Fifth grade was when the depression I’d had since I can remember really kicked it up a notch. It should be noted that I had no idea what depression was. I thought it was normal to just not want to get out of bed in the morning, to want to die all the time, to dig needles into your skin and try to make yourself bleed because at least then you have control over something. By then my mom had moved to house number five, within walking distance from the school, so my brother and I would walk together every morning. I made one new friend, named John, and he talked me out of suicide not once but twice, once by yelling at me over the phone and once by just existing, which is very impressive for a fifth grader, if I’m honest, but also I think I’ll always feel a little horrible for putting that pressure on him. I convinced myself that I loved him, at the time.

You may be noticing a pattern with me and boys, but we’re not quite there yet.

Of course, between fifth and sixth grade my family picked up and moved across the country from Missouri to Southern California.

I spent sixth grade and most of seventh grade friendless, and met a few friends in eighth grade– two of those friends are still with me to this day. In eighth grade I met a girl named Chloe, who had three pregnancy scares in a year and who convinced me to make out with her in a pillow fort in the room I shared with my sister while my sister was out with her boyfriend– and that was the first kiss I ever had and it felt like liquid lightning in my veins. But in eighth grade I also listened to my Republican parents on the matter of gay rights– of course, I barely knew what gay was, I just knew it was something you called people you didn’t like because that’s all that a Missouri elementary school teaches you about it– and so I thought gay people were a little gross, and I was a little gross for liking it when I kissed a girl, and I buried that part of me. In eighth grade I also met the boy who would be the first one I would date: Chris. I dated him from the middle of freshman year to the end of sophomore year in high school. We went on a few awkward dates, we held hands even though his were sweaty and we couldn’t get the timing right, we kissed even though it felt about as exciting as eating plain bread– not exactly bad, just not exciting or fun.

Now the pattern might seem more clear. It certainly became very clear to me.

I didn’t like boys. I like girls. I’ve liked girls since forever, and no amount of shame or repression was going to “fix” me because I. Wasn’t. Broken. I was depressed and I was anxiety-ridden and I was introverted maybe a little too much, but being homosexual was never an issue.

I broke up with my boyfriend. I came out to my friends, then my siblings, then my parents, then everyone else. I had a girlfriend, and she lost interest, so I broke it off. I had another girlfriend, but I had never been interested, so I broke it off. Then I put dating aside.

I continued to get straight As in school, take all the AP classes, run three clubs, rank nationally for field hockey goalies, help a friend of mine transition from straight girl to gay girl to nonbinary kid to straight boy, and accumulate a solid group of five friends.

Then I got rejected from every college I applied to because of a clerical error I didn’t know about until a year later (after appeals were already a lost cause), so I got a job, I went to a community college, tried to go for a business degree and hated it, switched to a creative writing degree, and now here we are! With my applications submitted and one acceptance in the bag (thank you, University of Iowa!), now I want to focus on my writing and try to get published next.

Now that you know where I’m from, you know at least a little of what I care about. I deal a lot with mental health, so does my writing. My sexuality was a major unknown for me for a large portion of my life, so I include that a lot in the hopes that I can help someone else not be so lost with that. My hometown had very little racial diversity, so I want to represent more diversity in my writing.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself: in the coming posts, I’ll show you what I’ve written and read, so you can have a better idea of where I’m coming from as a writer, now that you know where I’m coming from as a person.

#lgbtq+#lgbtq characters #mental health #backstory #childhood #how do i tag #idk guys i think my warrior cats phase might have been weirder than yours #i conveniently forgot that i ran an army in fourth grade for YEARS #i almost broke a guys arm once too but we wont talk about that because almost is the key word #school #college

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that-sun-eyed-girl · 7 years ago

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You can’t buy happiness...

...but you can buy ice cream during golden hour at a music festival, which is close enough to me 🌞🎶💜

Also I wrote a thing for World Mental Health Day:

An Unabridged Account of My Battle with Anxiety

(aka why World Mental Health Day is important to me)

Hello! My name is Laurin. I’m a 24-year-old Registered Nurse currently living in the Washington DC area. I was born in Tokyo, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, went to college in Philly, and have traveled many places in between. In my spare time I like to take pictures, go on food adventures, travel and explore new cities, and attend music shows and festivals.

Oh, and I’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.

It’s hard to pinpoint when I started having “a problem.” I grew up in a stereotypical Asian household where academics were emphasized and emotions were minimally expressed. My dad was sick growing up, so that added to my everyday stress of juggling rigorous classes and teenage hormones. I started having sleeping problems when I was 14 or so. I would toss and turn in bed for hours, and eventually give up to surf the web and watch YouTube videos. I felt tired all the time, but never felt like I could get enough sleep even if I had the chance to.

I do remember when I first felt depressed. It was my sophomore year fall: my dad ended up in the hospital for a few weeks because the doctors were trying to decide what kind of medication regimen to safely put him on. To add to that, my grades dropped slightly, and the boy I liked at the time was giving me a hard time (looking back, the latter was pretty silly). I remember rolling around in bed and crying, telling myself that I couldn’t physically hurt myself because my aunt had committed suicide a few years back and it destroyed my mom. Internally though, I was a mess and didn’t know who to turn to. Eventually, my dad came home, my grades came back up, and I found a new boy to crush on (lol), so the dark feelings went away.

As much as I love my parents, I felt so alone whenever I had these emotional breakdowns. Sometimes they were the root of the problem, like when my mom would scream (or worse, be passive aggressive) about my grades and responsibilities. Most times, I felt like it was easier to close myself off and just “push through.”

When it came to apply to colleges, I was ready to be independent and literally only looked into schools at least 200 miles away from my house. I really wanted to go to UCLA because it was far enough that I could be on my own, so I cried for a week straight when I received the rejection letter in my email inbox. A few weeks later, I checked my Penn application portal, and found out that I had been accepted into a “top 10 school.”

I couldn’t believe it. My mom set high standards for me growing up and never praised me for my grades, so I always assumed I wasn’t good enough for an Ivy League school. In fact, I only had applied because my college counselor said that I had a good chance with my profile. After the initial excitement, I pondered for weeks if I was indeed “good enough” to go to such a difficult school. I ended up signing my acceptance on the last possible day to do so, mostly because my parents pressured me to.

My first few semesters at Penn went well. I made friends, especially after I joined a sorority, and got decent grades. For the most part I was happy. I still struggled with anxiety-induced insomnia, especially if I received a bad mark on an assignment or exam, but managed to handle everything okay.

Then one day my sister called me and said that our dad fell, hit his head, and ended up in the ICU.

I couldn’t believe it at first. My dad’s health was declining since I graduated high school, but he was still so happy and could function independently for the most part. He couldn’t drive anymore, which was difficult for him since we lived in the suburbs, but he always found a way to go exercise and meet up with his friends. How could my dad, who already outlived his prognosis by over 5 years, be so sick suddenly?

I immediately fell into “hibernation mode.” I was sleeping over 13 hours at a time, and would only wake up to eat and attempt to study. And by “studying,” I mean “staring at my textbooks hoping that I would absorb any information.” This happened right before my finals, and I ended up having to ask my professors for extensions because I couldn’t even get out of bed. I remember my friends telling me that they thought it was unfair that I got to take my finals after Winter Break since physically I looked fine, which made me feel worse about everything.

The rest of that year is honestly a blur. My dad was in and out of the hospital and hospice care, and I felt helpless since I was over 3000 miles away from home. I got a D on my second pharmacology exam and asked my academic advisor if I could drop the course and take it over the summer. She told me that since the class was only offered once a year, if I were to drop the course, I would have to take two semesters off and delay my graduation. I knew my mom wouldn’t let me take time off (and risk losing my tuition grants), so I just “pushed though” again.

“Pushing through” is an accurate depiction of the rest of my college years actually. I would constantly be stressed that I wasn’t doing well in my classes, almost to the point where I risked having to repeat courses. No matter how hard I would study, my grades were mediocre at best. My friends had a hard time understanding why I was struggling so much. Some of them joked that I was partying too hard, but I would be studying to the point where I would burn out and score poorly no matter how hard I tried.

I started seeing a counselor on a bimonthly basis, which helped. I would mostly talk about how depressed I was about my dad’s death and how I wanted school to be over. I would alternate between tossing and turning and averaging 3-5 hours of sleep a night, and skipping classes because I just couldn’t wake up. To help me feel happier, I would travel as much as I could on a nursing student’s crammed schedule and budget. I would find the best deals on Megabus and visit friends from other schools who didn’t care if my grades sucked and welcomed me into their social circles.

Eventually I managed to complete my nursing school requirements and it was time to graduate. My mom visited me for the first time since I started school, and, being the “Asian mom” she is, asked when I was going back for my Master’s. No “Congratulations on graduating [from an overly competitive nursing school on time].” Part of it was my fault for promising my mom when I was 17 that I would get my Master’s in nursing since I didn’t want to go to medical school. But I just felt pressured again to find a job and get ready for the rest of my life.

After paperwork issues regarding my licensing exam that were beyond my control, I passed my boards on the first try. Next came finding a job, which I managed to do 7 months after I graduated. I pretty much felt pressured to take the first job offer I got, especially since most of my friends were happily employed at this point. I naively didn’t ask around and assumed everything would work out again, and packed my bags to move across country once more. At first, everything seemed perfect. I was more broke than I ever had been, but I had a full time job with real benefits!

Soon after though, things took turn for the worse. I had bad chemistry with my preceptor, and my manager sided with her when I tried to speak up and asked for a switch. I went back to counseling, where the social worker reassured me that I was doing my best. Eventually though, I decided that crying every day and second guessing myself wasn’t worth it, so I resigned.

My anxiety started peaking around this time. I was without a job again, 3000 miles away from home, with minimal savings. I think I averaged 3 hours of sleep a night for over 2 weeks. I went to go back to visit Penn and just broke down in front of my friends and advisors. They were all concerned for me to the point where I ended up in a 24-hour psychiatric hold.

Now this is where things get complicated. I talked to the nurses and doctors about what happened and how I did NOT feel like hurting myself or others, but they were apprehensive about me since a Penn student had just committed suicide a week before. I also refused to let them call my mom since she was in Japan, and my sister was still in school in LA. I promised them that I had a strong support system and would seek help when I went back to DC that evening. I was ready to get the help I needed.

I still am not 100% sure what happened after this, but my phone was hacked into sometime during and/or after my hospitalization. My friends and family were receiving weird phone call and messages from my phone number and Facebook/Gmail/etc accounts. I tried explaining to them that the messages were not coming from me, but they were skeptical of believing me since I had just been in a psychiatric facility. I was also receiving strange messages and screen errors even after I factory reset my devices and tried new ones.

I made a comprehensive list of all the weird things I managed to catch and reached out to my phone provider, social media platforms, and my old counselor’s office back at Penn. I even got my devices forensically scanned by a professional to detect any malware. The detective said that there was definitely suspicious activity but he couldn’t pinpoint anything. Eventually, the strange messages stopped, so I let it go and went about my life. I still get weird screens every once in awhile, but I just let it be.

Regarding my anxiety, I started seeing a psychologist again to talk about my problems. It’s hard to fit in weekly session with my crazy schedule, but I know that I need it. I started having unsettling dreams, mostly about work, which my psychologist addressed as PTSD-like symptoms. I spent countless hours trying to find a psychiatrist in my network would understand my symptoms. After months of searching, I finally found a doctor an hour away who prescribed me Trazodone and Ativan for my insomnia/anxiety. I finally started sleeping well again.

Why am I writing all of this out for the internet to see? Because today, October 10th, is World Mental Health Day. Today also happens to mark exactly one year since I started my current job. If you asked me back then, I don’t think I expected to be this much happier. I am still struggling with anxiety and mood swings in general, but I definitely am doing so much better.

If you managed to read up until this point, I want to say thank you for reading my story. Also shoutout to everyone who has stuck with me through the thick and thin, because I know it’s been a difficult journey for everyone involved. Mental health is a topic that isn’t talked about enough, even though the statistics show that it’s almost too common in our day and age. I’m lucky enough to have a loving boyfriend and caring friends that listen to me rant, buy me food and make sure I’m okay, but I know some people aren’t.

Please take care of each other and understand that people struggle for various reasons, and sometimes just need some time, professional help, medications, etc to make them feel “normal” again. And if you personally need someone to talk to, I’m always an open ear 😊

Xoxo

#world mental health day #ACL fest #golden hour #happiness #anxiety

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ceaselessly-into-the-past · 7 years ago

Text

brooklyn

Last night was pretty good.

I’ve been technologically out of commission for the last few days for a couple of reasons, the first of which is that my phone finally broke. I say ‘finally’ because for the past year the screen has slowly been parting ways with the main body and I’ve been waiting for it to fail, like how neighbors in a nowhere town wait for the local unkempt, over-the-hill drug dealer to finally be crushed by their own shady small-suburbia dealings. The second reason was that my laptop, the morning after my previous post, suddenly stopped detecting the local wifi. Had I been religious, I would’ve suspected that it was some karmic or some I-smite-thee curse from the heavens for speaking against my mother.

But no. As Old Mr. Frank Schuster was finally arrested for the possession and vending of narcotic substances by the local patrol officers the community nicknamed Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed - named so because they were never there when they were most needed - I was able to get a new, older-model phone. And the IT department found that my computer had caught the hiccups because I had recently changed the account password, leading the system into a limbo where it recognized neither my old or new passwords. No karma or godly strike-downs. Simply a small, reversible error.

The real world is sometimes so wonderfully simple.

What happened after that, though, is the actual subject of this post. The day was testing day - undergraduates were processed through schedules and cycles and small, uncomfortable rooms with small, uncomfortable people to assess their understanding of harmony, intervals, chord progressions, proficiency in piano playing. Those who were clueless and couldn’t do anything that was asked of them ironically got the best part of the deal - they simply walked in, explained that they had never taken any classes or lessons on any of this, and they were told that well, in that case, you’ll be put into Theory 1 or Ear Training 1 or Piano Fundamentals, and were sent on their way. Those who had some idea of what was on the test pages, who had a chance of skipping useless, basic material and placing in a higher-level class - that was where the competition brewed. A silent, near-subconscious energy that simmered in the testing halls and assessment rooms. How little of this can I miss? I’m sure that I remember how to conduct in 5/4 time. Remind myself of the right hand fingering for a two-octave C major scale on piano: 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5. I heard earlier that fourth species counterpoint was centered around suspensions, but that was from that one kid who I don’t trust so really, there’s no way to verify that as truth, so I’ll leave that one blank and return to it later, when my desire to get into Theory 3 will override my disdain for them and I’ll inevitably start by writing a half rest followed by a 5-4 suspension.

The spirit and mind ticked with quiet fury in the hours between 10 am and 3 pm, and so afterwards was our time to let them breathe. After eating, I began digging into my self-given reward by joining two friends - J.P., a composition major whom I’d met before, and the hilariously-named George Foreman, not of George Foreman grills - in finally watching Sergio Leone’s 3-hour Western epic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The cinematography transfixed us, the spectacle pulled us out of our consciousness and into some bubble of wonder, and Ennio Morricone’s score lifted us as if we, too, rode horses and carriages through the periphery of the Civil War, guns at our sides, mouths as smart and hearts as burnt as those of Blondie, Tuco and Angel Eyes. For me, it was an arrival: to Spaghetti Westerns, to pre-old age Clint Eastwood, to the dusty, analog 60′s epic. It wasn’t life-changing so much as satisfying that something like that is now part of my consciousness.

Afterwards, J.P. and I, as well as Dongxu, an international violin student, were called on by Sebastian, another cellist, to do the improbably foolish thing of following him into deep Brooklyn at 9 at night. Normally we most likely would’ve declined, but Sebastian had had some issues recently with some dickwad who he had used to be friends with, but had since ditched when he went off the mental deep end. The last I had heard of him, the guy had sent out a mass email around his school containing erotic fanfiction of a girl he liked - clearly, he hadn’t improved. So, given that fact, the four of us joined him, and made the journey from 65th Street to the 72nd Street station in pouring rain, perhaps walking towards something unfortunate and horrible. But we were kids. We weren’t perfect machines - we needed to taste danger to know to never walk blindly into it. But also because it was admittedly fun to do something you absolutely know you shouldn’t. I suppose it comes from the irrationality of the human intellect.

The train sighed and screeched and tunneled its way through downtown Manhattan like a mechanical snake, permitting passengers only to demonstrate its terrors and raw power coursing under their feet.

‘You know what we should do,’ J.P. said, in his paced, muted way, ‘is go see my mom’s old house.’

‘Her old house?’

‘Yeah, she grew up in Brooklyn. She lived there fifty-some years ago. It’s in a good neighborhood.’

‘Okay. Sounds good.’ Sebastian, lanky and awkward with a big pile of curled hair on his head, gave a thumbs up, clearly feeling better already. Danger can do that to a person. ‘Ask her for the address and let us know.’

‘I will once we get there, there’s no service down here.’

‘I swear to god, if it’s far away and we get killed by some crazy man I’m going to fuck you up.’ Dongxu spoke with that accent that comes to mind when you think of the Asian stereotype of the 50′s - the comical affliction that turns every English vowel into something strange that could possibly have meaning in Chinese.

‘I guess it won’t matter because one of you will be dead,’ I said.

‘Why?!’ Dongxu looked at me from across the aisle accusingly.

‘Well J.P. is white as hell. And you’re obnoxiously loud.’

We laughed. It was true - J.P. was white as hell, and Dongxu was obnoxiously loud.

The subway crossed into Brooklyn, and in six stops we arrived at Franklin Street, where we would transfer and go for another stop. Except we didn’t, instead following Sebastian through the turnstiles.

‘You fuckup, we didn’t transfer.’ Dongxu punched Sebastian in the arm. It was still raining as we left the station.

‘It’s okay, it was only for one more stop.’ Sebastian looked around as if to find some reference as to where we were, despite never having been there. Dongxu huddled next to J.P. while he texted his mom, awaiting an update on how terrified he should be.

‘Guys, it’s a forty minute walk from here. Do you want to do this?’

‘Yeah, totally! Let’s go.’ Sebastian took the lead as we followed, umbrellas raised and shoes slapping wet against the cement sidewalk.

J.P. and I took to discussing the movie we’d watched - in particular, as one would expect, about Ennio Morricone’s score. At first we hummed the two major themes - the famous one in the opening credits, and also what I suppose was the ‘action’ theme that plays during many of the horse-riding and chase sequences - in relation to his thoughts on them from a compositional standpoint, but soon enough the conversation bled and dissolved into flat-out trying to recreate the score using our voices in the rainy, turbulent night. We scored our little walk through the dark streets of Brooklyn, overshadowed by dripping trees and washed by the light of signs and the occasional spotlight, to the strains of music meant for dashing, grit-hardened men firing revolvers from the hip, exacting revenge and struggling, competing, fighting for a trove of Confederate gold. There’s a certain charm to that grossly false equivalence.

It was about the time that the amateurish singing and vocalizing had died down that Sebastian later said that he started to feel someone follow us.

‘Ye shihfedhesds.’

‘What was that?’ We looked around. Something in the distance back down the dark street we’d come up.

‘Cemedsgovheres.’

And then in in that distance: a figure, seemingly an old woman, haphazardly but quickly making her way towards us, hair flying grey in the scarce lamplight and limbs flopping around barely being of any use in her demonlike movement.

We ran. Dongxu found a subway station 0.62 miles away. And we went back to Manhattan never having seen J.P. mom’s old house from fifty-something years ago.

‘How about we go get some bubble tea at that place on 72nd?’ Sebastian offered.

‘That’s closed now,’ we all said. And we sat, talking little, save for Sebastian making small apologies and the rest of us excusing him. It didn’t seem to be something to fault anyone for - it simply happened.

I met Sebastian and J.P. today at a mandatory health and counseling services information session at 9:30 in the morning.

‘Hey, you tired from last night?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. But it was kinda fun, actually, wasn’t it?’ Sebastian looked at me.

I thought about it for a second.

‘Yeah, it was.’

‘Now we know not to go to Brooklyn in the middle of the night.’ Sebastian smiled.

‘Yeah, it’s good we didn’t have to learn it the hard way.’

‘No, we learned it the flaccid way.’

Sebastian and I looked over. J.P. was silently cracking up.

We laughed too.

Yeah, last night was pretty good.

#text

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