#reminder this kid goes through all the stages of grief and has panics attacks before hand

[juiciest-candy]

I really like the way boku yaba presents its characters like I’m so used to romance anime presenting the guy/girl love interest as this dreamy perfect person who can do no wrong and is smooth about everything and how everyone gushes about how perfect they are, meanwhile boku yaba doesn’t do that

It’s true that at the very beginning they show Yamada to be the stereotypical Perfect Popular Girl Everyone Loves tm but makes sense bc the story is told from Ichikawa’s POV, we see what he perceives and knows so he believes she’s like that until he (and us) learns she’s actually a silly gal vibing

Neither of them are the dreamy perfect romance interest OR at least not to us bc (to me at least) the point is that we shouldn’t find them perfect, it’s them who should find each other perfect

Also very funny to me that the literal perfect guy who is so dreamy is treated as a rival/threat, great thing to show that girls not always want the perfect guy sometimes they want a small emo edge lord boyfriend

[delayedresponse]

Break Silently: A Short Story on the Stigma Against Mental Illness in Asian Society

When I was eighteen months old, I was sick with a terrible fever. The doctors were pessimistic and told my parents to prepare for the worst. My parents, grief-stricken, were not ready to say goodbye to a child they had only just met. My nai nai spent that entire day at the temple, praying to whatever deities that I would make it through the night.

I made it through the night. And the one after that. On the fourth day, I was discharged. My parents were overjoyed. The doctors, however, were not too hopeful. Be careful, they said, a child that has sustained such a high fever is not likely to make it out unscathed.

When I was five years old, I was in kindergarten. Happy and carefree, just like any kid my age. I was noticeably slower than my peers and had difficulty learning. My teacher, during a parent conference, told my mother with a worried look about how I seem to stare off aimlessly into space. She suggested I get help. My mother was furious. “My child is perfectly normal!” she snapped.

When I was seven years old, my family had gathered in front of the old television for a night of serial police dramas. A patient escapes from an institute and goes on a killing rampage, claiming the voices in his head told him to do so. My father was disgusted, saying that he should be locked away forever. My mother was glad that no such people exist in reality. I kept quiet and did not mention the voices I have been hearing recently.

 When I was ten years old, I learnt how to numb myself. How to drown out the whispers and the shadows. It did not always work. Sometimes, I would flinch at things that are not really there, get anxious and talk to myself. Shenjing gui, said the staff. Retard, said my classmates.

 When I was twelve years old, I was pushed down a flight of stairs and my bag was thrown into the drain. The culprits were my own classmates. I bought it up to the headmistress the next day. “Why don’t you just stop acting weird?” She asked. From that day onward, I never felt safe in my own school.

 When I was thirteen years old, I had my first panic attack. I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes were red. I was reprimanded for causing a nuisance and sent back home. The attack lasted thirty minutes. It was the shortest one I ever had.

 When I was sixteen years old, I made a friend - a small, mousy girl named Janet. After school, I would go to her house and sit in her room filled with glow-in-the-dark stars and vintage movie posters. I’m going to become an actress, she said. I’m going to America and I’m going to become famous. She asked me what my dream was. I want to become a doctor, I replied. I want to save lives and make the world a better place. Impressed by my answer, she grinned at me, the glow from the stars reflected in her teeth.

 Our brief respite was interrupted by her mother coming home from grocery shopping. She was incensed to find her daughter lying on the bed next to the school’s resident psycho. She chased me out and made Janet promise not to see me again. Janet, fearful of her mother’s wrath, agreed to her demands.

 I swore once I was done with this stupid school, Janet and I could be friends again. But there was no such luck. Two years later, Janet moved to New Zealand with her family. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

 When I was eighteen years old, I enrolled in a college near my house. I picked up a course in basic medical sciences. Things got better for a while - no one really has the time for bullying when there is a multitude of tests to study for. I did well enough to get a paid internship at a nationally renowned hospital. There, I got to train alongside doctors, nurses and practitioners. It was quite literally a dream come true.

 When I was nineteen years old, I was fired from the hospital. Some patients remarked about how jittery, paranoid and “strange” I was. The head pharmacist dug up the reports from my old school. The next day, I was dismissed without warning. As I collected my belongings from the locker rooms, I heard the nurses whispering about me - he was scaring the patients, mumbling to himself like that. I knew he was mental. What if he snaps and hurts us?

 I was nineteen years old and I was ready to die. I climbed the college’s fire escape to the seventh floor and positioned myself at the railings. My professor mentor saw this and grabbed me off the roof. On the college’s orders, I was sent to a psychiatrist, where I was unceremoniously diagnosed with major depressive disorder, severe anxiety and unrelated psychosis . My mother cried during the road back from the hospital. This was two days before my birthday.

 When I was twenty years old, I started going for therapy. The counselor was an elderly Portuguese woman with graying red hair and an infectious smile. She reminded me so much of Janet. I liked her immediately. We talked about everything under the sun. She gave me medicine that cleared my head and helped me smile. She became my closest confidant and friend. She understood me, never pitied me or tried to tell me that I am over-reacting. I found myself enjoying the sessions.

 I was twenty-one when I graduated. I went on stage to collect my diploma, the small roll of paper heavy in my hands. My parents insisted that I phone all my relatives to tell them the good news. They offered me words of congratulations. “You must be very happy,” said an aunt. I did not have the strength to say that I was not happy, just numb. A deep aching numbness that I could not shake.

 When I was twenty-two years old, my parents grew tired of me. I did not have a job. I was doing nothing in life. Every application I sent out was rejected. Nobody wants to hire a broken worker. Soon, my parent’s wariness turned to anger.

 Toughen up, said my father. Start acting like a real person. Make yourself useful. No more of this nonsense.There are people who have it worse than you. My ah gong who smoked himself to stage-three lung cancer. My uncle who has had multiple strokes after refusing to change his diet. Real problems, not fake ones like mine.

 I was twenty-two when my parents cancelled my therapy appointments and confiscated my antidepressants. Desperate for money to see my counselor again, I took a job at a tea house. The physical demands of the job combined with my chronic fatigue took a toll on me. I remember thinking how unfair it was. That I was alive, when all I wanted is to be dead.

 My co-workers shied away from me. Maybe they knew instinctively that I was not right. That I was broken. The laoban of the tea house eyed me critically. He had seen my health report, hadn’t he? Maybe he knew I was sick. Maybe when he saw me as what everyone else did - a Shenjing Gui. Like the ones in serial police dramas.

 People do not what mental illness is. People do not want to know what it is. Asia has progressed so much, both technologically and scientifically. Despite this, the mere mention of mental illness continues to be taboo. Somehow as a society, we have decided to ignore it. Is it our pride? Is it ignorance? Or perhaps the belief that no such thing exists?

 In my experience, it is all three. This stigma is embedded in our culture, becoming a way of life. It would take a long time before we realize it, let alone fix it. Until then, I will just have to learn to break silently.