Beginnings

I’ve decided to start this blog to deal with some issues that I find are not necessarily resolved just by confiding in close friends and loved ones. I have come to realize, if not a little too late, that the closeness of a person to you does not guarantee that he or she would definitely understand, or try his or her best to understand where you are coming from. How could we possibly expect them to anyway? It’s almost impossible to fathom one’s thoughts always, much less the thoughts of a girl who suspects that she might have some form of psychosis.

Apart from writing in this blog, I have also decided to see an actual psychologist at the Institute of Mental Health, also fondly known as IMH. At times like these, I really feel grateful to the government for taking care of us in little ways like these. Initially, I was browsing through the sites of private psychologists, and pretty much all of them charge a whopping $150 to $200 for each consultation which lasts only for 30 min to an hour. It is really quite ridiculous. Just because you are a mind “specialist” who tries to understand how one’s mind works gives you the right to think you are some big fuck? $200 an hour!! No fuck off seriously.

And then I went to IMH’s site and saw with great relief that consultation was a mere $23 after subsidy from the government. That was when I felt that immense gratitude. I felt grateful that if I had a flu and went to a doctor at a nearby Polyclinic, consultation plus medicine never even went up to $15. I felt grateful that I could have my womanly check-up (including ultrasound scan and everything) for only about $100+, while “specialists” elsewhere charged $112 just for the ultrasound scan. I felt grateful that these benefits applied to me just because I was Singaporean.

But then the extremely high costs of cigarettes here kinda cancel off some points.

So yes, I cannot wait for my first visit to a professional to find out what’s wrong with my mind, why I can’t stop fantasizing about going on killing sprees and committing suicide, and why I think I belong to another realm once night falls. Believe me, it gets very scary sometimes. Everyone else just thinks I’m joking, or thinking too much. But they don’t know. They don’t know the fear I live with all the time. Sometimes I don’t even know what I am afraid of. They don’t know the intense hatred I have of the world sometimes. They don’t know, though they think they know.

Nobody knows the intensity of the nightmares I have, the deafening chorus of voices I sometimes hear rising in crescendos. Nor do they know of how I often feel like someone is watching me, invisible eyes penetrating into my back. They also do not know of how my vivid imagination can overwhelm me and bring my mind out of control, in turn giving me panic attacks. Sometimes I wish I could talk to people I trust about things like these. But as caring and understanding anyone can be, it is only natural for people to get tired of listening to somebody else’s problems over and over again, for they have their own shit to deal with. It’s unnecessary for me to bring such burden upon the shoulders of another. Therefore what better solution is there than to pay someone to listen to me? Before I go completely out of control.