I'm a fucking psycho

I just said something like this in the confessional . In fact, it was my second time speaking in CH. I was very nervous when I spoke for the first time, and my words were scattered. The second time might be better. Talking about the past and present. My ex made me realize that I was a fucking psycho. And the violent, unstable, restless, fragile, and hurtful self sometimes comes out and makes it impossible for me to be a functional human being...

Well, escape is shameful, but useful. I can't always be an efficient person. No need. Then S made me feel that it’s okay to be a psycho. Silly enough.

I accept everything you have.

Many people love you.

Yes, during this time in Mater City, I also met people who were willing to fully accept me. Thank you for being willing to tolerate my lunacy that the world always tilts to one side.

Back to what was said in the CH confessional room. I still feel sad when I think of my ex. Maybe we all want to treat each other well. I also tried my best. That was the best we could do at that time.

I think it's time to put up the text from 7/8 years ago.

"sick"

On the subway, the sound of the station announcement was deafening. Dad's hands were shaking slightly, as if he was very uneasy.

The bustling crowds, the endless flow of vehicles, and the rotating goods in the city were completely different from the place where he lived all year round. At this time, he was worried about something.

Dad is 56 years old and has been suffering from mental illness for nearly 40 years. The cause of his illness is unknown. Maybe it was an attempted first love. Maybe it's the heavy schoolwork. Or the experience of staying at my maternal grandmother’s house. Grandma doesn’t know either.

Dad is the eldest son and the only son. There are about 10 siblings in the family, and they are all sisters who call him brother. When my father was 17 years old, my grandma said that my father was suddenly possessed by evil spirits, was in a trance, and sometimes gibbered. Grandma and grandpa thought it was just a small thing at first, until the day when dad went crazy. The two parents couldn't bear it, so they put aside their pork stall business and visited famous doctors, quacks and magicians all over Malaysia in order to cure Dad's sudden "stuck".

After trying everything possible, they finally accepted the fact that their father was sick. In those days, mental illness was like a plague, and those who heard it would avoid it. The story was short-lived and soon the whole village knew about it. When I was growing up, my teachers often started with "rare..." to describe the report card I got in exchange for my cleverness. I can't remember whether the tone or expression was praise, regret, or something else.

I only remember the days when I took the train to Rainbow Plaza with my father to see a doctor. It was a rare opportunity for me to travel far away.

Grandpa

My grandfather passed away last century. During tutoring, my father came to take me home on a motorcycle to keep me awake. The father I held around my waist was so huge. In my memory, I am standing in a motorcycle basket, while my father is gliding at a speed of less than 10 kilometers per hour, letting me jump to my heart's content.

What I remember is the lalang that I picked randomly or was inserted into the screw hole where the rear mirror was missing, or was ravaged into fluff by me and disappeared with the wind. What I can’t remember is the face behind me trying to maintain balance.

Without the alcoholic and socializing grandpa, life would be like the friction between dad, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law and sisters-in-law. What is difficult to think about every day is not dust that can be swept into the carpet and closed in the closet, out of sight. But my father didn't care whether it was sutra or dust, and spent most of his time in the bedroom.

Only very later did I realize that it was both the medicine and my grandma that made my father more and more sluggish. Countless nights, the lullaby was my mother’s sobs coming from the quilt. She didn't understand why she chose her father and lived this kind of life when there were so many people pursuing her.

"If it weren't for you, I would have left long ago."

Grandma was born during the 8-year Anti-Japanese War. She almost died in a well at the age of 11, with her brother on her back. Married to my grandpa at the age of 17, she serves her smoking grandfather and grandmother, and also has to deal with the calculations between my sisters-in-law and the daily expenses of firewood, rice, oil, salt, tobacco and alcohol. The 11 children are born almost every year. They go to the beach to tap rubber at 4 a.m. and help at the pork stall at 6 a.m. They have to cook and raise children when they get home. At night, they have to wait for the grandpa who smells of alcohol to come home.

Half a lifetime passed in a flash. When I recalled that past event, I laughed louder than anyone else.

Grandma drifted across the river from Meixian County to look for food, but she still used someone else's name when she boarded the boat. She never mentioned how hard those two or three months on the boat were. It turns out that more difficult days are ahead. Those she remembered better. For example, marrying grandpa. The marriage between grandma and grandpa was based on the words of a matchmaker.

When I think about it, I feel that people in the old days were really resigned to their fate.

Life is an unfamiliar place. Moving from one small town to another relies on a few words from others and a few words on red paper. Life is determined by the words of others. (Grandma can’t read a few words)

The decades of perseverance depend on long-lasting love and sense of responsibility. My grandpa was a romantic man and spent money like water. In the end, he was bedridden due to kidney disease. In more than 30 years, he raised 11 children, 4 grandchildren, and more than 20 grandsons. However, the unforgiving grandma always stayed at home. Grandpa's side. Of course, there were not many quarrels from time to time.

"You know what I said earlier, but it's so tough, people pay for it and risk their lives."

Grandpa sheds tears every day, but his body deteriorates day by day. It's been a hundred years since I looked back. How do you imagine regret.

Mom said, my grandpa loves me the most. But I don't remember anything.

onset

Later, my aunt followed in my father's footsteps and became ill. It's an injustice in the workplace. It is essential to be on guard against others, grandma often said after that. My aunt was more decisive than my father and drank poison several times in an attempt to commit suicide. My family is a farmer, so I plant oil palm because the price of rubber is low, but the harvest in a small area relies on pesticides and chemical fertilizers. That time, my family was careless and failed to perform gastric lavage, so I left like this.

Later, I found the "New Youth" magazine, "Encyclopedia of Diseases", "Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine" and other books and several stamp albums left by my aunt in the cupboard, and then I realized that my aunt had also thought about practicing medicine and had the world in mind, but In the end, she decided to drink poison. The medicine that flows into the land can also be poured into the body, and everyone is exposed to the same poison.

"Living or leaving is a choice. There is no better or worse, no need to judge." The teacher said.

I was 4 years old at the time, right?

I just remember that my aunt often played the game of eagle catching chicks with us.

In the empty living room, we kept spinning on the green concrete floor, spending one afternoon after another in dodging and chasing. Grandma felt very guilty for her aunt's death. Maybe this was why she would add medicine without permission. When she saw something was wrong with her father, she would let him take a few more pills, saying that if he could train him to sleep well, the world would be peaceful. I was angry, but how could I bear to blame her?

Especially after experiencing my father's pursuit. That day, my mother protected us like a hen. Only that time the eagle was replaced by Abba holding a pork knife in his hand. But that life-saving game was real. I should have been at an age when I didn’t know anything at that time. Through the door, my mother cried and begged for mercy, and we should also cry too. My sister cried the loudest.

I don't know if I cried. You might want to stay out of it.

How deeply that scene was etched, I never knew. Until you wake up one day and ask me, did I dream of being chased by zombies? The scene began to appear. I remained silent, just shook my head and gave you a smile.

You don't need to be careful with me.

living under someone else's roof

Grandma said that my father and aunt were the best at reading in the family. Today, they would be considered students in prestigious schools. People in the past were simple and valued books, but they didn't know that later on, all we read were reference books. At that time, my father and my aunt were among the few who could get into the well-known senior high schools in the city with their grades. The journey between urban and rural areas is bumpy, time-consuming and energy-consuming.

So grandma let them stay at the maternal grandmother's house. My father never said anything about how difficult it was to live under someone else’s roof, and I didn’t know until I went to stay at my fourth aunt’s house temporarily.

The fact that my father and aunt fell ill one after another made my grandmother and grandma, who already had a grudge against each other, completely speechless. My impression of my grandma's house was that there was only one dim light bulb, the toilet was built outside, and the food was in a wooden cabinet. There were small dishes placed on the four legs of the wooden cabinet with water in the dishes to prevent ants. When the wind blows, the zinc sheets on the roof rustle, and when it falls into the water, the floor is covered with colorful basins, including a spittoon with a rooster on it.

The grandma lived in that simple wooden house for decades. The grandmother in my memory was very old. She walked with a hunched back and raised a few chickens. She ate overnight vegetables and drank water from the well. When we went there, the food was brought out from the cupboard, in case we were hungry. Grandma always had a grudge against her.

The Hakka dialect that the grandmother spoke with her sunken mouth was a local accent from thousands of miles away, but I couldn’t understand anything else except ngai (me). There were two generations and one language between her and me. Before I had time to cross this gap, she was already heading to the other side alone. I can’t remember exactly when my grandmother left. I only remember that the grandmother’s lips were deeply sunk into the seam, and her face was like a piece of patched cloth, with rough handiwork.

(How many traces can time leave on us?)

After graduating from high school, I got a new job and was sued when I stayed at my fourth aunt's house. (At that time, I still didn’t understand the way some adults dealt with problems. I was disgusted by those who chose to complain in a roundabout way instead of telling them clearly in person.) Grandma accused my mother of not knowing how to teach children. Mom cried silently again. When my father saw him, he was in a bad mood. It seemed that he had not taken medicine for several days. As a result, he was taken to a nursing home by a police car. Several aunts and grandmas criticized us quite a lot.

When I saw my father at that time, I would just cry.

My grandma and aunts would only scold me for not growing up, saying it was useless, saying that it was none other than my mother and I who made my father end up like this. At that time, I would only blame myself for not being mature enough and independent enough. But also extremely angry. Why put all the responsibility on my mother and me? Doesn't Fourth Aunt have any responsibility? Don't you have any responsibility?

"You are no match for ten mouths." Mom said.

maze

Dad stayed there for more than half a year before being discharged. It was a maze-like sanatorium, and it took half an hour to walk to see Dad. Every Sunday, you cross the causeway, walk through corridors filled with the smell of urine and acid, and pass many wards separated by iron bars to see Dad. On the way, I occasionally encountered wide-eyed eyes behind the iron bars, and occasionally a patient stretched out his hand for a cigarette through the iron bars.

"Moi, ada rokok tak?" (Little sister, do you have a cigarette?)

Every time you have the illusion that this is a prison. But you are not here to visit the prison.

From waiting silently for visits from relatives and friends, to reaching out to strangers to ask for or grab the scarce cigarettes, the abandoned people finally abandoned what they cherished.

Every time the nurse called your father's name, and you watched your father walk out of the iron gate, you didn't know what to say after seeing the admiring glances and words from all around. He was sometimes disheveled. Sometimes no pants on at all. The first thing your dad does when he sees you is reach out for a cigarette. That's when you start to hate it all. patient. care. family. And yourself.

Nurses receive salaries from the government and also receive tributes from relatives of patients. If you want cigarettes, you want to keep people under your command? Everything has a price and a price. As if mentally ill people aren't fucking human beings. One time my father came out with injuries on the corners of his mouth and nose. They all said that he had done it himself. (Hey, who knows what a mentally ill person could do?)

That’s when you begin to understand that anger alone doesn’t change reality.

These things flashed through my mind when you told me about your friend who studies mental disorders. "She said that many big CEOs and professors were more or less mentally ill, but they just got better after being controlled." (So easy?) You said that you like A Beautiful Mind, admire John Nash's perseverance, and hope that I can be an excellent professor and write papers that can explain a research question incisively and be recognized.

(Not everyone is so lucky.)

"Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?"

I smile back at you. Smile when you don’t want to talk much.

metaphor

Susan Santa's "Metaphor of Disease" attempts to explain that disease is just a disease and has nothing to do with metaphors or punishments. But what you don't know is that the word "psychosis" has been imprinted on my mind. After the breakup, things almost got out of hand. You say that children don't understand what the old man wants, and then just disappear. I do not understand.

I made me drunk and went crazy. I went downstairs to your dormitory and waited the whole night, but you still refused to meet me. I waited on the bench all night, watching the lights in maybe your room go out and the figures in the window seem to be far away. I took a taxi when I left in the early morning, and I was able to gently introduce the architecture of the new school building to the driver. It turns out that heartbreak is nothing more than that.

Afterwards you wrote me a letter saying that I should see a professional, but you would just step aside and not worry about it. That line of words is right in the heart. Only you can do this, often breaking through my cheerful mask that successfully deceives everyone, and revealing the dark side of me that I don’t want others to know.

Later I wrote to you and said that I was also frightened. Those unbearable words, vicious curses, and the complete denial of the past in an extremely angry manner were bloody and merciless. But that's a double-edged sword. Rather than being hurt, I care more about hurting myself. During that long period of time, I avoided meeting each other, avoiding places containing shared memories, and avoiding the inquiring questions, genuine and false concerns from others.

So I followed your example and became invisible in the world. I got on the No. 33 bus we often took together alone. Occasionally I would cry all the way back to the school building from the city center. And you don't need to know any of this. My heart has nothing to do with you anymore.

"The most important thing is that the family is safe and healthy," grandma said.

How easy is it to be safe? Wu Gang is everywhere in life. Besides, Wu Gang was derived from himself.

Wu Gang had no intention of conquering Guangxi. The teacher said. Laurel has feelings, and although she is wounded every day, she heals immediately. Look, there is a jade rabbit with medicine under the laurel tree. You don't know, Wu Gang and Yue Gui are the same person.

"The most important thing in life is to be happy."

To be happy, does it mean that you are happy if you remove the chains from your heart and no longer bother yourself?

I think you'd better treat me well. It's just that I'm not healed yet.

After that day, whether we were hurt or injured, it was a fact, even though neither of us meant it. I know you don't want to make a clean break and want to make up for it, but I'm still afraid of myself. That hurtful self.

I'm afraid of you too. You can be so cold and heartless.

Fear lies here, you and I can't get through it, and we can't go back. The journey of life is long, and you and I can only practice independently.

Facing the Ocean, Spring and Blossom.

That was the final monologue and the promise. I have many hopes for tomorrow, such as filial piety and achievement. But Haizi's tomorrow never came, and his body was already lying on the railway track.

"Dad, I'm sorry, I'm a willful child."

"You are not a willful child, you are a good child."

Arrive at the station

Dad, let's get off the car

Postscript to "Disease"

What families of mentally ill patients fear most is to be dragged into a black hole. But as a family member. It has its own black hole. Occasionally, when something goes wrong, you will be afraid. So afraid of being sucked in. Grandma and mom were also afraid that we wouldn’t be able to think clearly.

"Don't overthink things", "The most important thing in life is to be happy" are the words she always talks about.

To be honest, I didn't think about what to do with this text. He said he could try to submit an article. Can you spread the wound like this? I have no idea. A lot of things have happened these days that I don’t know what to do. Maybe words are some kind of comfort. Or. Another hole. When I feel sad, I can run into this hole. At least. Can be slightly resistant to black holes.

He was very violent when he was young. It's better hidden now. Maybe there's no need to hide it.

I am not the answer and I am not the puzzle. (See " City of Debate ")

I am just a person who faces myself with words. that is it.

 So I decided to keep writing. Write down both the good and the bad.

"Disease" was published on February 2, 2021, see Axiu/Disease (Part 1) - Supplement | Literary Spring and Autumn | Sin Chew Daily

In addition | Some words are words in memory, but that memory is also my reality . Mom read it and said: So you remember it all.

As usual, I’ll end with anpu’s songs and words.

thank you all. I love you deeply. I wish you a safe life.

Also attached is the like of @不流singing .

I hope that one day I can read your and Viner’s words again and listen to your songwriting.