Category Archives: Mental Health

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

A Neverending Journey

March 11, 2023 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I met someone. Words that are often overused, but words that mean something. I didn’t meet a crush, or a lover, or some sort of romantic connection. I’m spoken for, and happily so. But I met someone nevertheless. Someone who will help me on my journey. Someone who will help me accomplish my dreams. I met a friend, and a collaborator, and a partner.

My life the last few years has been a bit of an adventure (at least for my standards). Since December 2019, I’ve quit two toxic workplaces. You may wonder why I quit one, just to join another, especially when my focus has been on maintaining my mental health. It was simple. I needed a job, but I had my eyes set on something else—something greater—so I didn’t mind it. It was only ever going to be temporary. The job kinda found me, and it was super convenient. It was low stress and not super taxing for a time, which freed up the brainpower that I needed to be able to write. I could come home fresh and ready to get my creative juices flowing. Something that I hadn’t been able to do in the six years prior.

Truth be told, I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing for a while. But something always held me back. Usually it was fear and anxiety, often times it was excuse making. It was something that I was good at, letting fear control my life, believing the misconceptions. When you’re mentally and emotionally drained for long stretches at a time it’s easy to allow outside circumstances to dictate your life. It’s easy to hold yourself back and to let yourself be held back. When you’ve self-deprecated for over two decades, and your self-esteem has been running on fumes for as long as you can remember, making excuses feels natural. Underestimating your competence, understating your abilities, convincing yourself that you’re not capable of more, believing that you’re destined for mediocrity. All these things are lies that we tell ourselves. Lies that prevent us from becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be.

For the longest time, I was plagued by a nihilistic mindset. I didn’t know what I wanted from life. I didn’t know what I could contribute. I didn’t know what I was passionate about. I didn’t know what fulfillment felt like. I didn’t know what satisfaction was. I believed that I was destined to live an uninspired existence. To work laboriously because that was all we were put on this earth to do. To grow up, work, recreate, and die. In that fucked-up brain of mine, I thought that my life was out of my control. That I was subject to the whims of whatever uncaring god was out there. I found myself stuck at a dead-end job, but what proved more detrimental was that I was stuck in my mindset. I had stopped dreaming a long time before that. I had forgotten what it felt like to strive for something better. I had never known what my self-worth actually was. I had convinced myself that I had already peaked, that it would only go downhill from there. The risk taker in me had been overcome by my fear.

It was easy to keep being mediocre, to maintain the status quo. Growing up, I had been taught to seek comfort. To find something stable. Not to take too many risks. This led me to the false belief that settling was acceptable. That just okay was good enough. I didn’t know what it meant to dream big, or to seek greatness, or to have ambition. The anxiety and depression that I suffered through in my teenage years and early twenties was crippling. They prevented me from becoming the best version of myself that I could be. In truth, I didn’t think I was capable of goodness, let alone greatness. My demons had robbed me of all of my ambition. There are many things that I could blame, but I’m not going to do so. One of the first steps in transitioning to adulthood is taking responsibility for your actions and holding yourself accountable. Shit happens that may or may not be within your control. That doesn’t matter. What does is how you react to such circumstances. What’s important is that you learn from any and all experiences—good or bad. It doesn’t matter how they came to be.

Everyone goes through shit. That’s a fact of life. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has their own demons and vices. How you speak, how you think, how you act matters. All of this stems from having a healthy mind. I say this time and time again, but I will continue to do so until I go blue in the face. Get your mind right and everything falls into place. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but you have to keep at it. I didn’t accomplish anything meaningful in the first twenty-seven years of my life. That’s because I had a bad attitude and an overly pessimistic mindset. At some point in time, a small voice needled its way into my brain, telling me that I couldn’t do shit, that I wasn’t capable, that I was useless, that I was trash. As disappointments stacked, I started to believe this voice. I gave it room to grow. To fester. To corrupt. The more I fed the voice, the more I believed the lies.

Unfortunately, this isn’t unique to me. As millennials, we were conditioned to run from our problems. To hide them in a lesser traveled area of our brain. Our parents’ generation didn’t really understand mental health, therefore not much focus was put into fixing the issues. We were told to suck it up. Be happy. Don’t worry about it. But as we got older, as we shifted from early-twenties to late-twenties we started to realize how detrimental this was to our well-being. Ignoring the trauma only made things worse. Numbing the pain was only a temporary fix. Pretending to be strong only sapped our energy. We were left broken and we didn’t know what came next. Some of us have found our healing. Some of us have addressed issues we’ve been ignoring for twenty years. Unfortunately, many more of us are either still broken or are trying to figure things out.

I’m blessed to be a part of the former group, but it didn’t come without growing pains. Of course, I had good days and I had bad days. Mostly bad. Figuring things out on my own didn’t quite work out as I had expected. For a while I was too stubborn to seek out the help that I needed. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have the answers, because that would mean admitting that I was consistently failing to meet expectations. But these weren’t expectations that others had of me, but rather expectations that I had projected onto them. I was supposed to be such and such a person, because that was what was trendy. I was supposed to study this, because it was a respectable career path. I was supposed to do that, because it would make me less of a loner. I worried so much about what others thought of me that I had lost sight of what I thought of myself. At the end of the day, it’s the thing that matters the most. If you don’t love yourself, why would someone else love you? If you don’t respect yourself, why would you be deserving of respect? If you don’t think that you’re capable, why would others give you more responsibility?

I couldn’t find happiness because I felt none of these things. I didn’t love myself, I didn’t respect myself, I didn’t think myself capable. Life wasn’t fulfilling because I had no purpose. I had no purpose because I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped dreaming because I could no longer find the goodness in me. I was worth something, but I couldn’t see it. I had spent too many years downplaying my self-worth. Too many years living in fear. Too many years trying to please everyone but myself. Life was meaningless because I had lost all passion. And that was a dangerous spot to be in. I had gotten too comfortable with my mediocre life. But it wasn’t worth living, because I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t looking to make an impact on those around me. I wasn’t looking to seek greatness. I wasn’t willing to take any risks. I had asked myself, “is this it? Is there more to life?” and had resigned myself to it.

But there is more to life than that. There’s more to life than being fine with okay. Okay isn’t good enough. Seeking greatness is the goal. You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone to do so. I didn’t learn that until I turned twenty-seven, but it wasn’t too late. There isn’t really such a thing as too late. There’s always room for growth. There’s always time to change. You can always strive for better. There’s always more to learn. You aren’t confined to a box. You can step out, you can step up. Change is something that you need to seek. It won’t just happen, bad habits don’t go away on their own. You need to work at it until you break it down. Change has more to do with determination than it does with doing the right things. In order to change, you need to start with your mindset. The first step is to stop making excuses.

That was the biggest thing that held me back. It wasn’t my lack of self-confidence. It wasn’t my lack of drive. It wasn’t my fear. Yes, all of those played a factor in my average existence, but nothing played a bigger role than my excuse making. I didn’t write because I gave myself reasons not to. That was the easy way out, and I took it because I didn’t know how to deal with adversity and I didn’t want to. But anything worth doing takes effort. It takes determination. And it takes self-control. If you don’t force yourself to do things, chances are you won’t do it. I think I know that better than most.

Writing for me happened in spurts. Inspiration came and went. Without any determination, that left me not doing what I do best for long stretches at a time. I always had a way with written word, but I needed refinement and I needed direction. But most importantly I needed encouragement. I needed someone to remind me that I was good at something. I needed someone to help me realize that I had talent and that I was worthy of praise. I’ve mentioned many times that I wrote poems and lyrics as a kid. Somewhere down the line that changed, and removing my creative outlet left me feeling empty. Writing is what I was meant to do. I was put on this planet for a reason: to help others using my words. It took me more than two and a half decades to realize that, but I will run with it and never look back.

In the autumn of 2019, things began to change. By that point I had been seeing a therapist for over a year. I had finished breaking down and I had finished healing. So what came next? I didn’t really know, until she asked me if I was happy with my career. No surprise that I said that I wasn’t. I had spent my whole life chasing something that I didn’t actually want. It wasn’t my dream, it was someone else’s. It was time for me to start chasing the thing that had eluded me for so long. It was time to stop making excuses, and start writing. It was time to turn my idea for a novel into something tangible. I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’ve stuck with it this whole time. I’ve figured stuff out on my own, I’ve had to look things up.

After I quit my job, I started writing in isolation. For several months it bore fruit. I could see progress. I could see improvement. But I didn’t have any external affirmation. No one saw my work but me. Which was fine for a time. I hadn’t yet grown confident in my ability. However, even the loneliest hermit needs affirmation. Even the biggest introvert needs people to care. Everyone needs to know if they’re on the right track. I thought I was, but I didn’t know for certain. Which brought me back to therapy. I needed new answers. I needed to know what came next.

I needed writer friends. I needed peers. I found that in October through an online writing community. It led to some growth. It was scary, putting my work out there, but it helped me to learn and improve. I had some positive, helpful feedback. I had some not so helpful feedback. Assholes exist everywhere. For a few months I fell back into old habits. Every hater, everyone who told me that my writing wasn’t good put me in a rut. I took each and every criticism personally. Every negative comment felt like a dagger to the heart. The voices that told me that I wasn’t good enough began to rear their ugly heads again. The feelings of doubt started to reemerge. I started asking myself if I was built for this. If I had enough talent. I began spiraling back into this rabbit hole of insecurity. But an angel came and rescued me. In January I met my ideal reader—he is mine and I am his. Someone who understands the story the way that I understand it. A writer whose strengths and weaknesses complement mine. We are symbiotic. A friendship, a partnership, a collaboration that will go a long way.

The going may be tough at first, but your hard work will pay off in the end. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t believe the voices that tell you that you aren’t worth shit. You are capable of so much. You can do good. You can be good. You can be great. But in order to do so, you have to keep on keeping on. Push yourself higher and higher. Dream big; never stop dreaming. Everything is within reach. Nothing is too ambitious if your eye is set on it. You just have to force yourself to do it. Eventually the habit will stick. Your hobby will become your passion. You are meant to make an impact on those around you. You are capable of great things. Goals are within reach, but life doesn’t end there. They are only milestones, not end points. Life is a neverending journey. Keep reaching higher. Aim for perfection though perfection can’t be attained. When the time comes, you will show the world that you are worthy.

Brokenness, Changing, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Hope, Mental Health, Self-Love

Back to School

February 25, 2023 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I started seeing my therapist again. I’m not afraid to admit that. I have said before that when I stopped going I felt like I had graduated from it. I still feel that way, but just because I graduated doesn’t mean I can’t go back to school. The issues that had plagued me didn’t pop back up—I didn’t slip back into depression or suffer through crippling anxiety. I didn’t regress. You know I’m not about that. I won’t ever let that happen. As we get older we should only be moving in one direction: onwards and upwards. Anything else is a failure. The more life we experience, the wiser we get. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So, it may seem like going back to therapy is a step backwards, but it’s not. Your mental well-being is more important than anything else in the world. If you don’t have a healthy mind, things are not going to work out. You’re only making things harder on yourself. You need to get out of your own way. The best way to do that is to address your issues head-on, starting with getting your mind right. Once you have your mind right, everything falls into place. The hardships aren’t as hard, the outlook isn’t as draining, the blessings aren’t as easily ignored.

Accepting that you need help does not make you weak. Acknowledging your flaws does not make you less of a person. Admitting that you’re wrong does not change other’s perceptions of you. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Every person has their own issues. Whether you accept that these are things that need fixing is up to you. Things can change if you’re willing to put in the effort. Bad habits can be broken. Mindsets can be altered. Outlooks can be shifted. But none of this can be done if you don’t have the drive.

You need to motivate yourself to change if that’s what you really want. There’s no cause without effect. Change won’t happen unless you put in the effort. You will have setbacks. There will be times where you feel destined to fall back into old habits. It’s all a part of the process. Sometimes you have to take a few steps backwards in order to go forwards. But you have to keep trying, no matter how difficult. You have to keep pushing. Yes, there’s risk involved with trying, but there’s also the potential for a great reward. You won’t know what’s in store for you until you’ve put in your best effort. Things might not happen the way that you envisioned, but at least you know for certain now. You tried your best and it didn’t work out, so try your hand at something else. That’s the only way to live a life that feels fulfilling.

Failure doesn’t come from lack of effort. Every experience in life comes with a lesson—good or bad. If you learned something from an endeavor that fell short it counts as a success. You learned something valuable for next time. Success and failure are relative, they need reference points in order for them to make sense. One person’s failure is another person’s success, or vice versa. So, instead of seeing things as successes and failures, instead focus on winning and losing. The only way you fail is if you lose. And the only surefire way to lose is giving up. Persistence is often underrated and overlooked. If you’re passionate about something, you’ll find a way to make it work for you. If you’re not good at it, the only way you’ll get better is through practice.

In the age of social media, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to see the end result—that’s what is broadcast far and wide—but we don’t often see the process. We don’t see how much time and effort it took for a musician to write a song. How much trial & error. How much practice it took for them to master their instruments. Sometimes we think that things in life come easy, but they don’t. Everything worth doing requires hard work. It requires ambition. It requires learning. It requires admitting that you don’t know the answers, but are willing to find them. It requires allowing others to help you. But most importantly, it requires sticking to it. Learning through the ups & downs, the bumps & bruises. You need to stay motivated, some way, some how.

And the best way to do that is to be confident, and to stay optimistic. Of course, that’s easier said than done. You know me, I was once the most pessimistic person in the world. I had to train myself to be the man that I am today. That also took hard work. Switching your mindset from glass-half-empty to glass-half-full is monumental. It might even seem impossible, but again, persistence is key. Don’t give up, don’t give in. Glass-half-empty might be the only way you know, but it’s a fallacy. Believe me when I say that. It’s a trap that sucks the fun out of living. It’s a demon that tells you that you’ll never be good enough. It’s a belief system that sets you up to fail.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing. An easy lure to fall into if your mind is not healthy. Avoid this way of thinking at all costs. Learn how to win, forget how to lose. Self-fulfilling prophecies are no different than giving up—only you’ve given up before you even started. If you believe in your heart that things aren’t going to work out for you, they likely won’t! You become so focused on, “what if this fails,” that you don’t do everything in your power to make sure that it doesn’t. You’re doing yourself a disservice. You‘re trying to lose before you even put in the effort to try to win.

Admit when you make a mistake. Allow that you can be wrong. Acknowledge that there might be a better way. Embrace your imperfections and know that they can be corrected. Some truths hurt. But reality isn’t all sunshine and roses. Life is tough. There are hard lessons to be learned. It’s all a part of human growth. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from them. I believe that the same obstacles will be placed in your way until you change your ways. Learn from your mistakes, otherwise you might have to face the same ones over again.

I’ve certainly learned from my mistakes. My old mindset has not come back—I haven’t allowed it room to do so. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to keep making them. It’s a part of human life and cannot be avoided. So, instead of spending all that time pretending that you’re perfect, stop lying to yourself, and admit that you have issues. Admit that you may need help. Admit that you’re unsure of what to do. You’ll be better for it.

For a time, things weren’t going well. Yes, it wasn’t as bad as before, but it didn’t necessarily mean that things were working as efficiently as possible. After quitting my job I became a bit isolated, lacking social interaction. I became disillusioned with my writing, seeing as I had no external input on my content. My novel manuscript was a file on my computer that only I could see. I had no reinforcement, neither positive nor negative. No one to tell me if I was on the right track. No one to encourage me to keep on going. So, I went back into my contemplation and negative thoughts started popping up again. I began to doubt. I began to fear. I began to feel like I had made a rash decision. My mind was still healthy, but trending in the wrong direction. Before I let it go too far, I told myself that it was time.

It was time to go back. To let go of my pride, and to once again admit that I needed help. That I needed more answers. That I needed more healing. That I needed an unbiased outlet for my thoughts. I hadn’t forgotten what I had learned in my first stint with therapy. All these things had been practiced and internalized. All these coping mechanisms were part of my routine now. But that didn’t mean that I had learned all that I needed to know. I had all the answers that I needed for that time, but then is then and now is now. The circumstances may have changed, the outlook may have improved, but that doesn’t mean I’m too big a man to speak to a therapist. Therapy served its purpose at the time, and it will serve its purpose now. I’m going back to school, so that I can continue to grow. There’s always more for me to learn.

Brokenness, Changing, Growth, Hope, Mental Health, Self-Love

Fake It Til You Make It

January 6, 2023 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I think I owe you, my readership, an apology. I haven’t been as active on here as I want to be. I’m sure you’ve noticed that most of my recent posts have been poetry, and my blog entries have been few and far between. I have to admit that this long multi-post series has burnt me out to some extent. I’ve been writing about (or at least trying to) write about the same damn thing for so long that I’ve gotten kind of bored with it. I lost sight of where I’ve been trying to go. Directionless writing tends to leave you with your gears spinning in neutral, so we can just forget that for now. I will likely find my focus and finish it at some point, but I feel like I need to do something different. So here we go.

I used to write a lot of poetry as a teenager and in my early 20s. In 2010/2011 there was a popular Facebook trend where people challenged themselves to post an artistic photo every day for a month or three months or a year. Photography had never been a strong suit of mine, so I had wanted to try something different—something I was better suited for. I decided to write poems. I drew inspiration from observing people and nature on my way to and from class. It was refreshing and gave me a different perspective on life. Up til that point (and a decade beyond), I had been extremely pessimistic. As you know, I wasn’t in a good mental headspace, and not in tune with my emotions. I was mad at the world. I hated myself. And I found it hard to count my blessings. It was easy to overlook the positive, and see only the negative. I was uptight, and judgmental. Opinionated but uninformed. Overall, not a particularly pleasant person to be around. But I didn’t know it, I lacked self-awareness. I was too caught up in my own head to open my eyes and see the world around me.

Writing poetry allowed me to do that to some extent. Instead of finding new things to hate, I found things to appreciate. Birds for one. Trees for another. The smell of an autumn breeze. The sound of wind rustling through the leaves. A stray ray of sunshine peaking through the clouds. All these things I took for granted. All these things I hadn’t really noticed. They were just there, and to me, they would always be there. They didn’t mean anything to me, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t able to write about them. A lot of things in life can be faked. Appreciation for nature is no different. Faking it sounds bad, but it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s necessary in order for you to move on in life. Sometimes faking it is the only way for you to feel okay with your life trajectory. Sometimes it means tricking your mind into believing things that you can’t otherwise convince yourself to believe.

I am a rational person. Logical and methodical. Things have to make sense in my head in order for me to function. It is a good character trait to have, but sometimes life calls for something different. I’ve said time and time again that one of the key elements to living a fruitful life is to have balance in all things. Being rational is good, but not all the time. Sometimes you need to show emotion, be spontaneous or impulsive. Not every decision needs to be well thought out. If you’re overly rational all the time, you risk missing out on impromptu moments that can’t be experienced any other way. If you’re not rational enough, you open yourself up for delusional thought or misguided actions.

This is something that I have worked on and am still working on. Spontaneity will never be a strength of mine, I understand that. But it’s something that I need to embrace. I can’t always plan things out weeks in advance. Life doesn’t always give me that option, so I need to learn to adapt. However, adapting is easier said than done. Sometimes I feel lost if I don’t have my rational thought. True, it’s generally better for you in the long run. Making deliberate decisions (especially when it comes to finances) will afford you better control over your life. But often the counter to rationality is gratification—more specifically instant gratification. It’s often believed that the freer you are with your decision making and looser you are with your wallet the more fun you will have. You can make a decision that will pay off later, or you can indulge now. I won’t deny that there is some merit to that argument, but I wouldn’t go so far as to label it a universal truth. Not many things in life are. The world doesn’t operate in absolutes, despite how often they try to teach us otherwise. They want us to believe that everything is black or white, but that oversimplifies things.

It has been some time since I’ve been in school though, so maybe things are starting to change. I don’t think it’s crazy to say that the way kids are taught now is not the way that I was taught. Culture has changed. Society has changed. Expectations and beliefs have changed. Growing up it used to be male or female, heterosexual or homosexual, good versus evil. That was how we were taught, that was how we were raised. It’s safe to say that this isn’t the way that kids are raised these days, judging from social media and Hollywood depictions of this generation. Everything seems to be on a spectrum nowadays. We operate on a sliding scale. I think we’re better for it. Classifying things as black or white turns situations into us versus them, leaving no room for deviance. It limits people into groups A or B, leaving no room for anything else. What if we’re both; what if we’re neither? What then?

I have always been an outcast. I likely always will be. I’m fine with that. I am comfortable with myself. I like who I am, and where I’m going. Of course, it wasn’t always like that. It took a lot of hard work. Years of therapy fixed me, but it didn’t change me. Who I became through my efforts had always been there, hidden deep. It just took a key to unlock it. I didn’t change who I was, I merely gained confidence in my abilities and realized who I could become. In order to do that, I needed to know who I was. I needed to better understand what my role was in the grand scheme. I needed to understand the purpose that I served. Everyone has a role in life. We were all meant to make an impact—great or small, positive or negative. We are all cogs in a machine.

However, we all play a different role. No two people are the same. No two people serve the same purpose. That’s something that I had trouble understanding growing up. I saw other people’s success and I envied them. I wanted to be like them and do the same things that they did. It didn’t matter if the pursuit wasn’t well-suited for me. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, without regard for potential consequences or possible outcomes. Unfortunately, the image of my heroes was all I could think about. I didn’t have the time or energy to spend on the work I needed to do to be like them. My outlook was short-sighted. I saw the starting point and I saw the destination, but I never paid attention to the journey. This proved to be a hindrance for many years to come. Anything is attainable—your dreams are within reach—but only if you work hard and invest the requisite time and energy. No surprise then that I wasted a decade of my life putzing around. I didn’t know any better though. It was easy for me to self-deprecate and diminish my own accomplishments. I didn’t think very highly of myself. I didn’t believe in myself and I had no confidence in my abilities.

If you don’t believe in yourself, then who will? If you don’t love yourself, then who will? If you don’t think that you can succeed, then who will? You can’t expect things to go well in your life if you don’t have faith. If you don’t think that you will succeed, then you won’t. It’s as simple as that. Self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t a myth. There’s no tangible evidence to prove it, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t see it in action. The world sees your energy and it replicates it. If you have trouble seeing the good in life and only focus on the negative, then bad things will keep happening to you. Negative energy will lead to negative results. What you get out of life is what you put into it. Karma is real. Vibes are real. Energy is real. Optimism is contagious, but so too is pessimism. When it comes down to it, the way someone experiences life centers on their mindset.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get stuck in an unproductive mindset. Our brains are still developing into our mid to late 20s. We’re treated like adults, but we’re not yet fully formed. We’re expected to grow up, but we aren’t fully grown. It’s a hard thing to reconcile, but that’s what college is for. It gives young adults a chance to mature before they’re thrown out into the real world. Having a college degree doesn’t necessarily guarantee us a high-paying job. Contrary to popular belief, that’s not the greatest impact higher education has. Its greatest impact is teaching us how to become independent. We’re given more responsibility and more freedom at the same time, while the stakes are relatively low. However, I would be remiss not to mention that college isn’t for everyone. I’ve said it before, and my stance hasn’t changed. Don’t mistake this as a handbill pushing youths towards college. That’s not my intent. That is to say that I would’ve been utterly lost and aimless without college. It afforded me four-and-a-half years to get my mind right before I jumped in. And even then, my mind wasn’t fully right or healthy, but at least it was on its way.

Breaking bad habits is hard. Especially when you’re a young adult trying to figure out the way of the world when your brain is still developing. I’m not saying anything groundbreaking here. It takes constant attention and training. It takes dedication and intention. Circumstances won’t change unless you will yourself to change. That’s the bottom line. Things rarely happen on their own. Sure, there might be good omens or good luck here and there, but it doesn’t last. If you want to grow as a human being, if you want to improve and expand your skillset, you need to work at it. You need to put your all into every endeavor. You don’t half-ass things. You don’t make excuses. You do. Simple as that. You set your eyes on a goal(s) and you keep advancing towards it. When you reach your goal, you set a new one. Your career has only milestones, it has no endpoint.

Your achievements—big or small—mean something. They’re not to be taken lightly. Don’t downplay your skill level. Don’t talk badly about yourself all the time. Self-deprecation is fine in moderation, but don’t start to believe the lies you tell yourself for humility or humor’s sake. Learn to love yourself. Self-love more than anything will help you to achieve everything you’ve dreamed of and more. Your mental health matters. If you need to take a step back from a relationship or friendship to focus on getting your mind right, then do so. If you need to quit a toxic work environment to get your mind right, then do so. If you need to distance yourself from your parents or siblings to get your mind right, then do so.

It’s hard, I know. We don’t like to admit that we have flaws or weaknesses. We don’t like to admit that sometimes we need to cancel plans because we don’t feel up to it. We might be drained mentally or emotionally, but we’re scared to let others see. Don’t be. We are all humans, and we all go through things. We all have moments when solitude is all that we ask for. We might feel guilty for making up a shitty excuse, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Take that time. Make the effort to make sure that your mind is healthy. Sometimes it’s hard to love yourself. I’ve gone through moments of deep self-loathing too. I understand your pain.

But you have to rid yourself of that mindset. It does you no good. Start small. Count your blessings each and every day. If you can’t find things to be thankful for or proud of, then think in general terms. You woke up today. You have a place to live. You have food to eat. You have a job. You have family; you have friends. That’s more than some can say. You may not love yourself yet, but you will get there in time. Fake it til you make it. Remind yourself of what you have already. Remind yourself that you are loved. It may not be from yourself. It may not be from people around you, but someone out there loves you and cares about you deeply. Remind yourself of this every single day. Eventually the love may come from within. But until that time comes, you can fake it. It’s okay.

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Growth, Mental Health, Reflections

Tortured Youth

July 24, 2022 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

This is part two of a four-part series.

I’ve said before that my high school was not a healthy environment for developing youths. I stand by that statement. It was too competitive, too tough. Too focused on building up your own ego in exchange for breaking down others. Because my mindset and my identity had changed so drastically in 5th and 6th grade, it made it easier for me to fall into this mental and emotional trap. The trap of constantly comparing myself to others. Of always being aware of where I fit in on the social hierarchy. Of feeling worthless if I didn’t meet the impossibly high standards that had been set. I had not necessarily been focused on my grades before that mediocre math exam in 6th grade. I was only doing my best, and my best had been pretty good. Up until that point. But I beat myself up for it. I was embarrassed by it. I tried to forget about it by hiding the results. But it ate at me. It worried away at my confidence until it was wearing thin.

I was close to empty, and it stayed like that for many years. Each new school year gave me a little bit of confidence to start. It was a fresh slate, most of my insecurities had been forgotten. Summer does a fine job of abrading the rough edges. In the fall you start out smooth, but by the time June rolls around, you’re craggily and coarse yet again. Each great English or Social Studies exam result filled my cup a little bit more. But each mediocre to poor Math or Science result eroded any good will. These failures broke me down more than the successes built me up. Because I had been trying so hard to be someone that I wasn’t. I wanted so badly to be good at math and science, because that was what I thought was expected of me. My parents were both scientists, and I had somehow convinced myself that in order to consider myself Asian-American I had to be good at STEM classes. But that wasn’t who I was. It never had been, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. That was not the skillset I had been blessed with. STEM was neither my calling nor my passion.

But because I had convinced myself that it was a critical part of my ethnic identity, I found it hard to switch focus. I was going to excel at math and science if it was the last thing that I did. But if you’re struggling and aren’t willing to ask for help, then there’s nothing you can really do about it to get better. A seventh grader who doesn’t understand the course material isn’t going to improve without tutoring or hands-on assistance. That was me when it came to math. My math teacher that year was not a good teacher. She didn’t explain things well and she didn’t provide good examples. She read monotonously from the textbook, and she did not translate lessons into terms that a seventh grader would be able to understand. She was quite indifferent. To top it off, she was neither kind nor pleasant so staying after school to get help from her was not an option for me. My confidence continued to sap.

The following year, the teacher was a straight-up bitch, so asking her for help was not an option either. She was perhaps a better teacher than the previous one, but she left me even more disinterested in the subject due to her grating attitude. She was blunt, sarcastic and unsympathetic. If you got an answer wrong she let you know about it. I don’t know if it was intentional or if it was just a byproduct of her personality but it was not a rare occurrence to leave class feeling embarrassed. Perhaps this type of teacher is suitable for a more mature student such as a high school senior or a college student, but she certainly wasn’t helpful for a junior high student. My confidence continued to ebb.

The summer after 8th grade, my mom had enrolled us in summer school for six weeks. One of the two courses I took was a math course. It wasn’t necessarily because I needed it, but she thought it would ease my transition to high school. As fate would have it, the math course was taught by perhaps the only person who could’ve damaged my academic career any further. I say that because all of my high school math teachers were helpful and kind, but because my spirit had already been broken it didn’t matter how good they were at their jobs—they couldn’t help me. I had already become too discouraged. The summer school class was taught by the high school department head. Which sounds like it should be beneficial, but it wasn’t. The teacher was a pompous, self-righteous asshole with no manners and an aggressive personality. It was clear in the way that he taught that he expected you to know more than you did, and he made you feel stupid when you showed that you didn’t. It probably comes with the territory. Math whizzes have a reputation for lacking emotional intelligence. During the school year he only taught the highest level classes: the AP and honors calculus classes. Pre-algebra was beneath him. He made that patently obvious. Why he of all people was allowed to teach summer school is beyond me.

I came out of the ordeal more demoralized than before. I was defeated. Summer school is supposed to be easy right? More like a tuneup rather than education. But I ended up with mostly high C’s and low B’s. Half a summer of being made to feel stupid ruined me. It didn’t help that there was a kid from my church in my other class. He didn’t live in our town, but our school was prestigious enough that kids from other towns enrolled in the summer program. I don’t know how exactly it came up, but he had made a comment like, “why are you taking math? It’s easy!” And of course that pissed me off. Math at that time had been my biggest insecurity. I wasn’t good at it and I didn’t think I could get good at it. I got so mad that I stole money out of his wallet when he went to the bathroom, and I didn’t even feel bad about it. If you know me, then you know that I’m not a thief. In my thirty years I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve stolen. But in this instance I had felt justified in doing so.

But I digress. That first C in 6th grade damaged me more than I knew at the time. It was only the start of a downward spiral. But it wasn’t the only thing that I struggled with that year. As I’ve said previously, my parents had pulled me out of sex ed during my puberty years. Being rather conservative, they weren’t happy with what was being taught in public school, but they also didn’t teach me on their own time. During those years I discovered porn, and watched an obscene amount of it, which only served to pervert my view on women. While my father had always been in my life, we did not form a relationship until recently. There had always been a chasm between us that we were unable to cross, so growing up I did not have anyone to look to as a suitable male role model. If I had, maybe things would’ve played out differently, but that’s neither here nor there. I had never been taught properly, so I didn’t have any sort of frame of reference for forming bonds with females. I didn’t know how it worked, but that didn’t stop me from trying. And to nobody’s surprise but my own, my “grand” overtures to woo a girl never succeeded. Oftentimes it was too creepy, sometimes I skipped steps, other times it was too ostentatious. I never could get it right. Even though I’m in a healthy four-year relationship now, I still don’t feel like I “won the girl” so to speak. She approached me, not vice versa!

My 6th grade year had been a year of changes. Changes in my confidence, in my ethnic identity, and in my body physically and emotionally. Deep down, I knew that watching porn was wrong. I couldn’t say why exactly back then. I didn’t have a firm grasp of it. I knew it was a form of lust, but what does lust mean to a twelve-year-old? In my juvenile mind I felt worse about disobeying my parents by staying up late than I did about doing the deed. But that isn’t to say that I didn’t feel unease about it. I did, but I willfully ignored my discomfort to find my satisfaction. My discomfort certainly did not outweigh my desire to find the answers to my questions. After a while I ran out of questions, but continued watching it because it had become ingrained in me as a habit. Every Friday after church I would wait until my family had gone to sleep, then sneak down to the basement with one of the laptops. As I grew older, guilt started weighing more heavily on my heart.

And school did not ease my burden. In fact it did the opposite. As a kid, I was rather two-faced. At home, I was a naughty kid. In public, I was generally well-behaved and shy. I was an all-around terror to my sisters. I’d like to say it was cause I was the only boy and the middle child, but that’s probably understating it. I was an attention-seeking little shit, simple as that. I had started to grow out of it by second or third grade (keyword: started). But just because my lying and hitting had waned to some extent, didn’t mean that my mom had gained any trust in me. Any time there was any screaming or shouting I was the first person that she suspected. I can’t blame her, it was my own doing. I mean I hadn’t shown her any reason to have faith in me. But remember how I said last time that I showed multiple versions of myself to the world? My home life did not mix with my school life. I wouldn’t let it. It was the one thing that I dreaded the most. I was the epitome of fake before I knew what that meant. I may have been a junior terror at home, but I was incapable of mischief at school. I tried to stay out of trouble as much as possible.

But just because I tried to avoid it doesn’t mean that trouble didn’t find me. To this day, I still don’t quite understand how I managed to get into certain situations. There were a number of incidents where due to a misunderstanding or poor communication on my part, blame was pinned on me for things that I hadn’t done. Remember, I was extremely scared of authority figures back then, so what should’ve been a simple conversation was nerve-wracking for me. If I couldn’t address teachers while in a group setting, you can only imagine what I was like one-on-one. It was disastrous to say the least. Being scolded by my mom was one thing, being scolded by a teacher was even worse (especially when you were being falsely accused). It was humiliating. I couldn’t help my nervousness. But that didn’t stop them from jumping to conclusions. My lack of poise was often mistaken for guilt. The reason why I stammered and sounded unsure of myself was because I was scared of the teacher and of getting in trouble, not because I was trying to fabricate a story or because I was scared of getting caught. I didn’t engage in risky behavior, because my fear of getting in trouble far outweighed my fear of getting caught. How can you get caught if you didn’t do anything wrong? So I had no reason to fear it. But that didn’t seem to resonate with some teachers. If they thought I was guilty, then by God I was guilty. It didn’t matter if I was a good student or an obedient and meek kid.

In preschool, there was a situation in which I unintentionally made my mom cry. But it wasn’t my fault! Not really. The teacher was trying to get us to line up in single file. I was standing there minding my own business, when someone pushed me from behind. After losing my balance, of course my instinct was to reach out in front of me for support. I ended up bumping into a girl and causing her to cry. I really didn’t think I had contacted her that hard. Nevertheless, contact had occurred, albeit accidentally—that much I don’t deny—but that’s what it was. An accident. I had done it as a reactive reflex not as a malicious act. That didn’t seem to matter though. As fate would have it, the kid who had pushed me was a twin, and I was unsurprisingly unable to identify him. These two boys had had a reputation for being naughty, but of course I was to blame because I wasn’t able to point out the culprit. For some reason that’s still incomprehensible to me, it didn’t occur to the teacher that it was borderline insane to a.) ask a toddler to try to distinguish between a set of twins and b.) also ask said toddler to identify who had pushed him from behind. At the tender age of three or four, I had become the victim of a false accusation. It was the first time but it certainly wasn’t the last time.

As a kid, I was afraid to sneeze in public. I was always embarrassed to do so. I don’t know why exactly. One of my favored methods of stifling it was to rub my septum and my upper lip with a loose fist. It usually worked. But one time in third grade it backfired, and I ended up sneezing obscenely loudly. The teacher thought I was being intentionally disruptive so she was about to give me a timeout before she realized what had happened. Third grade had not been a good year for me. I like to refer to it as one of the worst years of my life; it is for sure in the bottom five. In the winter, I had slipped on a giant snowball which had turned into ice overnight and ended up hurting myself severely. There was an incident where the teacher had highlighted a mistake of mine in front of the whole class without naming me specifically. She was upset at the poor spelling the class had exhibited earlier in the week. She was criticizing us for having made careless mistakes. I remember her exact words were “one person spelled volcanos with an ‘e’. The word is vol-cain-nose not vol-cah-noos.” That snide little comment had embarrassed me greatly even though she had not named names. What gets me is that if you look up volcano in the dictionary, the plural form can be with an e or without. Both spellings are correct! But she was the teacher and I was the student, so I was wrong. Of course I was upset and angry that she had brought it up. It wasn’t the first time she had embarrassed me in front of the class. It was only one out of a long string of incidents. Now is probably a good time to mention that her name was Linda (cause of course it was). If I ever met anyone that embodied the connotation of her name it was her.

In sixth grade, my elementary school did this thing where each teacher had a specialization and a homeroom. For English, Math, and Science, the students would rotate to a different classroom. There was a small bobblehead living in the desk that I sat at for math. I remember looking at it. I thought it was interesting and weird. But I didn’t touch it and I didn’t glance at it for more than a few seconds. A few days later, the teacher called me into the hallway and told me that someone had broken the toy, and that the student was extremely upset about it. It became clear to me that she was convinced that I had done it, and nothing I told her would sway her opinion. Like any normal person I still tried to defend myself, even though I knew the endeavor would prove futile. I don’t remember what exactly I said, but I do know that I sounded wishy-washy and I ended up stuttering. I was sweating profusely, my heart was pounding, my ears were getting red, I was on the verge of tears. But it wasn’t because I was guilty and trying to cover it up with a mediocre lie. I was merely unable to complete a coherent thought. I was too nervous; I didn’t know what was going on. But apparently the way that I reacted implied guilt, and the teacher abruptly left the conversation. She was furious, believing that I was actively lying to her. I’ve lied a lot in my lifetime, but I’ve never been good at it. I couldn’t lie to save my life. That’s a simple fact. People know this. Unfortunately to some, facts like that don’t matter. They will believe what they want to believe. It was too much for me to handle. I was unable to focus for the rest of the school day. And I never enjoyed the class after that. The guilt that stemmed from that incident coupled with the C exam began to overwhelm me.

And it was a driving factor in the direction that my life was headed. This was the official end to the first phase of my life. I hadn’t been ready for it, but it had come regardless. It’s quite sudden. One day you’re a child, the next day puberty hits you and you’re different. Your parents, doctors, and teachers try to prepare you for it the best that they can. But for the most part your parents are still learning on the job. My parents didn’t know that pulling me out of sex ed would severely hinder my development. But they had done so because they thought it was the right thing to do. They had their conviction. You can’t blame someone for doing what they believe regardless of if it’s right or wrong. Knowing what I know now, this hadn’t been the right approach, but it happened and no one can change that. I appreciate all experiences—good or bad. Because regardless of what happens, you can learn, grow, and improve. You wouldn’t be who you are now without the adversity that you went through in the past. And that’s the truth. Your experiences mold you.

For better or for worse. Unfortunately for me, as an adolescent the negative stuck out to me way more than the positive. I had grown pessimistic and cynical without realizing it, and it eventually blossomed into depression and anxiety. It was due to my burden of guilt amongst other things. I had become lost, searching for my identity without a compass, without a guiding star. Without a male role model, and without an understanding of how relationships form or work, I had become a teenager struggling to find his way in the world. Each new rejection or negative experience made me feel worse and worse about myself. My self-confidence had not been very high to begin with, but whatever was left had already eroded away. I didn’t know what or who I was. On top of that, my grip on reality was based more on delusion and fantasy than it was on fact and actuality. For the longest time I had had trouble sleeping. My late night weekends most assuredly exacerbated it. But my way of coping with sleeplessness did not help matters either. I was a lonely kid, I think that much is clear. It didn’t matter how many friends I had or how many people I talked to, the one thing I wanted in my life was a girlfriend. Or at least that’s what I told myself. I realized later in life that all I had really wanted was companionship, whether in the form of a significant other or a close friend, it didn’t really matter. I just needed someone to talk to, who understood me, loved me, and accepted me as I was.

It’s not easy to find that, especially not when you’re wired differently. How am I different? Stay tuned! You’ll find out next time. That being said, I was a highly misunderstood and tortured youth. I wanted to be bold but I didn’t have the courage for it. I did not overcome my shyness until I reached my early-mid 20s. Who I wanted to be was nowhere close to who I was. And the path towards it was cryptic and full of obstacles. The next steps were not readily apparent to me. I didn’t know how to get there, but I wanted to be there more than anything. But the divide proved to be too wide to cross. Not with the set of tools, mindset/mentality, motivations that I had at the time. I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t know how.

So I made up stories in my head. I lived vicariously through myself. Real-life Justin wanted to be bold but didn’t know how. But have no fear! Alternate reality Justin had no such issues! In times when I had trouble sleeping I dreamed up scenarios between me and my crushes. Scenarios where I went after the girl. Scenarios where I was popular. Where I knew what I wanted. Where I was accepted. Where I was who I wanted to be. The fantasies continued on from the previous night in the form of a long-winded story. For a few years this was where I did my greatest creative work! But none of that was real, and all of it was damaging. Your mind does strange things when you sleep. Sometimes stray thoughts linger. They circulate as you rest. They may slip into your dreams, and stay with you when you awaken. It was unhealthy obsessive thinking but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know better. I didn’t know that these role-playing narratives impaired my still-developing psyche. Reality and fantasy had interwoven and the thin line had become thinner.

I had unknowingly allowed delusional thought to creep in. And unfortunately it guided me for a time, like it was my instinct. But it wasn’t. I had unintentionally tricked myself into believing falsities. And occasionally I went through with asking girls out that I had never spoken to or interacted with. I had absolutely no business being where I was. Of course I was rejected or laughed at—that had always been the only reasonable outcome. But in my head I really thought that I had had a chance! Crazy right?! But like I said, I didn’t know how it worked. I was in a bad mental headspace for years, so it was easy for the lines between dream and reality to blur. Now it would be easy to blame all of my romantic troubles and difficulties on my delusions but that’s a bit of a copout. Real people’s lives were affected. There were real-life consequences. Potentially promising friendships were ruined. So to blame it on anything but myself is being unfair to everyone else who was involved. Despite what was going on in my head, I had still made someone else feel uncomfortable. So I have to take responsibility for it. I have to own up to my mistakes. In the end, regardless of your intentions, delusions, or misconceptions you are responsible for what you say and what you do.

I know that now. But I can’t say I knew it then. I didn’t value myself very highly back then, but I valued other people even less. Me, wrong? I couldn’t be wrong! I couldn’t possibly be at fault! Instead of holding myself accountable, instead of admitting that I had fucked up, instead of recognizing my mistakes and moving on, I had maintained a woe-is-me attitude. I convinced myself that people were out to get me, that they hated me, that they wanted to see me fail. I didn’t acknowledge that there were things I could’ve done better. I didn’t think I could do better. I thought I was destined to be mediocre my whole life. I thought I was destined for failure. I didn’t think I could amount to anything meaningful or useful. But that was only because my way of thinking then did not align with who I was and who I wanted to become. Remember how I said that I have always been different? Well guess who was the last person to realize this? This guy! Me!

Sure, in fifth grade I had started going to a “better” school. I started to have Asian friends that weren’t from church. I started to think more like a stereotypical Asian-American. I was only trying to fit in. But I was already different. I always had been. I was never meant to fit into a stereotype. I was selling myself short. I wasn’t the gold standard of Asian-Americanness. I wasn’t the shining church example. I was just me. The same me who hadn’t been afraid to express himself the way that he knew how in fourth grade. But I had lost sight of that during puberty. It had never occurred to me how different I was. It had never registered that I didn’t need to try to be unique, I already was unique. My thought process was already distinctively mine. I was an out-of-the-box thinker even as a young kid. When I was young, I wasn’t one to conform. I did what I wanted. But as I grew older, and as I grew more eccentric I started walking a tightrope. I wanted to be different, I felt a need to be different.

And this became a driving force in my life. It was my main motivation. But as adults we know better right? If your drive stems from a desire to be unique it will never work out. You need something more. You need something greater than that. Being different just for the sake of being different is meaningless. Your idiosyncrasies should serve a purpose. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s quite alright. It’s a part of you that likely isn’t going to change. But it’s you. That’s the important thing. Be genuine. Don’t put on a facade. Don’t be two-faced. Don’t pretend. Be you, and be proud of you. Be proud of who you are. Be proud of where you came from. Be proud of where you’re going. You can only ever be yourself. Trying to be someone else only leads to pain. I wish I had discovered this earlier on. If I had, I don’t think I would’ve been as lost as I was in my teens and mid-20s. I didn’t understand the purpose for my life, the meaning behind it, what I was put on this planet to do.

I just don’t think I had the mental capacity to come to that conclusion at the time. I was too trapped in my own head to think clearly. I was too mired in my own insecurities to show proper judgment and discernment. My delusions had grown and multiplied. I didn’t have the ambition or the tenacity to excel at what I did. I had given up on academics somewhat. I had lost hope and had never really set any attainable goals for myself. I didn’t really know what I wanted. For a while I was thinking about becoming a musician. After I had convinced myself that the world was going to end soon, I had settled upon a military career. It was to be something of a place holder until I figured it out. Eventually I was persuaded to go the standard college route. But still it wasn’t what I wanted. I only went through with it so as not to rock the boat. Applying to business programs was just a way for me to manage expectations. I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I did it because I felt like I was supposed to. By my junior year of high school, I had distanced myself somewhat from the elite academic scholars. I didn’t like the way that hanging out with them made me feel. I just didn’t think that I could compete with them, nor did I want to. I really didn’t have that much in common with them aside from my skin tone when it came down to it. So I found acceptance with two other groups: the loners and the stoners.

I did not partake at the time. My religious “morals” prevented me from doing so. But maybe I should’ve. Maybe I would’ve been able to build up some semblance of self-confidence if I had. Maybe I would’ve been better able to understand myself. Maybe full-on depression wouldn’t have onset by sophomore year. Another one of life’s mysteries. Marijuana is what you make of it. It can be a crutch if you choose to use it as such. Or it can be a source of inspiration. It can make you anxious or it can calm your nerves. It depends greatly on your headspace and your reason for using it. Like everything in life, a balance is required. But I’m not here to talk about that. That’s a discussion for a different day. What happened happened, and marijuana hadn’t played a role in it. The stoners did help me feel a bit better about myself. There were less expectations, less pressure. They were more laidback. Not nearly as ambitious. But yet, I still didn’t feel like I belonged.

I was still on the outside looking in. I wouldn’t say it was solely because I didn’t smoke. There were likely other reasons for it. Remember how I had shelled up and put up walls? Those didn’t come down around those kids either. I was less wary but still on my guard. I still distanced myself. I tried not to get too close. I was afraid of getting hurt. Being anti-social was more comfortable to me. So I didn’t try that hard to make friends. I was friendly and cordial to those I knew, but I rarely let it get more complex than that. I thought I was okay with that but I really wasn’t. Inner turmoil ate at me. But I told myself I was fine. I let the darkness envelop me because I didn’t know how to cope with it. I let depression engulf me. Resigning myself to the fact that it was going to plague me for years to come. I allowed it to fester because I didn’t know how to combat it. I let myself get too high and I let myself get too low. I rode the emotional rollercoaster wherever it took me. I wasn’t in control of my emotions. Instead I let my emotions dictate the narrative. I didn’t live my life. I let my life live me.

And my depression worsened. One year turned into two. Two years became five. Five became eleven. Of course it wasn’t constant. I likely would’ve died if that had happened. But it would be a couple months here of feeling okay, followed by a couple months there of feeling in the dumps. It got old pretty quick. But I dealt with it adequately enough. I did it the best way I knew how, which was to hide all my trauma in a box that I hid in the attic of my brain (check out Un-Dealt with, Ignored, Sitting in a Box for more). That’s right. I didn’t deal with things head-on. I ran from them. I ran from any and all adversity. That was a defining characteristic of the pre-therapy version of myself. Case in point: I had asked a girl to prom over AIM (another person that I barely knew). When confronted by a friend about it—he was good friends with her—I tried to pass it off as a hypothetical. I told him that I had asked her how she would react if I asked her. We all knew that there wasn’t anything hypothetical about it. I had asked her and I had made things awkward as a result. But I didn’t deal with rejection well, so I tried to alter the narrative to suit my purposes. But just because you force yourself to remember an event one way doesn’t mean that that is how it happened. Reality is reality, and no amount of misremembering, manipulation, or gaslighting can change that.

But like I’ve said a few times already, I was too depressed to think about other people or consequences. And instead of rolling with the punches and moving on, I dwelled on things. I didn’t let things go. I couldn’t. Sometimes after I was rejected by a girl, I geared myself up to be rejected by her again! I couldn’t take no for an answer, even though no was the only answer I ever received. Lack of sex education and lack of social etiquette was to blame. Yes, learning to become an adult is truly difficult. The transitional teenage years might just be the worst years of your life. It’s hard, but it’s not that hard. It just takes the tiniest amount of common sense. Sense that I didn’t possess. If she doesn’t like you, that’s not going to change unless you change yourself or circumstances change. She’s not going to come around in a week and just be like, “oh never mind. I do like you actually.” Things don’t happen that way. Maybe they do in stories. But that’s just it. Those are stories. They may be inspired by real life, but they aren’t real life.

That’s something we all have to remember. If you spend too much time trapped in your own head, your perception of reality will likely obfuscate. You start lying to yourself, you start deluding yourself, you start to believe that anything is possible. Yes, you can be who you want to be. Yes, you can do what you want to do. If you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything you want. But that comes with certain caveats. You need to have the skills and the tools for it for one. Without the proper equipment you will be just another poor, mediocre soul. You know that saying about trying to force a round peg into a square hole? Don’t do that. Another thing you don’t want to do is ignore reality. You can’t just say, “fuck it,” and go for things that don’t make sense. Some things were never meant to be. They were never going to work out. It’s obvious to see. You just have to review the facts from a more objective perspective. If you’ve never spoken to someone before, chances are they weren’t thinking about you, let alone wanting you. They don’t even know who you are! If you’ve never played an instrument before, the chances of you becoming a musician are slim to none unless you really work at it. You can’t just think scenarios into reality. It doesn’t work that way. Things don’t just fall into place without the requisite effort.

It took me a long time to understand that. But joining up with the stoners was a step in the right direction. That was when I realized that STEM was not for me. I realized that I was projecting. Pretending that I was good at something that I was always going to struggle with. Trying to be something that I wasn’t, just to fit in. It was the first step on my path towards mental health. Letting go of the main thing that held me back. Unfortunately the second, third, and subsequent steps did not occur until years later. I did learn and grow from my mistakes but progress was slow. Until I actually got my mental health under control, I was still grasping at straws into my mid-20s. I was still ignorantly wallowing in my delusions. Especially when it came to my love life. I had stopped dreaming up fantasy scenarios by then but that didn’t mean that I was more realistic about my expectations. I still expected the unexpected. And that was to my detriment.

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Greatness, Mental Health, Reflections

Line of Delineation

July 8, 2022 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I would like to start this post with a disclaimer. If you get to the end of this and feel that it’s incomplete, that’s because it is. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but I know a post is done when it’s done. There’s no set word count or guideline that I follow. But in everything that I post, I stop writing when I feel a sense of completeness. I guess the perfectionist in me has an inherent feeling for when that is. I may meander in my posts, but they generally come full circle, connecting the beginning with the end.

However, that won’t be the case here. What started out as a single premise has quickly ballooned into something that will not fit in one post. The more I write, the more I understand that sometimes your writing has a mind of its own. This monster here is no different. This post will be the first part of three or four. I’m not quite sure yet how many times I will split this. I’ve been trying to lower my word count (not trying very hard evidently), but it hasn’t really been working. But since I am preemptively splitting it, hopefully I won’t make your eyes bleed too much. That being said, let’s begin.

I’ve always been different. Always thought differently, always acted differently. As a kid it came to me naturally. Simply put, I just wasn’t wired the same. I zigged when others zagged. In my teenage years it became somewhat intentional and exaggerated. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be unique. I wanted to be remembered. One of my biggest fears was being forgotten. So I did whatever I could to stand out. I wanted so much to make a name for myself. But I didn’t need to try so hard. I didn’t need to stress as much as I did. When you do great things, your actions speak for themselves. It’s not necessary to embarrass yourself for the sake of name recognition. Not all press is good press despite what they say. Fame and popularity are not even things that you can catalyze or manifest (frankly they’re overrated anyway). They don’t come as a result of your actions or your behavior. They are rather, people’s reactions to things you have done or created. Excel at what you do and be confident in who you are, and all things will fall in place.

Trying too hard is honestly an easy mistake to make. As we grow up we slowly discover who we are. We find what we’re capable of, we learn about ourselves, and we discover what motivates us. But oftentimes in doing so, we don’t remain true to ourselves. We try to be someone that we’re not. We attempt to live lives that aren’t the ones that are meant for us. We don’t make the best use of our gifts, and we try to pursue paths that we aren’t optimized for. It comes with the territory. Growing up and finding who you are also includes discovering who you are not. Finding who you are involves trial and error. We don’t start pursuing greatness from Day 1. We’re not capable of it. That’s why we go to school for 13+ years. Our rudimentary tools need to be developed and honed. They tell us from the start to dream big. The motivational posters and banners hanging up in classrooms may be corny, but they generally hold some semblance of real truth. Dream big. Always. But make sure that it’s your dream that you’re pursuing and not someone else’s. Life is more satisfying that way.

I can attest to that. We can all agree on that can’t we? If you’ve been reading along with me, you know by now that I like to distinguish between pre-therapy Justin and post-therapy Justin. What can I say? It was a definite turning point in my life. We are ever-changing, so each year we show a different version of ourselves to the world. But I like to break up my life so far into three phases. No it’s not childhood, pre-teen/adolescence, and adulthood. That seems like a reasonable line of delineation, but it doesn’t quite work for me. The main crossroads in my life didn’t line up that way. For me it’s childhood, pre-therapy (disheartened youth), and post-therapy (mended human). We all know that I am quite open about my struggles with mental health. After all, that’s been my thing ever since I started posting more regularly on this blog. It’s been the drum that I’ve been beating and will continue to beat. I do not hesitate to talk about it. It may be taboo for others but it’s not for me. It’s a necessary discussion and relevant to us all.

I don’t find myself meeting new people that often—I don’t go out much after all. And although I don’t generally take initiative in starting conversations, I am open to conversing with people I don’t know. I don’t have a problem talking. I can carry a conversation just fine; I’m just not much of a conversation starter. When I do find myself partaking, the conversation generally flows in much the same direction. They ask me what I do for work—no surprise there. I rehash recent history: this is what I used to do, but I quit in January, and now I spend my time writing. The conversation usually continues in much the same way. I don’t go out of my way to talk about myself (I’m not that conceited), but if someone is asking me questions about myself, you’d best believe I’ll answer them all as thoroughly as possible. That being said, I routinely find myself being asked something along the lines of, “what spurred you to quit your job and start writing?” I’m glad you asked! The short answer is that I went through dark times, I sought out help, and I worked on my mental health. We’ll get to the long answer later on.

Mental health might seem like a heavy subject to discuss during a first-time conversation, and I have to admit that I agree with you! But if we sidestep the discussion in order to stay within our comfort zone, won’t it become easier to just sidestep it every time? If we don’t talk about it when it comes up naturally, then when will we ever talk about it? There won’t be a better time!

Willfully ignoring a prime opportunity like that wouldn’t sit right with me. Are we ready to jilt ourselves out of a genuine conversation with life-changing potential? I don’t know about you, but that’s not a risk that I’m willing to take. I don’t want that blood on my hands. There’s already enough artificiality in this world as is, we don’t need to doctor our conversations. Of course there are some things that should be kept to yourself when meeting new acquaintances, but in my opinion this is not one of them. If profound subject matter makes you uncomfortable, then great! It means that it’s working. It made you think. It was thought-provoking. I’d rather have that than go through the motions with small-talk. Get to know people truly. You’ll be better for it.

As much as we like to think that we’re empathetic and observant, we simply do not know everything that others are going through. That’s part of being human. And although we regularly engage in nuanced communication such as body language, tone of voice, and facial expression/non-verbal cues, nothing beats communicating through conversing. We can only imply so much, we can only hint at so much. Some people are better at reading non-verbal language than others. Some people are utterly clueless. That’s just how it is. The best way to understand another person has been and always will be talking to them. Listening to them. Discussing consequential subject matter. Having a back and forth. The preeminent method of characterizing how you’re feeling is verbalizing it. Bring your thoughts to life in the form of word or action. I know us males don’t like to talk about our feelings. It’s seen as weak, feminine, vulnerable. But if we don’t communicate, then how will we foster healthy relationships with other people? So let’s start a conversation. Let’s talk. Let’s facilitate a safe space. Let’s come to an understanding. Let’s discover what it means to be mentally healthy. I can and will talk to anybody and everybody about mental health. I think it’s that important. It bears thinking about. Think deeply and profoundly. Reflect on your life. Be proactive in addressing your issues. Discover who you are through active contemplation.

A fruitful life calls for introspection, so be sure to make time for it. If you don’t understand yourself how can you expect others to understand you? Be one with yourself. Ensure that your mind, body, and soul are in sync. You need to discover who you are. It’s imperative. As I said, discovering who you are includes discovering who you are not. This encompasses but is not limited to the following: finding your strengths and weaknesses; discovering your interests, passions, likes/dislikes; figuring out how you think; making honest assessments about your good or bad habits; recognizing areas that need improvement.

Of course, each person’s mind works differently, so I can only speak to what goes on in mine. That being said, for a long time, I had been conditioned towards passivity. It was in my nature. As you know, I was an extremely shy kid, which resulted in lack of confidence and eventual anxiety. I never really told anyone what I liked or what I wanted for fear of reprisal or rejection. I never really pursued what I wanted to pursue for fear of tipping the boat. From a young age, I was afraid to tell even my parents how I truly felt about certain things. I was afraid of liking things too much. Whether it was due to fear of it being taken away or being told that I couldn’t like it or have it, I don’t really know. I remember when I was 6 or 7 my mom had bought me a beautiful Philadelphia Eagles winter jacket. It was puffy, reversible, and oh so warm. I loved it. But I rarely wore it. I spent more time looking at it in my closet than I spent wearing it, but it was still my favorite thing that I owned up til that point. I never told my mom how I truly felt about it. I was too afraid. Of what you ask? I’m not even sure if I knew back then, I certainly don’t know now. Regardless, even as a young tyke, I just didn’t think I was allowed to have nice things. I don’t know where this misconception stemmed from, but it stuck with me far into my adult years. Sometimes it was overt, other times it remained suppressed.

Of course it became a hindrance for me as the years went by. It played a huge impact on my life, but at the time I was incapable of identifying it let alone quantifying its effect. I never would’ve known it. Reflection and introspection weren’t really a part of my vocabulary back then. I’ll admit, I was delusional in some things, and misguided in others. I just didn’t know myself all that well. My self-awareness was nearly non-existent. Which came in conflict with my self-image in an odd sort of way. I worried so much about my self-image when I was younger, but I likely did more harm to it than good. I certainly didn’t help it with some of my outlandish behavior as a teenager. In trying so hard to stand out, to be unique, to be memorable, I only brought attention to the less than desirable aspects of my persona. But I didn’t know that. I did what I wanted to do, I said what I wanted to say in the moment, without a second thought. I didn’t care about others. I didn’t even care about myself. But even so, I was still too self-absorbed. Focusing on what I was doing at the moment rather than looking ahead to my future; or looking within at who I was; or improving my image and reputation to who I wanted to be.

So where would I be without introspection? Where would I be without therapy? That’s where we see the three phases of my life come into play. I had a fairly decent childhood. Like most, I had good times and I had bad. I went on playdates with friends, I hung out with kids at recess, I talked to kids at church. I was just a regular kid for all intents and purposes. But even so, I still spent a lot of my time alone. Being the only boy and the middle child will do that. I don’t know if I would call it a double triple life, but there were three versions of myself that I showed the world. There was who I was when I was at church, there was who I was with friends at school, and there was who I was when addressing adults and authority figures. There was also who I was at home, which was also somewhat different.

I was most comfortable at church. I was a goody-two-shoes. I always tried my best in Sunday School and during the youth programs. I read the Bible regularly and I was a pretty consistent participant. Oddly enough, the adults that helped out with these programs didn’t scare me all that much. If there were ever a shell-less version of me in elementary school this was it. But at the same time, this version of me may not have been the real me. Like many other church kids, I put up a facade. I was a holier than thou type so my church image was sacrosanct. It was cleaned up and immaculate. I cared a whole lot about my reputation before the word even became part of my vocabulary. Of course there were certain kids that I did “rebel stuff” with, like swearing or gossiping, but who hasn’t done that? I did that stuff in secret, only my compatriots knew about it. I didn’t do it in a way that allowed for the general public to see. I had always selfishly seen myself as the kid that parents brought up as an example to follow.

Who I was at school with classmates was quite similar but without the religious overtones. This was another relatively opened up version of me. I didn’t really try to hide who I was. I didn’t talk about my faith at school because I didn’t know how and because it never came up, so that aspect of my life remained separate. Due to the lack of a facade, this was likely the most genuine version of me. I didn’t try to clean up my image. I was who I was, and I had no issues with it. That is until 4th grade. That year I had started needing glasses. At the time, wearing glasses in public felt like a death sentence to me. I was embarrassed and scared. I decided I would rather squint and have trouble reading than wear them. Of course, that only made my vision worse, but the thought had never crossed my mind. I didn’t know it at the time, but that year was the start of a major downturn in my life. That was the first critical event that caused my self-confidence to steadily wane. And in my pre-therapy years it never fully recovered.

The face I showed adults and authority figures like teachers, store workers, or restaurant staff was completely closed and guarded. I was afraid. I couldn’t talk to them and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. I didn’t participate in school. I didn’t raise my hand. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t ask for help. At times it felt like it was physically impossible. There was too much pressure. I did my best to follow along with the lessons, but I was too shy to speak up. Talking to someone who was more than a few years older than me was too daunting a task. I couldn’t even order a cheeseburger at McDonald’s. It gave me too much anxiety. Getting up even the slightest sliver of courage to say a simple sentence was too demanding. My pint-sized brain couldn’t handle it. I didn’t like being this way, but I couldn’t exactly help it. Certain triggers shut off my communication skills. Unfortunately, over time it just got worse. Being a recluse went from being my alternate mode to my default mode.

As my confidence ebbed, I found it easier and easier to clam up. To build up walls. Puberty pushed me in that direction. Throughout my elementary school years there were a number of traumatic experiences that stuck with me and replayed in my head over and over. I won’t rehash all of them here. There are way too many for me to describe in detail (not all at once anyway). I never could get over them. Not for the next 10-15 years. I struggled immensely with letting things go. There were two monumental events in 6th grade that catalyzed the direction that my life was headed. Although not the most damaging experiences ever, they were the precursor to something dark. The first incident was maybe not a huge deal when it came down to it, but in the moment it was devastating.

I don’t remember when exactly it had happened, it may have been in the spring. I had gotten a 75 on one of my math tests (the first of many sadly), mostly due to careless mistakes. And of course I freaked out. That had never happened to me before. I was a good student, a kid who had always thought that he was on the right track. Who took school somewhat seriously and enjoyed it. This result was the first time in my life I had started to doubt my abilities. Before this exam I had total faith in myself. I had never before felt any insecurity about my academic capability. Unfortunately this was only the start of a troubling trend.

In 5th grade we had transferred schools within the district. From 2nd grade to midway through 5th I had attended what my siblings and I refer to as a “hippie” school. We called our teachers by their first names, our assignments weren’t graded (I’m not sure if they were even pass/fail), and we took sloyd instead of art class. Instead of learning drawing, painting, and sculpture we basically had a woodworking class. I remember making a rainstick, a güiro, and a mbira amongst other things. My parents hated it. They didn’t think that alternative education would prepare us well for junior high let alone high school. But we were new to the town, and the wait list for the “better” (read that as more traditional) schools was long. Victoria and I had been put on the wait list as soon as we had arrived in town. As you can see, it had taken three and a half years to get off of the wait list.

Back then, there weren’t as many east Asians in our town. They didn’t start moving in en masse until I had gotten to 8th or 9th grade. All of my friends at my first school were white. At my second school, I was one of four Asians in my class, which unsurprisingly changed my school dynamic. My priorities shifted, as did my identity. This was when I first started coming to grips with my Asian-American heritage. Sure, the majority of people at my church were Asian, but that was different. I didn’t see those kids everyday, I only saw them on Fridays and Sundays. So for me to finally have classmates that looked like me, that was life-changing. But regrettably it was beneficial for me in some ways, but detrimental in many others.

I became more focused on doing things that fit into Asian stereotypes. As a preteen I thought that it was the proper way to show pride in my culture. I didn’t know how to identify as Asian-American without being a cliche. Of course some traditions were rooted in my cultural upbringing—it’s hard for the offspring of immigrants to be completely whitewashed unless it was done so intentionally. It does happens, but it didn’t happen to me. My parents had tried their best to instill Chinese culture into our upbringing. We went to Chinese school, we took piano lessons, they preferred to speak to us in Cantonese and Mandarin, and we had homework to do outside of school (both Kumon and extracurricular workbooks from Costco). The things that they say about “tiger parenting” are true for the most part. All traditional Chinese parents use this technique to some extent. It’s just a matter of how much emphasis and how strict. That being said, I rejected this approach somewhat. It just didn’t work on me all that effectively. In any event, I grew up rather whitewashed—if I were to put a percentage on it I would put it at 70-75%. So it wasn’t for lack of effort on my parents’ part. That falls on me, not them.

In Cantonese they have a term for it: jook sing. It refers to a Chinese person who was born in a Western environment who identifies more with Western culture than they do Chinese culture. It is a somewhat derogatory term that our parents’ generation uses to refer to us. The opposite of this would be FOB (fresh off the boat). Ideally we want to be somewhere in the middle. Acknowledging your heritage from both angles. But while it may be easy to bond over things such as the cuisine, filial piety, and academic excellence, it doesn’t quite hold the same meaning if you’re unfamiliar with the language. And unfortunately Chinese is a difficult language to learn. It’s not intuitive. There are thousands of characters, and five or six different intonations. It doesn’t have a traditional alphabet. It’s easy to fall behind in class. Especially if you’re a Cantonese kid trying to learn Mandarin for the first time. I dreaded Chinese School. I had never really been interested in it to begin with, because I had been forced into it. But it was also easy to get discouraged by its difficulty.

Unlike English there are multiple aspects of the language that you need to learn. It’s possible to excel at one aspect but be mediocre in another. In English we have verbal and written forms. If you know how to speak English then you’ll have no problem understanding it and vice versa. If you know how to read it, then you’ll also have a basic understanding of writing it at a minimum. In Chinese it’s not the same thing. All four things are separate. Generally when speaking to your elders they’ll ask you if you know Chinese. And depending on what you know, you’ll tell them you can read, write, speak, and/or understand Chinese. I will usually say that I can understand a bit, but I can’t speak it. My vocabulary is poor and my accent is off. Due to the nature of the language, it’s imperative to be able to nail down the correct intonation, otherwise you risk saying the wrong thing and/or embarrassing yourself. My grasp of the written form is even more atrocious. The characters are hard to remember, and even if you do recognize a character it doesn’t mean you know what sound it makes. Not unless the pinyin or jyutpin is written above the character. Pinyin and jyutpin are romanizations of the sounds that each character makes. But just because you know what the character sounds like doesn’t mean that you know what it means necessarily. Are you thoroughly lost yet? So am I! So do you see why I had so little interest in learning Chinese? It was difficult, so I rejected it. And instead, embraced what I knew. I knew how to act white. It was easy for me because all of my friends were white. Up until 6th grade, I hadn’t necessarily adhered to traditional Chinese principles. But then things changed, simply because I had made some Asian friends.

I suppressed who I was on a personal level in exchange for emphasizing who I was on a socioeconomic level. Which in theory may sound great. Especially for Asian-Americans. As a culture we don’t like to rock the boat. We’d rather conform than show individuality. It’s safer that way. If you don’t draw attention to yourself there’s less of a chance for disappointment or failure. And boy, let me tell you, failure is the last word that Asian immigrant parents want to hear or say. If you fail, you bring dishonor to your people, to your family, and to yourself. I didn’t necessarily feel that much pressure from my parents. They were much less strict than many others. You know the mom from Turning Red? That wasn’t my parents, but I knew parents that were like that. It has a transcendent effect on their kids, and in turn on us—their classmates. I certainly felt a whole lot of pressure from church aunties, my parent’s friends, and most of all my peers. It’s draining. Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Writing. Plain, simple, unadulterated. I am a storyteller, an essayist, a poet, a writer, a thinker, a mental health advocate, a regular real life human being

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Writing. Plain, simple, unadulterated. I am a storyteller, an essayist, a poet, a writer, a thinker, a mental health advocate, a regular real life human being