Reaching for Clear Skies

Anyone can say 'I love you'. 'I love you' doesn't take any effort. Someone could easily say those words, then turn around and cheat on their spouse. 'I love you' is really just a string of words that we as a society has agreed upon to verbally communicate affection, but what significance does it have when that is the extent of your affection. 

Often, nonverbal communication is much more effective at conveying emotions and intent than is communication through the verbal channel. For example, you could verbally communicate, "fuck you!" But the intent of that verbal cue could be drastically different depending on what non-verbal cues come with it. If you it is paired with an angry, red face, the intent is negative. If it's paired with a laugh or a smile, it's a positive. It's the same with, "I love you."

Words only have meaning when you have actions that correspond with it. It's easy just to say a few words and be done - but showing those feelings in our actions every day is much more difficult.

 If you truly love someone, you will never need to tell them.

On Monday 14th 2016, I went to Walters Psychology Clinic at Toowong to see Dr Chong. I was incredibly nervous, my heart rate was 20-30 bpm higher than my resting heart rate for at least 2 hours before I walked into the clinic. I started to get clammy while in the waiting room, and I could hear my heart in my ear while I called mum for my Medicare number. Dr Chong came out and greeted me. He gave me a happy-chappy impression, which surprisingly put me more at ease. We went into the room and started to do a bit of paperwork before we went into the talking. To him, I was probably visibly nervous, so he started to talk to me and ask me questions, rather than expecting me to dish everything out on my own. I was honestly quite lost of words at this point. 

He commented on my UQ psyc shirt and asked me about school and what I'm interested in. I told him I want to either be in a chair similar to his, or maybe in a research lab, but it's not something I've made up my mind on. He asked me who far in I am, I told him I just finished my second year subjects, so I'm going into my 3rd year of my degree. I assume he guessed that I had some experience with clinical psychology, as he started to talk to me, he would pause and allow me to finish his sentence. And again, holly shit did it make me more relaxed. I remember thinking, "This mother fucker is damn good at what he does, I'm in good hands for sure."

From there on, it was a smooth transition into questions about me. What really impressed me was that rather than asking me, "what's wrong," he gave me a check list of symptoms related to anxiety, depression and stress to fill out. I had to read down the page and tick whatever was applicable. There was a section that I ticked almost every single box. What a surprise right? (Sarcasm)

He started asking questions based on those ticked boxes. He told me what that was for was for him to know the symptoms so that we don't waste time as I try to remember things. As we continued to talk, he continued to jot notes down, and he continued to ask more questions in finer detail. Eventually he came to a question of

"What do you think will make this better? After you answer this, I will tell you what I think is the problem"

I sat there, completely blank. Eventually, I replied,

"To be honest, I don't know what or if there is anything that can make it better. No matter how much I've sat an thought about it, I can't come up with something. All I do is hope that with repeated exposure, I'd eventually become habituated to the feel."

I saw Dr Chong write down the letters 'IDK'. He stood up, walked towards the white board, and said, "This is what I think it is," as he proceeded to write.

GAD

"Generalised Anxiety Disorder"

After nodding, he explained to me the condition and ran me through a few treatment options. He knew I was familiar with the general outline of these treatments. I think I was being visibly restless about the idea. The appointment ended and honestly, all I wanted to do was just sit somewhere, curl up and be a puddle.

Denne and I went to run some errands and my ingredients to make dinner. We went back to my place before going back to Denne's because he wanted mint leaves because he wanted to make a drink for me. While at my place, Mum asked Denne and I to deliver some clothes to grandma's house so that she can donate it to charity. We stayed for a few minutes to talk to uncle and aunty and see how Tayden was doing. We then dropped the ingredients to Denne's house before Denne drove me up to Mount Gravatt lookout for some quality time. He was very determined to do so, maybe because he saw that I really needed it. On the way there, I began to get very panicky and upset after realizing how many people are actually there to see the "Super moon." It took us a bit to get up the hill, and as we go closer, I go more worked up. Denne grabbed my hand and told me that it was something he wanted to do for me and it wasn't something I should feel bad about. 

As we go up to the lookout, someone pulled out right in front of us, and bam we got a parking spot.

We sat there for a considerable amount of time, just talking away. I thanked him for the day and for him being so patient with me. 

I came home later in the night. As I laid in my bed, a huge sense of dread about my mental illness started to overwhelm me. I began to cry while texting Denne on facebook. He reassured me that things will only get better at this point. We both said our good nights and went about our nights. I turned on a video to help me sleep, but my head was running a million miles a hour. Needless to say, ended up falling asleep quite late that night.

Lately, I've been working really hard to compile recipes and alter recipes to make it my own. It's something I personally find very important. Denne and I have taken another step forward with our relationship. Although our plans to move out were cancelled (probably will post about it soon), we both have been talking about our plan to buy a house within the next 5 years. We are working towards a 50k deposit for a house. Not gonna be anytime soon, but 50k doesn't get shitted out of nowhere :L, so might as well start right?

This gives me more time to build upon my recipes and improve my cooking skills. I want to be able to provide Denne with mother fucking good food that he is going to be happy with every time he comes home. 

I've gotten roasts down packed. 

I've got steaks, mash pure, light salads, grilled sweet corn etc.

"When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes,
That's where my demons hide."

My demon, anxiety, is not kind. It makes me fear everything and progress through life with doubt every step of the way. No one close to me has yet to understand how it has a grip on me.

Grandpa took his last breath last Tuesday, 2nd of August 2016. Fifth Uncle went down to change his diaper as per usual in the afternoon. Grandpa turned around, vomited and exhaled for the last time.  Grandma was also in the room. Uncles and Aunts started to call mum and every other relative outside the country. All aunts in Australia, along with mum booked the first flight to Viet Nam. Mum still needed her VISA approved so that she could leave the next night. I haven't prayed so hard for anything for along time. Although I was already able to convince mum to arrange to go see Grandpa before he passes, she wasn't able to make it in time. First I was feeling really blue, but the second I saw mum, I could tell she was absolutely gutted. I just hope she doesn't regret not being able to see him before he died. 

Anywho, I wasn't able to go to Viet Nam since my passport has expired. It took a while for my licence to come in, so even if I did the passport thing asap, I still wouldn't have made it. Despite that,. I still deeply regret it. I wasn't able to be there to support mum during her most difficult time, and I wasn't able to see grandpa off.

The day after mum left for Viet Nam, I burned some offerings for grandpa since I didn't know what day he would be cremated.

 What I wanted most was to get him a suit, or clothing of some sort. He had to wear sets of the same clothing, every day for the last decade. I was really adamant on this, and despite Denne's lack of understanding towards these things, he did so much to help me out. He was able to get the joss paper I wanted while I was at work, and he there the whole time, comforting me while I sat there burning this paper and crying.  

Afterwards, I was told that Grandpa was being cremated on Monday (9th Aug). So I dropped to the shops to get myself Copper joss paper specifically, and then a bunch of other stuff. I burnt the giant copper joss paper stuck first, so it's not in this picture, but this is everything else. Traditional Chinese/Vietnamese clothing, coin paper, LOTS of paper money and other small stuff. 

Still struggle to come to term with everything. Still worried about mum. 

I was recommended to see go see Dr Bennett about my escapism and possible anxiety issues. I was told that my symptoms are textbook symptoms of anxiety, but it may also be due to an array of other things. He got me to have a blood test to look at my irons levels. Difficulty sleeping, lack of energy, always feeling tired despite the amount of sleep and difficulty concentrating can be symptoms of low iron levels. Turns out I was as normal as normal can get. There was not a thing out of place, or on the boundaries.

Dr Bennett also got me to do a self-report questionnaire on anxiety, depression and something else ( I forgot what it was). Since I am in the process of studying an extended major in psychology, I've had experience with how these questionnaires work. Ie. how they are structured, how they are scored and how the questions are manipulated in attempts to make the intentions of the questionnaire a bit ambiguous. I've looked really deeply into personality and mental illness type questionnaires because I had to come up with a short questionnaire for an experiment I needed to conduct for an assessment piece in a social psyc course. I saw the headers of the marking scheme and I'm just thinking, "oh shit, I know how this is marked and how it will be interpreted." Without a second thought, the second I saw the marking side, I folded the paper so I could complete the questionnaire without and biases. 

Results suggested that its probably not depression and it may very well be something to do with anxiety. I was asked if any of my family do display any of the same symptoms I've noticed in myself. I do see it in mum. Not as obvious as it is with me, because I assume she has grown to cope with it, but I do see plenty of resemblances. All of that, along with the fact that anxiety is most common in 15 - 25 year old females... yeah. And that is how I am here, pending to go see a psychologist. Yay

I was completely oblivious to it, until I studied mood disorders and anxiety in an introductory psychology class. I ticked off every box in regards to the symptoms as my stomach started to drop lower and lower. I was completely ignorant towards it. 

Honestly though, I'm scared. It's as though I've finally gotten a glimpse of the monster in my closet. And quite frankly, I can't come to terms with how to feel. With that, along with whats happening with grandpa and my studies being so unsure this semester, I feel so lost. Even after the dope as grades I got last semester, it just suddenly feels as though I took a few steps back and lost sight of everything again.



I try to so hard to hide it, like nothing is wrong. The fear of being judged and looked down upon as weak is ridiculous. But really, I just yearn for comfort and reassurance, something that is difficult to come across. I try and keep it to myself, because I think its unfair for me to expect Denne to understand and be able to comfort me when he can't even grasp what and how I'm feeling. 

I was just recently told that Grandpa (mum's dad) in Vietnam is dying. The man has been bedridden for nearly a decade now. He begin with having difficulty with his muscles and slight reduction of mobility. As the years went by, began to lost more and more "functions" until he became completely depend on Grandma and the family. The last time I saw him, he was unable to do anything himself and could barely squeeze out a word.

Now, he has kidney failure... and there is nothing that can be done to save him. Renal failure has no real long term treatment/cure other than transplants. Grandpa would probably not be able to survive the surgery itself, let alone the medication that is needed in order to stop the body from rejecting the organ. Blood transfusion is a temporary solution, but I was told that it wouldn't help him even in the short run. 

All we can do for him now is give him pain killers until he passes from renal failure.

All we can do is wait for the toxins to build up in his body.

Wait for the his body to shut down from being flooded with the toxins that his body cannot get rid of.

We are unsure how long Grandpa will last, whether it be a few more weeks, a few months or even over half a year. All I know is that he will either be consciously suffering or completely drugged up the whole time that he has left. I'm not sure how to feel about it. It hurts to see him suffering.

It also hurts that... the next time I see him, he will be laying in a coffin in the living from of my mum's family home.