Unpacking my baggage

 I started seeing a new psychologist, who is amazing. Although I only got to see her for a few sessions, before it had to all be put on hold. She was overwhelmingly understanding and just got it. As we are on hold, some days can be so tough as I'm really just craving to be able to share things with her.  I feel myself stuck in a rut again. I've had an extremely big year of transformation and changes. Literally most aspects of my life have had some sort of upheaval. Career, home, love, family. It's been huge and it's easy to forget that when you don't look back.  Some days I really struggle with whether I made the right decision to leave advertising. When the bills come in and cup from which you are meant to pour your heart from is empty, it really makes you question things. Though I'm not working the same long hours day-to-day, I find myself so much more mentally drained. I'm doing better things. Things for good. But it's left with exhausted and literall...

 This is going to be a hard one to write.  I want to start a family. Soon. I have always known I would want to one day, but it was never with such a sense of urgency as when I truly saw the frailty of life within my parents last year. Since then, with bated breath, I have waited for when the time can come.  It has gotten to the point where I obsess over it. I think about it all the time. I crave it. Some days it's hard to decipher whether the thought is my own or it's my grief and anxiety talking.  I want a baby to show my parents I can do it. I want to see the same look of pride and affection on their faces when they hold their grandchild. I want to see them smile and be happy when I tell them the news. I want to see them dote over the baby and I want to see them teach the baby all the little things. I want them to see the milestones and be there. I want so so badly for this to happen.  My brother said my dad's joy is my nephew. He is what keeps my dad going an...

 I am feeling triggered and all of a sudden, I am 10 and stressed about being un-friended and deserted. Although I am well in adulthood, the loss of a friend is making me regress and brings back all those anxious and ruminative feelings. I'm finding myself obsessively thinking about it and I feel that tight feeling in my chest. I feel so fucking anxious and like something is stuck in my throat.  It's like, god forbid someone doesn't like me and want to be my friend. It really is.  Ever since I was little, I have placed such emphasis on friendships or rather, to be liked. I have always tried so much to be liked and have secretly felt pleasure and joy when I was able to make new friends. I think it stems from my early childhood and the struggle with fitting in or being accepted at my first school. There I was bullied and often left alone. I'm psychoanalysing myself but here is where I feel I developed these unhealthy schemas or cognition. I wanted so badly to not feel tha...

I love when the weather gets warmer. A big part of why I love it is because of the feeling of nostalgia that comes with it. I can't explain it exactly, but it feels like there is something better out there. It feels like a summer full of possibilities and free of every damn worry in the world. Even as I am sitting here now and the night air is only a smidge bit warmer than usual, I'm already feeling it. I catch myself getting a bit transported back to when we were 18 and high school had just finished. We had just started driving and drove everywhere in our parents' cars. We didn't have to wake up for school the next day and didn't have to study. For the first time ever, our parents were also so much more lenient and had finally relaxed their grips. We would go out, feel rebellious and feel like anything could happen in the night. We were about to go off and do things with our lives.  I am also transported back to the summers in Europe. I am feeling the anticipation ...

 So I broke up with my psychologist.  The first session was so intensely profound, but the ones after that felt jarring. I think the tipping point for me was when she kept giving me advice about non-psychological things e.g. property locations. The tipping point was also when she focussed heavily on the plight of interpreters for non-speaking Australians and that I should be more cognisant of that. She was telling me how I should feel and responding to a situation that had never bothered myself or my mum. It started when I told her my mum wanted me to go to an appointment with her so I could drive her and translate for her. The psychologist then spent 1.5 sessions relaying how illegal and wrong it was to do that as she should be getting a professional interpreter through the doctor. I explained it was no big deal as I had grown up doing this for both my parents. It was just the nature of things for our family, but she explained it was unethical and would have been difficult fo...

Hi, There is a lot to unpack. I needed a space to write and get my thoughts out again. It's been 10 years since I last felt something like this - that dark, heavy feeling in your chest, like you can't breathe. I think about it all the time lately. I can't stop thinking about it. I feel sad a lot, but it doesn't debilitate me. I can function, but inherently, I am sad. The last few days have been crazy. Last week, I had a conversation with a work colleague who was talking about her sessions with her psychologist. She spoke about the type of therapy she was doing and was so open about the work being done. This sparked me to finally look into it myself and that perhaps, it is not so daunting to do this. Then yesterday, another work colleague stopped by the office and ended up having a long, deep chat with me. By chance, I was feeling so down yesterday and having this human being sit down in front of me and look into my eyes and ask me if I'm okay, just made me fe...

There's nothing quite like the feeling of a lazy Sunday morning. You wake up early and find yourself just lying in bed, listening to the world. There's a gentle breeze coming through the windows and all is still and peaceful. It's a time for reflection, usually. Last week was a little hard to bear and I'm so glad Sunday is here. In a few short hours, I can start fresh all over again. I was fronted with goodbyes last week. How sudden things can just happen? If anything, it was a reminder to myself to really cling on to those moments I have now with the people I love and love being around. There's nothing quite like a Sunday night, when you can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The week is over.