life is beautiful

Found this article from a backup folder when I was doing house keeping on my computer. This article was written 3 years ago by me and it was meant for Jim’s final year project. The project topic was about depression; an interview with a person who has experience on depression was one of the project assignments. I thought I was the right person to be interviewed, so I offered my help to him by putting my passed experience into an essay.

Caution: It’s quite a long article.

Story About a Melancholy
written on 15 Dec 2003

Partly due to my family background, I was a pessimist ever since I was a kid. Growing up in an Asian family – especially traditional Chinese family, I was no different from other kids. I was taught not to ask too many questions that may cause my parents embarrassment; I was taught not to do things which my parents thought was dangerous / bad for me. I was offered neither compliment nor encouragement that we so often need and deserve in our daily lives as a child, no compliments but blame.

“What? You lost again? I have already predicted you would lose the game, you are lousy.” my father ridiculed me with a cynical smile. Yes, I lost in a table tennis game. I was 12 years old; I represented my school for district level table tennis game, and I lost in the second round. I could have won the game if only I had self-confidence, too bad that’s what I lacked of since I was born.

It became even worse when I entered secondary school. I very much depended on Sih Han – my classmate-cum-best friend – in almost everything! He was like my leader, he had all my trust. He had helped me a lot on many matters but now I realised that it was not too healthy for me. Every time I have a problem, I would look for him for help and most of the time he did not turn me down. Some times he likes to boss me around, which he did not realised it. I did not like it but I just kept it to myself. Why? I was not good at talking and voicing my opinions let alone feelings; he always defeats me when we have an argument.

I remember that my self-depreciation went up to a level that I did not even dare to do a colour painting on a drawing paper for a group project. I was afraid that I will spoil the artwork; I only wanted to do some minor work. What a pathetic fellow, huh!?

Things have changed when I worked in Holiday Inn Shah Alam as a part-time waiter while waiting for SPM results. Sih Han and I got into a quarrel over a dish; yes, a dish! I felt aggrieved and angered and I listed him as an enemy since that night. He tried to talk to me but I just ignored him until my second year in college.

I basically started my new life when I entered college in 1996. Since I have no one to rely on after I quarrel with my best friend, I have to do everything by myself. I got to know new friends in college, my social circle became wider. I was very active in college; I joined many clubs: I was the president of table tennis club, executive committee of music club, executive committee of student council, and college web team member. I was involved in event organising such as college ball night and also did some band performances in college events. It was a huge step for me; I was a big contrast to what I was before I entered college. My self-confidence slowly built up during that time. Before college, I could not imagine that I would do band performance on a stage in front of more than eight hundred people. I felt like it was a hallucination. Now you see the big difference?

I thought I have improved but there were still some residual pessimistic elements in my mind; the pessimistic elements were slowly breeding again after I started my first job. That was where my nightmare began. Can you imagine that you never got your monthly pay cheque on time? Yes, never! I never got my pay cheque on time. I could only get it 1 or 2 weeks after the pay day and some times I only received partial payment. It really stressed me out when I have to chase for salary every month-end!

I quit the job a year later and joined my friend’s small IT Company. He was the company owner and he invited me to be his partner. Perhaps I was not well prepared to be in the business line. He was an emotional person. I felt depress working with him. After a short while, I felt reluctant to go to office when I woke up in the morning.

God must be kidding me; bad luck came to me all at the same time. In 2001, I fell into financial difficulty, I have many debts to clear – credit cards, car loan, insurance, phone bills. I got into car accident twice within 3 months and a thousand dollars were spent on the car repairs. I still could not forget what my ex-girlfriend did to me. She was in Australia while I was in Malaysia; she told me that she can’t bear the loneliness; she needed someone by her side, so she dumped me for a new guy. My father’s health condition was getting worse deteriorating as he was getting older, medical expenses was a big issue for us. As an eldest son, my eldest brother was not playing his role right. He was such an irresponsible person. He brought many troubles into the family and my parents had to help him out of it. My dad, my younger brother and I were disappointed with him. My younger brother and I gave up on him but my parents still worry about him. I remembered thinking, when a father still have to worry about his 28-year-old son, something must be wrong with this 28-year-old adult.

I have had so many problems running in my mind - my career, the financial issues, my family and my relationship. Anxiety, empty feelings, insomnia, feelings of hopelessness, and even suicidal thoughts came every now and then. I began to fantasize about committing suicide by hanging myself or jumping off the 15th floor or slitting my wrists. The possibilities were endless. Sometimes when I was driving in my car alone, I often had the urge to bang my car into the divider or a big tree so I can leave this world. I was struggling with myself whether to kill myself at that point of time, it was such a painful dilemma. Of course at last I did not do so otherwise I won’t be typing this essay.

I did not know I was on depression until I read an article about depression in newspaper. After I read the depression symptoms listed there, I was so shocked that I was already in a serious stage of depression, I needed to go for treatment but I chose to help myself. I searched on the Internet for information on depression and how I could cure it. I shared this problem with close friends and they were very surprised, they had tried many ways to show their warmth and support. Family and friends kept me alive, without them I would not have survived.

I decided to quit from my friend’s company. Fortunately I can still survive because I managed to get some freelance projects during the uncertain period. My eldest brother seemed to be growing more mature. Although he still did not contributed much to the family but at least he did not bring home any troubles anymore. I was lucky enough to get a new job in a short period. From there, I was gradually recovering from depression.

I have asked my net friends in kakilang.com whether they have suffered from depression or have you even had suicidal thoughts before. And the answer surprised me, most of them had suffered from depression before and that very little people feel like committing suicide. I shared my experience with them and introduced them a very useful and informative website about depression – www.allaboutdepression.com.

Depression is not a normal illness that you can cure by taking medication. The consequences of depression are so big that it can affect your daily life and as well as your family members. Committing suicide is often the solution taken by the depressed if not treated immediately.