Tag: psychology

Free-flow Writing #1: Mad anxiety, irrational fear and unbound emotions

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This entry will open my new series Free-flow Writing, where I will be simply pouring down my thoughts on the keyboard. No filter. No edit. Just my very fresh stream of emotions and thinking – flawed but raw.

The last months witnessed one of the biggest shifts in my life. I am talking about the emotional shift that shines on who I am dealing with inside. I have never explored myself more deeply than I ever did, especially since I never intended to – which I find to be very special, but at the same time overwhelming as I’ve found myself crying uncontrollably every other day.

I have newly stepped into a relationship. At first, I thought this would be like any other relationship I’ve been through, with the mindset that I should have been more ‘experienced’ and therefore won’t let myself fall in too hard. But of course, I fell deep, and I keep falling deep and deeper. I should have known better. There’s no such thing called ‘ being experienced’ in love. Love is unpredictable. Love takes all shapes and sizes. I might have been able to discover the thing called ‘love’ a bit earlier in my relationship with my partner but how that love feels and how it is taking shapes have been out of my hand.

With my partner, I feel fulfilled. We always try to create a perfect environment for the incubation of our growing love. He is passionate. He listens. He is determined for our future. And for my part, I try to take care of him. I try to communicate. I try to admit my mistakes where I am at fault. Overall, our relationship is beautiful.

Indeed, it’s so beautiful that I can’t even imagine myself outside of my romantic life. I can hardly think about any other aspects of my life: my career, my study, my social life,…and even my wellbeing. It is as if I was all satisfied with my state of being. I stopped looking into myself to heal and take care of my inner child. I stopped seeing how wonderful my life has been apart from my love. I stopped looking around feeling blessed. All I see is my time with my partner. And I want all of it. I want all the time in the world with him.

That is why I was shattered when I had to move away from him. Or at least that’s the reason I can think of. I was like a baby being taken away from her mom. I was crying days and nights. Sometimes even when I’m with my partner, I find tears streaming down my cheeks – just from the flashing thought of a time without him (physically). To me, the crying is absolute irrational. I keep asking why. We are not parting for good. It is just for time being. We always see each other again. Maybe there is an irrational fear of mine that something might happen and we won’t be able to be with each other ever again???

“Could it be separation anxiety disorders?”

….

Now I’ve been feeling better. I looked inside and I saw something was happening. I’m not sure yet what has been going on with my inner child/self. But I will keep exploring. These days I feel grateful how my life has been easy for me and I’m thankful for it. I’m dealing with my feelings and thoughts step by step. That is also the reason why I started the Free-flow writing series. It has been to the point that my hand could not keep up with the pace of my thinking stream. I just want to take it all out. I will feel better. I will start exploring the world around me again while nurturing and working for my future with my Habibi.

Nothing is too much. Just feel. Express it. You’re safe.

Emotional Sunday Morning

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Sunday, 08 January 2016

11:30 A.M

There are days where I become so unstable emotionally, susceptible to every damn thing, even the minutiae of life. A fictional Christmas movie on HBO, that ravishing music video on MTV, the perfectly high-pitched voice of Lady Gaga… They were all so incredibly beautiful as I burst out in tears in just a second.

And what surprised me was the more I cried, the more I felt relieved. I kept on letting all out. Away with the tears were the strain, the rage and other toxic feelings that I’d carried within my body. In a moment I was just being honest to myself without caring about the exterior world. I also constantly blamed myself for having let those minor, toxic things get on my nerves and not staying true to who I am while contemplating the beauty of life.

I had never embraced my ugly leaky face. But today it made me feel genuine and beautiful.

Thank you so much, my precious tears.

How I get depressed these days or any other day

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Yeah

Obviously, I’m gonna grumble about studying, grades and school stuff!

I mean, what else can I talk about when I’m still “sitting on the school’s chair” (ngồi trên ghế nhà trường), and being haunted by the idea that grade is the only measurement of how competent (incompetent) I am. So yes! I am ridiculously obsessed with achievements. I hate to admit this, honestly. Still, this is not what I should feel shameful about since what so-called “achievement obsession” is a common “disease” of most of the Vietnamese students in recent time. But again, this is also not what to feel proud of.

Anyways, get back to the story, this semester has been a disaster. I have been hit up with 2 Cs and there will be surely more. It was already painful to get a C itself. But then I started to compare myself to other fellows in the result list, the pain went doubled.

“I’m so stupid. I’m incompetent. I’m useless. I’m helpless. I can never be like my friends…”

Each time a C comes, I feel like a door has just slammed on my face. After that come disappointment, self-hatred, hopelessness, and depression. Things just get worse since the more Cs I get, the more doors keep slamming on my face until the whole world shut down and there are no more doors. I have no idea what I’ll turn out to be by that time.

Some people are prone to blame the exterior factors when the results don’t come out well. But I cannot do that. When it comes to failure, I look into myself first for the answer, simply because it makes perfect sense to me. The process always goes like this: I dig deep into my head, trying to remember what went wrong from the beginning, and when the memories return, they come along with negative thoughts. I’ll constantly blame myself for not hard-working enough, not capable enough.

Nevertheless, I luckily bear the thought of having a growth mindset, the term that says I should set my mind positive through failures. Thanks to this, I’m able to pick myself up and move on. I find it really struggling to remind myself of this while carrying too much of self-hate problem. However, it does work. My growth mindset and my self-hatred could get along together. This may seem paradoxical but in fact, not. The mindset says: “Every failure is a chance to learn and growth.” On the other hand, my dark side shouts: “You didn’t work hard enough! That’s why you fail!” So these two somehow push me forward and put me in the position in which I torture myself at the same time.

I guess I should feel thankful for that dark side of mine as it didn’t shout the word “helpless”. This word could set my mind into “fixed”, which would only exacerbate my self-hatred and my academic transcript. If I place my capability into words like “fixed”, “limited”, I’ll be totally a deadwood. Though I do feel helpless most of the time but when it comes to studying, I try my best to exclude that thought.

In short, at the moment, I’m quite down but I’ll find a way…

P/S: Really surprised about how this note came out to be. I thought at the end I would write something awful or put my situation in a stalemate. But no, I made a way for it!

Building My Writing Muscles

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Recently I have watched and read plenty of things about psychology, especially about human mindset. The way we think about ourselves determines our action, and our action determines our success in life.

It is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. People with fixed mindset bear in mind the thought that their abilities are locked in place. So these people often back down when facing something “out of reach” to them. But for ones with a growth mindset, a challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow. They think their abilities can improve through practices. In fact, this is true. Science supports people with a growth mindset, as it has been proved that our nerves do get stronger after regular practicing and exercises.

“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz

This theory did touch my nerves. I need to have a growth mindset for sure. Therefore, even when luck does not smile at me, science will support me.

I started thinking about what I was afraid of all the time, what I seemed “out of reach”.

WRITING!

Yes, writing has always been my sworn enemy. Especially writing in English. I am pure Vietnamese. I speak Vietnamese, write Vietnamese. I even had troubles when it came to writing in my mother language. So writing something in other language was a nightmare. It took me hours to finish a 250-word essay. At school, my scores for English writing skill were the worst.

After having detected my sworn enemy, I decided to make friends with it. From now on, I will not avoid it any longer and change my attitude. The relationship between writing and me will get stronger over time. Like muscles, I hope my writing ability could be improved through practicing.

Now I am forming my writing muscles. I am trying to write more, in Vietnamese and English (and hopefully French in the future). Though my writing would maybe sound stupid or naive, I will write about random things, anything I run into during my life journey. This blog is going to be a place for me to do it.

At the end of the day, future is future. I don’t know if any of above things would take effect. I don’t know eventually what I will become or how good I will be. But let’s just live for today, better myself and grow!

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P/S: Hoping that some native English speakers could read this and point out my mistakes or comment on the way I write. I would really appreciate!