Living with Germophobia Part 1

All this while, i have been wondering why my room is not occupy for quite some times or my many tenants left the room and requested to move to another room even though is another building. For example, there is a Malaysian sister, *Kak Maria, used to stay in my room for around a year. But she left the room and requested to stay in another building despite these current room’s room location is really ideal. The current building i am staying is near the gate so it is easier to carry heavy items once i return from grocery shopping. It is also near the hospital, bank, bus stop and community centre. It is only less than 10 minutes walking distance. I wonder why this room left for me.

After few weeks observation, i realised my housemate is the reason, why people left my room and leave it empty for me to come in. 

My house mate is a Germophobia.

Germophobia is also known as Mysophobia refers to ‘fear of germs’ or ‘fear of dirt’. Is a kind of obsessive-complusive disorder. She has pathological fear of contamination and germs. Poor lady, always live with anxiousness and restlessness and she never knows is a disorder that needs medical attention. 

 For the past few weeks, i realised my housemate likes to clean the kitchen top. She does not clean like any typical person would clean a table. She would wipe the kitchen top, table and the stove while the stove is hot several times. She would scrub hard on the tops with wet clothes, follows with dry clothes. Then i observe how she washes her dishes. She uses all her energy to scrub her so-called non-stick frying pan till the frying pan is clean and shine. When i said clean and shine, is really clean and shine till the non-stick coating is no longer there.

Here is the proof…..

Your Brain is Torturing You....

We are a fool…. Our brain operates on neurotransmitters. These neurotransmitters can come in form of adrenaline which give us the fight and flee reaction, dopamine which controls our coordination and body movement and even serotonin which controls our moods. 

Depression = Decrease Serotonin.

And what happened when you have depression, when we are in high stress level, our brain uses more serotonin hormone, and before our brain can replaces the used-serotonin, we force ourselves to function as norm as possible. Our brain never stops working. Even though we can sleep at night, but our brain works. And our brain works really fast. It gives you weird imagination and also wrong impressions. The point is depression makes you make lousy decision. It gives us nightmares, it wakes you up at wee hours, normally at around 4.00am. It makes you tired during day time despite you sleep 10 hours per day. It makes you feel insecure. You will lose confident in yourself. It makes you forgetful and scatterbrain at home and at work too.

But, i think the most difficult thing for me to handle is my brain turns against me. My mind constantly dig into my memory and pick the worst memory it can finds - my restrained childhood relationship, the low self-esteem keeps telling you that you will never find happiness, the critical inner child that keeps telling you that you are not good enough or even the troublemaker you keeps sounding that you are a burden to people surround you.

Your brain is torturing you….

And it always follow you….

Every time your mind begins to pick up with the world, your brain brings along this ‘garbage truck’. Your past can create new ideas/thoughts to torture you. Anybody who unluckily struck by this depression spell will always received the same ‘garbage truck’ in the mind. It will keep repeats till one day you think the only way to stop it is kill yourself. Believe me, i have been there. This spell is indeed a scary spell. And you will find yourself falls into the spell easily because you are tired to fight against it. You will be physically tired because you do not get the right sleep at night, and you will be mentally tired because your mind will keep repeating the same scenarios over and over again. 

Your brain will tell you:

- your friends will leave you once they know you have depression.

- you are a burden to your family and friends.

- you are going crazy and there is nowhere out except you stuck in your brain like this forever.

- you would be better off dead.

- you should probably jump off from this cliff.

Your brain is like a ‘video tape’ now. It will keep rewinds your worst stages of life. Your friends left you because you have depression. Your friends back mouthed you and said crazy psychopath. Frequent if not constant thoughts and preoccupations about past problems and issues is a sign of depression.

What Happened When You Shop in Foreign Land?

Always be prepared to wait outside the shop with cold wind blowing our faces. That is the reason i do not mind wearing my abaya and headscarf at all. 

The cool and dry air is giving me stuttering speech. However, the closeness of this people around me makes me feel warmth in this awkward situation.

We are the four foreign girls in black abaya, sitting outside a stationary shop because is prayer time in foreign land. 

Although is late and dark, but there are many cars pass by this place. I noticed a police car is driving the area several times. It feels fine. But we never let our guards down. We noticed a particular MVP drove past us twice. That is why we keep our guard. We will make sure safety is our priority. 

I am still adapting to their time. Foreign place has regular shop closing times according to the prayer time.  The first outing gave me a mental preparation for this outing except this time, instead of standing in the shopping mall while waiting for the shops to reopen again, we were standing outside the shop in cool air. burrrrrrr…….. I was wearing a short sleeves T-Shirts inside my black abaya. Dammit….

While waiting, some morons will drive their car past us, and makes stupid sounds to lure us. We will just ignore them and some of us will give them another killer glare, indicate if you come near us, you are dead meat!!!!!

There is a mosque nearby….. The azan is on now. Listening to the azan now reminds me of back home. Maybe back home, i will ignore it because i will be busy with my stuffs at home. But, not here, i am listening to it because there is nothing i can do here except rubbing our bodies because is cold….

But is fine, we are in foreign land…. is a different world….. 

IPhone's camera screen is fogged? No fear, use heated rice...

What do you do when your iPhone's camera screen is fogged with water and you cannot open the case and wipe off the fog? 

Do not laugh at my method. It will happen to you one day….

You frantically find the screwdriver to open the damn casing, when you realised the screw in this iPhone 4s need special screwdriver. Dammit Steve Job. Why would you make Apple lover's life difficult??? 

Well, this will be the better solution.

10 things to expect when you first step down on the foreign country's airport...

The moment you step on the ground of the foreign country, you must follow the follow the rule of foreign country.

Always prepare your abaya and head scarf. Put on the abaya before you step out from your plane.

Of course, in this foreign country big city, is more lenient, i do not need to cover the hair completely. However, always bring along a scarf in case the religious officers aka muttawa are around or on-duty.

What to expect in the airport?

1) Fill up the white card before you go line up at the custom counter. Make sure you have blue pen with you. Most of the official documents here required you to use blue pen instead of black pen. 

2) Expect to stand in line for looooooonnnnnngggggggg time.... The custom officers may take their own sweet time talking to each other or frequent coffee break or even just sit around linger. They will not speed up their work just because there are millions of people awaiting to pass the custom gates....

3) Expect to read certain body languages or expressions for certain instructions because half of the time, you can only communicate with broken English....

4) Never walk to another line just because the line is fast and shorter than your current one, because the officer will ask you to return to your original line, but you need to start all over again from the back of the line.

Hello.... Can You Help to Find 'Me'?

Today i read an old post by a dear Blogger named Noch Noch. Although Noch and I have never met in person before, but i believe is the big 'D' in us that brings us together even though physically we are far apart. We emailed each other when is needed. The best thing, she is now my no-pressure and no-obligation friend.

She wrote about she is still in 'suicidal' stage and is difficult for her to express because the word 'suicidal' is such a taboo word. Not only is difficult for her to share with other people, at the same this one word creates so much frustration for people around her, people who cared for her and people who knew her. For me, i have one additional burden. Not only this word burdens my family and friends, is also create tension among them. If ever i blurt that i feel 'suicidal' in front of them, they will keep telling me 'Don't think like this' or "why you think like this?'. And at the same time, for 'other friends', i am just seeking for attention.

Every day, i fight with myself on stopping myself from indulging into 'suicidal ideation'. I DO NOT HAVE SUICIDAL IDEATION. But, i do not see my purposes of living. In simple word, i lose myself to big 'D'. I succeeded brought myself out from 'D' but i lose my way. I cannot find myself. For some friends, i have turned not normal. That's why when i stop contacting them, they also stop contacting me.

IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! I AM LOVING IT TO THE MAX!!!!!

The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.....

26th September 2013

Is a year since i had a wonderful birthday celebration with my good friends during 2012.

However, time tested us. Our friendship drifted apart. Till today, it hurts me because the friendship ended with no concrete reason. 

I was waiting for this day to come. I am expecting my mood to be down. And my mood was really down. Other people thought i am down because nobody wishes me happy birthday or no celebration for me. Actually, is not. I am happy when somebody wishes me and gives me presents. But if i do not have any of that, i am still fine with it. However, this year, i am unusually down because of other reasons. Part of it is my depression but another part is the flashbacks of the great time of my birthday celebration with them. I remember i received long distance call from a good friend on that day. I remember they bought me my favourite chocolate mint baskin robbin ice cream. I also remember they dedicated a live happy birthday song from the live singer in the cafe. I remember we had good times.

That is why i dragged coming to today. 

I though i will never have good times anymore. I thought i will never find friends like them anymore. I thought i would never be this happy anymore. 

But, my thoughts are wrong.

God is really great. He will gives you the person you need during the times. If He thinks you do not need them, He either takes them away from you or He makes them go away. Or if He thinks that you need certain friends during the tough times, He will gives you the friends you need, maybe is not the friends you want.... But is the friends you NEED.

I am grateful for all of you who makes my 2013 birthday celebration a blast. And girl, you know who are you. I want to say thank you for replacing my sadness with all this wonderful surprises. I am grateful because God gives me a friend like you during my tough times. I am grateful because you work hard to arrange this celebration birthday for me.... I am happy because you take away my tears with all these laughters with all of them.

I love the surprises you guys gave to me on my birthday despite i thought no one remember my birthday...

I love the cake so much despite you guys have an ugly penis on it.... 

I love the egg white despite i smell like an rotten egg at end of it....

I love the cake on my face despite i know i look ugly in picture in it...

i love the way you guys teased me for being sad because you guys thought i am upset cause there is no celebration for me despite you guys were holding so much excitement to throw the egg on me...

I love the laughter despite i feel like i want to cry during that time.

i love the birthday song you guys sang to me despite i feel is cheesy....

I love the booze you guys gave me that day despite i vomit like shit that day....

I love the companions from you guys despite the friendship we have is short period...

I love the friendship between us....

And i love my birthday celebration because of you guys. Is not because of what you guys gave me and did to me. Is because of the thought of me as your friend and colleagues. And because of that, you guys put so much effort in it. I really can feel my sense of belonging and sense of loving you guys as my friends.

I appreciate what you guys gave to me. Forever, i will hold on to this friendship as long as you allowed and also God permitted.....

Thank you, my friends.... 

I know i will be sad because i am leaving you guys soon. Leaving you guys for Saudi Arabia is my biggest regret because you guys are such a good companion and friend in my life. Your presence is very important in my road of recovery from depression. Although you guys do not know about it, but when you guys involve me in your life, you guys extend your hands to lead me and pull me back from being depressed. By just including me in your life, you guys are already my healers and saviours....

I am going to miss everyone of you.....

Friendship…..

Friendship is one of the most important elements of a happy life - but it can be tough to make new friends and tougher to maintain a true friendship.

The myth of the BFF can be tough to live up to. In Friends, you can see how supportive these 6 people with different characters, unrealistically maintain a long lasting friendships. But in reality, the myth is still a myth. Close friendships that crumble is very painful to watch even on-screen because it is so familiar for all of us. 

My close friends and I had been friends a year plus, and then, one fine day, nothing. I succumbed into big 'D'. On bad days, I turned quiet and isolated myself. On good days, i am ready to be connected but i shy away because i know these people will stopped returning my calls and messages. Although, deep down, i hope they won't give up on me. I hope they can continue be my source of inspiration just like those days. I hope we can still be continue be friends despite me not being myself. But in reality, months passed and i know my close friends had stopped being my close friends. Had, in fact, stop being my friend altogether. And the only reason i know is me being in big 'D'. 

Out of sudden, there was this silence…..