Month: March 2021

I was thinking about the victim complex the other day.

I think there is something to this. Both of my aunties were victims, the aunt who is holding my arm and the aunt who is under the picture of my deceased grandfather.

Of course the horrible aspect of this is that they never want you to be happy.

That’s my dad in the top left corner, by the by.

Have been thinking a lot recently about gaslighting and depression.

What are the things that keep us alive? I spoke to two writers in the passing month on Skype, and both of them said they had it. I watch Seinfeld on Netflix, and he says that he has it. And the only way to keep functioning was exercise and perhaps, having a purpose.

What I also don’t really get is the fact that we are so keen on hiding this away from ourselves. As if depression was a kind of ‘maybe I’ll get it’ because it ran through my family.

I remember my mother sitting with me when I was a child, maybe a month or two or six after I moved to the U.K.. She had bought me some kind of fluffy toy (she was always placating me with toys, ice cream that I didn’t want) and she sat alone on the bench, being mentally ill. That’s really the only way I can describe it.

And my grandma, if you told her you had depression, she would tell you to get over it.

Had this funny memory about my grandma. There was a time when I was back from Britain to visit over the summer– which I did a lot in the fourteen years that I lived in Britain. One time in the park, when I was back and we were out on some sort of a walk, there were a few foreigners (I guess) who were visiting, but they were having some kind of a fight with the park attendants because they obviously couldn’t speak Chinese. My grandma asked me to go over and help translate for them. I was probably 14 or 15, and too shy. So I didn’t. I have thought about this incident again and again though, as a sign of her generosity.