I wish I was Katniss Everdeen

A couple of weeks ago, Rachel lent me The Hunger Games trilogy. It took me a while to get back into the habit of reading but I finally finished the first book last weekend and now I've found my pace again and I'm already halfway through book two.

No matter what people say. I am selfish. I know that. I can't be Katniss Everdeen. I don't have her strength or selflessness. I can't marry someone I don't love to ensure the well-being of my family. I thought I was weaker than a fictional character and it's okay because she's not real. But there are Katniss Everdeens in this world. My mother is one of them.

Because, I feel that my situation and worries are nothing compared to the suffering of some people I know, I don't tell my friends anything. Yesterday, I asked my cousin if I could get away with not telling Mark that I would be moving to Wollongong next year.

"Not a chance" He replied. "You're going to bump into him and how are you going to explain that?"

I can't remember the last time I talked to Mark about my life. He promised that he would protect me. But I can't depend on him for happiness. I had to save myself. I had to find an escape myself. Telling him about moving to Wollongong would involve telling him about how I had to endure everything after we broke up. I'm not sure how to do that yet.

My pillars of strength

When you finally gather the courage to let someone know your fears, it is not so that they can judge you but so that they know that you need help. I have been feeling really well lately despite the issues I still have to face. I decided that tonight was a good night to tell my parents about my chronic nightmares because I wasn't worried about them anymore.

Hand holding the bottle of pills and crying, I told them about the nightmares. I told them I was killed and abused in every way imaginable. My mother's reply, straight out was, ' It's because you're a bad person.' Tears stopped, I looked at her in disbelief. How could she say that when I was openly showing her my vulnerability? She said, 'It's because you're bad to me that you're being punished.'

I felt myself crumbling apart again. But there were people who held me together. My brothers told me that they appreciate what I do for my family. My best friend told me not to listen to my mother, that I'm a good person. Mark, my ex-boyfriend told me that although we don't communicate much anymore, he still cares about me. Mark says that before he met me, he lost faith in humanity but I alone represent what's good about people. I feel very humble and honoured by his words. I don' think I deserve such appraisal but to know that someone thinks so highly of me gives me strength to smile. He told me about someone he knew who committed suicide today. He worries that I would break down from everything that's been going on. He quoted my own words back to me and told me to remember them, 'I may be small but these wings will fly high.' He says that although he worries, he knows I'm strong. I have always been everyone's pillar.

And these people, who care so much about me are my pillars of strength. I admit that I have thought about suicide once but I won't. Running away does not solve anything. I know there are heaps of people who care about me, I won't ever hurt them by ignoring their support and belief in me.

I am grateful that I am blessed to have these people in my life: my brothers, Rachel, Mark, my cousin and blogger friend B.

Good

These days, I wake up from dreams smiling. They're strange dreams with no meaning at all. I can't remember the last time I had nonsensical dreams that weren't nightmares. They're not happy dreams but they're not bad ones either. That for me is good enough for now.

Recently, I have been calm and collected again.  It's been a while but I feel like I have control over my emotions now. I'm not emotionally unstable anymore. I don't cry at every little thing or feel like I'm crumbling away. I don't feel broken anymore.

Maybe this is partially because of Antenex and partially because I have finally come to terms with myself and others around me. Things are slowly progressing the way I want them. Inch by inch. There are still complications but I'm not worried anymore. I don't know how long this feeling will last but I'm cherishing it while I still have it.

What keeps me going is that this time next year, I will be in Wollongong. I will be living in a sea side city where beaches are within walking distance. I will finally be studying a degree in creative writing. Something, I had dreamt of since I was 11 years old. I will finally be free. But it doesn't mean I'm abandoning my family. I will come visit during weekends and student holidays. I won't ever stop caring about them. This isn't running away like a spoilt teenager. This is me finding my independence.

As soon as I pay my residence fees, I'm telling everyone of my decision.

Question of morality

I wanted to ask my mother for advice tonight. Between my fingers, I fiddled with the bottle of Antenex. I wanted to know if I should continue taking the medication. I wanted her to know that I have a problem. But I felt almost silly in wanting to tell her about the nightmares. My problems feel so insignificant compared to everything she's been through. It feels so little compared to what my family is going through right now.

My mother thinks I'm a bad person. She's asking me to make an extremely big sacrifice for this family. But I can't comply with her request. If it was anything else, I would have agreed. I can't do what she did. I can't marry someone I don't love. I am not as selfless as she. I can't make that sacrifice. It's not only my happiness at stake, but also my future career. I can't pursue what I want to do in life if I become bound to this marriage.

What's the measurement of goodness? What makes a person good? The amount of charities they do? The number of sacrifices they make? I try to be a good person, I really do. I know I'm not a saint. I am selfish at times but I never thought that I was actually a bad person. So when she told me that she thought I was, I tucked away the pills into my pocket.

She doesn't need to know.

Parents vs children

I don't know if it's an Asian thing or a Vietnamese thing or it's just my parents. And I wouldn't have ever realised this on my own because I was raised this way. It wasn't until my ex-boyfriend pointed it out to me that I realised that maybe he was right. My parents taught me to not fight for my beliefs.

Ever since I could remember, when my brothers and I were being lectured by my parents, we were never given an opportunity to speak up. There were so many incidents of being accused of something we didn't do and if we even tried to open our mouths to defend ourselves, to give our opinion on a matter, we were shut down and called, 'disrespectful children'. But we weren't disrespecting them, we were merely trying to defend our beliefs.

Somewhere in these 20 years, I gave up trying to make them understand. I learnt that the quickest and least painful method with dealing with these situations was to merely stand quietly and let their anger wash over me. But it's so wrong. It's so wrong.

This morning, I watched as my step-father discipline my youngest brother. He was lecturing my brother about watching tv and playing at the park. He said that all my brother does all day is play around. That's not true. I make sure that this is not true. Everyday, I make sure he does his homework, reads for at least 30 minutes and does writing exercises (we're working on his handwriting). My step-father works from afternoon til night so he is never home after school on weekdays. I know he works hard to provide for our family. He cares for our education and future. But it's not only my step-father, my mother also doesn't like my brother playing outside after school.

There is nothing wrong with playing outside with friends after school. Education is vitally important, we all understand this but what my parents don't understand is that we're not robots. We have feelings and emotions. And they're being neglected. My parents aren't bad parents. They do a wonderful job of ensuring our future but being good parents means listening to your children. Because children have opinions that matter too.

My brother couldn't defend himself. He tried to speak up and tell his father that he does pay attention to his education but all his sentences were being cut off. And I couldn't defend him either. The last time I questioned my parents' disciplining, I was almost thrown out of the family. We were taught to never question authority because apparently they're always right and we're always wrong.

That's not true. That cannot be right. That is not what parents should be telling their children. Parents should not teach children to be defenceless against others. If we can't even defend our beliefs inside the safety of our own home, how could we possibly fight for our beliefs in the bigger world?

Ready set go

Ever since I could remember, we have always been either fighting or running away from our problems. My earliest memories were filled with days of angry voices booming through my bedroom door. After my parents' divorce, my mother remarried. It was the first time she truly loved a man. And he loved her too.

But he was a broken man. His love was twisted. His emotions were poisoned by the alcohol he drank and his mind was messed up by the long hours of gambling. I'm sure he wasn't always like that. There must have been a time where he had control of his life. I just never saw it. All I remember were the nights where I listened to the sounds of smashed up hearts and broken up tea pots. I remember days where my mother and I ran away, vowed to never come back but we always did. Because, she loved him. She thought that he would eventually realise that too but he never did. He was driven by his imaginery ideas of infidelity.

One day, we did eventually leave for good. By then, I had been in and out of school so many times that the women's refuge was already my second home. This time, we stayed there for half a year until my mother had things stabilized. I attended a local school where teachers watched out for me especially, concerned that I was affected by my circumstances. They said that I had come from a broken home. 6 year old me didn't understand it's meaning.

Ever since I could remember, my mind had developed a survival mechanism. It was a psychological fight or flight response. If I was in a stressful situation and unable to physically run away, my mind would automatically shut down. Chronic fainting was my way of escaping situations I couldn't handle. I haven't fainted in 2 years. I would like to think I've become mentally stonger, even if only a little. Every time, I've been put under a difficult situation where I'm emotionally stressed out, even though my knees felt like jelly and my hands shook violently, I willed myself to stand and see through to the end of the argument. Because, I know running away is to lose and let your opponent win. And even though they won the battle, every time I stand firm, is a little victory for myself.

The beginning

When I think about the beginning. From start til now, how I became the person that I am and how I got here, I always go back to my parents. My mother doesn't believe in love. At least, not romantic love. But she loves family. She is the most filial person I know. She would do anything for my grandparents.

Her marriage to my father was a business deal. One that she readily agreed upon. He was to leave Vietnam for a better life and his parents needed someone capable to look after him. They were willing to pay in gold. My mother agreed. Her family needed the money. After the Vietnam war, her family suffered and left in poverty. My grandfather, who used to hold a high military position was stripped of his job and became a fisherman. Fishing was not enough to feed two ageing adults and four growing adolescents. My mother, the eldest child, made the ultimate sacrifice. At age 21, she married my father, left her family, left the country on a tiny boat and escaped to another country, in hopes of starting a better life, not only for herself, but for the family she left on shore.

My parents lived in Malaysia for 2 years before they arrived in Hobart, Australia. It was 1991, the year I was born. My fear of being alone and my obsession with the search for true love, I think stems from this very day. On the day I was born, my mother was alone in the hospital. My father was not there to welcome me into this world.

Because, on the day I was born, he was too busy playing chess.

I will always remember the hurt in my mother's eyes when she told me that my beginning was the start to their end.

 I never blamed myself for their divorce though. I never once believed that a child is at fault for the failings of their parents. Because, children are born innocent. And even though my father was not at my birth, he was there to name me. He gave me my middle name. He based my name off a bird because he wanted to set me free.