Wake up. OMG I’m STILL in this country that I hate. Go brush teeth and try to smile in the mirror. Resist the urge to talk to Meimei because she’s sleeping and I can’t wake her up because she needs her sleep after dealing with my relapse the night before.
Read the papers. Oh look at all the success stories. Envy flares but you gotta keep it down, keep it down, if not you might relapse again and God knows what might happen.
Eat breakfast. You can’t taste anything but what the heck, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Hmm what shall we do for the rest of the day. We could play some games, that might help.
Games are fun and take your mind off things until…oops looks like the airconditioner broke down. Gotta see about fixing that. Not sure if I have enough cash but that can wait. But first I have to get lunch ready and sweep the floor. I really want to make a good lunch but I’m just…so…tired…wait gotta get everything ready first, can’t sleep.
Ok, that’s done. Meimei is up. She’s really worried about me so I tell her I’m ok and that everything’s under control. Go eat your lunch, dear sister. It’s not the best but it’s filling.
Time to wash up. Meimei’s off to school – does she have everything? Yes? Good. Now it’s time to fix the airconditioner. Time to call up the repairman. God I hope I don’t have to speak too much Chinese.
So…fucking…tired. Can’t sleep yet, fix the thing first.
Great, repairman’s here. Urgh, Chinese. Oh well let’s just do the best we can. Gotta negotiate for a cheap rate because we don’t have that much money – hard to do with my limited vocabulary but I’ll do the best I can.
What, the condenser has to be replaced? Two hundred dollars? Maybe I should reconsider this whole thing. Where am I going to find that kind of…ah I’ll just use my Chinese New Year money for now.
Ok repairs are underway. Have to make sure to keep an eye on them because if not they might steal stuff and I’ll be held responsible.
Man they are taking a long time…so…sleepy…not yet Kain, not yet.
Ok it’s fixed, thank God. Hope it stays fixed. The repairmen are giving me kind of weird looks. Haven’t they seen anyone with mental illness before? Just get the fuck out of there. Good. Now I can sleep.
Except that I can’t. So worried. How I can be worried? Let’s see, well yesterday I relapsed, and so I was probably thinking about something that I shouldn’t be thinking about if not it might be too painful. Dad was over but he didn’t do that much. Well then maybe it was due to the night before? Kind of worried about Meimei too. Is she doing ok? I really need to get to sleep. So worried. Let’s see if I can get to the bottom of this so I can sleep. So then – oh wait Mum’s back early today.
I need to get the money from her. Hi Mum I need two hundred bucks because the aircon condenser broke and…
Oh fuck here she goes again with the ungrateful children bit. As if I don’t have enough on my mind already. I really just want to punch someone but what would that do? Besides which I’m still so tired…just take it, just take it, I mean, what else can she do right? At least Meimei won’t have to deal with this when she gets back from school.
I’m not getting the money it seems. Back to bed. Need to sleep…can’t sleep…need to sleep. If I don’t get enough sleep I can’t cook dinner and then Meimei won’t have food.
Have to…there we are, ah hmm…whoops. Fell asleep.
That was a good nap, all things considering…wait what? Oh whoops I overslept. Now Mum wants to go out to dinner. I guess we have to because there’s no food in the house.
Chinese food AGAIN? Don’t we eat anything else? Ah whatever, I’m hungry anyway.
Man this dinner is boring and I am just itching to talk about something interesting. Meimei doesn’t seem up to it today, she keeps giving me these desperate glances. I guess I just have to keep it in again.
Dinner’s done with. I’d like to take some food back for tomorrow’s lunch but we can’t because we’re not beggars or something. Mum’s being a dick again but I gotta take it, remember, don’t get angry!
Another tense taxi ride back. I think I can talk a bit with Meimei but Mum is giving us those looks again. Ok, well it’s only five more minutes back.
Almost bedtime. Is Meimei’s homework done? I’ll try to check it but just too tired…ok maybe a few pages. I’d like to talk but it doesn’t look like she’s up to it. I’ll go play a game or something later.
Homework done. Goodnight Meimei.
Can’t sleep again. This is getting to be routine. If I delay it too long I won’t have enough sleep for tomorrow and that won’t be good. Still…so…tired. Guess I have to jerk off then.
(end of day)
I’m stitching this together out of disparate experiences but I assure you the content is real. This is what life was like for many, many years. I use the term “life” very loosely because as you can no doubt see, it wasn’t much of one. Most days were exactly as I described above – some better, some worse, but with the same general tone.
I’m not exaggerating either. If you don’t believe me, read up some books on abuse, watch a video on it or talk to an abuse survivor (in a safe environment) There are much worse cases than mine.