To the guy who broke my heart
“Hi, how are you? How have you been? Are you having fun?” were the questions that were floating in my mind as I looked out of the window.
There I was on a hospital bed, in an isolation room as I was still on queue to get my COVID test. The isolation room was previously a gymnasium of the hospital. How do I know? Well, I had been staring at the signboard “Gymnasium” for the days I was admitted. The gymnasium got converted to an isolation room so that patients who have yet to get tested for COVID will be away from the ward. A way for the hospital to avoid a cluster.
As I was there, I had no idea how the outside world looked like. Any form of communication to the outside world had been confiscated the moment I got admitted. So there I was, spending most of my time lying on my bed and looking out the window. I even find lizards somewhat entertaining when I was there, seeing how they will act like a spy, trying to hide from people’s sight, and trying to find its prey.
Then it made me realize that lizards and I share one common thing, which is to try to avoid people.
Funny thing to realize as I am seriously not a big fan of lizards. I am somewhat scared of them. Maybe when you said that I scare you in your dumping texts, it is like my fear of lizards. I was the lizard.
There were six beds in that isolation room. I occupied one bed and I had two other roommates. One was younger than me but she did not want to speak or maybe she just could not speak. I was not sure. She needed to be given instructions to do stuff. So most of the time, I would be hearing the nurses calling her out, asking her to eat, shower, sit up, and even pee. I do not know what her condition is but looking at her, I realized how “normal” I was.
The other roommate of mine was a granny. She does speak but we hardly spoke, we usually just stare at each other and smiled. She did give me lots of frights when she would suddenly have this extreme movements as if she got pushed. She knew that she scared me, so she would look at me after those extreme movements and just smiled at me. I guess that was her way to say, “do not worry, I am okay”.
However, there was this one time, she gave me the biggest fright of all as she suddenly yelled saying that she wants to kill someone. I was scared, I admit as she was looking at me when she said that. At that moment, I must admit that I kind of want her to kill me then I will die not having a sin that I committed suicide. But luckily, when she yelled that, the doctors were around and it was a hospital after all, so we have nurses on duty 24/7. They calmed her down by giving her a calming pill. The nurses also started to pray for her. After that, she just slept the whole day.
I was placed under observation for five days and had been consulted by many different doctors every single day. I guess my file was left on the nurses’ table because at times, some of the nurses would come over to me and have a talk. They told me about their life and how beautiful I was. As cliché as that sounds, it was pretty nice to hear. Helps boost up my confidence for a bit.
Before I got discharged, the pharmacist and a doctor came to me for a final consultation. I was informed that my limbic system is malfunctioning, thus making my depression worse. Reason why my memories seem to be deteriorating, my ability to focus was bad, and most importantly, my emotions were a wreck. They discharged me with “major depressive disorder” as my illness. But it is not the end of the world, they say, as there are medications to help improve with my malfunctioning limbic system. It just takes time. “You will recover” they say. So we shall see.
A nurse accompanied me out to the visitors’ room where my family was waiting for me. Along the way, the nurse told me that I am a beautiful person both inside and out. She told me that there is no need to worry as I have a bright future. I am a chartered accountant, after all. She also told me that the guy who left me at my worst do not deserve me. Someone will appear in my life one day and will accept me that I have this malfunction, or maybe had this malfunction. He will stay and love me as I am. As much as those words were comforting, your image still appeared in my mind.
As I write this letter, it has been two months since the day you dumped me. But judging from your posts on social media and the accidental bump into you while jogging showed how much you are enjoying life after dumping me.
It saddens me that as of today, I still remember all those discussions we had about our future, how we would marry, how we would help each other out in your family business, etc. I even remember all the places we had been, all the foods we had, all the memories we shared, even before we got together.
You know, I cannot even eat those foods we had or go to those places we went anymore because they hurt me so. The accidental run-in that day, it broke me. I could not even stand nor jog. I broke down at the park.
The dumping texts you sent still haunts me till this day. They made me cry but the thought that you dumped me over text made me cry even more. You did not even try to save the relationship. There were no discussions or meet-ups whatsoever to try to save it. You just avoided all of it.
I still remember that you mentioned in one of your dumping texts that you were somewhat afraid of me because of my emotions. You do know that I have mental illness, but we both just did not know that it was severe. We both always thought that I just have a minor depression but truth is, I have a malfunctioning limbic system.
Before we broke up, I had a lot in my bottle of worries. I had a lot of problems in which I do not share with you as I was afraid that they may be stressful to you. I wanted to be that girlfriend, that partner who will be there to listen to your problems and give you the emotional support that you need and to give you the shoulder to cry on and the person who would discuss your problems with. I know, I did share with you some of my problems but I did not share them all. In fact, I did not share them to people, I kept them all to myself. Kept them in my bottle of worries, because I was too afraid of sharing my problems to others, as I do not want to be people’s negative energy and to make people worry. I just bottled it up.
But at last, like every single bottle, after your constant pour, it will overflow. It is the same as my bottle, it overflew when you dumped me. At that point, I really felt like I was alone. The question “Why does everyone have to leave me?” constantly appear in my mind. I felt like my world was crumbling. My career, my relationship with people, my finances, my health, everything was falling down. It was like all the aspects of my life, were going downhill all at once.
I have got to admit that when we were together, I thought that even though all the aspects of life except love were falling apart, I was still surviving as my last aspect, the love is still around, holding me up. So yes, as bad as it sounds, I did rely on you to “survive”, to be happy. So after you left, I became an emotional wreck. At that point, committing suicide was my solution as in my mind, I was constantly reminded that I had nothing to be grateful for in life. Nothing is right in my life anymore. So I did it. I committed suicide, but fortunately, the pills I ate were not enough to end my life.
Even though the pills did not work, I was a totally different person. I was sad most of the times, I was angry too. Happiness during that period was countable. The days when I was happy are countable. That is how unhappy I am. Then I started to plan yet another suicide. I could not hold that bottle anymore. I cannot bear all the wrongs in my life anymore. All the stress. I just could not take it any longer.
I do sound like I have an obvious sign of depression, right? I know, I do, which is why I seek help last year. I did visit private psychiatrists and counselors but they were super costly, which is part of the reason why I am depressed too. I am practically broke and I have to go for all these expensive consultations. I just, could not afford them. So I stopped in June last year.
My friends and my parents, even my supervisor saw a change in me; a total wreck. One day, in February, it was an intense day. My department was literally at war with another department and I was in between as both sides usually throw their bombs at me so that I can be a messenger (worst job ever).
That day, I just could not take it, I immediately broke down and got scolded by my supervisor. It was then and there, I told him straight that I really want to complete my work on hand so that I would not leave bread crumps for them to continue when I die. After hearing that, I was sent home.
A good friend of mine heard about my situation getting worse and she dragged me to the government clinic on the following day to get help but unfortunately, that visit to the clinic ended in a hospital.
So dear you, thank you for being the person who opened up the cap of my overflowing bottle, if it was not for you, I will not have such obvious signs of depression that led me to a hospital. I thank you for making me realize my actual illness.
However, I am still finding it cruel that you totally blocked me from your life, that I am merely just an air to you now. It hurts me, it does. Even knowing that I was in the hospital was not enough to reduce that cruelty of yours towards me.
At times, I wonder, did you really like me the way you said that you did when you were chasing me and when we were together or were you just playing with my heart?
But either way, whatever we are and whatever we will be in future, whether as friends or strangers, I will continue to go for my regular medical appointments and get better. I have full trust that my mental illness is curable. Looking forward for a better me. Thank you for your memories.
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