True Stories Behind 3.92

It takes courage of me to publish this post. Talking about something personal, crisis or issues that you face in your life is not something that most of us would do. Because it highlights our dark side story that we don't wanna share publicly. But I stumble with few friends who suffer from similar manner, and I just don't want them to feel 'you are not alone'. So, there you go.These are actually what I have been through throughout my fourth semester. A semester that I had least expected to ace my examinations.

Since I am taking Journalism for my bachelor degree, I have to actively participate in numerous field works that require me to comprehend every single thing about the issue I am going to write about. I need to work twice as hard compared to the previous semester.  I do not mind this, as I am pretty sure all courses get tougher as I progress through my studies. I thought everything would be okay and as good as before. I put aside my disapproval towards the features of my course, instead, I focused on how to achieve my goals I had previously set. I thought I would do well.

Had to give our utmost commitment to every assignment that we had

HUMILIATED

I tried my best to be the old me. I miss my old self. 

It all begins with a lecture whereby my friend and I were scolded by a lecturer of ours in a class. He gave snarky remarks and sarcastic comments on our articles we wrote for an event. Maybe it was my fault for not getting used to it, as lecturers often remind us how editors going to treat us in the newsroom, but, somehow during that period, I felt humiliated and discouraged.  When he lashed out at us, everybody in the room went silence. He sometimes laughed at our articles and mocked me. Feeling all eyes fix on me, I locked my eyes on the screen of a computer in front of me.

He bombarded me with questions that made me stutter to answer all of his questions at once. Hence, I just randomly answered when he screamed, demanding for urgent answers. I was not surprised when my answers were wrong since I did not refer to my notes in the first place. Still, I was shocked with his following fury and wrath over mistakes that were unclear. At that time, no words could describe my feelings. It was a mixture of discouraged, demotivated, humiliated, beaten down and inferiority blended into one. I felt numb. My mind felt so empty that I had screaming silence wishing for the time ticking faster.

you look good on the outside but no one knows what happen in the inside

Going home, I was surprised with myself that I did not cry whilst my other friend told me the next day, she had a good cried and felt better afterwards. I smiled listening to her but still could not escape my curiosity towards why I still didn’t feel good. Why did I feel like something was unsettled deep down in my heart? Something was not right, yet I had lost my words to tell my friends what it actually is. Is it because of I did not cry that I don’t feel any better?

CANCEROUS

Little did I know, these feelings I had in me were becoming strong emotions that began controlling my life. It was cancerous spreading to my whole body, especially my mind. I felt gloomy 24/7 and the sadness in me dragged me down to the bottom of my feet. I had lost confidence in talking to people around me. Less talk make me think more. I doubted my capabilities and worried if I could not fit in with the society. I often questioned myself if I am doing well or not? I look around me seeing my close friends cheering for their victories and achievements meanwhile I was at the corner of the room hugging my knees.

Things were getting worse when I did not do well for my assignments.  Nonetheless, two of my good friends had big smiles on their faces when full marks were written on their papers. Looking at them, high achievers with their own platform to outshine, made me feel smaller. Even when we had a discussion in the cafe, course mates, juniors and seniors often stopped by talking to them with friendly tone and cheerful voices and at the same time bat an eye at me. It is not their fault for interrupting our discussion, but it still made me feel more worthless and useless. I had no food for seven days, only mineral water. After the horrible week, I forced myself to eat but my throat refused to swallow any food.

My good friends made a plan to grab my favourite sweettooth at Foodsbury, but all I did there was just being silent and they realised I was being different, but they didn't push me with questions. 

Each night, I tried to scrutinise myself looking for my own strength and I found none. My mind could travel seven years back, reminiscing bitter memories of mine that I was supposed to forget and then the ‘time machine’ brought me back to my current issues. I tried to sleep and force my mind to take a rest or at least a nap, but it seemed like everything was out of control. Most of the time, I cried because I wanted to sleep so much, that I counted numbers. Starting with 1 to whatever number. while knocking the metal frame of my bed. Unfortunately, I failed. When I woke up in the morning, I stared at the ceiling and regretted being alive. How I wish I could make myself sleep for years so I didn’t have to deal with these worldly matters. 

SHUT PEOPLE OUT

During the daylight, without enough rest, my body ached here and there while working on my assignments, presentations, quizzes and test, trying to keep up with the deadlines. I felt tremendously tired. With my head bow down, I tried to march forward which made me hard to resist the unwanted and negative thoughts that reside in my mind. Those people who are close to me noticed I have changed. I did not really talk to them and I only smiled when they asked me questions. Some of my classmates would ask me “are you okay?” and I would reply “I am good” and he extended the question with “you don’t seem like one.” It made me feel annoyed and I could feel anger rising in me. It irritated me because those questions demanded me to think more to answer accordingly whereby I already had so much going on in my head. However, so far I had managed to keep it from any unwanted ‘explosion’.

As the time went by, I felt numb, lost interest with academic and people around me. Nothing could catch my attention. Losing myself, I just followed the flow, wherever the stream would take me. But the word ‘quit’ never came across in my mind. As I knew, whatever it takes, I have to complete my studies even if it takes a while. Abah’s voices kept ringing in my head ‘do continue my dreams and wishes. I really want to see you finish you study at PhD level. I count on you, my child.’ Those voices made me on the right track even there were thousands of negative thoughts and feelings chaining my feet from moving forward. I kept going to classes even though I did not pay attention to the lectures. The world was spinning around me without any sounds and noises; it was disturbingly quiet.

TRUST NO ONE

There are a number of times I tried to explain my condition to my good friends. But their feedback saddened me more. One of them told me it is me who create this “stuff”, telling me I am crazy and it is me who make things complicated. I stood still when these ugly assumptions hit me on my face, I did not  respond neither negatively nor positively. I was speechless because those words came from a good friend whom I had assumed would understand and believe me more than anyone else. I removed myself from my emotions to appear okay in front of them and went home with shattered heart. From that day onwards, I stopped asking for their understanding and believed no one could help me including my closest friends. No one could understand me no matter how hard they tried and no matter how helpful they wanted to be, unless they suffered in a similar manner .

Being in this situation has made me further understand my dad the reasons why he behaves how he does, easily gets angry, and shuts some people out of his life. I started to understand what makes him feel that way. The more I thought about it, the more I got scared as it felt like I found my dad in a dark hole and both of us did not know how to reach out to people for help.

COUNSELLING SESSION

Day by day the spiral downward hadn’t changed and improved to betterment. Thus, a friend of mine suggested for me to meet a counsellor. Right after one Friday’s class, I asked one of my friends to accompany me to the counselling session. We had a counselling session right away without scheduled appointment beforehand. A lady invited us to sit in one conducive room. After filling in a few forms, I took a deep breath and started to open up everything I had on my mind. It took me a while to put it all into words as my brain was functioning too slow. It couldn’t seem to keep up and do its’ job and sometimes I stopped, searching for the right words for the counsellor to comprehend. I reached my breaking point alas and burst into tears. My runny nose and watery eyes made it even harder to explain. Still, I continued. My friend and the counsellor listened attentively to me while occasionally nodding their heads.

I told her I am scared to not achieve my goals and Abah’s dreams. From the first two weeks of semester, something was not right and it felt like I would not be able to survive this semester. I felt like it was going to be my last semester but I don’t have a “quitting” word in my vocabulary. I was stucked between wanting to rebel and not continune on and the persuasion to continue my studies for the sake of Abah. The latter, remind me of Abah’s wishes and hopes and temporarily helped wash away all the negative thoughts. This inspiration was stronger than what I thought and it kept returning again, visiting me.

The counselor handed us two boxes of colour pencils and crayons and a piece of white paper. She asked us to draw a house, a tree and a person. Upon finishing, she translated our drawings to us. I only chose black crayon to complete my drawing while my friend choose various colours on her drawing. I drew two windows of my house and it is located at the centre of the paper. From there, the counselor told me I am aware what is happening around me and pressure that I received from. However, I was confined in between. Even though there are numerous ways to get out, I couldn’t get through any of them. The black crayon symbolized  how I try to tell people I have a dull life at this point and I am living in the darkness. She told me I need massive supports from friends especially being away from my family.

Her explaination hit me on point. I could relate her conclusion with my current situation. As I set my pace out of the room, I whispered to myself, “ground yourself after this!”

INSECURITIES

I have two good friends whom I love so much. They have beautiful souls with immaculate dispositions, unlike me. Befriending two people who have minds that are bright and outshine anyone else that I know at my age, occasionally made me question myself.  “What is my strength?” I tried to search for at least one but found none. Two of my good friends have their own platform and good recognition from lecturers, batch mates, course mates and even university mates who made them look perfectly fine compared to me, who was still struggling with inner battles. Hence, I sought approval from people around me to affirm I was doing good. Often asked my close friends, the question, “Do you think I am able to survive in this field?”

All I wanted to hear that good friend of mine say was, “Yes! You are doing great and fine! You are going to survive in Journalism and you are going to be a great journalist!” I just wanted someone to lend me confidence so that I could survive. I literally had none to rely on. However, those words only echoed in my head when he said, “No, I don’t think you’ll survive because your mental is weak.” He dropped a bomb and I was taken aback, looking  somewhere else and trying to hide my teary eyes. When I was home alone, I buried my face in the pillow and cried whole-heartedly. Confidence I had started to nurture fell to pieces again. I felt far from these impeccable creatures, not even up to their par to fit into society.

BETRAYAL

During the mid-semester break, I experienced another unhelpful phase when I was told two friends of mine betrayed me. Since my mind and my heart weren’t working together, due to the previous pain, I failed to fully comprehend this information given to me by another friend. My heart was about to explode and my adrenaline rushed through my system, recalling all the good they had portrayed in front of me. It was very painful for me to admit thier kindness, those exquisite behaviours towards me were all sweet lies.

Listening to the ugly truth, I casted away my eyes to the majestic scenery around me. Focussing on the fresh air that surrounded me, I did not dare look at my friend even though I could feel her eyes scanning me. It took me few days to digest her words and along that period, I reminisced the memories that we carved together for these past almost two years. It saddened me and brought me down to my feet, knowing people I trusted actually had talk behind me and mocked other people for befriending with me.

I cried whenever I remember about them. The worst part was my mind continually reminded me of them every single second. Especially when we were in a small classroom and they tried talking to me, I just smiled and remained silent. Regretfully, it is my weakness for not being able to act naturally nor forget when I should. I walked like a zombie to classes, staring at the lecturers with my mind gone away. I often looked at myself and tried to find strength to move out from this horrible feelings and agonizing pain. I was a broken girl with a broken heart.

REVIVAL

With no one to trust, with good friends who did not understand me and instead underestimated what I was going through, I started to lose myself. Ground where I was stepping shattered and when I tried to look up, I only saw dark and grey sky instead of blue and white. I blinked my eyes, saying to myself this is a dream, but all I could hear were voices saying I am no one; a useless and worthless person. I stared at my phone, gathering little strength to tell my parents, “Abah, Umi, I could not sleep at night, I think too much and I could not stop” with tears rolled on my cheeks at 3am.

I only gave them a glimpse of what I have been through as I didn’t want to trouble their minds. But the following day, my dad texted me a very long texts saying the dos and don’ts in order to get a good sleep. He shared with me what his psychologist told him, “Do not get too excited if you are happy, do not get too sad if you are unhappy and manage your feelings.”

Bit by bit, I made an attempt to see the silver lining between the clouds. The mental strength I was rebuilding took a while and continuous effort. I often whispered to myself I don’t want to stay in that vicious, downward spiral. Getting out was all I wanted and to lead a normal life like my other friends. Rather than letting my mind control me, I tried to take the upper hand by stop dwelling on my past.

I do not let friends who betrayed me dictate my happiness. I gracefully step out from the friendship and mark the line between us as acquaintances. Letting them go is what I have done to free my from questioning the hows and whys. I teach myself to see things around me in a different light and try to be in other people’s shoes and see based on their lens for why they do not understand me. The lecturer who humiliated me in front of my classmates, I tried to see as another major catalyst for me to strive harder and to prove to him I am someone.

Reciting Quran every prayer time, I make an effort to strengthen my bond with my creator and understand His messages in Quran. I made self-reflections on how to fix little things I might overlook and I felt better and calmer. For every task given, I’d set my mind to it despites of the bumpy roads in front of me. Be it people’s opinion on my capabilities, be it how people take credits from my work, be it how my lecturers think of me, be it how good people around me underestimate me, I just wanted the best in me to be translated to results upon finishing my fourth semester.

I keep my head held high and spend my time trying to help others and feel content with this. I re-teach myself to appreciate little things around me and those little things lead to wonderful impact to me and my life. I put one foot in front of the other and move forward. My dad’s wishes and hopes nudge me from my long sleep up until now.

When the result was released on 12^th August, my lecturer texted me saying, “I know you have a big smile on your face right now, 3.92 is too much for you!” he said jokingly to me. And guess what? He is right! I was smiling while reading his text and after telling my dad I aced my examinations! 

I was awarded with 'best student' for our fourth semester but who knows the real struggles behind it. Only the chosen ones know about this ugly path that I have walked. So promise me to keep it a secret ;)