This must be what it feels like to be "in therapy".

Once there was a precocious girl. Cute, smart, accomplished, popular, and most importantly loved. Then she turned 10 years old, went to a school for gifted children, and realised she wasn't special at all. 

Her grades fell. Her parents were fighting and threatening divorce; they stopped attending to her. Her teachers tried to motivate her but soon gave her up as a lost cause. Her body grew out of her control. The loved and loving little girl died inside her fat suit. 

She never missed a day of school but she wasn't really there. Her only interests were music, vandalism, porn, and talking to strangers on the internet. She was always aware of things happening among her schoolmates - they were studying for exams, they were becoming boy/girlfriends - but she was not included nor did she look too closely lest she felt the desire to become part of it. In short, she was a ghost.

-

Sorry for the third person POV lah. Not trying to be cute, but these things happened so long ago they really feel like they happened to another person.

-

So. What kind of connections did one make at that age? They are: 

Once I was loved, now I am neglected.
Once I was smart, now I am stupid.
Once I was a star, now I am nobody.
Once I was adorable, now I am grotesque. 

That's how the links between (a) love/achievement and (b) punishment/failure get solidified.

-

When I started working, life was glorious. Contrary to my expectations, I actually got the positive attention and praise I had longed for since I was a teen. Little wonder that work became so important to me. 

Over the next 10 years of my "career" I gradually forgot the pain of the past. I reinvented myself as a competent and useful adult, as though my decade as a lonely ghoul never happened.

-

But of course the past, and the well-worn tracks of thoughts and associations, had not gone away. When my career ended, they came back to haunt me.

Which is why I was depressed for such a long time after getting retrenched. My awful childhood was happening all over again. My day in the sun was over. I was back to being a disappointment.

It's also why I could not feel happy even though my freelance writing and agency ventures went, objectively speaking, quite well. Because it's love and attention I crave, not success. Success is just the means to the end.

It's why I had a lot of trouble committing to "a" thing and making it my own. If I tried then I might learn how disappointing I really am. 

It's why I found it so difficult to handle the (probably quite typical) work stressors during my internship. Without praise and validation and the feeling that I was needed and valued, I could not survive. Haha I know that makes me "high maintenance".

It's why I tried to apply for jobs even though I did not really want to. Seemed like a shortcut to the approval of my loved ones.

It's why I use quite casual and dismissive language about myself - thanks Nadia for catching that! Because I don't want anyone to think I care or feel anything.

-

The same complex showing up in different guises over the years. I actually feel very relieved to learn that these recurring mental and emotional patterns are merely echoes from my past experiences. It's not The Truth. It's just pain. And if it's just pain, I can choose what to do with it.

-

This must be what it feels like to be "in therapy".

Grateful for the professional support I've been getting lately. Nadia from SUTD, who's been helping me with personal/career growth despite not actually being a career/life coach. And Hui Xian from REACH, who probed more than she needed to, deepening what could have been a simple counselling session about work stress into real healing. 

You both didn't have to. But you did, and it changed me.