Later in 2013 after my inevitable freedom from them, at my new job that I started in August, I had met my current partner. Since this person was the second person I have ever dated in my 23 years alive. Because of that I had no real blueprint as to what relationships were supposed to be like. I thought that people were supposed to make themselves submissive to the other and this was supported by my last relationship. I had thought that you were supposed to give your partner all of the attention and nothing else. So, out of respect I had stopped consuming the things that I loved; music, writing, drawing, Japanese dramas, Japanese movies,studying Japanese language, everything to do with Japanー even if it had nothing to do with idols.
I felt that since I was with someone, I didn't need things that made me happy. I didn't need hobbies. I didn't need something to occupy my time. I had someone for that. I was wrong, I was very wrong. Since I dropped everything I used to do, everything that shaped me and supported me up until that time, I had no identity. I had no idea who I was anymore, if I was a someone. Without passions and interests, what was left? I was a robot that worked, slept, ate and repeated.
I was nothing.
I had everything, but felt nothing.
I showed nothing.
I did nothing.
I was an empty shell of what a human should be.
I thought this is what it was supposed to be like. Work, go home to your partner, do things with your partner, and leave for work again. Don't go out with friends (you weren't supposed to have friends that weren't your partner). Don't occupy yourself while you were at home because if your partner was home, you were supposed to entertain them and not yourself. Don't consume media that your partner didn't like because if they didn't like it, you were doing something wrong.
I borrowed hobbies (some of which I still consume)ー I moulded myself to what I thought I was supposed to beー I changed whatever personality fragments I was able to salvage from my previous relationship to what media had told me that I should be as the girlfriendー I pretended whatever it was that I did before wasn't important, mainly I needed to tell myself that because I seemed to be the only one that thought that it was important to drop everythingー I forgot everything I taught myself. Language, culture, important dates and events, name. Forget it because they are not what needs your attention now.
I was broken, shattered from the previous relationship I was hardly a person as it was, I was once again aloneー this time of my own accord. They were fake, he was real. why not ditch everything that was fake, right?
It took everything in me to not feel so alone at times. Sometimes I was alone, no one would ever notice that I was gone, right?
I was whatever I was, he was broke and recovering from a similar situation I was in. This resulted in heavy drinking and smoking, both of which I did not partake in, and almost a permanent state of not knowing what was going on. Because of that state, I was sexually assaulted by my partner... again. But this time it resulted in a pregnancy that I could not carry to term. I was still very unhealthy and my body was still destroying itself, and we were not mentally stable or financially stable to raise a child. I was forced to become pregnant, then I was forced to get rid of a child that I wanted but could not have. Once again, I was feeling as if I was not worth it and felt more like an object than a person. I felt that I was deserving of what was happening to me because, it was always what I was told. He didn't give me the option of keeping it because it was a memory as to what he did to me while not aware of his actions. When it happened, he didn't even take my feelings into consideration because, they didn't matter. I was with someone who cared for me... but didn't care about what I thought.
Ever since I had moved to Edmonton... No, ever since I finished school... No, ever since my friends left me in high school... No, ever since my mom died when I was 13... No, ever since my parents split up when I was 8... No, ever since I was abused in a basement below a dozen adults who didn't even know what was going on... No, ever since my first hospitalization at 6-months-old due to a panic attack that lasted three days; I was alone. I was always alone... why not get lost in an artificial world that i could make whatever I wanted it to be?
There were times where I would be confined to a single room for days, never seeing another person, my pets, or even going to the bathroom to eat. I made myself a prisoner because I had zero communication skills due to being a hostage because of that person. If I had just something to do rather than give up everything that made me, me, maybe I wouldn't have been so alone. But hey, giving up everything and not communicating to anyone in days made things easierー or so they say.
It was on the fourth day of not talking to the person I was with for two years now, the one that I lived with, that I decided that it may be the best for everything I disappeared. I sat there thinking for hours and hours, holding the object in my left hand and my cell phone in my right. On the screen of my phone was a chat log with a member of the suicide hotline. I had no idea what to do. I decided to drop the object as one of my cats came into the bedroom, first time in days, and she jumped up on the bed and into my lap. It was at this moment that I thought that maybe I shouldn't follow through with it, who will take care of my cats if I'm gone? No one... So maybe I will just take them with me. I lived on the tenth floor of an apartment building, there was no way I could survive that but maybe the cats could. I thought maybe if I just tie their feet together so they can't land, they wont survive either. Again, I sat there for hours contemplating all of the opportunities. I guess in my time thinking, I fell asleep. This was my first suicidal thought since I was with that person only months before. Why did I not continue the next day? Because I felt that even death was not worthy for me. I felt that I was meant to suffer everything that was happening because that is what I was raised to think.
Everything is your fault and everything that happens is deserved.
It took six years of not knowing who I was other than a girlfriend to finally get back into what I loved. What caused me to get back into it? Realizing that not everyone is locked to what relationships depicted on TV and movies is supposed to be. You are meant to be you, but with the help of someone else. You are supposed to fail and supposed to have flaws, but have a support system to bring you back up when you are not your best self. Everyone fails and you should be supported not punished when something goes awry. You as a couple are supposed to have different interests, hobbies, personalities, views and beliefs; without these, you are basically just a slave and master, or just owning an inanimate object. I thought I was the latter. I thought I was an object because that is what I was told for 29 years. When I discovered that I am in fact a person with feelings and interests, I tried the things that made me happy before. Both him and I grew as people and as a couple. We learned to talk about the things that bothered us and things that didn't work in our relationship.
I thought being with someone that was not them would be enough to almost cure my mental health issues... I realized there is only one person that can "cure" my mental health, me. It took me almost 30 years to realize no one can help me but me. People can be a hand to pull me up when I have fallen, but ultimately it is me that needs to put in the work to grab for that hand and pull myself to my feet again.
We are both happy now and healthy in our bodies and in our minds, resulting in healthy in our relationship. We were supposed to marry last year but the Covid-19 pandemic had postponed that.
Some things were not for me anymore. Drawing, I was indifferent towards. Writing, I was rusty and could not pick it up like riding a bike. In fact I am still relearning how to do things when it comes to writing. I also unlearn how to do some thing that I was terrible for. Language, I had completely forgotten how to do everything and needed to relearn the years of work I had put in before. Movies, there were some that I still loved, others I did not care for anymore. Music, I loved it more than I had before I dropped everything six years prior... It almost became an addiction.
The addiction that started in December 2019 is still prevalent today. Like how some addicts take as much of their substance at one time, not knowing when their next hit will be; That is me. In the first three months of getting back into JUMP, I had purchased way more merchandise than I care to admit.
The majority of this was purchased in the first three months of getting back into Hey! Say! JUMP, between January 2020 and March 2020. As it was the beginning of Covid-19 it is easy to imagine most of it was not easy to obtain because it kept getting stuck in the mail due to strict restrictions across borders. This picture alone contains about $2000CND not including shipping fees.
As of today, making up for six years of hiatus, and pain, I still buy and consume what I can. My collection (of which I would have purchased as they came out had I not taken the hiatus) has virtually doubled in size, I am waiting for about $750CND of merchandise to be shipped from Japan, I am subscribed to various YouTube channels, an app called Smash., Johnny's Family Club, and JUMPaper; all of which cost money (Except YouTube), and I believe it is because of the addiction aspect of not knowing when my next hit will be.
Do I regret being a poor university student and spending money on something that basically only I care about, and a select few around the world outside Japan care about? No, because getting back into this fantasy world had helped me learn about myself, do things for myself, change for the better, and become who I am supposed to me. A true version of myself. Lying to myself for over 20 years was the worst thing I ever did to me, I was not going to do it anymore.
In the next post I will explain what Hey! Say! JUMP has inspired me to do in just the past two and a half years.
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