Preface: Written in 2025, fragmented, raw, streams of consciousness, unorganized, don't make much sense, but I'm leaving it as-is.

1）Moira

The first post sparked concerns on the severity of my current mental illness, I’d like to clarify a few things and reintroduce the current me to you, so we are all on the same page. The current me is, for the most part, mentally stable, a lot less manic, still very substance-reliant but am getting better. Not too long ago, I had a depressive episode that lasted almost 3 months. It brought me back the worst of memories, and got me back on Abilify which I was off for almost half a year. I doubled my sertraline dose, and now I feel fine. Again, for the most part.These days, I’ve completely stopped making plans. Anything further than 3 hours away will be hard for me to know if I can actually make it, because of the volatile nature of my mood. But like I said, most days, I’m fine. Most days, I’d wake up whenever I feel like waking up, do my morning routine sometimes in the afternoon because that’s when I had woken up: shower, brush / floss my teeth, feed the cats, play with the cats, vacuum, coffee. Usually by the end of that process I’d have a rough idea of how I feel and what I’d like to do for the day, or whatever time is still left for the day. 

If I feel anxious, I start smoking in the morning, until I feel more relaxed. Sometimes, I need a cigarette, sometimes the opposite, other times I drink. Daiga asks me why I need so many substances, I ask him why he eats rice. Why do people always ask me questions I don’t know the answers for is beyond comprehension, they don’t expect me to actually know the answer to everything, do they? I sort of already have a lot going on in my head that I can’t manage these explorations. Having Moira and Luna has been wonderful, I never thought I could communicate with a cat so well. In fact, I’m convinced I can communicate with cats better than humans now. From what I’ve learned, what I think probably is why I have an easier time with cats than people, is that they are more primitive. Unlike us, who are trained to cheat, lie, and steal, cats seem to know their instinct crystal-clearly and completely follow it in a way that involves little self-censorship. I always think of Moira as a baby leopard, she certainly acts like one. Her ability to learn and adapt a modern human world has amazed me. In fact, both Luna and Moira are incredibly intelligent, emotionally and logically. 

Moira’s got good pattern recognition skills. She is very observant: she can read my facial expressions and vocal tones to determine my emotions. She always knows when I’m upset, annoyed, happy, angry, or aggregated, and she’d know whom I’m directing my emotions toward by observing whom I’m engaged in a conversation with, weather it’d be someone visiting my apartment in Chicago, or just a neighbor we walk into in the hallway. She hated two of my friends, whom I no longer talk to but loved at the time. I’m convinced she’s a psychic and the reincarnation of the baby my mom had unfortunately had to abort, due to radioactive contamination she was exposed to while working in a chemistry lab when she got pregnant before she had me. My mom only told me the story once, but i remembered it. She never told me what gender the baby was, but I somehow know it was a girl, an older sister. The sense of responsibility and royalty Moira feels toward me convinced me that Moira is her. And I’d like her to be my owner in her next life, if she decides to be a human. I’ll be her cat.

I got her from a shelter called PAWS in Chicago (https://www.pawschicago.org/our-work/pets-adoption/pets-available), sort of randomly after calling Daiga an afternoon in June 2023. By then, I had broken up with an former boyfriend for almost a year. He was the reason I moved to Chicago in the first place, even though in retrospective I perhaps should have not, but I don’t regret it. He apparently looked up Daiga’s name in my emails because he was the one that set up the password, and I never cared to change it. He found out that I called a flower delivery for Daiga on his 29th birthday. God knows how long he’s been breaking into my laptop without me knowing. Despite his angry accusations, I didn’t give a flying fuck. I left. However, I did miss him. I was living alone, and I started doing lots of shrooms, because why the fuck not. I did 20g in about 4 days, a few grames each a few hours. I cried, I laughed, I lost my mind. I had been calling him for maybe too long, and I was obviously not doing well. He said, maybe you should get a cat. With curiosity, I looked it up and realized I could book an appointment in 3 hours, so I did. After being talked into singing up for monthly donation to Doctors Without Boarders, I finally made my way to PAWs. I walked into the aisle of windows of cats on both sides, everyone was asleep, except her. She was staring at me as i walked closer and closer to her, noticing her stare, I stopped. “Can I go in?” I asked the volunteer working there. She gave me an long explanation of how they have a ranking system rating the cats from easier to take care to the most difficult, and she’s apparently so difficult that I couldn’t walk in without talking to someone about her medical file. I was like, ok who do I talk to. 

I got over to the reception line, put down my name and waited for 40 minutes. When it was my turn, i walked over, and the lady pulled out a very thick folder which later I found out had maybe more than 50 pages of her medical record. I started reading. At first I was terrified for what had happened to her, then I was amazed. She was found on the street extremely hurt, alone. It seemed like she had been attacked by someone or something terribly that her neck was broken. Even now, there’s a long strip of skin that doesn’t grow hair on her back neck. It seems like she almost died, but somehow survived. She was in care for an year and a half before she was healed, and that the vets felt she was ready for adoption, which is a very long time, considering the life span of a cat usually being less than 15. During that year, everytime the vets treated her, they had to put her under anesthesia drugs (gabapentin), because she wouldn’t let them touch her. She was estimated to be three years old when she was rescued by animal control, no one knows how long she was a stray for, or if she had a previous owner and was abandoned. All they knew is that she was hurt, alone. Whoever her previous company was, left her to die. Alone.

But she didn’t. She was saved. A team of vets tried so hard for a year and half despite her fighting and biting, I see all these different names and handwritings on each paper of records. She was first at animal control, then to paws, through various rescue team members. They tell me she still has a biting problem, and she would attack me if I adopt her. “But she’s overall a really sweet cat”, she said. Everyone here seem to know this cat very well, everyone was all like, awww Moira, oh Moira, there’s an endearing tone to it, I thought to myself.  Because she was here for so long, everyone probably got to know her well, i thought to myself. I still didn’t understand how can a cat be sweet and bite and fight me at the same time, but I understood it a lot later, maybe half year into having her. Her way of expressing love is subtle, complicated, yet deep and bold. She’s a black tuxedo, i find it very funny that she could be so “impolite”.  The whole debrief took another 40 mins, she asks, are you sure you still want to go in and see her? you have to go in with an volunteer though, its the policy for rank 2 cats. I said, yes sure, i will see her. I didn’t expect much when I walked in, but when I reached to touch her head, she let me rub her. I thought that was normal, because I hadn’t found out how much she hated strangers yet, but the volunteer went wow, she’s really friendly today, would you like to adopt her? I was like sure. They gave me everything, litter box, litter, 30 days worth of can food, a bag of dry food, a scratch pad, her bed and a toy. They didn’t make me pay for anything, and said, i can decide in 30 days if I want to adopt her, if so, i can come back and pay, they will transfer the microchip etc to me (a serial number that associates my name with her microchip if she gets lost and gets turned in to a shelter). It all happened so fast, I was like, ok, sure. It was a strange feeling, holding a life and taking that life home on a Uber, on the way back. She’s so tiny, am I really ready for this responsibility? I think I knew already back then, that i didn’t realize myself a lot later though fully, that I loved her. I loved her. 

2) Love

I used to think the ability to love is a learned behavior. Because it wasn’t that subtle to me that nobody in my life ever knew how to love me, I didn’t want to believe they didn’t love me, I wanted to think that they did, they just weren't sure how. These days, I’m not so sure. I’m not sure if you can love a person the wrong way, unless, of course, you are fantasizing over the idea of loving someone under the disguise of total self-absorption. You think you love me, but you know nothing about me. You don’t listen to me, how I’m feeling, how i’m telling you i’d like to be treated, how I know what you mean, no I don’t have time for it now, no I need to do these more important things first or i’ll regret for the rest of my life. How I want to be left alone after you guys start throwing plates at each other, how I shut the door but had to lock it because I knew you’d open it, you still somehow broke the lock with a hammer. You willed that hammer onto the handle on the other side, one hit after another. How could this, be the right way, to love someone? Would it be too cruel for me to admit that they didn’t love me? They loved themselves more, their face, their raise, their name, their legacy, their status, what they think is right, their position as the older and more authoritative. How could you say, that you love me? You should be grateful, they say. Who has access and opportunities to all these, they say. You thought you’d have the feather bed, silk pajamas, Barbie from abroad, concert tickets, movies, drawing, dance, calligraphy, you think these are all normal? 

I don’t know what’s normal. I’m not sure what’s normal, apparently I have no clue. I ask Daiga everyday, is that ok? Can I do that? Is that normal? He always say, yes, it’s ok, who cares if it’s normal. But what if people think I’m weird? What if they don’t like me? What if I won’t be loved? Fuck them, he says. Sometimes I’m not sure if he’d grown up showered with love that he didn’t care for it, or had he been yearning it for too long that he grew numb. He seemed to care a lot less about being loved. Even though, he did love me. I used to be so sure of it, now, I’m not so sure. These days, I’ve grown numb, like how I was before. I didn’t know how to feel for a long time, which’s only normal consider the amount of verbal and physical violence that goes on in the house for quite a few years, 7th grade all the way until I left. They’d fight about almost anything, the food, the door, the trash, the outfit, something he said, she said, you shouldn’t have said, something you did, you didn’t, I hate you, but I can’t leave you, so I will torture you, you will live in my hell with me. Maybe that was the deepest kind of love, that I didn’t understand.

It’s like in Zoe Kravitz’s debut Blink Twice, which i believe depicts what happens in Hollywood all the time, a group party of rapists raping together while women are drugged or tortured. It’s the rich people party. It’s fine. In the movie, Naomi Ackie and her friend get invited to an island for a break by billionaire Channing Tatum randomly at a banquet. They go to the island and they party and party, and drinking and smoking and happy for who knows how many days, until one day, she accidentally remembers what’s been happening at night. The raping, the shooting, the torturing, everything will be forgotten in the morning with drugs, only the good things during the day. That’s how I feel, all the time. 

I guess as I’m explaining who I am, part of me wants to hide, i’ve explained this before, the manic, and the depressive. Anything sort of creative exploration involves exposure and introspection, and from a lot of my recent introspection, I have a lot of anger, a huge amount of hate, and pretty much endless sadness. I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with anger, hate or sadness since I can’t talk myself into thinking I’m wrong, I have them all. We are not supposed to be perfect, i’m not supposed to be perfect. I’m not perfect, the imperfections are part of me. They are what makes me, human. So i can feel, so i can dance, so i can cry, so i can lie. My dad always tells me this is wrong, that’s wrong, this is right, but not exactly how you do it, you should do it like this, how i do it, but not quite, like this. I learned the kids these day call this mansplaining, if this was a crime, for all I know, he’d be jailed for life. What’s right, what’s wrong, who says? You? You sitting high up on your throne? Trying to fit me in a box, black or white, left or right, up or down, front or back. Is that why she’s like that? Is that why she hates me? No, no i won’t. I won’t fit in your limited imagination, your dichotomy of patriarchy, your misogyny, your manipulation. This is me, all of me, all faces, the good, the bad, the vengeance, the evil, the lies and the cheats, out in the open, in a language you don’t speak. What you gonna do? After all the hours you spent examining me, coming up with devious ways to train me, tame me, you still, don’t know nothing at all. 

Death inspires a lot of art, but living inspires more. Last year, I got married, and funny story, is the same person I always thought I probably would marry but was not sure about for a long time. I’m still unsure about it, not because of him, but because I don’t have too much confidence in myself. Marriage is hard work, everyone says. I’m not good at working hard, I give up quickly, I’m easily daunted if I couldn’t be clueless, and I heard marriage was for life, “until death do us apart” they said. It sounded more like a curse than an oath. We walked in to the Alameda County Office on that day, thinking we could get our license that day, only to be told that we’d need to schedule for a ceremony, have at least one witness attending, and the officiating person representing the county doesn’t count. A witness? We asked around and a friend of his was nice enough to immediately agree to coming to be a witness, and said he “would be honored to do so”. The next day, I put on a white dress thrifted for $12, and he had some Korean oversized blazer with a thin silver chain. I was running late, but I had to take a hit, what am i doing, is this a good idea, lets do it anyway. Jack was in a very nice suit, he seemed excited. He’s doing the same with Emily soon. They were going to have a wedding in Big Sur. We grabbed the officiating person, and the four of us crammed into an elevator heading toward the ceremonial room on the second floor. “It’s not too late to back out!” The guy jokes. I looked at him dead in the eye, “that’s what divorces are for, right? “ I was very annoyed with the whole process, I don’t understand why they couldn’t just give me the license. What’s up with all these redundancies, I thought. What’s up wit the vow exchange and the kiss? Why am i being required to be seen at this intimate moment? Why are we saying until death do us apart, is that a good idea, are you sure, I’m not sure, but lets try it. It was a strange idea to me, witness, as if we were not seen by a third person we wouldn’t exist.  I didn’t understand the social implications of a marriage yet, and i didn’t want to. Let’s see how far it goes, I thought.

3) work

In 2019, after I quit Creation of the Gods, I went home. Although I had always struggled with bipolar symptoms, at the time I had been stuck in a depressive episode for almost half a year, with no sign of improvement.I could barely wake up each day. When I did, I had splitting headaches, and my mind would spiral into a black hole of negative thoughts and voices. It wasn’t auditory hallucination—I knew clearly the voices weren’t from outside, but from inside my own head. She told me I was worthless, disgusting, lowly, incapable—groveling, fake—and wanted the world to burn. I thought she was mostly right—except for the last part. I didn’t want the world to end. I just wanted to destroy myself. Though I didn’t want to admit it, even before I quit, I had already been making a series of bizarre decisions for some time. My brain was probably fried—every choice I made seemed to pull me further away from wherever I was trying to go. I realized something wasn’t right, so I quit and went home, hoping a break would help. But instead of getting better, I got worse.At home, my mom thought I was just being dramatic. She would talk loudly every morning, vacuum the house, and shout at me to get up. It was odd—my dad had gone to work, she was on summer break. If I wasn’t speaking to her, who else was she calling? She never used to clean the house herself either. Her room was always full of books, clothes, bags—strewn across desks, nightstands, and the bed. My dad often mocked how messy her room was. I always felt it was just her inner chaos spilling outward.

I wanted to cook for myself. My mom never learned to cook, claiming it was because she preferred “original flavors.” Steamed, boiled, low-salt, low-oil, no sugar, no seasoning. I’d always had a poor appetite growing up, and especially during that time. I needed some kind of flavor stimulus to even want to eat. I didn’t know if I was truly difficult to deal with, or if she just gave up too easily. I knew clearly that she had long stopped wanting to do anything for me. She said she always acted “for my own good,” and I was always resisting her. I didn’t understand what “for my own good” meant. All I knew was that I hated her—I was angry, suffocating, sickened by her hypocrisy, her vanity, and her poorly hidden malice. So I cooked for myself. Since I returned home, my dad supervised all three of my daily meals. If I went out even once, he would scold me for ages afterward, belittling every one of my choices—restaurants, food, price, taste. I didn’t have the energy to argue, though I later realized he didn’t care about logic—he cared about obedience. I was supposed to obey his decisions.

By the time I noticed, whatever I was boiling had completely evaporated. The bottom of the pot was black, with only some unidentifiable solids left. I panicked. I was immediately nervous. I tried my best to clean so she wouldn’t have to find out. I couldn’t get all of it. I hid the pot in the back of the cupboard, hoping she wouldn’t find out. But of course she finds out as soon as she gets home, turns out, it’s a very important item of hers, and she’d apparently reminded me to not burn it. I said I’m really sorry, I was having a headache, and still am. She said that’s no excuse, do you have any idea how protective I was with this pot? I was like, really a pot? Then comes a two-hour long verbal abuse session. I went back to my room and she kept shouting from the living room. In retrospect, I wonder if this was just my mom taking out her anger toward me, because he did the same to her, except in that case, I was the pot. It was not a very mental-illness-friendly environment. I heard that with every negative comment people make on you, you need ten positive ones to counter. I wonder if it’s true. That’s just how she is, my dad says. She grew up tougher than you did, he says.

Tougher than me? It’s hard for me to imagine that she did, despite two decades of me being manic depressive, she seemed to always have been emotionally stable in front of my dad. Yet, the way she treated me stayed the same. My dad would say, we are just verbally fighting, even if we break things, at least it’s not physical. Have you heard of so-and-so’s parents? They are worse. I don’t understand: why do so-and-so’s parents do that, and why does that have anything to do with me? And no, it did not make me feel better. Is this just how it is? Because we are Chinese? Because this is our ‘culture’? They told me, over and over, it’s not because of them, it’s because how everyone, literally how everyone looks like me and sounds like me do this, agree with this, think this, is all, completely normal. “But you can’t tell this to anyone else, you can’t or you will see.”

For a long time, I never talked to anyone about it. I hated being Chinese, I hated everyone in it, every adult, everyone they knew, or worked with, saw, and agreed with. I wanted nothing to do with it. But that doesn’t mean I have to follow expectations, or so-called conventions which in reality are more like my dad’s authoritative ways of stripping me of my basic wants and needs, but instead showered me with things that didn’t interest me. He thought that was the right way to go, the right thing to do, not what I want, but what he decides to give me, and what his generous heart decides to bestow upon me. I hated it so much that I tried to cut out as many people as I could after leaving home, and basically tried doing everything the exact opposite of how I used to do things. I decided to say no to things I’d say yes to, embraced things I’d normally reject.