Pillar

Through connecting with my family, talking to my parents and brother, I realized how helpless I felt as a child – helpless in the sense that I couldn’t do anything to stop the deep-rooted pain and hostility in the family – and how eager I became as an adult to inspire and help people around me who were sad. I was always drawn to negative, sad, disillusioned people who seemed to need some support. In a way I have always felt a need to make people a little happier, a little more hopeful. Growing up seeing my parents live in anger, pain, suffering, I wished I could do something.

My brother wrote this to me just now,” You did the right thing in the past by staying away from trouble. I was so out of control like a mad man. The further away from me the better. However, we both have something in common at the end. The need of a family, a real family to make ourselves feel important.

Listening to you is really the least that I can do for my sister. I really hope that you can learn to remember that you actually have a brother who have just transformed back to human being. A person you can talk to. And I don't bite anymore. I have chained my demon really well somewhere he cannot hurt me or anyone again.”

As an adult, it pains me to see someone sad, and I find that I empathize with others’ sadness more than anyone else does. Observing how my parents interacted with each other, I became much more sensitive to signs of anger, impatience, hatred and sorrow. I remember a few years ago I met this young boy in the Matilda Hospital, an orphan from Mainland China sponsored by the hospital to have a major surgery. I visited him a few times a week to try and play with him. Once I was at the playground with him and his guardian from the orphanage. He was playing and suddenly stopped and quietly sat next to the guardian, asking her, “are you sad?” I talked to the guardian afterwards, who told me because of that kid’s background, he was very sensitive to people’s feelings.

I’ve been trying so hard to care about other people that I’ve forgotten about my own need for an emotional pillar. I understand now that I can’t take responsibility for everyone’s problems. I simply can’t continue like this. I remember 10 years ago I walked out of the life of a depressed person after finally taking him to the psychiatrist – I left Toronto and him after 3 years’ of emotional torture (all those sudden emotional outbreaks, letdowns, unreasonable accusations…..). I blamed myself for years after that, feeling that I had given up on him, until one day he talked to me and told me he would always remember how I had supported him through his worst times.

Last night I broke down and threw my beloved computer onto the floor, and possibly lost all my precious photos. I finally spoke to my mom and my dad (separately) for the first time in my life about their marriage and my childhood, and how I wanted them to be a bit happier, a bit more at peace with each other. I don’t know if that helped them at all, but certainly it lessened that baggage of mine. I really feel it’s time for me to find someone who can be MY pillar of love and support. I really want someone who cares about my feelings and knows that it’s bad to be mean and nasty. I’m done caring for everyone else but myself. I am very tired of lifting someone from his loneliness, sadness, whatever it might be, only to find that the person sinks again, pulls me down and blames me for his problems.

After so many years of giving, I think I deserve to be truly cherished and not taken for granted.