My Minds A Little Blurry

Sometimes I can’t differentiate between feelings of anxiousness, nervousness, overreaction and overwhelm. I was never taught the differences. Thus I’ve always met life’s challenges with shaky hands and little to no confidence in myself. I don’t know how it got this way. I get nervous and avoid talking to certain people in my life because the thought of confrontation makes me throw up. Fully aware that on their end it may just seems like a normal conversation. Did other people’s brains receive a memo in the mail and mine was just lost in transport? I hope not as I would like to find a cure for this.

I fear that this ‘disease’ I have is holding me back. I never use to be like this. A less wrinkled, much more youthful Alyaa was very bold. She was confident, she was brave, and she was determined in getting something done every step of the way. I miss her before the disease infected me. I think it was about when I was 12 that I contracted the disease. I went to school that day feeling unusual, but at 12 years old I could barely pinpoint where the pain was coming from in my stomach, so I don't blame her for not recognising the abnormal feeling. I only remember getting ready for school as per usual, sitting at my designated seat in class and I remember hearing the morning banter of my classmates and the dark blue skies, which were about to turn a pale yellow as the sun rise. I don't remember participating in the banter. And then a teacher came into our class. One that I recognise. She’s a very outgoing and cheerful teacher. She teaches English but every year while I was there she led our school in Zumba as a warmup before the cross-country race.

She came in with a clipboard in her hand, her shoulder lugging her handbag in the other. The clipboard was green and she wore a pink tudung with two huge brooches on each shoulder to keep her tudung in place. I think that was what she wore. She strutted in, and announced the UPSR results to the class. My mind was pounding so hard, so loud that I didn't know what to do with myself. I didn’t know how to self-regulate, so I just sat in my chair with my clammy palms and cold feet. The names that she called were the ones who were going to be on stage as they had received the best result one can get in UPSR- 5A’s. My name starts with an A, so my heart slightly expected to be called out first. But she called the person on the list before me, then another one after me, and then she was calling people’s names that start with D, I, L, M, N, and the last person, Z. As she got to the letters past A, my mind was comforting myself thinking “Maybe my name is at the bottom, or maybe she missed my name while calling out the names.” Mistakes happen often, but miracles rarely happen. Some classmates who were called were screaming “Yes! “ as they were called. Some of them tried to hide the biggest smiles. And by the time the teacher left to go to the class next door, I was greeted with my own tears falling down my face. The very first significant failure of my life. I was in the top class of my grade, and so there were only a handful of us left alone to mourn about what a failure we were. One of my friends who at the time I consider to be my best friend tried comforting me the best she can. I was only able to gain some sense of reality after a couple of waterfalls.

I didn’t know there was grief more painful than when my Atuk passed away a year before. That was my first introduction to grief. This was my first introduction to failure. A similarity between the two of them is how they inflicted a visceral reaction in me. They both know how to make my heart hurt and they both know what signals to send to my tear ducts. A significant difference between them is how much of an impact it had on me. Grief made me sad, and when I reflect on my past and my future with my Atuk it just made me sadder. But failure made me sad, then it made me angry, it made me cry in such a feral way that I have to cover my ugly face from the public, it made me hate myself, it made me feel that I am worth nothing and that I am disappointing the most important person in my life, my mother- Mama.

I was unaware of the fact that I was a gifted kid at the time. I simply thought I was hardworking and I was diligent, and that is how I was the top scorer in my grade all throughout Darjah 1 until Darjah 6 ( Year 1 until Year 6). And I simply resorted to beating and bullying myself in my own brain for the fact that I did not get the results that everyone thought I was getting, the results that I wanted. I was oblivious about things like God’s fate and His timing. I thought this was His way of punishing me for the sins that I did. I was grieving over my own failure for so long that somewhere between the ages of 12 to 13, my whole belief system changed. My brain chemistry had altered, my personality isn’t what it used to be, even my attitude towards studying had changed. I was a new person in the same body.

I never recovered from that, well properly it is. I kinda just let time and other life responsibilities distract me from the feelings in my own heart. I never went back to my old personality, the one who studies every day, the one who seems to understand new study material quickly, the one who loves the satisfying feeling of finishing a whole activity book in a week. In the midst of grieving, I hoped on the train towards the next phase in my life and just left her behind. Didn’t even thought of packing her up with me.

Reflecting on that part of my life, it does still sting me when I remember that day. And it saddens me even more remembering the feeling of me sobbing in my Mama’s arms, getting the sleeves of her emerald green jubah wet. But at that point I didn’t care that I was crying hysterically in public, I felt safe in Mama’s embrace. I simply could not care less about my crush seeing me all snotty and red. I recall trying to say sorry to my mother in between the tears and the wet sleeve. I still shed a few tears recalling all of this at 20, recalling the first time I disappointed the one person in my life that mattered most to me. Sadly that wasn’t the last. With my disease seemingly getting worse from time to time, disappointment is something that I now tolerate through gritted teeth. I simply swallow the shame and grieve in my room quietly. I am now never brave enough to grieve publicly as I once did.

Right now, I don’t even know how to gain that courage back. I miss not knowing what hesitance is. I grieve about my lost innocence every now and again. How am I to heal my inner child if I am still hesitant to text back my friends immediately, hesitant to reach out to friends I hadn’t talked to in a while, hesitate in learning how to drive, hesitate in asking cashiers about job vacancies, hesitate emailing companies my job application. I don’t know how to learn to stop hesitating. This disease I feel is holding me back of things that I am capable of being. I would like to believe I still have what it takes to reach my full potential. But I guess one of the steps it takes to get there is to find the cause of this disease. At least I found it, I found the source. Now to find the solution.