An Open Letter

In my reflection I see eyes that aren’t mine

I don’t see my experiences, my childhood, my curiosity, my values or who I think I am

I don’t see what I am in them anymore

The thought of just ending it in a quiet, desolate place keeps creeping up before the thought of the people around me hurting stops, but even when the thought steps out it leaves its imprint of where it is. I think the people I would hurt are the only reason I don’t consider it more. I’m afraid what will happen if I isolate myself enough to the point where that doesn’t matter.

I went ahead and got rid of this link from everywhere I could think of. I turned off email subscribers so Claire wouldn’t get a notification.

I’m sick of being a burden to those around me, I don’t think I’m getting better so at some point I just wish people would give up. I don’t have enough value I could give to justify supporting me.

I don’t have any plans now, but if it happens I think I would be happy. Ideally in an accident so no one would think they could have done something differently. There’s too many small things that mean nothing, yet to me they destroy me. I can’t keep going on like this.

I’m so fucking sorry.

If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they will fly away. But if you spend your time building a beautiful garden, the butterflies will come. And if they don’t, you would still have your beautiful garden. -Mario Quintana

I feel like maybe what I need is a blind faith to move forward past my current roadblocks. To relearn things that have been instilled in me since a child, I need to break out of my current mold. If I want to change, I think I might need to take a leap more often.

So vague posts aside, the person who left this scar’s name is Tonia Wu. I don’t feel bad about putting her name online, because she has no online identity. Maybe that was the first red flag I should have noticed. She was a student at the school I go to, and of all places I met her through reddit. At the time I needed dog sitters to take care of my dog during classes, since at he wasn’t able to be left alone; and she was one of the people who reached out. I remember the first time we met, we were supposed to just see each other to make sure we weren’t serial killers, but we ended up talking for hours. I remember feeling that instant connection, and how good I felt around her.

We ended up becoming fairly close friends very quickly, constantly texting and spending time together, even to the point where she slept in my apartment for two days while she had bed bugs. We had talked about how we are fully platonic friends, so I tried my best to not catch feelings. I offered she could sleep over since I lived alone, and she was a clean freak and hated the idea of sleeping with the bugs. The first night, I slept on my chair while she slept in the bed. The next night, she said it was fine if I also slept in the bed next to her; and I remember feeling nervous being so close to her in my small twin bed. I remember in the morning when I was coming to, I made the leap to hug her, and to my surprise she snuggled into me.

One day on a walk, we were talking about the concept of getting flowers as a gift. I remember telling her how if I ever got flowers, I would cry over how kind it would be. I told her that if I ever got flowers I would treasure them for as long as I could, and it would be a core memory. She then told me that she wanted to give me flowers, but she wouldn’t because now it would become fake since we talked about it. I never told her, but I would have loved flowers from her all the same.

The day she asked me out, I had what I believed was a date, as a girl I had been flirting with was supposed to be coming over and I was going to cook for her. I remember she was at my place and we were talking before then, and she ended up confessing along the lines of “I know we were just supposed to be friends, but I think I like you” and to just reject her so she could get over the feelings before it was too late. I told her I had feelings for her too, and I remember feeling something I had never felt before. We decided we would start going out. Funnily enough, when the girl came over later that day I told her what happened, she told me she didn’t think it was a date.

That started the happiest two months of my life.

I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop thinking about what I wouldn’t give for one last day. Would I spend it asking her where it went wrong, or what I could do to save it? Or maybe I would just spend it in ignorance to just live in bliss. Maybe I would want to savor the feeling of what I’ve always wanted, or maybe I would try to get as much as I could like a prisoner on death row. It’s almost funny how something so short left a wound this long. I can’t seem to get myself to close it however.

And with that, my last hope goes away. I can’t say I was surprised, but it still hurt. I feel like over these last 4 years at college so much has changed in my life, yet I realize more and more how I’m still the same. Rejected from all colleges I wanted to go to, and still an insecure, self-loathing person. To be fair, not all is a waste; I know that this right now is just my depression trying to romanticize the idea of feeling miserable, and wanting me to have an incentive to end it all.

I guess there are good things to it too, I at least have made some more friends that aren’t graduating immediately either; and I do think I would have been miserable doing a PhD, but still it hurts pretty fucking badly. At least I have myself to be able to vent to through this blog. Is it bad I’ve considered using chat GPT to try to emulate a supportive friend?

Either way, I just want some good news to come along and break apart this shit month. Blow after blow. At some point I just want to sit down and give up.

Throughout my life since a child, I wanted to do a PhD. But after some experience with research, and rejections, I’ve been really reconsidering it. I’ve gotten this far because I’ve enjoyed what I’ve been doing, but I realized that I don’t enjoy research; because I am no longer inherently good at it. I’ve gotten so used to being good at things, I’m not in love with the journey but rather the destination. I don’t think I can unlearn something I’ve known my entire life soon enough, and so a PhD will most likely be miserable for me.

A big reason I’ve wanted to do a PhD is because my dad has always said it was good, but everyone I’ve talked to reinforces its probably not for me. I want to work in industry, I like the idea of being a software engineer, I don’t really want to do research as much. I don’t really want to be a professor either, so getting a PhD isn’t really too useful.

The only issue is this plan has been something I’ve accepted as fact my entire life, so now it’s like I’m thinking about the future for the first time, and I’m afraid.

I’ve been a firm believer that good days follow bad ones, and bad days follow good. In my life all of the best days I’ve had have often been ruined by something bad, making a good thing lead to a bad. My way of coping with this is believing that it’s balanced. After a stretch of bad days, something good happens.

Recently I got rejected from UC Berkely for MS/PhD program, and it really hurt me to realize I let myself down, by not realizing I needed to do more. I’ve gotten rejected from every internship I’ve applied to, and I’ve been telling myself it will be ok because last summer at Meta I did great, and had the highest praises from my mentor. Yesterday I got a voicemail saying they had a quick update for me, and I was hopeful thinking that they would give me a return offer; and they responded today telling me I was denied. I was hoping this would be the good news that came after the breakdown I had after the Cal rejection, but I guess the bad times continue. All I have left to wait for is Stanford’s MS program, but I’m confident I am going to be rejected from that too, meaning it’s just going to be 3 devastating pieces of news back to back.

On top of it, my mom who I’ve mostly cut out of my life is now sabotaging my medical appointments, since she has access to that and has controlled that from me; but at least I can finally take over that and she no longer has power over me.

Honestly, I’m just tired. I want things to stop, and thankfully while I don’t want to die right now, I’m exhausted. God, I’m tired; please let me rest.