7.12.2023 (1st counselling sess *important entry*)

had my 1st ever counselling session today. location is quarry bay, sort of near the north point seaside that we have walked tgt. counsellor is called florence, she has known daniel chu since boston. session is 330pm but i arrived quarry bay early, ate a hainan chicken rice near Island East then slowly walked to the building. arrived 310pm so we started early. the setting is a small square room with two soft couches, one smaller one where she sits, and opposite to that, a larger two seater where i sat. she took up her notebook and suggested me to start talking. i didn't know where to start, so we talked about how i met daniel at berklee. n then i talked about my recent learnings about my anxiety. next i talked about us, how we met and how we got connected. then talked about v. n then about my core family. alot of things she observed were not entirely new, but there were a few observations that i wasnt aware of before. she noticed that i only said i was "happy" when i talked about berklee and boston. she also noticed that i talk about owing people, and that i feel i have no options, many times. i said i was also happy during hku and happy when being with u. she said all these "happy" periods were when i dont have to live for others, and when i am sort of "freed" from living for people's expectations. she also said that i never had the chance to fully grief for sai lo, cos every time i touched on him i'd cry. i think these are very valid observations. i said during high sku i was not unhappy. then she said the fact that i said "not unhappy" instead of "happy" shows that i wasnt reli happy. then i said form 6 was when i got a lot of achievements n i felt more confident. then she said i care about achievements becos i felt i need to prove sth to people and to my parents. those are not necessarily things that i want to do myself. gum i dun judge whether everything she said must be tru, but given we only had a 1 hr chat, it's useful observation from her. i said i felt going for the govt job was also to fulfill expectations of family or relatives or at least prove to them i can get a decent job, it's not that i wanna do music to escape reality. she noticed that it took me something as huge as sai lo to make me realize the need to pursue sth i really want (i.e. music) rather than settle with others' expectations (govt job). it shows the amount of burden or anxiety im storing up inside me. boston was like a 'vacation' away from all expectations, away from parents, from sai lo, from finding a job, from v, so i could really be myself and go for what i want. i was truly happy during those years.

back to hong kong, all the expectations for me to settle down with v started piling down on me. i knew i started to have more anxiety but i thot it was just a creative thing, or some kind of bottleneck / self doubt issues. i didn't realize at least a part of it was me struggling about v. of cos part of it must be the inability to grief sai lo also. it is a big thing inside me that my family cannot grief sai lo or talk about him tgt. it amplifies the fact that we have been lacking emotional connection for years. n even the counselling can see that connection is sth reli important for me. in any case, nth can be excuse for me to commit sth irresponsible and selfish, but she also said that i must only apologize for things that im responsible for and not things im not responsible for. for example things about my family, or certain things about v are not my responsibility. i can see now that the anxiety, the wet chan, the hair falling, these are all signs telling me how much pressure i been experiencing. these r signs of me suppressing all the emotions and feeling trapped. with u we've found escape and safe haven, and all the things we felt were missing. it's a symptom of our respective relationships.

then she said she cant hear from what i said whether i love v. i said i also am not sure. then she asked do i hav a decision on what to do. i said i dont have a definite conclusion yet, but i know quite clearly (i know u knew it a few months earlier than me ><), that telling her is the best option for everyone. i know i would accept any consequences for what i have done. n i would respect her reaction / responses. if she thinks she would choose to try fix things tgt, i believe it is worth trying, now that im in a better state of mind. i reli hope v would eventually get all the things going on in me, but i know it would be very hard and definitely would take time. so to be honest i would still overthink a bit and worry about different scenarios. i would still want to take care of the situation and think more about her position. anyways i have found more courage to be myself, and this is largely to be credited to u. i really wish to tell u all the stories. i wish to hear ur stories too. i wont call u the wildcard anymore. i think i have a better idea what love is now thanks to u, n i feel loved by u.

when i cried in the counsellor room i pressed the tissue paper into this rice dumpling. jus a random sharing