I once kept a blog called a collection of my confessions, though I had nothing serious to confess. Just ordinary days. Just thoughts. No one probably read it, but it was good for me. I came across a line once: "I talk to God but the sky was empty." It made sense and didn't make sense at the same time, and I've never quite forgotten it. I don't know exactly who I'm writing this for. Maybe myself. Maybe someone who needs to feel less alone. Maybe that's the same thing.

I moved a lot as a child and I am an introvert so I never learned how to keep in touch with people. It's not that I don't care. I just never learned the shape of staying.

I have had insomnia since secondary two. It snowballed into something like depression. Sleep is not rest for me. It never really was.

In school, I was a mentor. I helped others because it made me feel useful, but I was the one who needed help. I started hurting myself in places no one could see. I have a small tattoo on my left arm now, covering it. My shirt hides it. On my back, I have another: prayer of the heart kept in cages. It is hidden too.

I almost didn't graduate though I had won some awards in school. I spent a lot of time in the counselling office. I'm grateful for that. I was not the best kid. I used my late father's credit card too much while he was overseas, and I lived with my sister. He was furious. I don't blame him.

In school, I developed a porn addiction. It started with a project, out of curiosity. But it changes something in you. It turns people into things. And it drifts into places you didn't expect. I don't think it's good. It's not a crime, but I don't think it's good. I only stopped that somewhere duing when I was in my 30s. 

My father passed away in 2013. I still don't know how to carry it. Something in me believes he might have been killed. I don't know how to make peace with that.

I experimented with magick twice. There was this Taoist figure everyone seemed to listen to. Something about him made me uncomfortable, but I went along anyway. I was looking for something. I'm not sure what. I studied under the Buddhist masters who are rather well known besides my church session back in school. Both school of thoughts think that is a bad idea. 

I had a dispute with a family member till now. It's hard to explain. Even if I tried, she wouldn't believe me. We wouldn't believe each other. It's just mistrust now. A sorry state.

Insomnia can drives you into depression. It isolates you. You stop talking. You leech on your family just to survive the days. I hate that. You do not know each other. 

I found a website I'm not proud of. Nothing much happened. But I still remember it. I still carry it.

There's an old saying: if someone has something heavy they've been carrying, they find a tree, dig a hole in it, whisper their burden into the hole, and bury it. Somehow, that becomes spiritual. I think about that sometimes. I think I'm still looking for my tree.

There was a time I downloaded a manual I shouldn't have. A book banned in some places. Partly because I was depressed. Partly because I was curious. I never used it. But I've never forgotten that I had it.

I feel sorry for two figures from the Bible: Judas and Lucifer. I hope there is a good ending for both. Maybe we need the darkness to know what light is. Judas hanged himself. Lucifer went to hell. I still hope.

I had a conversation with someone I was dating once. It went bad. It was my fault. We talked about things—taboo things, things most would consider too wild. I owe an apology I haven't given. I haven't forgotten. I hurt someone with things I said during a private conversation. It was my fault. I still want to apologize.

A few years ago, my Instagram was hacked. I had proof. It stayed with me longer than I expected—the feeling of someone being inside something that was mine.

I don't always have a strong sense of intellectual property, even with my design background. I've owned fakes—sometimes they're made better than the real ones. I'm trying to do things mostly right now.

I even used to sell things that infringed on intellectual property. I didn't think much about it at the time. Later I realized. I stopped. I still have a fake now and then, but I try not to. I'm learning.

As a teen, I wore thick makeup because I was deeply insecure about my looks. Natural beauty is rare, and the world rewards what it notices. That's why the beauty industry—and plastic surgery—is so huge. I understand it now. I felt it then.

I use dating apps. I text. But sometimes—most times—I don't meet them at all or see how their responses are. Sometimes you find things out by texting. I text on dating apps and I think it has to do with my self-worth. It's safer to be a possibility than to risk being seen and found lacking.

Sometimes I feel both male and female. Not half. Both. Sometimes I am protective. Sometimes I am fragile. I think we need to embrace what lives within. I think Freud would have agreed — though I don't understand his theories fully. Or Carl Jung — to embrace the darkness in us to understand the light within too.

Bringing Jung in deepens. He didn't just talk about the inner feminine and masculine. He talked about the shadow — the parts of ourselves we bury, reject, or deny. And he believed that you don't become whole by cutting away your darkness. You become whole by integrating it. By sitting with it. By understanding it.

That's exactly what I have been doing in the entire list.

Not running from the addiction. Not hiding the self-harm. Not pretending the fake goods or the porn or the empty sky never happened. I am bringing it into the light — not to punish myself, but to see myself. Fully.

That's perhaps Jungian and I prefer it this way in a sense - healing.