我好想自己做一個獨立堅強的人，於是我以前內心裡無論多空，孤獨感都要滿瀉了，我都不敢大聲地向父母要求說，讓我離開英國的寄宿生生活。大學生活可以有進出等自由，我也就不抗拒和怨恨一個人生活的那幾年；還算是滿意吧。其實當年是中學生的我是有自己去選擇忍瞞並去堅持不作出離開英國的，因為我怕一旦真的就離開了，旁人就會覺得我是個不能去適應英國的失敗者，也就當不了我所想去做的，所謂的「一個獨立堅強的人」。所以多年來跟父母之間的誤會，我有份造成，而他們的份就是自己以為付了好多錢吧我放到外國留學就是好父母會作的（所謂的好心做壞事，我也不能生氣了。。。）；我的愚蠢和自虐性格以為只要死命獨自留在英國考取好成績順利畢業，我就是「一個獨立堅強的人」，外加「有價值的人」。Bullsh*t！我是在罵我自己！一個學位，學術知識又代表甚麼！我可是笨都一個極點，因為這些東西在我死的時候是不會跟我去天國的！
I want to be an independent and strong-minded person, and even I was feeling empty inside to an extent that I thought I was so overwhelmed with loneliness in the past, I never dared to voice out loudly to my parents that I would want to quit my boarding house life. Those years at university were rather OK and I did not really reject or hate to live on my own, because I had freedom such as I could go out and come back to the accommodation at anytime; that period was quite all right. In fact, I did choose to hide my feelings and my intention about leaving the U.K. when I was at high school, because I was so afraid that others would think of me as a loser who could not get used to living in the U.K if I really left the country, and thus I would not be able to be the person that I wanted to be, the so called ‘independent and strong-minded person’. So I do have to take some responsibilities for having created those misunderstandings between me and my parents, and they played their part to have believed in the idea that they had fulfilled the tasks of being good parents by spending loads of money to put me to study overseas (they did this out of good intention, I could not really get mad at them……); my stupidity and self-torturing personality made me think that by staying alone in the U.K. to get good grades to get a degree in the end was the key to become an ‘independent and strong-minded person’. Bullsh*t! I just can’t help but to tell myself off. After all, a degree and some academic knowledge don’t mean much! I was just too stupid, as these things don’t follow me to heaven when I die.
能獨立生活是指起居飮食吧，而不是說逼自己當寄宿生。堅強不是說死不流淚吧，雖然流淚後會好累，可我一直視我流淚為恥辱，也覺得不去完成念了一半的碩士學位就是半途以廢的弱者。最近學會了，其實呢，如果會取捨，不適合自己的就不去做才是堅強，有面對自己的勇氣，像我可面對自己是個有精神病的人，還在等自己可以完全好起來。我反思了，我不是說我非常適合唸那碩士學位，但我是真的想要拿到它，希望它是我努力的成果，當個碩士生對自己說我原来可以做到這程度的呢。今次我不會再好像已前那樣去用一個學位和學術知識來找自我價值；人的價值的不止有這些外在條件。我也不需要用自己將會在明年起又開始一個人生會去證明自己是「獨立的」，我本來就有一個人生活的能力。我會「堅強的」，那就是如果我一個人又覺得害怕孤獨，我會先提醒自己，我信仰裏的神無時無刻和我在一起，我的病復發的話，我就要真的捨棄念書，要叫媽媽接我回家了。原来會於適當時候下決定是一種「堅強」。
To be independent really just means being able to live my daily life alone, and it in no way points to directing myself to have forced myself to be a boarder. Being strong minded doesn’t mean one is forbidden from crying, even though crying is very tiring, and yet I have always treated running in tears as an insult to myself. Moreover I feel that I am a loser who gives up half way if I don’t complete my master.I recently have finally come to learn that the truth about being strong-minded is about being able to let go, to stop doing what is not suitable for myself and to face myself with courage, just like I could face myself as a mentally-ill person who is waiting to be fully recovered. So I reflected and I found out that even though I could not say that I am very suitable to study that master degree, but I really want to get it, hoping that it proves my hard work, and tell myself that I am a master grad and I manage to get to this level. This time I shall not use a degree or academic knowledge to asses my self-value like before; a person’s value is way beyond these worldly conditions. I don’t need to prove that I am ‘independent’ by living on my own again next year, for I have always had this ability to deal with my everyday life on my own anyways. I will be ‘strong-minded’, for when I feel lonely by myself, I will first remind my self that my God is always with me, and if I come to have a relapse then I will give up on my studies and call my mum to take me back home. I didn’t know that being able to make a decision at the right moment is a way to be ‘strong-minded’ till today.
好後悔呀，為甚麼以前要迫自己過不想過的生活，不去向父母堅持說請讓我回家呢？我本來可以開心的過呀！上次不是說我最近有過一次情緒失控嗎？其實是給媽媽的無心說話碰到我心裡的痛處，也是我自己對號入座，就覺得媽媽一句話說某某作家寫自己一個人的單身生活使他有孤獨感，評價他低層次，我覺得好受傷。我內心多年來覺得自己一個人好孤獨，再加上失戀的那種孤獨感，我真的是說起這感覺都要哭了。我明明有朋友，有家人，而父母和我有多少磨擦也好，危急關頭在我身邊的也只有他倆呀。我就是習慣不去想信人，當然孤獨，而聽到一個作者說自己孤獨就給媽媽說他低層次，那我也就一樣低層次吧，我是這樣理解了。我媽媽其實好無奈，真的是講者無心，聽者無意。唉，我自己也是，一聽到我在意的話和評論，我就有玻璃心；要再提醒自己，我沒辦法滿足所有人的，也包括自己媽媽；我們生於不同年代，想法不一是正常的吧。
How regrettable, why had I forced myself to live in a way that I didn’t like in the past and didn’t insist on requesting my parents to let me go home? I could have been happy, what a shame. Oh and last time I talked about I had an emotional breakdown right? Actually it was a random comment by my mum which touched the wound in my heart, and I took what she said personally when I shouldn’t have. Mum just made a one-sentence comment about a writer who talked about how living a single life all by himself made him feel lonely, and then mum graded him as someone of a low level intellectually, and I was hurt. I had been very lonely all these years by myself, in addition to this I also get another kind of loneliness after I was dumped in a relationship, I feel that I can soon burst into tears just by talking about this feeling. It is apparent that I have friends and families, and despite the numberless conflicts I had with my parents, they were the one who stayed right next to me at the most critical times! I am just not used to believe in people and it is me who leave myself feeling lonely, and I take my mum’s comment as a comment made about me, me being an intellectually low graded person. My mum would have never expected me to think like this and she was left with no more words to say to me, and I felt bad for having thought this way too. Once I hear words and comments that I concern about, my heart immediately turns into breakable glass; I just have to remind myself that I cannot possibly please everyone, including mum; we were born of different generations so it just makes sense we think differently.
我要從今去好好認識自己的性格，就是承認我的不足吧，而不是死撐。我就是愛哭鬼，就是好渴望被愛，友情，親情，愛情。我還好愛逞強，所以一流淚就會責備自己。我想我可以做的就是在可以的環境裏面，想哭就哭吧，不適當的話就忍耐到可以哭的時候才好好哭一場。以經有父母和好友的愛了，愛情沒有也就不能強求了，上天沒可能滿足我一切。我也要知道，我就算拼命念書當了律師是不會讓我做了個更好的人，只是別人會認為我是個會讀書的女生，我應該會賺錢，不過現在的香港社會可不一定，所以最重要的是要不再喜歡心理自虐我自己。
From today, I better learn about my personality in depth, and that is to admit all my shortcomings, instead of pretending that I can handle everything. Yes, I am such a cry baby and I really long for love, I want the triple package: friendship, familial love, romance. By the way I always like to fake that I am so strong that I blame myself each time I cry. I think what I can do is that if the circumstance allows then I can cry as I wish, and if it is not the right place and time to cry then I can bear till it is Ok to cry, and then to cry as much as I want to. I already have the love from my parents and good friends, I cannot demand that I must also be given romance too, for I can’t have everything. I need to also know that even I study loads and become a lawyer one day, it dose not mean that I will then become a better person. In others’ eyes, they will only think that I am a girl who is good at studying and supposedly I can earn more money, but really the truth is that in today’s society of Hong Kong, I guess this belief no longer applies. The most important thing is to discard my liking of torturing my own mental well-being.
原來患精神病可以有好處呢，不過，當然我寧願我沒有這個病啦。由我做義工的經歷或如在當義工時所認識的人聽著不少人與事，我就知道，上天要我做義工，就是因為有人的現實生活比我辛苦。現在我的精神狀態好了好多，我要用心幫助别人，而不要像我遇到的那些社工們般，為工作而工作，又「蛇王／開小差」，又要批評需要他們幫助的那些人。不過，我也明白某程度上每個人工作都會「蛇王」的，只是我期望社福界的可以在多一點關愛。因為一般有情緒問題的都會比一般人要渴望被愛，我也是這樣的，而我接觸的「情緒」小孩們也是。比較上我英文課的同齡小孩，他們都要求更多的關注，用了非理性的方法去撒嬌，就是怕不被愛或要每刻都被愛。有些大人的情緒病也是吧，有時看報紙會說有些情人被甩了不能接受，會去對那不要自己的舊情人以暴力的方法報仇，細心想想，其實是渴望愛到了一個不理智的地步了。
Although I would rather not have mental problems, but in a way they do bring about some benefits. From my own volunteering experiences or what things about I heard about people or incidents through people I come across in my volunteering work, I know that I am obliged to volunteer because some people lives a more difficult life than me. Now I have a much better mental state, I need to give my heart to help the others, and don’t just do my work for the sake of it like those social workers who skive off from work, even criticising those targeted persons of whom they have to offer help to. Well, I do know that to some extent everyone skives when they’re at work, but I just hope that the social welfare sector can show a little more concern. This is because those with emotional problems tend to thirst for love more than the others, so do I, so are those ’emotional’ kids that I met. To compare them to those kids who go to my English classes, they want more attention by using illogical way to throw temper tantrums, since they are scared of not being loved or they want to be loved every second. Some adults with emotional problems are similar. Sometimes the newspapers report that some could not accept that they were dumped by their lovers gave their ex-lovers violent revenges, and if we think carefully, this is a result of a thirst of love finding its way up in an unreasonable method.