2008 -- Indochina Retrospective

Sorting.

When I say sorting, I MEAN it!

New web host, new diary home. All diaries now linked since 1986.

So, I'm catching up here.

In essense, I've posted here up until I was entering Vietnam, so I'm posting all I wrote while going through Indochina. Sorry if there's a bit repeated or a bit missing. It's generally correct. If not, the whole post plus pictures are at the new centralised diary home: http://followyourstar.zxq.net/reflecting/diaries/index.html.

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Diary 14 July 2007 Nha Trang -- Typed from Notebook

Perhaps the awful, empty feeling was always there, but it's what I was masking with booze? So now I don't drink anymore, but I'm not like other people. Other people create all sorts of distractions, work and family and arguments and possessions and passions and hobbies -- and I can't know anyone for whatever reason, probably my ultra-sensitivity and having to avoid everything -- and there's just this stretching emptiness -- here and stretching off into the future that I don't know if I can live with.

[but now typing this days later, I'm happy.]

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Sunday ?23rd September 2007

Siam Reap, Cambodia, 6:15 local time.

Well, I'm here finally for the update... but there's no connection, so I'm typing to USB. So much has actually happened since I wrote properly, which was in Yangshou... I feel like a different person in a way; perhaps it's good to be offline, so I can concentrate on getting it all down. The thing is I wanted to double-check mail accounts, to make sure I didn't duplicate typing... but I'm here, and I'm in the mood. I NEED to in a way.

Anyway, I was in Nanning. I paid for a half day and then they looked after my bags. There was no English menu and so I ended up with a piece of bread! When it was time I got the bags and walked to the station. I showed my ticket at information and this woman came down who ushered me into a 'special' waiting room. This had big, comfy chairs draped in sheets. A woman checked my passport.

The train came. It was first class delux, but actually I liked it less than normal hard sleeper. I was in with two women from Vietnam and a Chinese woman. They were all chatting and I felt really out of place. I sat out in the corridor and the Chinese woman noticed that I didn't really like the upper berth, and so swapped it for me without me asking. It was better that way, but I could sense that they were occasionally talking about me. Anyway, when it was time for lights out, I felt weird and I also wanted to eat, so I went to the corridor, much to their amusement.

I went back in after a time and tried to sleep. I think I did a bit, and then we arrived. We all had to get off the border. An American asked me for a smoke. I had to hand my passport over and pay about twenty US cents to have some liquid squirted in my ear.

Eventually we were through and had to transfer to a Vietnamese hard sleeper train. It was more like a hard sleeper, but everyone got a compartment to themselves. The attendant gave me a really bad rate for changing, but at least I'd have something. Then I went to sleep for a bit.

We kept going, then were at Hanoi. I got out, ignored the touts, except the one who gave me a business card with a decent map on it. I had already looked around with Google Earth, and so kind of knew where I was going. I found my way to Hoan Kiem the landmark lake, and had a long rest there; then went looking for the hotel I wanted.

I got completely lost and wished I had have booked it. I went up and down sidestreets, and ended up so lost that I decided to just ask at any reasonable looking place. The reasonable looking place that I asked was called Classic. They said it's eighteen US, which is more than I wanted to pay, but I thought it will be fine for a night, so checked in.

I went out looking for somewhere to eat and ended up in a cheap little place when a waitress called me in. I ate as well as got takeout.

Next day I went looking for somewhere cheaper, but the waitress flirted with me asking me to stay. I went and looked somewhere, and they'd offered to knock two dollars off the price, so I ended up giving in.

Hanoi was noisy and hard to get used to... but nice enough I suppose. I only ever ate in that same place. I noticed the waitress always made mistakes in her favour, eg. giving you someone else's higher bill or changing the amount the boss had written to a higher amount. It was still good though. I did try another place, but the waitress was rude.

I was online at Virtual Tourist, and found out about a supermarket, so tried that and life was easier. The hotel arranged for me to have a sim card and it was so good, really efficient. A was happy. I had to walk to the station a few times to arrange tickets. I used to sit and look at the lake, and did end up going to 'Highlands' restaurant and getting quite a few very cheap prints for work.

I left to Hue. The trip down was horrible. The train looked really nice on the Internet, but it was really third world in practice. I was next to an old guy, who was friendly and made sure I got my free food, but didn't speak English. As I sat there, I realised that it was going to be a long, long trip. I was the only foreigner, and that made me feel weird. Hated it basically.

We got off the next morning and the hotel I had booked sent a driver with my name on a board. Fantastic. I went and checked into a friendly place. I went to the shop and lost my Oyster card, the second one, then went to bed for a bit. I went out for a walk but there wasn't much to see. There was a TV in the room but not really watchable channels.

I went to sleep.

Next day I went for a walk and got lost. It was OK. I used to eat in a place made wicker with weird yellow lighting. Basically, I just waited for the second train to come. The best thing about Hue was the really friendly guy who worked at the hotel.

They helped me book my next accommodation, lucky as the phone number was wrong and they knew nothing about it, plus didn't speak English. They also arranged a car to the station. A woman phoned me while I was there and confirmed she'd hold the bed.

I got on another hard seat type train, though it was soft on the ticket and supposed to be really modern and everything. I was behind a young kid. It's a very long trip for someone so young and he couldn't sit still. It was the same awful kind of trip. It wasn't quite as bad. There were some foreigners there, but they left after an hour or so. Hated it.

We got there and I exited the station, but was confused and walked off the wrong way. Luckily I had my compass and worked it out, and I was going the right way but a peddledriver offered to take me there for a dollar. I thought, yes, OK. I went. We got there and a fairly unfriendly guy was waiting. The room was shabby but fair; very overpriced though. I went out and a few doors away I went to Pasta Hut and ate. The waitress was really friendly. I was pleased it was open, even though it was going on eleven at night.

Next day I went out for somewhere to new to live. I asked in a few places and they were all full. I went to another place and haggled a room to nine dollars. It was run by two Vietnamese women in their twenties. I thought it might be a brothel to start with, as they were especially friendly and sat really close to me on the sofa in a way that Vietnamese women generally don't. An Australian woman came past while I was there and looked at the room but didn't like it. I took it just because it was half the price of where I was staying.

There was an internal window that let in no light, only a small neon strip. But there was a TV. No fridge or chair though. The main thing was that it was painted elastoplast colour. Horrible. Well I stayed there about a week. I had the feeling I was going to be ripped off when it came time to check out, but it was fine. I found a cybercafe to work in that was nice, but had an argument when a kid pressed the print button multiple times while I was waiting and they made me pay for it by snatching my money. I found another place. They use cybercafes like kindergardens there though. There's rarely an adult in there. Just kids. They all play this game which is based around dancing. But the spacebars only work on half the computers because they're always thumping them to play the game.

I settled into a place called Cafe Amis. I went there everyday, twice daily. The food was really cheap and the owners friendly. The guy in charge very rarely did work but mostly sat outside smoking, talking to his friends and reading the paper. The only time he ever came in and did something was to open a bottle of wine and speak French to people.

His wife looked really haggard sometimes, but was a decent person. She noticed once that instead of the roll I have everyday I'd only had a fruit salad, and asked if I was OK. I was fine, just very aware of how tight my shirt was getting. I think she used to get migraines or headaches as her son would gently massage her temples sometimes. Also, she just looked sad. There was one week where they went away and when she came back she was smiling a lot and used to talk to the waitress, but went back to her glumness after a while. She mostly sat at the counter keeping track of the orders.

After a time I couldn't stand the elastoplast room and so moved across the road. When I checked out, there was this strange local guy frightening people, acting weird. When he tried to kiss me a foreigner intervened and threw him out.

The new place was nice; run by two women. One mostly ignored me, but was friendly and chatty when I spoke to her. The other was very friendly and used my first name. But one day there was a little girl of about five crying on my floor, the first floor I mean. I went to check and she was supposed to be on the third floor, she forgot where she was supposed to be and had panicked trying to enter an unoccupied room, though the friendly receptionist was reluctant to intervene. She did when I insisted.

I did get into a really nice routine and enjoyed it there. I would wake, go to the cybercafe for an hour, then have food at Amis. Then more cybercafe, then go about one kilometer to the post office. I used to sit in the gardens there, sometimes sit in the park in front of the beach and look at the sea while the sun went down. The park was only small and full of rats and bats in the evening, but I liked it. There are a lot of warnings about gangs of women who rob you and not to go near the beach at night, but really nothing bad ever happened to me at all. Once, I got the eye from a strangely walking, pacing up and down, older woman, and another middle-class woman tried to talk to me, but basically, there was no problem. I typed up all my notes and worked. A would phone weekly.

I did occasionally go back to pasta hut. The waitress was really friendly. She told me she'd gone to Hanoi for a fortnight to get married, but didn't like it, but then she had to come back to work, though her husband is still up there. I ordered 'spring softs' from the menu once and she couldn't explain what it was beyond 'vegetable in paper' so I ordered it anyway, and she said I can tell her the English word for 'paper' when it comes.

What actually came was a plate of spring rolls, and I realised that I don't actually know the word for ... whatever it is they wrap spring rolls in.

Two significant things happened in Nha Trang. One is that I started looking into courses at the Open University. I was looking for a place to sit my A levels and the exams are really expensive, and somehow I got to realise that not only can I start undergraduate study there with no A levels, but there's funding available. I spent ages reading about it. I also found out that I could go on the electoral register. The reason I didn't go on was that A claims single person allowance. But I went online and found out that if I was on there, then she'd lose that but could claim 'dependent adult' allowance i.e. a person who doesn't pay towards it, but will receive the same rebate. I explained it to her and she said to write it all down or print it out. I did so, but when she spoke to me next, she'd just filed that as part of my own papers. The forms arrived recently and G happened to be there, and told her to put me on and that there would be no trouble because he knows this MP blah, blah, blah, but then the next time I speak to her, he's full of b/s and never helps anyone. She's a very inconsistent person to deal with.

Then there was another thing. It sounds like nothing to write about it... especially as the diary slipped so much this year and I'm typing in retrospect when so much has changed. Anyway, A. was in the habit of calling every week. Sometimes it was OK, some times a bit of a drag. Mostly I liked it I suppose; we got on. She was using the voip internet cards, so sometimes I couldn't really hear her. But it made her happy, and probably it's good for me or my life would be literally lived in silence. I'm not sure if the good old days of telecommunications were better or not. In the good old days, you'd phone someone abroad, have a normal conversation, pay an absolute fortune to a monopoly in charges and once in a blue moon there would be a crossed line and you'd have to dial again.

Then there was progress, and perhaps it is. I'm not making a judgement, just noting the difference. Nowadays, people have voip cards and skype headsets and all pay next to nothing to listen to half a conversation and constantly screaming, 'What? What??!!'.

Anyway, I was sitting in Amis. I think it was about ten at night. It had been quite a long call which she'd enjoyed, yes, and I'd enjoyed also. I remember a conversation I'd had with mother in the fish bar in Northampton, about her youth. She'd told me what she could but wasn't massively interested. She'd said something like, 'Ask A. as she's into all the past and stuff'. So I'd tried to get all the info from A. about M. coming to England. I don't know if I ever wrote it down, but my mother was a war refugee from Belgium. They'd been on a boat bound for Canada but it was attacked in the Channel and they'd been rerouted to England. They started in Tottenham and then the father got a job in Daventry. A. married a guy from Daventry and moved to Northampton because that was where this English guy (who had contacts there) could get a good house, then shop deal, bought for by his wealthy parents.

So the war was won and M. went home. I didn't know, but they were actually running a restaurant called, 'The Sportsman' and A. made some comment that M. was always alone as a kid, after her mother died when she was about four, there wasn't really anyone looking after her.

Anyway, we were chatting about this and she couldn't quite remember the chronology, but said that she'd have a think and we'd discuss it next time.

Just as we were going, she said, 'Oh, wait, just one thing I forgot'. As usual, like over the past twelve years, the first thing that comes to mind is J, whenever there's just one more thing or something arrived in the post or someone phoned. Of course, it never is. But then;

'Do you remember that little Chinese friend you had?'

My stomach turned over and I moaned, feeling prickling sweat going all down my front.

She continued, 'Well I was doing some shredding, going through all these papers I want to throw out. And then this little photo fell out.'

I gasped and muttered and she sounded surprised, and she asked, 'Is that good or bad?'

Of course, I've never opened up to anyone about what went on in Perth, what it did to me, how it affected me and how I feel. In A's eyes, I just exist as this external form she sees overlaid over some kid I once was; much the way my sister sees me.

But this event must have pulled up a lot of psychic/emotional energy. I mean, I've bottled up the intense feeling throughout... well, over a decade. And then it all welled up. Looking back, it was a bit like, over the years, the memory of J. has become a ghost, as much about what could have been rather than what actually is. I mean, I haven't heard from her in... seven years?

The emotion was a mixture of yearning, anger that she'd lost this picture in the first place and then nearly destroyed it again, self-hatred that I wasn't enough of a person for J. to actually want and deep, deep regret for all the things of mine that she'd ever destroyed (A. I mean).

A few days later, I phoned A. asking about all the papers at M's and when I would get to go through them. I said it was about all the missing letters that had ever been sent. She told me not to hold out much hope. I resented the fact that by asking, I was being forced to reveal the depth of feeling.

I realised that likely she also left a lot of them in Xerox machines so I contacted the shops in Northampton to see if there was any chance. I went so down. All the emotion was almost unbearable. At one point, for a couple of nights, I almost went out for a drink, the first time since I stopped that I've been remotely tempted. I ended up taking my Alprozolam from India, the first time I've taken them in years. Now whatever went on and whatever emotional mess I may well have got myself in, there's one thing and that's that I got through it and I didn't drink. Going on two years now.

Anyway, there were a couple of obe's but as usual, I couldn't see her, though I did get glimpses clairvoyantly. One face close up, and once looking at her through a window.

It's all so obviously a life-lesson. The time in Delhi, when there was intervention, I'd had the 'I choose the light' obe, and wanted to see her, 'If it was best for me', and it obviously wasn't at the time.

So, so hard to say how it all was in the room in Vietnam. I guess, to look at it from a purely psychological point of view, We'd left each other in Perth leaving it open and a 'very good chance of meeting each other again', which, after passing out on the leaving plane, I'd clung onto and never really considered any other possibility.

But one night, before the Alprazolam had hit me, I lay on bed in emotional pain, agony in fact, perhaps the most emotional pain I've ever been in. I closed my eyes and imagined a bodhisattva comforting me. I prayed for intervention right then, because basically I just couldn't take any more. And then it happened.

I surrendered. I opened my mind to the possibility that I would never see her again, and I let go. It was awful, but it just happened.

And things started changing from that point. I'd been mindful and happy and good spiritual practice before this happened, on nice walks to the post office and working and all the things I was doing there, but I suppose I was kind of holding this attachment and it was just time to let it go. I could even let go of some of the anger at A. I think there are all sorts of philosophies in life. People follow beliefs that make them angry or have to fight or go through ordeals, and often they just believe this as a cultural tradition that was handed down, people rarely choose this kind of thing. But I think that we come into life with a certain karma. Maybe I had a very strong attachment in my last life (although I remember bits of past lives I don't remember a strong attachment, but perhaps there's something that prevents that so that I don't get too obsessed in this life?). Anyway, I brought the destiny to create a similar attachment in this life, and so incarnated with A. whom is a very unsentimental person, to teach me what I needed to know? I can't say that it is like this, but no one knows. When there is a mystery in life and no one knows and there are various theories, then you should choose the one that helps you to let go of things and be happy.

After some time, a long time I must say, millions of memories of J. surfaced. I mean, they always have, but negatives also. I also started to get a bit objective about it. Hang on... she could find me if she really wanted. She could have actually chosen me in the first place. She'd just been stung by a man she really loved who cheated on her and broke her heart, and when she met someone else (the other guy) perhaps, consciously or subconsciously, she'd wanted to test him and that was all it was about. The memory of the time that kept coming back to me was sitting in Perth library with me asking her, is there nothing I can do for us to be together and her being firm and saying no, and I just said OK and I would be the second choice then, without anger and with full acceptance, and if we don't meet in this life then we'd be born again together and I'll be a cockroach and she can be a kitten, and she started crying but with such sadness.

What? I'll never know what she was really thinking, but maybe the question should be, what was I thinking?

Oh, I'm going to write all this up separately, as a book, with answers. It sounds awful, like a yearning book of childish wanting, but I really think this can work. The project excites me, it's about getting it all down, as much as it is healing it all and being free. I have the idea also that if every memory was written and photo or keepsake was published and available somewhere, then I can send her back the originals, my little love chest, gone, my last possession. Then I could go to Japan. No, I'm not delusive. I'm planing to go to every country in Asia, Dharma willing, and if she wants to turn up it's OK and if she doesn't it's OK but either way the whole story gets 'out there' as a lesson, a good read, with the memories exorcised then I don't have to think them any more. Write them down and let them go.

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Anyway, when all this first went on, with the photo resurfacing, I did turn to the message boards. My condition, well, one of my conditions, namely Avoidance Personality Disorder, which I so obviously have and was shocked to be reformatting the diaries recently and realise that I'd realised that a long time ago. So I posted the following to the board, an AVPD (Avoidance Disorder) message board. I've calmed down a lot since then but I'll include it for the sake of completeness. I've complained like this lots of times.

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I thought about making my first post about my own APD the usual 'opening up and getting it all out' biography... and realised that If I do that, then I'll be writing for a month and it'll be too long to read!
So I gave up.
... but then realised I can do it in bits. I don't have to throw all the pain out and have it bare. I can focus on a bit and deal with that. I can deal with the bit that's hurting me today [even though it's turned out to be longer than a book chapter]. A photograph I've never seen in its original form, that's only just been found, and that, each time my mind pulls free of my control -- makes me want to curl up and cry before dying.
I can't remember when I found the symptoms of Avpd laid out before me -- I just know that I have it. Actually, it might have been in the past two months, mainly because I'm trying to get everything written down to make sense of it all.
I'm considering the cause of it and I spent yesterday trying to write but actually at home crying -- but I'm managing it today.
According to DSM, it's all caused by an intense and repeated parental rejection. My mother got divorced when I was about six and I went to live with an Aunt while things were sorted out -- a few years. I went back to mother but didn't get on with her new partner and lived back and forth between my mother and Aunt.
I was about fourteen. Mother and her partner got stopped for drink driving. We lived in the town suburbs, but the pub was out in the country. So -- they moved out there and and I lived alone. Mother came back weekly, with money, food and to wash bar towels and clean.
Staff from the school started phoning and coming round as I'd stopped going. They didn't have my parent's work address. I just stayed upstairs with the curtains closed and ignored the phone -- and ended up there for about four years with agoraphobia.
I cured myself with diazapam and exposure therapy, got a job at Oxfam and went to college for a year. Travelled and stuff.
I've obviously got full blown Avpd. I've never had a paid job, a friend or a real relationship. Mother let me have the rent on her house when it was empty and leased, so I moved to Asia (I'm Eurasian) where the cost of living meant I could survive like that. I lived like this for over a decade.
Now I've just realised what Avpd is -- that I have all the symptoms... and all this stuff is coming up. Everyone knows I'm ... you know -- and everyone blames my mother for leaving me and that's just how it is to them.
But as I got older, I really got on with my mother. She apologised and I forgave her (not perfect myself!). Her own mother died when she was two, she was a war refugee when she was six and the boat was attacked at sea etc. We were good friends. Once I'd gone off the rails, she spent her life being supportive and my friend. We were confidants, life coaches etc. Genuinely got on. She died last year.

But when I now look at the Avpd symptoms I have now, I can see what happened. I never really felt rejected by my mother. I was welcome there. I was also welcome at my Aunt's, who lived in a sweetshop and smothered me.
But there's this... thing about her. I noticed it one Christmas. I was about five. She had lots of Christmas cards given to her and saved them, Each year she covered the wall in them. I think at five years old, it was my first year at school. Some of the other kids gave me Christmas cards, you know how they do, so I gave them to my Aunt and she put them up on the wall with hers.
At the end of Christmas she was taking all the cards down and I asked for mine. She said, 'What that card? Oh, it's in the bin. You didn't want it did you?'.
And it was, in the bin. Not just in the bin, but ripped up into tiny little pieces.
I got upset and she just utterly discounted it, 'But it's just an old card'.
I was only a kid. I couldn't counter the with argument, 'BUT YOU KEEP ALL YOUR CARDS'.
And so it went on. She was financially generous. Let me live there. She didn't hit me. She had a rare biting sarcasm... but I'm an ultrasensitive... so who knows?
So throughout my childhood, she'd take something dear to me without me knowing, and rip it into little pieces and throw it into the bin.
For example, when I was about 12, I received two anonymous Valentines cards, the only two I ever got in my life. No idea who from as I didn't speak so much at school, but there they arrived, all mysterious and I was excited. I mean, I was a kid and two girls liked me and you know how you feel then...
Next time I went to visit her, I took them up to show her... because I was proud I suppose. She looked and said, "Oooohhh, a secret admirer!' and was, you know, the way a relative is when someone shows them something.
Before I left the house I went to the toilet and put my coat on, then went to pick the cards up... not there. No point even asking. I went to the bin, as usual, not just stuffed in there, ripped up into tiny little pieces. When I'm upset, she genuinely can't understand what the problem is.
The very first thing I ever bought with my own money was a large metal box with a huge padlock on the front, with a chain to chain it to the radiator. I mean... is that a normal thing a kid buys with their own first money? You're supposed to buy sweets or a cd or something... A damned five hundred gram padlock isn't normal.
I cried often before her, about the latest thing she'd thrown away, and it's always the same absolute brush off, inability to emphasise, bemusement. It's like if she thinks she's ever accused of making the slightest mistake, all humanity seeps away from her. She just compartmentalises, says that she gave me a home and won't be alive so much longer anyway, so that's all said and done.
'But it was just a ____________'
I weep, 'But it was mine'.
'You didn't want it'.

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Anyway, I broke down generally at about aged twenty and went to live in Asia. I put my few possessions under lock and key with my mother as we were close, and she promised to keep it at her house.
I lived away for ten years and ten months. In the second year, without going into detail, I had a two week affair, thirteen years ago now. We couldn't stay together for practical reasons, but stayed friends for eight years until... well, I won't go into it -- but we're always on good terms. She used to send gifts, letters. poems she wrote for me, on strict instructions to my mother's house as I'd explained about my Aunt. I had copies forwarded to me, and every time I received something, I always asked and was always assured that the originals are safe with mother.
Ten years later I got back to deal with it all. It turns out, my Aunts been put in charge of looking after everything.
You can imagine? There are a couple of letters, and she's written on them in a fat black marker the date they were copied and sent. The rest, and the gifts... binned.
Well I'm avoidant. I never had friends. But I had the solace of having loved and lost and suppose that gave me at least some self-esteem. I write things a lot and keep things to mark my achievements. I started off trapped in a room with agoraphobia... and ended up doing all this. But it was all lost.
When I realised I broke down in tears, felt worthless, all the usual. I told mother and she tried to get my Aunt to check what could possibly be left.
So I spent months destroying what I did have, going through a decade of miscellaneous and once precious papers looking for the letters and gifts.
Mother died of cancer last year. The house was sold and I'm trying to get on a degree course next year. Moved back to Asia and am writing an academic book about religion.
Last Wednesday, my Aunt phoned me about Mother's house sale. They found a buyer. All is well.
Then she mentioned, 'Oh, and guess what. I bought an automatic shredding machine. I thought, all those old papers and house documents I have. They take up too much space but it would always be too much work to get rid of it all, but now with the automatic shredder I just got, I don't have to rip anything up.'.
'Anyway,' she continued', while I was shredding all the papers from my filing cabinets... guess what I found.'
My heart immediately sank.
'You know that girl who used to write to you. She sent you a photo of her once. I can't remember if I sent it. Do you remember her?'
Well, all the thoughts went from my mind. I SWEAR there's never been a day since I collapsed on an aeroplane leaving her that I haven't thought of her (though that's another post).
'Well, I was shredding the papers and noticed a little photo had fell on the floor...

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Well, I couldn't really speak, but I managed to gargle something, then said something, I can't remember now. At one point there was a miracle. In an irritated voice she said, 'yes, I understand, it doesn't mean anything to me but it does to you'. I was basically struck dumb and that was the end of the call.

But I stayed up all night thinking of this picture. Not the photograph. The picture of my Aunt with a shredding machine. I stayed up all night and then all day because there's a time difference of course. I phoned her to ask what else was there, about the letters, gifts etc. She can't remember what was in the 'shredding pile', but, 'What are you talking about. Some old letters. Oh, I wouldn't have too much hope about them'.

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But since then, I've been reading about Avpd, it's brought up all those issues.

1 -- the recurring, absolute self-loathing and worthlessness I felt -- always, each time throughout my life when I found treasured milestones of my life taken and ripped up.

2 -- I compulsively destroy my possessions. After ten years abroad, I had boxed of hand-written diaries, keepsakes, silly things like restaurant receipts etc -- and I cared about them. My diaries are very much how I get through things. So I sent each one back by post. When there was something precious, it went to Mother's business address. I started my life with agoraphobia, and couldn't even open the curtains. The only help I got was 200 Valium... and self help books mother dropped off -- and now I've been round the world. I never speak to anyone... but I live a life that I can.

I liked saving things. Things I locked away from her -- like the qualification I got from college when I got better, cards from my colleagues at Oxfam etc. So I put it in the box, locked, with mother and travelled, collecting mementos at each milestone.
But now I realised that I can't bear to keep what was left. It's like... if I photograph it, destroy it and put the photographs onto CD -- and then I'll never end up crying in a room because it's been taken from me when I wasn't looking.
So for months, I'd take a bundle to the park -- or handwritten diaries, photos (not of my love though!), etc, photograph it, and spend a day ripping ti all into small pieces and bin it. Luckily there was a lake in the park or I would have cried enough to fill one.
But when it was all done -- I felt safe somehow. Now, I find I can't stop ripping things up. Always. Say I eat out. I get the bill. I notice that the waitress is giggling, I look down and realise that I've ripped the bill up into tiny pieces without even knowing.
All I own in the world is in a LOCKED metal case -- in her house (as I live in a hotel) and in it are bank papers, a will and the salvaged keepsakes from the one time I loved and was briefly loved.
Now this is the truth. The last thing my Aunt said to me was (in an irritated voice),
'Yes, I understand. You want me to keep the photo so YOU can throw it away'.
'What?'
'So YOU can throw it away with the other stuff'.
She thinks I liked just getting rid of everything. I can't even.. you know. You understand all this yes? I'm not just mad and sensitive and silly?

3 -- This is where the worthless feeling comes from, my constant worthless feeling that means I haven't really engaged the world, couldn't go back and be with my friend but kept her at a distance, I hate living basically.

My Aunt is actually quite a hoarder; she keeps all her own things. She has pictures of her parents from before the war on the wall. Keepsakes. Cards. Things that I made as kid at school -- it's all sacred stuff that no one's allowed to touch. Pictures of me on the mantelpiece, cards I sent back to her from Asia which she framed, hung and kept.

----

It's not something she does personally to me. When I got back to the UK and was crying in the cafe to my mother and telling her all my things were missing, mother told me about her ring. Mother and my aunt were both given a ring by their mother (my grandmother) as a keepsake when she died.
Then my Aunt thought she'd get hers cleaned, and offered to take mothers also to be cleaned. So Mar thought it was a bit grimy, so OK.
Mother was working and so she didn't see her for a few months. When she did she asked about the ring. The reply,
'What, Bonmama's ring' (they're Belgian), 'What did you want that for; you hardly ever wore it'.
Once both rings had been cleaned, she was surprised how nice they looked and that they were worth something (though gold with a diamond generally is), so she'd sold them and kept the money My mother actually cried when she told me this.
The thing to understand is -- if you try and explain how you feel -- there's no maliciousness at all -- she truly is incapable of understanding that the feelings she has about her possessions, other people have about theirs. Also, I'm 100% sure it wasn't about the money. My aunt's rich, and to be honest, generous. She did it because in her eyes they were worthless things and she was genuinely surprised that people would pay money for them.

---

But it's very hard for me now. I have full Avpd symptoms, no friends. Can't talk. Never worked. I recall all the utter, utter, utter worthlessness I always feel about me. All I own is a travel bag and a metal case with a few precious letters with magic-marker scrawled all over them like a mental imbecile in a learning hospital would do.
But there's never been bad intent. She's genuinely bemused by people caring about things she doesn't care about. If you try and mention it, she's angry and can be harsh. 'Why are you being so silly, what did you want that for?' kind of thing. She'll never, never know what she's done.
And she looked after me. In between ripping things up and destroying everything I own -- it was decorum. We went on holiday. I lived in her house. She worried when I was ill. She encouraged me to study. She make Christmas stockings full of gifts. She defended me when I was put down. She cooked and fed me, cleaned my clothes. She's told me she loves me and means it... but does she know me at all?
I know no one and hate me. Every day the same.
I can't tell her what's happened. If I said,
'I didn't destroy all my possessions because I don't care about them, it's a compulsion because you've always destroyed everything I ever cared about.'
'What?'
'Everything'.
'Those old Christmas cards?' [the first time I broke down and cried]. 'But they were just old cards. What about all the things you got rid of yourself?'.
'I can't help it; it's a compulsion'.
'So, you don't want things. What's wrong?'

OK, new tact.

'I have no friends, no conversations, most days I say less than 10 words. I once lay on the floor unconscious for three days once from food poisoning and nearly died and couldn't call an ambulance. I walk with a permanent limp and constant pain from degeneration from some RA type condition, wholly untreated, peeing into a bottle as it takes me an hour to get on my feet some mornings and have been like that since I was 26 and it came on, wholly untreated as I'm too phobic to see a doctor'.
Bemused and irritated, 'Well, go and see a doctor then.'
'How come your house is covered in keepsakes, half of them of me or made by me and I own barely anything I care about?'
'What did you want to own?'
'... Everything from my life'.
'Those old Christmas cards?'
'...everything...'
'But you got rid of all your things.'
'I had to. You kept complaining about all the space it took up. Everything I care about. I had to...'
'Those old cards? Look,' very irritated, 'I worked hard for this house and invited you into it when your mother didn't want you and married an immigrant.'
'I feel worthless every minute of every day.'
'Of course you're not worthless; you're not worthless to me.'
'So why did you rip all my things up?'
'What, those cards? You didn't want them'.
'But I told you, at the time, in tears as a five year old, that I HAD wanted them'.
'What for?'

---

Oh, but what can I do? She's in her 80's now. Perhaps I'd have it all out on the phone and it's the last time I ever speak to her. This is how she ends conversations she doesn't like. That, well, I won't be here much longer so it doesn't matter, kind of thing.

---

How did everyone elses' symptoms begin? Can you trace it back to a specific person? did they do it on purpose? Did you tell them how it feels? Did they say anything? How important was it to you to get some acknowledgement, did you get it and did it make you feel better?

The mad thing is -- my mother once apologised for not always being perfect (are any of us?) even though, looking back, she didn't really do anything. I didn't get on great with her partner and my Aunt had a sweetshop and spoilt me. But with mother, when it was all said and done, 'I can see I made mistakes bringing you up and I regret that now...', it really was all said and done. After that, we had fifteen years of friendship and closeness, phoned weekly while I was away, she come out to see me, I got back and we met weekly and gossiped and confided and were just great friends, ironically, we really clicking personality-wise. I really wish I could phone her about this, the latest destruction, but she's gone.I was doing surprisingly well, teetotal seventeen months, meditating daily, being mindful and busy and quite enjoying my days sometimes, alone of course, until last Wednesday. Now the thought of my Aunt, a photo and a shredder. I feel really alone.

Worthless.





********************************

Back to the Story in Vietnam

I had extended my visa twice, and could have gone further, but decided it was time to leave. There was a delux train out, but it arrived in Saigon late at night. I had to think about it a long time, but decided to go on Sinh Cafe Open bus there. The ticket office was opposite the hotel, so I asked. There was a Korean woman there trying to get a refund on her ticket, and wanted to sell it to me. She had a story about her friend on another bus, but claimed she was selling a great ticket, that was non-Sinh cafe. But why would they sell the ticket that's best and keep an inferior ticket. She tried to convince me for five minutes but in the end laughed, and shouted 'Oh, English people!', and walked off.

I did go and eat twice in the Louisiana beach resort, to treat myself.

Anyway, it was time to leave. I only realise how significant the stay was looking back on it. I checked out and the usually unfriendly woman was friendly, asking if I can come and stay again next year. I'm a really good judge of character, almost like a mind reader sometimes, unless I'm making a judgement about how someone feels about me. Then, I always assume that they don't like me, and when I deal with them, I'm often shocked by the obvious friendliness that people show towards me. My low self-esteem blinds my mind-reading talents.

I sat and waited. I'd drank nothing to control my bladder. The bus came and I was put on it. No one was following seat numbers so the locals moved me to be seated near this young Vietnamese woman. She asked me where I was from. The bus pulled out. Twelve hours to Saigon, arrive in the evening.

So we chatted. She was a sophomore studying IT in Saigon, where her father has a petrol station. She'd been up to HoiAn to see her boyfriend. He was staying on a few days to be with his family. She had previously met an Australian on the trip up and told me about him. She gave me a sweet sometimes, and various bits of food she was taking to her family. She was not religious herself but her family were Christians. Her school starts at six am. and it's hard as she's online in her bedroom and stays up chatting to friends until one am sometimes. Her father has some fish as pets but no birds. She was in a bike crash once and was taken to the hospital but wasn't sure if it was her fault. University is really cheap, only a couple of hundred dollars a year. This is just a few things I remember from our twelve hour conversation. Not constant of course, but a lot. The longest conversation I've had... I don't know actually. At least three years. Nice little kid she was. The bus arrived at night and I thanked her for the food and sweets and off she went home.

I checked into a noisy room, but the owner was friendly. I went out and there were things on the menu I hadn't seen for ages, so I ate too much.

Saigon. It's funny how I always find my little places to go to and routines for typing and posting and stuff isn't it? I used to get up and eat, type for a few hours, then have a walk to the post office, though I didn't write to J... not since...

But there's a church there, Notre Damn cathedral. I used to sit and pray, about you know who (yes, I'm pathetic), then go into the Diamond plaza. At the top there's a bowling centre, but also snooker and videogames. All I did was think about J. but that's just normal for me. I used to have a lukewarm Latte there. I liked it, darkish, with neon, soft chairs and happy kids enjoying themselves.

I moved rooms after a few nights. I ended up in the best room I'd had so far, really good. Huge, clean, TV, friendly etc.

One day I was waiting for the church to open and met this boy. He was a waiter and wanted to practice English. So we chatted. He offered to take me to a temple and I judged it as OK, but it had to be on his bike. I haven't really been on a bike since my leg went bad in '97, so I tried. We went for about a minute, but I realised I couldn't. I had to apologise and get off. I hated myself for that. He looked really sad and probably thought... God knows what he thought.

Diamond plaza is near reunification palace. I sat there and wrote a conclusion about J. not knowing if I'd ever write again now that reality had shook me a little.

There was an eclipse of the moon on the full moon; I think it was the last full moon. It went blood red and was actually in Pisces (J's sign). I used the time to look for her. Online, she could be in two places, Oz (doubt it) or still at the UN but with her married name. I emailed someone I think might have worked with her, I did this from a separate account I opened up.

I bought a three day exit tour to Cambodia, slow boat up the Mekong. I had no idea what to expect or if I could take it... but you've got to do these things when you can. I checked out and went to the Sinh office on the day I was leaving.

****************************
The following posted to a travellers' message board (hence the change in tone)

OK, the tour started with a comfy bus from Sinh in Saigon, in that tourist street. We went for about an hour and a half and stopped at a petrol station and to use the toilet. We went for another hour and a half. The guide was friendly and said about the areas and the people we were travelling through.Then we stopped and saw ricepaper making and coconut sweet making, and there was also a toilet available. I was quite pleased with the way it was going as the toilet stops had been a bit of a worry, but the breaks were frequent. Then we got on a boat for a couple of hours and stopped at this place for lunch, which was free, and a traditional music recital. Then a boat and onto a stop which is kind of a place where everyone switches buses, and another toilet if you need it. We all got a free teeshirt and the guy said bye.Another smaller bus came, but still comfy and not a minibus. We drove for a couple of hours and then went to the hotel where I had to pay a fiver. No meal, but there's a shopping centre opposite so I ate on the top floor, and was basically whacked, so just went back to bed.Next day, we got breakfast, drove for about half an hour, then transferred to a little boat with a motor, and went to see a floating market, as we went along other boats came up and people bought stuff (er, that's why it's a floating market). We got off at a rice factory and saw the way they farm rice, the different types of rice etc. Another hour on the boat, then stopped at a place for lunch, not free but good, and good toilet of course. Then about two hours to the second hotel in Chao Doc. Then next morning, a rowing boat to see weaving rugs at a Muslim village, very quiet being rowed on the river. Back on the big boat, 22US and give passports and boat ticket. One Spanish guy didn't have a boat ticket, he said it had been collected from him at the start of the trip and not given back. The boat stopped in the middle of the river after the guide said, 'no ticket, no Cambodia'. Cue Med Temperament flare up, the boat rocked side to side while there was a shouting argument and the guy basically said he wouldn't leave the boat as it was their fault as they'd mistakenly collected the ticket the day before.So, we turned round and had to go right back to the beginning of the trip where a woman came and there was an argument on the docks while we all sat there. All the locals came and stared and were so engrossed that I got some really great candid shots of people in their triangle hats.In the end he paid again, and we carried on.Border no problem. Went over to another boat with a shiny new visa. About two hours. [SIT AT THE FRONT BEHIND THE DRIVER, IT'S MUCH, MUCH COOLER] Hard getting off as I had to walk a plank (bad leg) but I made it. Then we transferred to a minibus. It looked like it was going to be awful, but it wasn't cramped actually and just two hours. The guide stayed on for half an hour and gave us a leaflet about capitol including a very useful map, and pointed out the hotels where you can stay, I think all owned by capitol. They ranged from 3 to 12 US and pretty much in the same street. I'd already booked Sunday GH on Hostelworld (good place), but I think it would have been OK to turn up with no booking. Definitely get some US before arriving though. I had lunch at Capitol, went to the GH and basically, that was my trip. Good. There is a lot of transport, on this and off that, but personally I prefer it for bathroom and stretching my legs. I think it would have been a major pain to arrange that myself. It almost certainly wouldn't have been cheaper. Also, the group you are with keeps changing depending on what tour they're doing, so you see different faces and it's easy to talk because you're being shown all this stuff and keep sitting down to free tea and food samples.
****************************
Continuing the Diary Retrospective

Pnohm Pen. Quite a hard place actually. A lot of poverty everywhere. Of course I found the little places I like to go to, and my routine of going up to the riverfront. Never did get to the GPO. I was only there five days or so. Nothing so significant happened. I'd decided to come to Siam Reap as a detour as I wasn't sure if I'd get a lot done in Sihanoukville.

So, I came here with no booking. The bus was nice, with a toilet. We stopped at a place and a local woman pointed to a house in the middle of a car park and told me that she used to live there, well, she used to own it.

This cyst on my right ear came back. It was bad about three years ago, but burst Christmas morning once after I'd been out partying with Yasmine. Anyway, it came back. I blame that on Joanne, the woman I knew before J. I had a very slight infection on my ear where some Arab I'd met in Indonesia had tried to open up a closed ear piercing. Well, it had a bit of puss, and she decided it was a blackhead (on my ear (what the **** was I ever doing with that idiot))? She forced it all out with all her might, few years later a cyst starts nearby and plagues me for a decade.

Anyway, I arrived here with no booking and went looking for a place that I think might have closed. I ended up checking into a place, I know I said it before, but definitely the best place I've stayed in. Anyway, I asked them about a nearby clinic and it's closed. I went to a place called 'China Cambodia Friendship Clinic'. A nurse looked and asked me what was wrong, but was only being nosey and sent me to the state hospital. I went there and it was horrible. It's dilapidated buildings set into large, dusty grounds with sick people sleeping out on the floor. I walked to the end not sure what to do and ended up in pharmacy. The woman was friendly, but said to go to emergency. I looked in but decided I'd rather be in pain. It did get bad though. People would stop and stare at me in the street.

Finally burst about three days ago while I was shaving, with a little homeopathy, crystal magic and visualisation. Bah, who needs the doctor?

And, I'm in my little routine. Work, eat, stroll by the river, meditate in the park, work, eat and home.