thatweirdzombie

Forgiving Myself for the Things I Didn’t Understand

This will be an unusually emotional post, one that I need. One that will heal my heart.

Last weekend I went out with my friend and her boyfriend. We talked about a lot of things and one of them being my experience as someone’s “no” but being led on as their “maybe”.

Being anyone’s maybe is not nice, to say the least, even worse when you thought that, if that “maybe” could be a “yes” one day.

With multiple texts daily, routine phone calls throughout the week, and gifts sent, my 20 something year old self didn’t understand what it was. Even until now, I don’t really understand anything about love, dating and so. Lacking in that department, in both people interested and the experience.

One of my guy best friend, O, always say that I am too blunt when it comes to guys that are interested in me, always saying they probably want to be friends. But with constant attention and time given to me for 1+ years by this very person, I started to think about the possibility.

Being a junior in residency for the whole year (because of covid) and the constant pressure to be perfect, you poured out your emotions and worries to someone who felt like home, you know? Someone who was experiencing something similar to you, who was willing to share their experience and how they felt, with the passing time, that someone became familiar and it felt safe.

I was in that limbo for more than one year, until one day, when it was time for our late night phone call. One of my guy best friend, A, called, asking how I was doing and he hadn’t hear from me for a while.

A asked me if he could continue the call and I told him I had a phone call to make after this. He asked with who? I answered.

“That guy? What are you guys anyway? How long have you been close with each other? 1 year? I am your best friend and I don’t text you daily, I don’t call you routinely, I don’t send you gifts. How old are you guys? Are you guys friends? Are you guys dating? I think it’s not good for you to continue like this. Please ask him after this. Stop this nonsense.”

I could hear the concern and worry in A’s voice. I know that he is right, so I said okay, and I’ll call him after.

Guess how the next phone call went?

It’s not a “maybe” it’s a plain and simple “no”.

He felt that I was someone that had this special connection to him and he never really felt anything like that with anyone, but he didn’t see me more than best friends. We did crossed the line, with the attention and affection (his words not mine).

I asked him why didn’t he tell me right from the beginning then?

I was no stranger to guy best friends, all of them established the boundaries early. Respecting me as a friend but also acknowledging the fact that love may arise from the interaction, no matter how they might view you as not attractive for them, or not their type or vise versa. Something that I always, always respect from my guy best friends, they showed the respect for me as their friend, and also as someone that might be something more than just friends in the future.

“Because I felt awkward asking you that question.”

It’s better to be awkward than you leading me on like this.

“I am not leading you on. How could you think I even liked you? I never asked you out on any dates. I also won’t spend this much time chasing someone who I like.”

Those words shattered me.

Apparently I was not a human with feelings. Even though he accompanied me in my residency, even though he knew how I felt most days. He held my heart and shattered it into multiple pieces.

I felt stupid for not knowing the obvious facts that he pointed out. Maybe I did get my hopes up too much.

I said goodbye and hung up.

I remember crying to my best friends, feeling like I was sinking underwater, it was so hard to breathe. My girl best friends held me while I cried.

“It’s better this way. Better now than later.” A said as I was on the phone with him, with tears running down my face.

O received the phone call and his usually soft voice became angry and pissed off.

“No, no, he’s leading you on. It’s not your fault, it’s never your fault.”

I am so grateful for my best friends.

Breathing was hard for the next few weeks. My friends made it easier.

6 months later, after my heart and my head cleared out. I remember being on a phone call with this same guy, asking if we’re okay now.

He asked me how I felt and I answered honestly that I sometimes missed it.

“Do you want us to go back like that again?”

Those words shocked me down to my core.

“No.”

Until today I don’t know why he offered me that, I was offended because I don’t want to be another “maybe” for him, and I respected myself enough to walk away because I know (or at least, my friends said) that I deserve more.

Talking about this topic last weekend made me realize that I’ve been holding on this anger and resentment. Both for him and for myself. I always said to myself that don’t get my hopes up, or maybe I was never really worthy for anyone, never really worthy to pursue, never attractive enough for anyone to think about the future with.

Even after 4 years, the damage is still there.

In my fervent prayers to God, I asked him to give me a new heart, one that is healed and capable to love again, one that is capable of forgiving.

Forgiving myself because I was young and I didn’t know.

Forgiving myself that I let myself become vulnerable to someone who didn’t deserve it.

Forgiving myself that I fell in love, even though it’s for someone who didn’t feel the same way.

Forgiving myself that I reached for home and familiarity in a new person, one that I didn’t know I can trust or not. One that hasn’t pass the test of time and loyalty.

I buried the emotions and the sadness in the deepest corner of my heart. Pushing it back so that it would hurt less.

Dear God please accompany me in this life, if You could raise the dead to life, what is healing a broken heart to You?

You always keep your promise. Never too early, never too late.

For anyone who is having similar experience, I really do hope you give it to God, I really hope you guys forgive yourself for loving the wrong person, for giving your heart to someone who couldn’t handle the responsibility, for being sad because of it. It’s never your fault.

I’m healing, I promise. I know that one day I’ll fully forgive myself for the things I don’t understand and the mistakes I made.

Love,

Thatsleepyzombie

How Much do You Tolerate Workplace Pressure?

So anyway, yesterday my car’s PPF got weird. If you guys don’t know, a PPF is like a protective film layer applied to a car’s paint job, kind of like adding a phone screen guard. The point is to protect the paint job underneath the film. the film itself is proclaimed as “self healing”. Yesterday some part of the PPF got blurry and become matte finish if that makes sense. I contacted my car’s salesperson and he arranged the car to be examined by the PPF company, so I dropped the car at the showroom.

My car’s salesperson is a very wonderful person, very truthful, very attentive, never pushed me into purchasing unnecessary things, outside of his work and cars, we talk about a lot of things.

Well, yesterday he told me that he’ll be resigning soon and this month will be his last month. Hearing that I felt a mixture of sadness because he’d been so reliable and a good friend, but at the same time I was proud that he was able to walk out from a workplace that didn’t treat him fairly.

I thought about my 5 years in residency and thought that I probably had too much tolerance to the pressure. Probably because of the goal that I made and also the way I don’t want to let my family members down. Even though at multiple points in those 5 years I really want to close my eyes and forget about the goals and dreams that I made and the sadness and disappointment that my family would express, and just drop out from residency. Heck, even quit as a doctor if I have to, since a dropped out resident couldn’t really go back to become a GP again (well you can, but my mindset was not suited to work as a GP anymore).

I remember when I applied to the job I am in now, the interviewer asked me what kind of colleague that I hate the most. I answered the ambitious one, the one so ambitious that they’ll do anything to make sure other people fail. I wonder to myself, isn’t that the people I met in residency? lol. We are not even in the same work place graduating from residency. We go home to different families. We don’t even exchange messages anymore. Then why in residency lots of people are cutthroat?

One of my juniors in residency (bless him) asked me how I felt entering residency that young, told him a mixture of being too naive, being people’s mat and got envied for being that young at the same time. He asked me if I were to turn back time would I start my residency that young? I told him no, I’ll work 3-4 years more in the ER, probably picking another specialty program after.

Another question that I got asked is what kind of boss that I hate. I answered the one who is already biased from the start. The people who look at our skin color, our eye shape, our beliefs, the way we present ourselves and already give minus points, even though in the end we have acquired some points, our final result is never better than the people they prefer. I don’t have to go into details about how some of my attending doctors acted.

If I think about it again, we didn’t get paid (we did for a while, but then it’s peanuts, say 50 dollars a month), we got screamed at, we were overworked into our bones, we don’t have a life outside residency, we don’t get our belief’s holiday. Did we have Stockholm syndrome or something? Or the attending doctors dangled our specialists degree in front of us like carrots or something?

Probably all of those.

I think I really appreciate the gen-z’s mindset that mental health in the work place is important, which for my generation is often overlooked and not really the main concern, perhaps now the superiors will consider mental health as something important.

Anyway. That’s just my rant. See you guys soon.

New Chapter in Life

Yes you read that right.

Your girl here finally graduated from residency, now starting a new chapter in life. I never thought this day would come. Just a few months ago I felt like I am trapped in a tunnel with no way out. Crying and asking God would this ever ends?

Thankfully God listens. I passed my board exams and graduated from residency. Although probably with my sanity barely hanging on. With mental and physical health problems that will need some time to heal.

The first few weeks after graduation was hard. I woke up in the morning with the first thought of the day was “what do I need to do today?” thinking of endless papers, reports and things I needed to do. Anything to escape the wrath of the teachers that seemed to be out of nowhere at random, doing something and producing something to silence the people that say I am too slow, too lazy, too emotional.

My insomnia wasn’t getting better at first, with me sleeping late into the night and me waking up multiple times. Which I know now is the time for me to pray and calm myself down. Which I did, in a few weeks after my graduation, I slept peacefully at night.

Still have those migraines (that I never experienced before residency), now it happens about once a month, which is not the best, but I pray that it will get better.

I have carpal tunnel now, but I am grateful my new work place is very tech savvy and most of the paperwork are digital. Handwriting aggravated the pain, which is a bummer since I like writing by pen too, thank God for fountain pens and computer keyboards.

Scoliosis is something I never expected to have, but I do have it now. No wonder my back hurts so much I couldn’t stand up straight sometimes. I am thankful to have my ergonomic chair at home, sneakers and friends in physiotherapy.

I deactivated my instagram for almost a year now and I have no plans to get back now. My subconscious always see the happy posts and compare my life to them, even though I reminded myself over and over that I am thankful of the life that I have now, my mind always find a way to compare. Deactivating instagram has been a blessing for me. At first it was weird, not opening the app and seeing how people are doing, but then I breathe easier.

I think not a lot of people talk about the lasting mental and physical health problems from residency, but it exists. I am not ready to talk about the mental health aspect that much, but one day I might.

My God has been so kind to me, everything is right on time, even if at first I didn’t see it. I pray that after this it will be better, which I am sure it will, because of how God kept His promises to me.

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates. I hope after this I’ll be more consistent in updating this space. Thank you for every one who takes their time reading this random person rant on her own blog.

God is good.

Love, your friendly zombie neighbor.

We can’t make everyone happy

I know I didn’t do a yearly recap post and I feel that it’s justified. There were a lot of things that happened in 2022, some were good, some were overbearing and hard to handle. I know that the beginning of the year is not a magic beginning, but there is always something about the start of the new year that gives us hope.

So even though it’s February and I know it’s wayyy too late to make new year goals, I will still write it down anyway. Because I know that my soul needed this.

This year is the year to be selfish.

Not in a bad way, definitely not. But this is the year that I will put myself first in every situation, every scenario and every choice.

I don’t want to dwell anymore on the fact that I am losing a little bit of myself when I don’t set any boundaries, when I let other people needs first rather than mine.

This year will be the year of contentment, I will be content with how I look, of my life, of my financial status, of my education and grades, of my relationships (or the lack thereof). I will be happy no matter what state I am at.

I know these are attainable goals and I will work hard towards them.

Have a good day everyone!

Finally!

Finally, after 2 years of residency (and 2 years of the pandemic), I finally get what I like to call, a much deserved holiday!!!

Last two Hari Raya we didn’t get full holiday on account of covid. What will happen to residents who don’t get breaks everynow and then?

Exactly, burnt out.

Will be off duty for 10 days now, HAHA so happy 🥰 loads of things to be happy about this year (so far) wish for more happy things to look forward to.

Finally could use this illustration of mine!

Even though it’s a long holiday, I’ll be spending my time home. Just chilling and watching movies. Hanging out with friends 😝 this is a much needed break.

The need to be alone

The world is a harsh place for introverts.

Even when I started medical school, one of the very first thing my lecturer said was that being a doctor means you couldn’t be a quiet person. You have to communicate, talk to people.

Over the years I learned that while it’s true, it’s not 100% true.

There are specialties that are suited to people who are quiet and tend to stay away from the spotlight.

10 years ago telemedicine was a new thing, but now a lot of doctors practice in telemedicine.

In my experience of trying to mold myself into the idea of an ideal doctor, I learned to silence my feelings, and kept the my opinions to myself. I learned to place my work over everything else, including my own wellbeing.

And along the way, I felt like I am becoming someone different and I am losing myself.

I listen to other people more than I listen to myself.

I try to make time for other people but I neglect to make time for myself.

I learn to make other people happy but never learn how to make myself happy.

I keep a checklist of what I should achieve in my life but not what I want to achieve in my life.

I constantly feel guilty for relaxing and not doing anything productive.

I constantly feel anxious if I don’t open my phone. In case there are people who tried to reach me.

I felt guilty for taking a break or resting if I were sick.

This is why I decided that from now on, I’ll focus on myself and my own wellbeing.

I know that in my line of work I am replacable. There would always be someone better than me. Someone who has more energy and time devoted to their work.

But I am not wrong for taking care of myself, and I am never wrong for putting my own needs first.

And that is the thing I have to learn on my own.

Forget-me-not

As you can see I made a new hello template 😂 the zombie says hello!

There is always this one flower that I always love.

What’s not to love about this flower? Its beautiful blue color, the name of the flower, and the story of the flower.

Forget-me-not flower.

These few days I was feeling a bit down and remember this one quote that I couldn’t remember the whole words or who said it.

In a world of beautiful blooming flowers, who would ever notice a small bud of flower?
Anonymous

I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there. The feeling of not good enough. In our appearances, our possessions, our life.

Forget-me-not flowers

The Christian lore of forget-me-not flowers is a story with no definite origin and different versions. My most favorite version is the story when God walked in Eden and he saw a small bud of blue flowers and He asked for its name.

The flower was shy and it whispered,

“I forgot my name my Lord.”

The Lord replied,

“Your name shall be Forget-me-not. I’ll never forget your name now.”

While the Christian lore was a nice story. Some love story also mentioned this flower. About how this flower is a symbol of true love.

And I definitely think it’s a beautiful story. Of how this small flower has such a deep meaning even though people always associate love with other flowers like rose.

May this be a reminder that even a small flower never gets forgotten, and even a small flower is still beautiful. Forget-me-not.

The making of the new header + Happy 4th birthday!

So as I promised, a more elaborate post on how I made my header.

As written before, I made this blog in the beginning of 2018. In February I made my first post too actually, so this month is the birth month of thatsleepyzombie 🎉

Back then I knew I wanted to make a blog with the name zombie in it. My old blog was a name that my sister gave me. I loved writing in that blog, but somehow I didn’t think I really fitted the name anymore.

Why zombie you ask? You could read the story in the About me page. Besides calling myself a zombie, I also like watching zombie movies and TV series actually 😂 (if anyone has a good recommendation do tell me), I’ve always liked myths and folklores since I was little anyway.

First sketch

2017 is also a year full of roller coasters. I wanted to make a fresh start. So after numerous attempt of creating a name that I love, I came up with that sleepy zombie.

I wanted to made the blog very personal and if I could, I wish I could design everything from scratch (except the web design because I haven’t figured out the whole concept of web designing etc), I decided to at least… you know, make the header and the icons.

Even though I had did photoshop illustrating in highschool and some years in my university, I grew to resent it because of the organization I was in had different artstyle approach and I felt under-appreciated there. As a writer (they didn’t let me put my name in the article) and as a designer (no constructive feedback and unthinkable deadlines).

Which is funny because prior of being a doctor I thought to be an architect or working in design just like my sisters.

But I know in order to make my personalized blog comes true I decided to face my setback and make the zombie.

So I tried to sketch a few of the zombie design with the help of my sister. My sister said to trace it on paper and scanned it, and then tracing and coloring it in photoshop.

This is my first sketch! I made this on the 13th of September in 2017 (luckily I kept track of the emails)

So as you can see there were only minor changes made from the original design. My sister said to try and make the zombie more cartoon like because she said it’s quite scary 😂 especially the brains and the worms.

You can see that the stitches on the heart represent something, which you could interpret yourself.

This was after using drawing marker 🥰 I love the proportion and the way the zombie looked. Because it looks cute and scary at the same time if that makes any sense

Coloring in…

Picking colors was something that I struggled with back then. I knew I wanted a green zombie since… zombies are identical with green. But what shade of green? And also, won’t green clash with everything?

I experimented in photoshop with colors and finally came up with two version

First version. I’m sure you are familiar 😉

second version, I wanted a more teal color for the zombie

Ultimately I decided to use the first one. I think I made the right choice 🥰

First header

Because my previous blog color theme was blue. I wanted a blue colored header too. So this is what I came up with

I like it actually. I like how simple it is and how the colors matched with the whole theme.

But I made the second version too because… why not 😂

Surprisingly I really liked the lighter background. So I decided to use this one instead.

And that is the story of how I made my zombie and my first header 🥰

3 years later, in 2021. When I started adding my illustrations here, I wanted a little change, so I decided to change the header.

In my mind I wanted sunflowers and a rainbow. But as you might learn from me, I am very chill about this, so when it didn’t work out the first time I just leave it at that and then next time eventually come back to it.

This one is the first sketch of the header (and at that time I wanted the first sketch to become the final result too 😂)

But it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to be. First one is because the apple note application couldn’t create custom size.

Secondly because in procreate I didn’t find an eyedropper tool (procreate newbie here), I gave up.

And of course, I had a specific image in my mind how the header would turn out. When it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to be, I just shrugged and left it at that.

But a few days ago, I finished my patients early and gets to hang out with my seniors and my iPad was on that day (sometimes I forgot to charge my iPad since the battery is very long lasting), so I decided to open procreate and found the empty canvas from 2021.

I tried to sketch a few sunflowers there and ending up liking the way it looked.

Then I just drew.

I really like this procreate video feature actually 😍 As you can see I like to make the sketch layout layer disappear and reappear.

Of course because of the eyedropper tool, I decided to draw the zombie from the note app and pasted it into the header in procreate.

After it’s done I went to photoshop and just took the old text 😂 because I still really like the old text and decided to use them anyway.

It’s a wrap!

That’s the whole story on the creative process on this blog. I think writing it down is a good choice since one day in the future I could look back. I hope you enjoy this post!

See you soon!

New blog header 🌻

Okay! This is going to be a short blog post but I updated the new header! 🎉

I’ll make a more elaborate post on it but I had used the old header since 2018 which means it’s already 4 years (wait… I should post more 😅 it’s already 4 years and I don’t post as much as I would have liked? Man. I think I am just lazy) and I think a small cute change would be nice right?

I always loved sunflowers because they looked so happy and sunny (duh 🌻) and when I was a kid I always draws rainbows. That’s why since a long time I always wanted to make the header filled with sunflowers and rainbows.

I like the artstyle to since it kinda shows how much I couldn’t draw 😂 the header is made by procreate and using the pencil tool. (Except the text which is basically the old header text since I always liked that one) Back then I was a very photoshop user (used it for illustrating, making school homework and designing the campus’ magazine layout) so it’s interesting how over the years I’ve swayed away from using photoshop and instead using my hand to draw again (using the apple pencil).

So yeap. I hope you like the new header because if you ask me, I like how quirky it is 😂 and how I suited this kind of art style better.

Okay I should sleep now, see you soon!

I’ll just put this here 😂

Happy Lantern Festival 🏮🧧🎋

In Indonesia we call it Cap Go Meh which means the 15th night of the new year in Hokkien. I don’t really know the history but in Indonesia some cities celebrated with parades, parties, the works.

In my family we just ate lontong (rice cake) with 8 toppings (because the number 8 is lucky ✨) and go on with our day 😂 nothing too special.

But I could now cut my hair which is nice 😂 (apparently because it’s bad luck to cut hair within the Chinese New Year period)

What’s the point of this post you ask?

Well. I just bought a pair of clay earrings in the shape of a flower pot with Chinese dynasty porcelain pattern 😂 so I’ll show you what it looks like.

Tada ✨ look how cute it is 😂 no regrets buying it even though I think I only could wear it once a year for the Chinese new year period 🎋

Alright…

I’ll just put this one here 😂 Happy Lantern Festival! (Even though there are no big celebrations… you know, the pandemic).