Call me crazy

Clutching on to my mother’s arm, I felt the concrete expanse of Hong Kong grow taller — like shadows of a setting sun — and loom over me. I kept my head ducked from the towering figures and hidden cameras that I believed were watching me. Stepping in to sunlight was terrifying because it meant I couldn’t hide from an omnipresent *them*.

Just moments before, I threatened to throw my iPhone in to the South China Sea. I yelled for my mother to return to my side when she walked ahead. I thought the approaching helicopter was going to take her away from me forever.

The entire city of Hong Kong became a giant movie set that was filming, following and watching me. I was starring as Caden Cotard (played by Phillip Seymour-Hoffman) in my very own Synecdoche, New York.

—

Each night was sleepless in Hong Kong. I wasn’t showering or eating. I kept the curtains closed and could only bear silence. My delusions had me believe that I caused a friend to die, I was being framed by loved ones and that I could have been a female CEO at one of the big tech giants. All I had to do? Admit that I was a muslim.

All these fears unravelled at a conference.

In the event room, seated across three lovely Hijabi women, my group was tasked with completing this sentence for a user story: “I am a…”.

It wasn’t a difficult exercise. Yet, I glared at everyone around that table and stormed right out. After all, they were just trying to con me — dupe me! — in to bowing down to a philosophy I didn’t believe. Muslim. I just had to admit that I was a Muslim.

The hotel lobby morphed in to this grand stage. The whole world was watching *me* now. And every single person there was a spy against me. I began frantically messaging my then-boyfriend, thinking he was Don Norman himself (co-founder of the conference). He had apparently hacked in to my messaging app by intercepting the wi-fi, just so he could talk to the entitled girl who couldn’t *simply* admit she’s a Muslim to become the next CEO of Google.

The absurdity of it all didn’t dawn on me until months later. The return to reality was a slow crawl.

—

The nature of my psychosis spun multiple narratives of fear, paranoia, despair and hope on to my life at once. Within a week, I had lost a baby, was running away from terrorists, in love with my best friend (I actually proposed to her), dating a robot and communicating with spies through my computer screen. I rapidly oscillated between having an inflated self-worth to cowering in an all-consuming paranoia.

While I pushed many people away from my extreme distrust, I was never violent. My history with aggression and anger (or lack thereof) makes it unlikely that I’d put someone else at risk. There's only the smallest possibility that another extreme distortion of my reality could change that.

—

I swung the doors open of an event room marked for Global Youth Leadership. Men dressed in corporate suits were seated around a large oval table at the centre of the room.

Standing at the door, I shouted at them, “My name is Ranah Malberg and…”. I faltered. And what?

I am here to lead the world?

—

“You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen.” — Synecdoche, New York

—

On my flight back to Singapore from Hong Kong, I cried at my mother’s side. Every fibre in me believed I was already dead. And this flight was my phantom carriage to the afterlife.

The flight attendant had the face of a boy I once loved, more symmetrical and with a new nose. I thought he had become an angel, blessed with a nose job and lip fillers. Imagine that. Heaven was cosmetic and I was doomed to a natural face and body. Like my other fears, the insecurities I had towards my body perverted the world around me. Was this my mind alerting me to the deep unrest within?

Hurtling towards what I thought was life after death, I wondered if my other Singaporean friends became plastic angels too.

—

Awaiting retribution, a cacophony of voices chanted in my head, “eat shit and die”. Ceaselessly.

—

When I didn’t think I was already dead and in Hell, I thought my body was a vessel for others’ souls. I was my baby cousin one day, clumsy and a little lost. The next, I was my aunt, angry at the niece who couldn’t live up to her islamic identity.

One morning, I woke up with the spirit of a friend whom I thought was dead channelling through me. She was bouncy and restless. She was angry. *I* killed her after all.

In the middle of a busy mall, a terrible urge to make a confession bubbled over me. This was my chance for salvation — to be *free*. Turning to face my mother, I took her hand. Eyes locked, I shouted at her and the crowds, “my name is Jane Lim. And I am having a baby!”.

That was not my name.

Neither was I having a baby.

—

That's when my parents knew I needed to get help. Anti-psychotic medication later returned some confidence to my perception of reality.

It’s still unclear what the exact triggers of my psychosis were. As with what I now know was likely a manic episode, I had a lot going on at that time of my life. My extreme sleep deprivation, fueled by the horrors of my mania, probably escalated my descent into madness further.

Clarity has been the greatest gift.

My grand delusions have cleared to reveal a fragility to my mind, a susceptibility to moods and obsession. Years of confusion towards my own manic-depressive behaviour have finally found some peace. As I embrace the coming period of convalescence, I return to my blessed life that belongs to me.