Liars and Lies...

“Honesty is the best policy”

How many times have you heard of this quote? How many times have you said something untrue just to get away from something? We can hardly remember how many times we lied and more importantly, how many of those lies were to ourselves.

A girl in the movie “The Departed” said lying is necessary to balance the scale in which a relationship is at stake. Do you believe in that? I personally don't, because I believe that a relationship should be transparent, that is of course if you wanted the relationship to last in the first place. Actually, it’s not just couples who lie; businessman also claim lying is totally unavoidable. But is that really true? Are we all damned to commit such sins?

I personally was a devil myself back in secondary school; I lied at every juncture I could. I was an intelligent kid who was able to monitor most of my lies well enough to make me feel good about it. But as the Chinese say, “paper can’t hold fire”, slowly, I started to lose control of situations.

All the lies were draining my strength away but I did not realize it. I didn’t know why I was so exhausted. I thought I was just getting old. But no, when your mind is not at peace, you will be drained mentally whether you are aware of it or not. I slowly went into a depression. I started to sleep a lot but I was still tired. I got easily agitated by really small things. I hated my life and blamed everyone around me for my miseries. Finally, I decided that I was on my own in this whole wide world; which made my situation even worst.

Only much later, I knew I was ill. I told my parents that but my parents didn’t take it seriously. They thought it was just another phase I was going through. Yes, they were right, but this phase was more critical. I went to speak with the psychologist in my college who wasn’t helpful at all.

I was suffering the consequences of my sins. Everyday was hell for me; I wanted to die. I thought of ridiculous fantasies. Not about girls or whatsoever, but about how miraculously a meteor would fall from the sky and hit me, or how I would just spontaneously combust and die (I watched a documentary about spontaneous combustion).

My depression was from March 2005 to October 2005. After I recovered from it, the problem wasn’t exactly over. I swung to the other extreme end of depression, a state called manic. No body around me knew what it was. Thus, I went head on into this mental condition I never knew existed. Within 2 months, I was hospitalized.

Only then, I realized I had a condition called bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression). I was the first among my friends and family to have this illness. The doctor said it runs in the family. Some of my other uncles and aunties went through similar tough times when they were younger too. It’s just that the degree of my illness was much worst.

This illness takes around 2 years to stabilize. During these 2 years I have to be extra careful with my mood swings. In someway, I’m blessed with this condition because I am forced to learn how to maintain my calmness 24/7. I can’t afford to lose control of my mood because my mental state is so fragile.

Now, I am clearer where my limits are. Amazingly, in some ways, my limits grew wider than ever in my entire life. Now I know how to avoid certain people and places that stresses me out, I live a free life that actually improved my aspects of life dramatically. Somehow, I’m better at everything I do. My basketball skills increased, I play Magic: the Gathering card games better, my relationship with all my friends and family improved, and the list just goes on.

I’m not sure why this is happening. There seem to be no way I’ll ever walk into a bad situation ever again. I know it is just a feeling but I really do hope it last forever. But as the pali word “anicca” explains, this will come to pass too.