Oh, do we all want to escape reality? Even my dissertation talks about an ideal dimension beyond reality. It has been a while since I had written on this blog, I was a 16-17 year old who passionately love anime and manga. Now I'm 23 and recently been diagnosed with clinical depression. I don't know if I can say I saw it coming but I did try to avoid all these so called emotional imbalance. Honestly I'm still not sure if I have depression, but I've been taking antidepressant and anti-psychotic for almost 5 months now. Psychological and mental medication are ridiculously expensive, and after months in agony I just said fuck it I don't care about money anymore I just wanna feel good. So yeah, the doctor said it's depression and she wanted me to keep a journal but writing negative thought everyday only makes me focus on the bad side only.  

Manga and anime were my main support system back in the days when I felt so miserable and cried every night. I was so into the big 3 (Naruto, One Piece, Bleach) and would spend hours reading discussion on reddit and other forums, refreshing mangastream.com every Friday night, excitedly wait for the new chapters. It was the rush, knowing something cool and I personally love will reach its end, how a certain character would give an epic speech and all the actions and gray morality of the characters. It was fun. But as the saying goes, every good thing must end. I did feel a major emptiness when Naruto and Bleach ended but soon I found a distraction in a form of a crush in university and all other stuffs, making me busy for the time being. I really love painting, I took fine art in uni and I can say I'm pretty good at it. But there are days I feel like doing nothing, no motivation, no excitement, I would just lay down in bed for days but pretty sure the anxiety would always kicked in and I would eventually cry. 

At the time I have fictional characters inspiring me to get shit done but damn, now that I don't find anything as good as before I feel so lost. I started Haikyuu right after I finished my dissertation, it felt like a safe place to me, ignoring the fact that I didn't know what to do in life after school and just giving myself time to enjoy life but deep down I know I only avoiding this mundane life. But I really love Haikyuu, I binged the whole 4 seasons in a week. Ah, these days I find it hard to talk about things because my mind just doesn't work like it used too, I thought I had ADHD but my brain just refuses to think. I feel like I'm going insane as I type this. I guess I'm not gonna talk about anime now I just feel so overwhelmed but I also feel nothing. I sleep a lot. like a lot. I really hate every time I wake up, feeling disappointed. I hate responsibility. I don't have the energy to wash my hair.

I started Attack on Titan a few weeks ago and I can say i enjoy it mainly for Levi, the medication show some progress, my mood does not fall on the low low anymore. But at the same time, I'm afraid of facing reality, thoughts are racing on how I'm gonna stand on my own. I often feel lonely. One of the very few manga that helped me so much understanding my situation was Orange by Ichigo Takano; the story is about saving a boy from his suicidal acts after being depressed since his mom committed suicide. You guys should check it out, I cried a lot reading it. At the end, I hope my depression is getting better, and I plan to write weekly reviews about animes that I watch like I used too. Here's to more anime to cope!