EP03. Devil's Advocate: Living in the gray zone

EP04. An Autist-Wannabe

As a matter of F | EP04. An Autist-Wannabe In this episode, I delve into a deeply personal confession about my search for a label. For a long time, I suspected I might be on the autistic spectrum. I craved a diagnosis as hope, but deeper beneath that, I sought it as a 'certificate of immunity' from the world that demands arrays of normalcy in how we should perceive, feel and process. However, when faced with the reality of a costly diagnosis test, I made a rather shameless executive decision: I spent that money (...and put even more!) on a piano instead. My craving of the letter A for autism transforms into an epiphany that actually what I need is finding other values beginning with the same letter: * Autonomy * Authenticity * Audacity I hope that one's melody doesn't need a medical label. It just needs a player with the audacity to strike the keys and the boldness to make the sound that they want the world to hear. Have a nice holiday & a very Happy New Year! [Side Note] * Around 13:00, a correction because I said 'with'. --> "I can say it without any problem".

EP03. Devil's Advocate: Living in the gray zone

As a matter of F | EP03. Devil's Advocate: Living in the gray zone Mental illness, especially depression, is invisible, unless the symptoms become critical. This creates a large area of a gray zone. Yet, the illness is still there, and the one carrying it is suffering. Because of this invisibility, many individuals with depression face a dilemma: constantly having to advocate for the validity of their current condition versus challenging self-questions like, "Am I really sick, or am I playing sick?" While navigating the process, its bureaucracy and the pressure of constantly having to prove oneself as 'properly sick' to fit into the "really sick" category is immense. Even in sickness, you need external validation. Just like in a debate, you try to advocate your argument, but you are met by a devil's advocate. He constantly challenges you, forcing you to confront the self-sarcasm black magic show performed by a demonic figure like Behemoth. And in this gray zone, you realize that the challenger is actually your own self. Nevertheless, standing in the middle of the gray zone, our primary role is not to argue with ourselves but to simply advocate for our own suffering.

EP02. Displaying Sadness

As a matter of F | EP02. Displaying Sadness Sadness is painful and lonely. As much as we are individually unique, so is our sadness. No one knows the troubles we had, so here loneliness sneaks in and seeks for the urge to be found and to be seen. In the midst of digital gild age, we witness the countless souls through the lens of social media and this show is no exception. We live in the most pain-aware generation ever in human history. We both condemn and consume it. We consume it, yet we produce our own displayed depressions. The border is gray; we might fall into the trap of overdosing the exhibition of our own pain, sink deeper into it, or even masturbate our sadness while watching a pain-porn. Nevertheless, we may still end up making a room of our own, perhaps the kind Virginia Woolf once wrote about in A Room of One's Own, and James Baldwin wrote in Giovanni's Room. Or simply we need something of our own. This episode is about approaching exhibition of sadness on social media as a way of creating such a room for ourselves. Baldwin said this famous line, "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." This quote guides us toward understanding why we might feel the need to build a personal, safe room where our F-ranged sentiments can be displayed and shared. In that room, we invite guests with courage against shame, holding onto the hope in which loneliness will find no corner to settle in.

EP01. The F-Code

As a matter of F | EP01. The F-Code We open the F-chapter of the ICD, a quiet archive where mental and behavioral disorders are alphabetized into existence. In this episode, I retrace how my depression moved from an unnamed feeling to a coded entry: from a vague placeholder to F33.2. This is an episode about loneliness, about the odd relief that comes with classification, and about the curious comfort of reducing a whole diagnosis into a few characters. If you’re anywhere in the F-range, officially or unofficially, consider this your welcome.