Diana Kurniawan

Today was a tough day. My thoughts were about broken things...how I am broken and I have a broken life and I would never amount to anything. I kept having the fears inside of me again, about how the rich haters who hurt me and raped me in the past would hunt me down to make sure I will end in suicide. I felt there were something wrong with my body and my mind today and I couldn't pick it out. I haven't been to hot yoga for weeks because of the new changes in my life, but I'm trying to work things out. It's been three months since I practiced hot yoga and as recommended by Dr. Bessel, Yoga is a form of healing that can curb my symptoms. I am trying to get back into it. Money has been an issue.

I sobbed on the way home from work today and I had the sadness that there were hundreds and thousands of people who just wanted me to feel so much sorrow in my life. They wanted more suffering and they want me to feel more sorrow and brokenness permanently that I won't be able to pick myself back up, instead to hurt myself and end in suicide. They, meaning the people who abused me on the phone while I was struggling in life, the people who raped me and their cronies, and they are the people who just plain want me to be dead.

They don't want me to have a possibility of marriage and as a matter of fact, they want me to be alone forever and become a martyr for single people and end in suicide. I have wanted to be married since I was little, and to have a loving husband all of my life, but there were always so many oppositions and so many women and men who wanted otherwise. I had so much fears today that those people are still adamant of my singlehood and if they can do it, they want me to be hurt and to never amount to anything and to never meet anyone. I told myself that I won't lose hope and as I drove home crying, I'm turning 50 next year and I know that the prospects of me marrying is so little and tiny, that it's impossible. It's not that I don't think I can take care of myself and I don't equate marriage with happiness, but it's something I've always wanted. I just know if there is an opportunity for me, I hope I can marry and I pray it will be a good marriage and with the right man who loves me unconditionally, and always have my back. I won't marry if it is just an opportunity, but I will marry if it's with the right person. 

I pray for God to do miracles on me, and I surrender all of my life to God. I told God that if I don't have anyone in my life, I pray God will help me to handle it and for me to be safe from self harm.

I am so broken tonight and as I am typing this entry, I am still sobbing. I just felt so much hatred from others towards me and how much they want me to be broken forever, and they want me to self harm and to never become a writer, to never marry and we all know that I won't be able to have kids.

I had a panic attack at work and I had to sit on the ground for five minutes and pick myself back up again and held my tears, although I wanted to cry to God. 

Today is for the birds, and I do hope God heard my prayers. I got hurt today and I felt the hatred from those who hated me so much that I cried and sobbed so hard that I couldn't breathe. I know I am not supposed to care about their opinions and their curses, but today I had so much memories from the gang rapes and the abuses they did to me, that I almost died of suicide again. I'm going to keep myself safe tonight and sleep now. Today is for the birds, and thank God I am still alive. 

#JustWrite

I believe in miracles. All forms of it. From death to life, even in metaphors and in dreams. I truly know that my deadly PTSD and depression can be cured although with medicine, but medicine is a form of a cure. I think the thought of death at such a young age as when I experienced it since I was in middle school and high school could be offset with good things to come, even later in life.

I had to pick myself up each time a rape happened to me. Multiple times it happened and I thought deadly suicidal thoughts each time, but something keeps me at bay and thoughts of life comes on. 

It feels like I am living inside a movie that is melodramatic with suspenseful emotions, and I find something invisible is holding me steady. Is it hope? But I think it is a miracle and it doesn't stop, but I admit, HOPE is a form of vitamin. I spoke with Rabbi Harold Kushner when he was alive and he told me, small doses of joy each day will help me. I think it also goes for hope and faith and the simple acts of kindness towards another person, if those things becomes an action, they become joy.

The river of life keeps going and it fills me up with hope, love and life. I am so astounded and grateful for my life. My new experiences are so beautiful and those experiences become holy to my life. I view them as sacred, from caring for my Mom, working at Target and Walmart and Costco, I think of each step as holy and confounding. 

With my new future ahead of me, I am grateful and I will keep being born again in each job, experiencing it as a spirit of hope and joy and for love to overflow inside my and pouring over that I can share it with my team. I am so grateful. I am willing to serve, help, and bless and with each moment, I will pray for propitious things and blessings to come to me and those around me. O what joy I have inside me. 

#JustWrite 

After reading so many sad stories, I decided to venture on a new journey with the pursuit of intellect. I chose James Baldwin's work Nobody Knows My Name. It's a compilation of essays during his transition from his European life back to America. I can't wait to read it and I am excited that I have it in my collection. I was about to read Giovanni's room, but I must have misplaced the book because I couldn't find it today. 

Another adventure awaits in my life as well, a new journey that I can't wait to experience. It's no biggie for a lot of people, but it's a major hoopla in my life. I can't wait to share it with my family and with my best friends, but I'm not sharing with all of you because some of you are haters and you all know where that's going...yup not going there.

Today was a big change from the last two months of major sadness with my Mom being in the hospital. She is now recuperating at home and I get to clean her up after she poops. JOY! But it truly is, although it's a little dirty, but like a dirty joke, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Clean butt.

I am enjoying my break from writing. The immense pressure that was there is no longer here. I also deactivated from Twitter, which was a major pressure source and I was stressed because all I saw were streams of people overjoyed about their acceptances to literary agents and making it to the New York Times Bestsellers List and then some other authors who expressed regrets because no one showed up at their author's readings, which was very daunting. I didn't know what to feel and I just pressed the button that said Deactivate and all of those feelings disappeared. I did the right thing. I no longer feel pressure to want to make it or to want to write which is contradictory to wanting to finish my book, but I think I need this rest.

Other than that, I'm good and taking my meds. See you on the other side!

#JustWrite

I just finished All Over But the Shoutin by Rick Bragg and I am inspired by his writing and his life, the same way I was inspired by David Carr's memoir. There was one thing they had in common, they both experienced the demon of alcoholism, although through different lenses. I loved how both writers controlled their substances although with Carr, it was a struggle. Rick Bragg was a product of an alcoholic father and also a domestic violent home, and I was so moved by how he changed that situation in his life to pursue something he loved, and succeeded.

I was reminded of my old friend, Jeff, who died of suicide from an overdose, who was also a writer. He wanted so much to become a full time staff to write his sports columns or to just work as a reporter somewhere in the world. He made a huge impact on me because he used to pray for me and kept me focused on writing my first novel back then in 2015-2021. I was full of anxiety and fears and Jeff helped me calm down and talked things through with me through his experience with therapy and also through scripture. He was able to rationalize certain things in writing that I didn't realize. But, he was an alcoholic and his demons kept coming back, each time more vicious than before. He eventually lost his space at the time as he was living with his cousin, and then renting a piece of couch to live on with a friend. He became homeless and addicted to drugs again. He died on the street and was found by my best friend's brother. I was devastated.

Jeff was talent. I saw his writing and he was capable of writing a page one column for a county newspaper and a high school newspaper, without the training for a journalist. He was in his thirties and he had a whole future ahead of him, but his demons controlled him, and he couldn't stay disciplined. Talent alone couldn't save him, even with page one headlines as a paying gig for him, that wasn't paying much but could earn him a few hundred bucks at the end of the month. I saw Rick Bragg's talent in Jeff, and although Jeff didn't make it, I learned so much from him. I found that to keep going, we need to nurture our talents and take care of ourselves more than we worked. I needed to find pleasure in keep myself sane with my mental health, instead of searching for pleasure. 

I also learned a lot from Rick Bragg's stories and writing and his tenacity to keep on going, after much let downs. Perhaps it was part luck on his part and Jeff just didn't have the luck (and neither do I), but I also realized that Rick Bragg had a hard life in the first thirty years of his life, and he worked hard. I don't know how Rick Bragg had so much confidence in his writing, but it showed and it is fascinating. It took him years to get to where he is now, and his persistence to want to achieve was unquenchable.

Now, about me...what will become of me? I don't know, and I don't know the future, but I hope it is bright and I will keep praying and staying optimistic about my life and my writing. I'm no paragon of a budding writer, because I don't have the ego of one. I need to gain some more confidence in my writing. Besides, I'm not even sure if what I"m doing is called writing, it might be called loathing. But, let's not get too technical about it. I don't want to be a pessimist anymore. I will keep writing and keep learning from those before me. 

I am just grateful I'm not an alcoholic or an addict in general. I have anxiety issues, PTSD and Depression, but they're manageable. I don't have drug dealers offering me meds and drugs, and also, I think the drugs I'm taking are enough to kill a horse anyway, so I don't need more. One thing I am grateful for is, I'm still alive and I can even die trying. I know the chances are slim to none, but here's hopin' right? I think I have enough talent to keep me going, and I have enough tenacity to keep writing. Hence, the #JustWrite that I created, to remind myself that I can transfrom a blank page into something poignant for others to read, with the intent of healing, entertainment, and education. 

#JustWrite