Frank Lee Autobiography

Introduction

If I went back in time to when I was in university, and asked my late teens/early twenties self how he'd describe his childhood, university-me would say that he had an overall good childhood, that he is very grateful for his high school friends, and that he thinks he'll always stay close to them. He would say that, although he was overweight for most of his childhood and was bullied for that, it all worked out in the end, because it got him into fitness and he is now much healthier for it. He'd also say that being bullied turned him into a perfectionist, and instilled in him a drive to be the best that is so powerful that it's hard to put into words, and that he feels like this gives him the ability to work harder than just about anyone he knows. All in all, he'd tell you that he is mostly happy, that he is glad that everything has happened the way it has, and that he wouldn't want to trade lives with anyone in the world.

However, a time-machine does not exist, and so you're about to hear quite a different story about my life narrated mostly by present-me, who has an additional 15 years of life experience and a much deeper understanding of who I am and what effects my childhood and life experiences have had on me. And so I'm going to tell you a much different story than university-me would've told you.

1: Childhood (1989 - 2007)

I was born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on Friday the 26th of May in 1989. I've been told I was born too early, but what was really problematic was that the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around my neck three times, and I was practically suffocating, so I spent the first week of my existence in an incubator, or so I've been told.

However, considering I was the only one in the family I grew up in with blond hair and blue eyes and in the extended family there wasn't anyone who looked like me either, I have long held suspicisions that I was actually adopted. But these days my own favorite origin story is a baby-swap story. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and so I think my "swap-parents" most likely took home the wrong baby from the hospital.

Either way, I've never had real parents, which on one hand feels like I've missed out, but on the other hand also feels extremely liberating. I neither need nor want parents in my life, and I feel like at this point as a 35 years old male adult I am better off without any parents.

I don't remember much about living in Amsterdam other than being taken for vaccinations and being left at a daycare center all day. My swap-parents decided to move to a nearby city, called Leiden, when I was two years old, just before my swap-sister was born.

I refer to the people I grew up with as my swap-family, swap-parents, swap-siblings, etc., because I don't consider any of them to be my real family, as they never treated me as such.

When I was five years old, my swap-parents birthed my swap-brother.

Education

I went to a Montessori Elementary school, which gave me more freedom to pursue the things I wanted to. I remember that, during my first three days in 3rd grade (six years old), I completed three years worth of mathematics exercises (grades 3 through 5 were grouped together in one classroom). During 4th and 5th grade, the teacher allowed me to play games outside of class. If I remember correctly, this was because I had already completed all the work available for grades 3 through 5, and the teacher didn't know how else to keep me busy. The final part of elementary school, grades 6 through 8, were more of the same, but this time, instead of letting me play games, the school let me take the school exit exam a year early in 7th grade, so I skipped 8th grade and graduated from elementary school a year early.

High school was a totally different affair. It was not a Montessori style school, so I had to do the same things as everybody else, at the same pace. It didn't take long before I lost motivation. I was told to get good grades, because then I could go to university, and then I could get a good job, etc. But I didn't care about any of those things, and nobody communicated to me why school mattered, nor  why I had to do the things I had to do. It was “do x, or receive punishment y”, which was very depressing. I sometimes wonder if I would've felt better if somebody had told me that 90% of high school is indeed useless, but that I had little choice, because it's part of the system. I probably would've felt slightly better, because at least then I would've been able to make my own decisions regarding education, rather than feeling like I was forced into it through punishments.

My grades in elementary school were excellent, which is why I was allowed to skip the final grade. My grades in high school, however, were terrible, and I even had to repeat 3rd grade. I simply had zero motivation, and I did not see the purpose of any of it.

Friends

I feel like I was very social throughout a lot of my childhood. I remember I could get along with a lot of people in elementary school. I even remember being able to be friendly and sociable with some mean bullies, because they were only mean in group settings, and much kinder when interacting 1-on-1.

High school was very different. I had just skipped a grade, and I vividly remember planning to take it easy on the first days, and to try to not stand out too much... but then I forgot. During introduction, I was simply myself and I put myself out there a lot, which inevitably made me an easy target for bullies. High school, it turned out, was all about popularity.

12 years old

Apparently, being a friendly, vulnerable, overweight 11-year-old kid, who just skipped a grade and is one year younger than his peers, is not a recipe for popularity. I don't think I had any friends during the first year of high school, but during the second year I sort of 'joined' a group, and made friends that way. Even within my friend group though, I was bullied a lot, especially during the first few years. In fact, I'd say that I was bullied even more within my group of friends than I was outside of it.

Popularity was everything, and I had to conform or suffer social repercussions. I got bullied for being fat, for playing video games, for various social behaviors, you name it. My first three years of high school were so bad in terms of social life, and in terms of depression from having no idea why I had to learn all those useless things in the first place, that to this day I have near-zero memories from those three years. I can remember moments from elementary school, and even all the way back to my third birthday, but I can remember next to nothing from my first three years of high school.

After I had to repeat third grade, things got a little easier. I was placed in a totally new class, and I was able to start with a clean slate. I managed to get a much better standing on the popularity scale, and although I was still part of the same friend group outside of my new class, even there the atmosphere seemed to improve a little bit over time, but maybe it just seemed that way because I learned what parts of myself to suppress to get picked on less. The latter half of high school (grades 4-6) saw much more shuffling of classes, so I was able to become friendly with a broader group of people, so things slightly improved further.

So, if I am now saying that my core high school friend group bullied me, then why is it that university-me would've said that he was grateful for those friends, and that he expected these to be friendships for life? Well, at the time I thought that they had taught me valuable social skills. I was grateful that they had stopped me from playing video games and had made me more social, because I believed that to be much 'cooler'. And I felt grateful that they saw me as a more-or-less equal, and accepted me as their friend.

Today, I see things very differently. I've come to realise that the main lasting effect my high-school friends have had on me is that they've made me feel that it's not okay to be myself. Towards the end they kind of accepted me, but that was on the condition that I wasn't my true self, and only after they had bullied away all the things about me that they deemed 'uncool' and 'unacceptable', and after they subtly forced me to be a different person. Today, I would call my high school friends emotionally abusive, and occasionally physically abusive too.

Swap-parents

My swap-family was small. Outside of my direct swap-family (two swap-parents, two younger swap-siblings), I had a grand total of zero (swap-)cousins, which made family gatherings rather mundane. I remember spending time with one of my swap-grandmothers a few times, but I think I only enjoyed it because I usually received toys. I don't really remember what I used to think of her, but my current self doesn't like her much. One reason is that she always seemed unreasonably controlling over her son, my swap-father, and another is that when I was staying with her one summer day, she allowed me to be horribly sunburnt on my entire body, even though my swap-mother literally told her to put sunscreen on me like ten times. But she decided to use body lotion instead of sunscreen... this has left me with a host of birth marks on my torso that I get checked by a dermatologist every year, to make sure none of them turn cancerous.

As for my swap-parents, I believe that they both meant well, but in spite of that I think they both did an atrocious job in raising me in terms of:

1. Never explain the why. They'd tell me to do this or do that, but they rarely, if ever, explained why I should do those things. I feel like they did not teach me the reasoning behind things, nor helped me understand things. Telling me to go to school and get good grades are but one example of this.

2. Sex/dating/interacting with the opposite sex. I received absolutely zero education from them in this regard, but I wish that were just it. My swap-mother in particular actually did worse than nothing. She made me feel like it's a crime to be interested in girls. I think that one thing (of many) that contributed to this is that she always reacted very negatively towards these kinds of things on TV. Even when there was something as innocent as kissing in a James Bond movie, she would react like “Oh my god! This is crazy! How can they possibly show this on TV!”. It instilled in me a very negative image towards these things, and for the longest time (23/24 years old still), this made me feel like it was an evil thing to show interest in the opposite sex.

3. Controlling. My swap-mother in particular was extremely controlling, and acted as if my life was partially hers to decide. An example of this was her telling me I shouldn't cut my hair shorter... you can tell someone you think their hair would look nicer longer, but to say that someone should style their hair differently implies that you know better than that person what hairstyle will make them happy, which is ridiculous. Another thing she often did was speak in a way that implied that my life was partly hers to decide, by using a word like “we” when talking about my life (decisions), instead of a pronoun referring to me.

4. Too little support when it mattered. Looking back, I was very depressed during the first three years of high school, and I had a very difficult time. My swap-parents should've noticed, stepped in, and supported me better, and ideally found me a professional to talk to. Worst of all, when I started saying "I want to kill myself" around age 13-14, my swap-mother sat me down and explained that people who kill themselves go to hell. I then thought to myself that if such an evil god exists, I would make it my life's mission to destroy it.

5. Taught me terrible eating habits. This one is mostly on my swap-father. He was overweight and had terrible eating habits. I was allowed to copy these and adopt unhealthy eating habits throughout childhood. This is why I was overweight and bullied, and although I am healthy and in decent shape today, I believe my body likely has some insulin problems and/or processes carbohydrates poorly as a result of my poor eating during childhood.

6. Raised me to be a Christian. I think this is a highly controversial opinion, but I believe it is extremely unethical to tell children that a religion is the truth, and that the beliefs associated with it are facts. I have no issue with religions or people who are happy following one, but I think it's criminal to indoctrinate a child into any form of religion. Sharing one's religion with one's children is okay, as long as it is made clear that what is shared are beliefs, not proven facts. Otherwise it is brainwashing/gaslighting.

7. Hid from me being sexually abused by my swap-uncle. I don't have any proof of this, but there were relatives living in a German mansion who also had no children. I can remember the outside of the mansion well and playing in the garden, and I can even remember the driveway and approximately where the kitchen was located. However, I cannot remember ANYTHING else from the inside of the house. I cannot remember where we slept and I have a particularly bad feeling about the basement for some reason... I strongly suspect something happened to me there, even though I cannot remember what. My best guess is I was sexually abused by my swap-uncle and the rest of my swap-family hid it from me.

All in all, although my swap-father helped me out at a few points in my life, and I am thankful for those, he was largely absent as a father and was very irresponsible in allowing me to copy his eating habits. And although my swap-mother meant well, and took care of me for a number of years when I was too young to take care of myself, I know that she hurt me MUCH more than she helped me.

2: University (2007 - 2011)

I chose to study IT at a university on the other side of the country. I chose IT mostly because it seemed like the least bad option, and mathematics had always come easy to me. I hadn't really considered much else, probably because going to university was instilled in me as something necessary, and so I didn't really understand why I was going to university. The choice had largely been made for me, and I had no idea there were alternatives.

My uni being on the other side of the country meant that I had to move out. I initially tried to live in a house on campus with a party culture, because I knew my high school friends would approve of that the most, but fortunately enough I wasn't accepted, and I ended up living in a more relaxed atmosphere. I nonetheless joined a fraternity, and was very active for the first two months, because that's how my high school friends had molded me.

However, after not studying very much for the first two months, after gaining back a lot of weight I had lost in the final years of high school, and after realising popularity didn't matter nearly as much in university as it did back in high school, I stopped going to the fraternity. Instead, I joined a gym, I started spending a bit more time on my studies, and I started to play online poker as a hobby.

Poker

I used to occasionally play poker with my high school friends before going out drinking. The game always really intrigued me, so after I moved to university, I started playing online for fun. First with play money, and after that I deposited $50 twice.

On one particular Sunday in December of 2007, I decided to use $10 to play a tournament, which I now know was terrible bankroll (risk) management. I was definitely no slouch at poker, because I was pretty good at video games, and in general I'm quite intelligent. Skill is the most important thing in poker to do well over a long period of time, but in order to do well in a single tournament luck is definitely most important, and luck is what I was blessed with on that particular Sunday. I got 4th place in the tournament and won $5,000.

I was smart enough to cash out $4,000 to my bank account, and to spend a few hundred dollars on a one-year subscription to a poker training site to improve my game. I took the remaining $600-700 as my bankroll and started taking poker very seriously in 2008. I learned proper bankroll (risk) management, and I learned as much as I could from the poker training site. I started playing $25 buy-in NLHE cash games, and by the end of 2008, I had made $50,000, I had moved all the way up to the $1,000 buy-in cash games, and I had transitioned to playing heads-up (1-on-1) games, because my style suited itself much better for that. At this point, I understandably had gained tremendous confidence in myself thanks to my success in poker, and I remember writing in a blog post on the poker training site that I planned on reaching a bankroll of $500,000 by the end of 2009.

My memory of 2009 is a litlte bit hazy. I believe I was up to around $150,000-200,000 mid-way through the year, and more-or-less on track to achieve my goal, but I believe I hit my first streak of bad luck during the 2nd half of 2009, and ended up with a bankroll of 'only' $100,000-150,000 at the end of the year. Early 2010 was more of the same, and I think my bankroll was at about $90,000 at the end of April of 2010.

On a warm spring Friday night in April 2010, two things were happening. One, the following day there was to be a large party on my uni's campus, and my high school friends were set to come visit and party. Two, a large poker tournament series kicked off on Full Tilt Poker. Normally I never played tournaments, because they'd often start in the evening EU time, and if you did well you could easily end up playing for 12 hours straight. I kept a normal sleeping schedule and went to the gym regularly, so I exclusively played cash games, which allowed me to set my own schedule. But on that eventful Friday, I decided to enter the opening tournament of the series, because I'd be staying up late the day after anyway. I had already had an amazing day of cash games, winning around $15,000, but as I entered the tournament that evening, I ended up playing until 9AM in the morning, getting 2nd place for $90,000, and earning more than 6 figures in a single day. Afterwards I quickly made 3 trips to the supermarket to buy things to prepare for the party, and then I slept for two hours before my friends arrived. Needless to say, that was a very exhausting, but also a very positively memorable weekend.

In May of 2010, I took my new $200,000 bankroll to higher stakes games, and did very well. After a lot of long heads up battles with some good players, as well as some very bad players, I was sitting on $450,000 in the middle of 2010. Little did I know things were about to take a turn for the worse in the following months.

At this point, I need to explain about EV (Expected Value) in poker. Most online poker players use poker database software to track their play. This allows them to see detailed results, review hands, and work on their game, among other things. Another thing is that it allows players to see their EV and how much their actual results differ from it. An example of how these are calculated is as follows: If there is $1,000 in a pot when two players go all-in, and Player 1 has a 75% chance of winning, Player 1's EV is $750. If Player 1 then goes on to win the hand, he wins $1,000, and 'ran $250 above EV'. If Player 1 goes on to lose the pot, he wins nothing and 'ran $750 below EV'. Although this is by no means the only luck factor in poker, it is one way in which poker players can see how lucky or unlucky they have been.

In the middle of 2010, my actual results hadn't deviated much from my EV, but that was about to change. Over the following four and a half months, through the middle of November, my EV did not change. As far as my play was concerned, my bankroll should've stayed at exactly $450,000 over that time period. However, my actual results were negative over $400,000, and my actual bankroll was in the thirty thousands.

This period was extremely challenging for me for a number of reasons. First of all, it fucking sucks losing $400,000+, even more so if it's entirely due to an extreme streak of bad luck. It's not like I continued to play high stakes either. I continued to practice proper bankroll management, and I moved down in stakes as I lost, but I kept on getting unlucky and losing every single day. It was incredibly frustrating to be playing great and doing nothing wrong day in and day out, but getting crushed results wise. This was totally out of my control, and I had never dealt with anything like that before in my life. Of course there were also days where it did affect my play negatively, and I played worse because of all this, but I'd always quit when I got too frustrated, and minimized the impact it had on my play as well as I could.

Last but not least, it also sucked because I felt like people (my swap-parents and high school friends) would think less of me, and I hated it that they would see me for less than who I was just because of bad luck. I was one of the best heads up NLHE players at the time, but I was immensely frustrated that I wouldn't get recognition for that from my friends and swap-parents because my results were nowhere near those of the best due to this bad luck, which was completely out of my control. This was a very difficult period, and it was quite tough to come to terms with.

Fortunately enough, eventually I stopped getting unlucky, I stopped being in mental anguish, I started playing better, and my results turned around in dramatic fashion. The 2nd half of November, I started winning. In December alone I went from $50,000 to $200,000, at the end of January my bankroll was at $400,000, and at the end of February I was at approximately $650,000, and I was playing some of the highest stakes games available online.

2 hours NLHE HU session @ $5k NL during which I lost >$50k

A big win in a $5k HU PLO game

Leaving University

Apart from poker, I spent most of my time during university on working out. I went to the gym 4 days/week, and learned about fitness and nutrition. I also did some studying, but in The Netherlands you were allowed to go at your own pace at the time. I had a housemate, who had been there for 9+ years, who had only completed ~2 years worth of study. I completed a similar ~2 years during my 4 years at university, but most of that was completed in the first two years, and I unsurprisingly became less motivated to study as I started doing better at poker.

I also created some instructional content for the poker training site I had joined. I was featured in the videos of some of the top instructors on the site, but eventually my blog and coaching had become so popular that they asked me to make my own instructional content. I ended up collaborating with none other than the site's founder on my own video series, playing a heads up match against him in the season finale. In the end, I actually wish I hadn't done it, because the pay was nothing compared to my poker winnings, and the fame it gave me actually hurt me a lot, because suddenly everybody knew me and nobody wanted to actually play poker against me anymore. And it just so happened that 'professional' players were the type of players whom I usually made the most money off of, because I could really get into their head. Funnily enough, I usually performed less well against 'amateur' players.

In March of 2011, after my bankroll had reached $650,000, and after I had lost all motivation to study, I started to think about my future on my own for the first time in my life. Additionally, the tax situation in The Netherlands was becoming very problematic, because poker was taxed at 30% over every winning month, without the ability to compensate losing months. This meant that, if the Dutch government indeed decided to tax me in accordance with this law, I'd have to pay more taxes than the $650,000 I had, and my effective tax rate would end up being over 100%. This, in combination with me not seeing the purpose of finishing my degree in IT, and being confident in my ability to figure things out on my own, led me to choose to drop out of university in March of 2011.

Sadly, the 2nd day after my decision I ended up playing high stakes against a very bad amateur player and losing over $100,000 in a single day, but it did help me realise I should employ a more conservative bankroll management strategy, because even though it had been entirely due to bad luck, losing that large a portion of my bankroll (and net worth) in a single day, was very uncomfortable now that my livelihood depended on it, so I put about $300,000 aside, and played lower stakes with the remaining $200,000. In May of 2011, I moved to London where poker is tax free, to start my career as a professional poker player.

3: London (2011-2013)

My time in London was one of the happiest times in my life. I first went on a six week trip to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in the summer of 2011. It was a blast. I met, partied with, and had tons of fun with loads of other poker players. We also had some fantastic meals, including two and three Michelin stars meals. I went to the hottest night clubs in Las Vegas, met an interesting character who refused to wear seat belts because he'd rather die than get injured in a car crash, stayed at a massive mansion with a dozen other poker players, participated in 'summer-lympics' against another poker house, TP'ed another poker house, and of course also played lots and lots of poker. All in all, a very fun summer.

The house I stayed at in Vegas

XS Nightclub


65k in poker chips


65k in cash, very surreal when you've never held more than a few hundred

Once back in London, I got even more serious about fitness. First I bulked up 12KG over four months, then I cut down 17KG in under five months. I also made some great poker friends in London. We ate great food, played games, played sports, and overall had a great time.

Poker actually did not go very well after I officially turned pro. Over the course of my first year in London, I just about broke even. I ran another couple hundred thousand dollars under EV, and there was a three day period in which I ran 100 buy-ins under EV, which is the most absurd thing I have personally heard of. To run 2-3 buy-ins under EV in a single day is an unlucky day, to run 10 buy-ins under EV in a single day is likely to be one of, if not the, unluckiest day of your year. I've never heard of anyone else experiencing anything like running 100 buy-ins under EV in three days. I'm sure it's happened, but it is absurd. It honestly makes me think something sinister was going on.

This was once again quite tough to deal with at times, especially considering my living expenses were no longer under $10,000 per year. They were now over $50,000 per year, so that made it a bit more stressful. However, I did learn some lessons from my unlucky streak in late 2010 in uni. I learned to take time off, at one point even an entire month, in order to come back refreshed and less frustrated. All in all, it didn't affect me as much, because I was very happy with my life outside of poker. I loved working out, and I had a great group of poker friends around me.

I also completely stopped drinking in early 2012. I already drank very infrequently, because it went against my fitness goals, and I had adopted a strict sleeping schedule to help me focus better on poker, but one morning I woke up feeling bad after having a fair amount of sake during dinner the night before, and I wondered why I drank at all. I realised that the only reason I drank was because my high school friends had, and that I had simply copied them. I realised that there are many negative side-effects of drinking, and that I simply felt happier with a clear mind, so I decided to quit, and I have not drank alcohol since.

Trip to Japan

In the summer of 2012, when I took a month off from poker to take my mind off of all the losing, I started studying Japanese. I had always had an interest in Japan, and I had fallen completely head over heels for Japanese food since going to Vegas and moving to London, so I started studying the language on a whim. After studying an hour a day for a couple of months, I decided I wanted to visit Japan, so in the autumn of 2012 I went on a 6 weeks trip to Japan, which ended up literally changing my life.

During this trip, during which I traveled all across the country, I fell so in love with Japan that two weeks into it, I was seriously wondering if maybe I wanted to live there. The food was out of this world, I loved Tokyo, public transportation was on a completely different level from the already world-class London Underground, convenience stores and vending machines were extremely convenient, the country was gorgeous, and I thought the girls were really attractive, which doesn't hurt either.

After getting back to London, I immediately decided that I would go back to Japan. I wasn't quite sure yet whether I wanted to live there or not though, so I decided I'd spend the maximum amount of time there that I could on a tourist visa (three months), and I vouched to decide by the end of the trip whether I wanted to move to Japan or stay in London.

Anxiety

On the first day of my initial 6-week trip to Japan, I had lunch at a famous sushi restaurant in Shibuya. During that lunch, I suddenly got extremely uncomfortable, nauseous, and I couldn't finish my food in spite of still being hungry. At the time, I thought it was due to the smell of the fish being so strong and completely different from what I was used to in London, and an international friend I had in Tokyo seemed to sort of confirm this could happen, so I didn't think much of it. Besides, by the 3rd or 4th time I ate Sushi, it had disappeared completely.

Later in 2012, after I returned to London, I got terrible food poisoning. It was so bad that I only ate two small meals in four days. After I had recovered and returned to the gym, during one of my core workouts the nausea suddenly returned. I had my stool checked for infections, a bacteria was found, and I was given antibiotics. A few weeks after that, around Christmas when my swap-brother visited me, we went to a restaurant, and I once again felt terribly nauseous. We hadn't ordered anything yet, so I asked him if we could go home and order take-out instead. About a week after that incident, my swap-father also visited me, and I had similar issues getting uncomfortably nauseous when we ate out. Throughout January, and even into February when I left on my three month trip to Japan, I kept feeling nauseous a lot of the time at random moments. At the time, I thought it was simply physical, and somehow my stomach hadn't recovered from the food poisoning yet, but it was a bad omen of worse things to come.

4: Tokyo (2013-2016)

In spite of initially still being nauseous a lot of the time, especially when eating out, my three months in Japan were pretty amazing. Right off the bat, during my first week in Tokyo, I stayed with an amazing guy through couchsurfing (free lodging at homes of locals). We clicked really well, and he ended up becoming one of my best friends in Tokyo.

During these three months I ate amazing food (sushi almost daily, sometimes twice a day), I made a ton of friends, I further improved my Japanese, and I had a blast. So much so that after less than two months, I had made up my mind that I would move to Tokyo, so I started looking into visa options. Although I hadn't played much poker in recent months due to traveling and Japanese studies, I planned to continue playing poker after the move. The easiest way to allow me to do so turned out to be to start a company in Japan and apply for an investor visa. I was told that I wouldn't be required to do much of anything, I'd simply get a visa and I should be able to stay for at least two, maybe three years with no obligations, which was perfect.

During these initial three months, in spite of making a ton of friends, I actually felt incredibly lonely at times, and for the first time in my life I really felt like I wanted to find a girlfriend. I fantasized a lot about girls in high school and romanticized relationships, but at that time I had zero self-confidence due to all the bullying, so I didn't think anyone would be interested in me. That's partly why I got into fitness, because, based on the bullying, it seemed to me that I'd need to be in amazing shape before I'd be able to date someone, because it felt as if me being overweight had been the largest contributor to me being unpopular in early high school.

In university, I simply didn't meet any girls. I didn't socialize outside of my male housemates, and in London I only hung out with my poker friends, and I didn't party at all. Besides, I didn't feel like I missed anything while I lived in London. At times when watching a romantic movie, I felt like a relationship would be really nice at some point, but not until I moved to Japan did I feel like I wanted to go out and date. I was very social and outgoing at the time, so I thought it wouldn't take long to find somebody.

During the first three months, I mostly spoke to girls at Starbucks while studying Japanese, and I went on one or two dates this way. I also went to some meetups, and towards the end of the three months I met a Korean girl I was really into, who was definitely into me as well to a certain degree, but sadly she eventually rejected me before we became more than friends. That hurt a lot, but I was still optimistic that after I'd go back to London to get my things and come back to Japan, that it wouldn't take me long to find a girlfriend. I couldn't have been more wrong...

Entrepreneurship

Before I tell you more about what dating in Japan was like, I'm going to talk about another aspect of my life in Japan, namely my career. I started a company in order to obtain a visa in Japan, and although I was initially planning on simply playing poker, the more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind and actually wanted to build a company. I had been interested in entrepreneurship for a while because I had an entrepreneur friend in the USA, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to go for it. All I needed was an idea.

It just so happened that I was learning Japanese at the time, and products aimed at language learners were in my opinion rather terrible. I saw so many things that could be done better in the industry, and after I surpassed the beginner stage of learning Japanese, I mostly had to construct my own study methods, because nothing out there was really suitable. So for my company, I decided on creating a “language exchange” mobile app. Throughout the summer of 2013, as I moved to and got settled in Japan, I started designing my mobile app in detail, all the way down to wireframes and flow-charts. I eventually decided to outsource the development of the application to the India-based IT company of a fellow entrepreneur I had met, because I wanted to focus more on the business side of things. Outsourcing began around October of 2013.

Around this time I became extremely organized, and I developed an astonishing work ethic. I had extremely high confidence at the time, probably due to my success in poker, due to having lived in multiple countries, due to being fluent in two languages and working on a third, and due to me thinking very highly of myself. I was so (overly) confident that at times I felt unmotivated to do things, because they seemed too easy, and I thought I could succeed at just about anything. Eventually though, I overcame the motivational lumps, and became extremely hard-working and hyper focused.

As 2013 ended and 2014 started, the outsourcing of the development of the mobile app should've come to a finish, because I had been told it would take about three months. It was sort of finished on-time, but many bugs remained and the outsourcing company had seen some personnel issues (person in charge of my project was diagnosed with cancer), so I assumed that it'd maybe take an extra month or so. However, as 2014 progressed, most bugs remained and new bugs continuously surfaced, and it didn't take long before I started to lose trust in the outsourcing company. I had promised on social media that the app would launch early in 2014 and I felt like the delay was starting to reflect badly on myself. I was still confident in the project at the time, and I had already mapped out the future, started designing a 2nd product, and even started preparing an investor pitch deck, so I decided I would start looking for my own developers, because of the issues with the outsourcing company.

In August of 2014, I had hired my own developers, so I asked the outsourcing company to simply send us the code as is, so we could finish the app in-house. By the end of the first week of my own developers working on the app, they came back to me and told me they had bad news. They told me that the code base was almost unsalvageable. They told me that they could finish the app, but that they believed it'd be better to start from scratch, because it'd be a hell to work with in the future. To illustrate their point, they showed me a single file with twelve thousand lines of code. Had I thought clearly about the state of the project at that point in time, I would've come to the realisation that the best course of action was to fire my employees five days after I had hired them, and to wrap everything up. I had already spent a lot of money, had no income, and expenses were only increasing now that I had taken on two in-house developers. If we were to be set back by that much and effectively had to start over from the beginning, it was unlikely we would be able to raise funding in a timely manner. However, this all happened at the, at that point in time, shittiest time of my life, so I was not thinking very clearly, and I was also still living in a bubble of over-confidence and had a “can't fail” mentality, so I decided to give my employees the go-ahead to restart from scratch. Towards the end of 2014, my bubble was finally broken by a Venture Capitalist at a startup event, and so I wrapped things up.

Throughout this, I also spent time working on an entirely different startup with the fellow entrepreneur to whom I had outsourced the development of the app, and a couple of others. And I ended up going through mediation with him over the outsourcing project, which I believed was a disaster. Sadly, nothing much came of it, and all in all I lost about $125,000 on the venture, excluding my own living expenses over that period. I learned a lot though, so I'd say it was probably worth it.

Dating & Anxiety 2.0

During my first year in Japan from Jul'13 to Jul'14, dating was disappointing to say the least. I socialized and networked a lot. I spent almost all my time working from cafes, and I usually went to meetups, networking events, and met with friends and friends of friends at least 3-4 times a week. I made dozens upon dozens of friends and business connections, but I don't think I went on any dates during that first year, and not for a lack of trying. There were a few girls I was interested in, but they all were in relationships, and most of the girls I met were older or very international and had plans to study/live abroad, which was the opposite of me. At the time I loved Japan, and I was convinced I would live there for the rest of my life.

After this first year, it was clear that things weren't working in terms of dating, so I decided I needed to change things up. The main advice I got from others was to ask friends for introductions, but that clearly wasn't working. I was 24 at the time, and most of my friends were in their late twenties, or even 30s, 40s, and a few in their 50s. The girls I met through my friends were largely not my type. So during the second year, I started to talk more to girls who worked at restaurants and cafes where I was a regular, and I asked a few of them out. I also started going to a few parties here and there.

At the start of my 2nd year in Japan, in early July of 2014, something rather unpleasant happened that changed my life forever. At the time, I was finishing up my search for two engineers for my startup, and there wasn't a whole lot else to work on, because the development of the app was a major bottleneck. So I again intensified my Japanese studies, and I was studying as much as 6-10 hours on many days for the Kanji Kentei, which was fun, but also stressful and taxing. Back then, I thought this played a major role in what was about to happen, but today I better understand myself and believe it was a minor contributor at most.

It had been a year since I had felt any nausea, but in the week leading up to the 6th of July, I noticed that I stumbled over the pronunciation of very simple words in supermarkets a few times, and that I felt uneasy in trains a few times as well. On the 6th of July, I took a Japanese test (JLPT N2) for which I hadn't really studied (I was studying for the Kanji Kentei), and for which I didn't have high expectations. I kinda just wanted to try and see how it'd go. The test was set to take ~3 hours with a break in the middle, but after about 20 minutes into the test, I knew I couldn't pass it, so I gave up. However, I could not leave until the break, so I had to stay in the classroom.

As I was waiting, I started to feel extremely uneasy and trapped, but since I couldn't go anywhere, I endured and waited it out. During the break when I entered the elevator, I once again felt very trapped and uneasy and just wanted to go home as fast as I could, but once I got on my bicycle I felt a bit better. I had planned to buy take-out sushi on my way home for dinner, but when I got close to the restaurant, I again started feeling very uneasy and decided to just go home and buy something from the supermarket. As I entered the supermarket, I still felt very tense, but I was able to grab the things I needed and sort of did okay until I got to the line and had to wait. At this point I started feeling so terrible, I had to step out of line, and I think I walked another two loops through the entire supermarket, before I eventually just stepped in line again and kind of blanked out. After that, I went home and assumed I was sick in some way.

The next day, I felt much better, so I decided to go to the gym, but on my way to the gym on my bicycle, I again started feeling unpleasant. I concluded that I had not recovered yet, so I turned around and went back home. Once I got home, I started trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and on a whim I decided to google panic attack, and to my surprise it described eerily well what had happened to me in the supermarket the day before. The realisation that I probably had had a panic attack gave me another, much more severe panic attack, but at least I was at home for that one.

After that, I don't think I left my home for an entire week. I don't think I had eaten Pizza for well over a year, because it's not exactly healthy and doesn't really fit the diet of a fitness person, but during that week I ordered Pizza a few times, because it was the only thing I could eat without leaving my home, but even just opening the door to receive Pizza was extremely scary and anxiety-inducing, although I still didn't realise I was suffering from anxiety at the time. The second week after the panic attack, I started to resume my normal schedule of going to the gym, eating out, and studying Japanese from cafes, but I was suffering from what I came to realise over the next several months was severe 24/7 anxiety. With the flip of a switch, I had gone from a self-described very happy person to, albeit initially still happy-ish, feeling very unpleasant every waking hour. I cannot put into words how horrible this was.

Over the next months, I tried to desperately figure out what had changed and what had caused me to suddenly feel this way, but I could not figure it out for the life of me, so I decided to seek professional help. The first professional I saw was a psychologist whom I felt didn't do very much, and who told me “it's nice to finally work with a patient who isn't so depressed all the time”. I didn't think much of it at the time, but damn... if that's not a major red flag, I don't know what is. I stopped seeing him simply because it wasn't effective, and I had started feeling slightly better because I received the number from a girl whom I really liked, who worked at a cafe I frequented. It turned out she only gave me her number to be polite though, so the feeling better was short-lived, and eventually I saw another psychologist who turned out to be a psychiatrist.

This second one somehow turned out to be even worse than the first. He told me within 40 minutes that I had ADHD, that I never do things I don't want to, and to top it off, he berated me for dropping out of university and other things I had done with my life that he did not agree with. I went for a second session, because at least this one seemed to have an answer, but when he wanted to start prescribing me various medicines right at the start of the second session, I had had enough. It seemed like professionals couldn't help me.

I had now been in Japan for almost two years, and I wasn't just feeling terribly anxious every day, I was no longer happy, and I started feeling depressed because I felt terrible every single day. I remember realising around this time that, if I had a chance to talk to myself from a year prior before the panic attack, there would be absolutely no way I could make him understand what all of this felt like. I knew myself from before the panic attack, and I knew that person simply lacked the ability to comprehend how a person could feel this bad. There was no way to make him understand. To this day, I'm actually very thankful for this realisation, because I now understand that no matter how much I try to put myself in another person's shoes, there are things and experiences that I just simply cannot understand, no matter how hard I try. I've always been very empathetic, but I think this experience allowed me to become even more empathetic than I already was, because I now no longer make the mistake of assuming to know how others feel.

My final year in Japan

After two years in Japan I turned 26. I had failed at starting a company, I had seen more than half of my net worth disappear (failed company + living expenses + no income), the most progress I had made in terms of finding a girlfriend was holding hands on a 2nd date, and I had gone from being happy to being depressed and feeling horrible every single day. To say things were not going well would be an understatement, but my life was about to get worse.

After the mental health professionals had failed me, I had a feeling deep down that, if only I could succeed at finding a girlfriend, I would feel much much better. So I put any new entrepreneurial projects on a back burner, and I really focused down on "fixing dating", because I did not think I could be happy if were to be alone forever. At times when I was really depressed, I thought “Screw girls! Let's just become a monk who dedicates 100% of his time to improving the world in some way, such as improving education.”, but at the same time I wasn't sure I could actually function like that, so it remained a humorous thought.

Although I had gone on quite a few dates during my 2nd year, and even one 2nd date, the furthest a relationship had progressed was to holding hands, so I realised I had to do more if I wanted any success. Therefore, I went to even more parties, I went to meetups specifically for single people, I tried a few Japanese dating apps, and I even went to some nightclubs, which I absolutely hated, but I was desperate and realised I couldn't keep doing the same things, yet expect things to miraculously change.

I also started wondering if I was doing things wrong. Although I believed myself to be very sociable and not lacking in social skills, results dictated otherwise, so I started finding resources to learn more about dating. One of these was quite focused on talking to girls in public, so I added this to my repertoire of methods to meet girls, and started talking to girls in public. However, I think I fried my own nervous system doing this, because:

  1. Talking to a girl in public is nerve wrecking for most guys.
  2. I was fluent in Japanese at this point, but I felt much less confident talking in Japanese than in English. This isn't exactly helpful when "picking up" girls.
  3. Japanese society is all about fitting in and not doing anything outside of social norms. After living there for a long time, you can literally "feel" the societal pressure to conform. Talking to anyone in public is not normal in Japanese society, and instantly makes you stand out.
To try to counteract all this, I started going to the gym twice a day, because it was the only thing I got any sort of enjoyment out of at the time. I did not like talking to girls in public whatsoever, and I really had to push myself, but it felt like I had no other options. I remember one time in November of 2015, I spoke to a girl on the street near Shinjuku station. I wasn't feeling too great that day, and it had taken me almost two hours before I worked up the courage to approach someone that day. It was clear the girl wasn't interested in me from the start, so it had nothing to do with me, but afterwards I was pretty much crying. I managed to somehow hold back actual tears, but I was crying badly on the inside. The amount of rejections I was dealing with on a weekly basis (often dozens) was soul-crushing, because my entire life (other than the gym) revolved around finding a girlfriend.

During the first months of 2016, things continued in similar fashion, although I did more clubbing and attended more parties, because I couldn't take the talking to girls in public anymore. I was able to go on first dates semi-regularly, but nothing progressed past the first date. My psychological state was further deteriorating at the time, and there were nights where I literally could not fall asleep, because my mind simply would not stop. At the time, I really hoped that that would be the worst time of my life, because I did not think I could take any worse. I also remember going cherry blossom viewing with some friends in April. I remember noticing that my friends were happy and joyful, and although I logically knew that I had felt like that in the past, I could not recollect what it felt like to feel that way. I was extremely rigorous with my training and nutrition during this period. It seemed liked the only thing I could control, and the only thing that was going well. I was so into it that I literally ate eight meals a day according to a spreadsheet for four months straight, and only deviated from it twice during those four months.

Things couldn't go on like this, and something had to change. The change came in early May of 2016 at a party I went to. At the party, I went up to and introduced myself to two girls in the most standard way imaginable, only to be met with laughter. After the interaction, I realised these girls hadn't taken me seriously from the very beginning, and I wondered why. It couldn't have been my introduction, and it was unlikely to be me. I dressed well and had spent a lot of time learning more about fashion, and I was in the best shape of my life. So what was it? And then it hit me. I realised that the only thing that was different, the only reason why these girls (and likely many, many others) could've reacted the way they had was because I wasn't Japanese. I immediately went home and started researching online the next day, and lo and behold, there were numerous people online saying that Japanese girls won't seriously consider dating foreigners. I inquired with a friend from high school who had ended up in Korea what it was like over there, and he told me that although the situation over there was less severe, it was similar to an extent. After this realisation, my mind was made up. I could not be happy in Japan, so I decided I would leave. The only question was where I'd go.

After two weeks of deliberating between many places, I re-visited Singapore (I had been there once before in 2013) to gather more information about my top choice, and by the end of May I had made up my mind to move to Singapore. A few weeks later, I moved to Singapore at the end of June 2016.

5: Singapore (2016-2017)

I came to Singapore on a tourist visa, and my plan was to secure a job so I could stay longer. This turned out to be easier said than done for of a couple of reasons. First of all, I had a very unusual background: dropped out of uni, professional poker player, and a failed entrepreneur. This wasn't exactly a recipe to easily land a job. What further complicated things was that there wasn't really any job in particular I wanted to do. All I cared about was being able to live in Singapore, and I cared a lot less about the actual work I'd do. I had just lost what had been my home for the past three years (Japan), and si I was simply looking for a new home first and foremost, and a girlfriend second, and so a fulfilling career wasn't on top of my list. Last but not least, I had never looked for a job before, and I was unaware that finding and landing a job is an entire skill set in and of itself.

I stayed in Singapore for a year on tourist visas. Singapore is quite strict when it comes to work visas (I needed a min monthly salary of SGD 6,000-7,000 to qualify), which meant that after one year I still had not landed a job. This in combination with the fact that, excluding an investment I had made in 2015 which I will talk about later, I was literally broke and had been borrowing money from my swap-parents for the past nine months for living expenses, made me decide to leave Singapore after exactly one year in June of 2017. I wanted to live in Singapore, but landing a job that'd qualify me for a work visa seemed uncertain, I felt bad about borrowing money from my swap-parents, and I was also worried that I could at some point be denied entry after a visa run. So I decided I'd go back to The Netherlands for a while, find a job there, work my way up, and eventually come back to Singapore once I was able to land a job there.

My year in Singapore wasn't easy. I was in very bad mental shape when I arrived. Most days I'd play a video game called DotA 2 all day as a coping mechanism, and although I made two friends that I'll later refer to as Rapist Betrayer Liar and his Ugly Wife, I never felt like socializing. I was also starting to come to terms with the fact that I, as a person, had likely changed forever, and that I'd never be the same again. The old me was gone.

However, my year in Singapore wasn't nearly as bad the year before in Japan, all thanks to dating. In Japan, every time I showed romantic interest in a girl, it felt like I was met with an attitude of “Why are you doing this to me? Please don't bother me with this. Please leave me alone.”. Girls in Japan wouldn't say that out loud, but that was usually the underlying tone of their response. In Singapore on the other hand, dating suddenly felt 'normal' and like what it was supposed to be.

On my very first date in Singapore, I finally kissed a girl and lost my virginity at the age of 27, and throughout my year there I'd say dating went quite well. Not only was I likely originally already pretty good socially as I always kinda knew, the studying of dating techniques that I had done had helped me develop very strong communication skills, and so after a bit more actual, real practice in Singapore, I felt like I had developed a strong understanding of how to interact with girls. My biggest influences were Mark Manson's book Models: How to Attract Women through Honesty, and Franklin Veaux's posts about dating, relationships, and communication on Quora.

Although during my first six months in Singapore I was mostly just ecstatic to no longer be getting nothing but rejections, and I was happy to gain more experience and a better understanding of what it was that I was looking for in a potential partner, during the latter half of my year in Singapore, I once again really started to want to find a relationship. Sadly enough, although there were plenty of short flings and hookups, I never met anybody I really clicked with.

Swap-family

This is a good time to talk about some of the things that worsened the relationship between me and my swap-family, whom I still thought of as my family at this point in time. A lot of factors I have already mentioned before, but you may remember that I said my swap-mother said some really hurtful things to me. This was during my time in Singapore, shortly after I lost my virginity. I was talking to her on the phone, and I told her I had a throat infection. When she asked how I got it, I told her I thought it may be mono and that I may have gotten it from kissing/sex.

I frequently talked to my swap-mother and had given her tremendous emotional support during her divorce from my swap-father, to the point of sometimes talking to her on the phone for two to three hours a week. I also often talked to her about dating and girls.

When my swap-mother heard that I had lost my virginity, she asked me two questions that I wish I could forget, but I doubt I ever will. She first asked me if it had been with a boy or a girl, which stunned me, because I didn't understand how she didn't know I was into girls. After a long pause I stuttered “a girl”. This first question was bad enough, but the second question she asked me was SO MUCH worse. She had the fucking guts to ask me if I paid for it. My jaw hit the fucking floor, and after another five or so seconds I uttered "no". I was completely checked out of the phone call (and relationship) after that, because there is no coming back from that. This event made me lose all respect for her and then some, and whatever attachment I still felt towards her quickly disappeared after that. From one moment to the next I went from having a mother to not having one.

Another thing that drove me to feel less close to my swap-family was caused by the mountains of rejections I experienced in Japan. I think that at this time I was already subconsciously distancing myself from The Netherlands and anything Dutch, due to childhood trauma inflicted upon me by my swap-family and high school friends group, but what made me distance myself even further from my swap-family was the following. I had come to realise that my swap-parents often treated me as an object rather than as an individual. They treated me as their son rather than as an individual human being. This may sound obvious and strange, but I felt like I was treated as their son, and often their distorted image of who I was, rather than the unique individual I am. I felt like the times they praised me, it was solely because they saw me as their (biological) son, not because I had legitimately done something great. I felt like they loved me just because I happened to be theirs, not because of who I was. It felt like that when I received their love and praise, it was solely because I happened to be in that place at that time, and that anybody else who just so happened to be their son, would've received the same love and praise. As a result, I had never felt loved or cared for.

My feeling that their understanding of who I was had been distorted and incorrect as far back as high school, intensified this feeling. The worst part of all this was that every time they showed love or affection towards me, it reminded me of the fact that I had not actually been loved for who I actually was by the people who most deeply judged me for that: romantic interests. Of course I learned at the end of my time in Japan that it was only the fact that I wasn't Japanese that had landed me all those rejections in Japan, but I didn't know that until the very end, and rationally knowing something is very different from your subconscious actually realising it. All this made me further distance myself from my swap-parents in particular, because any love/affection/closeness from them was painful to me. My swap-mother's love in particular is the most painful thing in the world to me, and if I was trapped in a room with her, I'd attempt to kill her, failing that attempt to kill myself, and failing that even press an imaginary button that kills every living thing, just to make the pain end. These feelings are complicated and hard to convey, but I hope they are at least somewhat comprehensible.

6: The Netherlands (2017-2018)

After I went back to The Netherlands in June of 2017, my plan was to quickly find a job, work my way up, and I had it in my mind that I should probably be able to move back to Singapore after two or so years. I started looking for jobs, and I remember going to at least one interview, but a month or two after settling down in The Netherlands, I was becoming severely depressed, even worse than I had been towards the end of my time in Japan. It got so bad that I literally gave up. Not in a suicidal way, I've fortunately enough never been the type of person to have suicidal thoughts, but in the sense that I was done. I didn't know what to do anymore, and I just gave up on everything until I could see a professional who could hopefully "fix me".

During my two months wait to see an English speaking psychologist (I didn't like speaking Dutch), I pretty much just slept, ate, and played DotA 2 as a coping mechanism and way to escape from life. While waiting for the psychologist appointment, I did sort of come to understand where my severe depression came from. I realised that the only reason I was alive was to get out of The Netherlands as soon as I possibly could. That, and to a lesser degree my own health, were literally the only two things I cared about.

At this time, I occasionally met some of my swap-family members, and they pointed out to me that my breath stank. Initially I was skeptical, but soon it got worse and even I could tell that something was wrong. I'd brush my teeth, and 30 minutes later my entire mouth felt 'just wrong' and unfresh. This made any social interactions (at the time, limited to seeing a swap-family member once every few weeks) even worse. I just felt like I was a burden to people, because my breath smelled so bad. I also was often mistaken for a foreigner in my own country, even though there was nothing wrong with my Dutch pronunciation. One time at a cafe with my dad, I ordered something in plain Dutch, and they started talking back to me in English while they continued to speak Dutch to my swap-father... The same thing happened at the supermarket, and various other places. It's bizarre to this day, and made me feel further alienated from everybody around me, but I also kind of took it as a compliment. To deal with my breath issues, I started going to doctors, but for the first few months, they only put me on various dosages of acid reflux medicine, which didn't do anything.

Around October of 2017, I finally had my appointment at a mental health institute for foreigners, where the therapists spoke English. During my in-take with a psychiatrist, she thought I may have ADHD, and although I really didn't think that was the case, I was open to doing a test, so my 2nd session a few weeks later was with a psychologist who would perform this test. I don't remember how it started, but I remember that a few questions in I just started bawling my eyes out, and even though I tried to continue to speak, I literally did not manage to utter a word for the remainder of the hour, because I just couldn't stop crying. She decided that in addition to the ADHD test, she would do some therapy with me.

Through therapy as well as my own reflecting, I concluded that my original plan to stay in The Netherlands until I could move to Singapore was simply stupid. I couldn't live like that with my only motivation being getting out of The Netherlands. I started to look into my options, and eventually decided that, until I could find out a way to move to Singapore, I should go live in Malaysia instead, which is similar to Singapore in many ways. But to do that, I needed money. I still had my investment from 2015, but besides that I was still broke and raking up more debt borrowing from my swap-parents to cover living expenses. I initially thought I'd do some freelance work, but soon I considered going back to poker. I hadn't played for years at this point, and the online poker landscape was totally different, but I used to be a top player, so surely I could still make at least some money, right?

In December of 2017, I started playing poker again through an old friend I had met in Vegas. He had always been very well connected in the poker world, so he helped me to get set up. The first few days after I started playing I did not do well, but after those initial days, I started winning. The games I was playing in were low stakes, but extremely soft thanks to the introductions of my friend. During that first month, I made a little over $20,000 in spite of the low stakes. Suddenly, moving to Malaysia looked within reach. In the middle of January, I had saved up enough to move to Kuala Lumpur, six months of living expenses, and enough money left-over to comfortably play poker with. However, it wouldn't be until mid-May until I was able to actually make the move.

The reason for this was my breath issue, which I wanted to get fixed while under Dutch health insurance and before I started socializing (and dating) in Kuala Lumpur. I hadn't gone on, or even tried to go on, any dates during my time in The Netherlands, because I really didn't want to speak Dutch with girls, and I was honestly just way too depressed during this period. Although my therapist was great and caring initially, very soon it felt like she wanted to get rid of me. As part of the ADHD test, she had spoken to my swap-mother, who told her she thinks I have Asperger's, and the therapist was now also convinced I had autism, even though I thought that was about the last thing that applied to me. Besides, even if I was autistic, then why did I feel fine until that eventful 6th of July of 2014, and why had I felt terrible ever since then? Either way, my therapist seemed to want to get rid of me, which was very hurtful to me, because I had formed a connection with her. She handed me back to the psychiatrist, who informed me that I'd likely have to wait many months for an appointment with the institute that could test me for autism in English. Since I was planning to leave way sooner than that, and since I didn't think I had autism anyway, I didn't even bother putting myself on the waiting list.

Leaving The Netherlands

It turned out that I had to stay in The Netherlands for longer than a few months, until mid-May as mentioned, and these months from late 2017 to mid-May 2018 turned out to be some of the absolute worst of my life. Because the acid reflux medicine had done nothing, in December of 2017, my GP started referring me to specialists. That month I saw an ENT doctor, but he found nothing unusual. Next up was a gastrointestinal specialist in late January. At this point, I had saved up enough money to move to KL and I just wanted to leave as soon as I possibly could. It was literally all I cared about. So when the gastrointestinal doctor told me we should do an endoscopy, I went along with it even though I was scared shitless. Although the procedure was short, it was the worst thing ever, I felt like I was dying, I had nightmares after, and I think it still haunts me to this day, but at least now I could move to KL, right? Wrong! They found nothing, and they told me I should be happy about that, but I most definitely wasn't.

I once again went back to the GP, whom I usually had to wait a few days to see after making an appointment, then I was referred to another specialist, which took a few weeks, after which I had to wait a week for the result of whatever test they did, which turned out to be negative every single time, and then the process started back from the beginning. All this waiting was driving me insane, because I wanted to leave so so SO fucking badly, but I couldn't, and it felt like there was nothing I could do to expedite it. Meanwhile, I continued to play a little bit of poker, but my mental state was horrendous, I felt like a fucking ghost. I vividly remember a dinner with my swap-sister, she told me she felt sorry for me, and I responded that actually it didn't feel like I was suffering that much, because it literally felt like I didn't exist. Various self-defense mechanisms were at play, and I was dissociating to extreme extents. Looking back at this time in The Netherlands, I feel like it's a miracle that I somehow got out of it. My mind was an absolute mess, I was very far gone, and I felt like I barely had any control over anything. I was like a leaf being carried by the wind in some random direction, or so it felt. It really didn't feel like I was alive.

I eventually managed to leave The Netherlands by virtue of a dentist. During a routine check-up, I was talking about my breath issue to the dentist, and she mentioned I should talk to their mouth hygienist about it, who then took a sample of the inside of my mouth, had it tested for bacteria, and a week later called me to inform me that they had detected a bacteria inside my mouth that is known to cause bad breath. They told me I probably got it through kissing, and after a week of antibiotics the issue had completely disappeared. A routine dentist check-up fixed what a dozen GP visits and numerous specialists couldn't, but it meant that I could finally leave The Netherlands, so in May of 2018, I packed up everything once again and moved to Kuala Lumpur.

 7: Kuala Lumpur (2018-2020)

The next two and a half years in Kuala Lumpur were quite a ride. They weren't easy by any means, especially early on as I recovered from the nightmarish year I had had back in The Netherlands. Having a stable, healthy mental state is very important to do well in poker, so that proved quite a challenge. I didn't play high volume during the remainder of 2018, because small setbacks upset me very easily, and made my mental health spiral, and every day I felt mentally terrible to varying degrees. Some days, I felt bad, but not so bad that I couldn't play. Other days, I felt so bad I could barely do anything. I was also frustrated with myself for not being able to work as hard as I used to be able to.

After moving to KL, it didn't take me long to get back into dating, with similar results as in Singapore. I was able to date normally, and finding a short fling or hookup wasn't overly difficult, but for the most part I didn't really click with anyone. However, there were a few exceptions. Throughout my two and a half years in KL there were a few girls that I really liked. But sadly, precisely those girls did not like me back. Due to past trauma and insecurities, these rejections were far more painful than they needed to be.

Overall though, I did slightly better than my last year in Japan and my year in The Netherlands, because my life didn't look so bleak anymore. KL was a decent place to live, and I was hopeful I could eventually figure out how to move to Singapore. So although my time in KL was not without challenges: I never found a relationship, during certain periods I experienced extreme loneliness, I was rarely motivated to socialize and make friends in a place that I knew would be temporary, and I still suffered from a host of mental health issues, all in all my time in KL, especially towards the end, was much better than my year in The Netherlands.

Therapy

I once again tried therapy after moving to KL. The first therapist I went to initially seemed really good, and I felt like I had finally found a good one. But sadly, it turned out she was maybe the worst of all up till that point, and she ended up hurting me more than helping me. She gave me terrible dating advice, she put her own needs before mine a few times (cutting me off because “I should let her do her therapy”), tried to suggest I find another therapist (which was super painful for vulnerable me to hear), and our last session I have almost no recollection of because of how many hurtful things she said to me.

Fortunately enough, in the summer of 2019, I found a much better therapist, who on one hand did absolutely nothing for me, but on the other hand helped me make a fair bit of progress. When I first went to her, I was really into meditation and I still believed that my mental state was largely a result of my own doing, and that I had a lot of control over how I felt. Sure, I often felt lonely and knew that the connection a romantic relationship would bring would help me tremendously, but I also believed that if only I was able to better cope with things, or just understand my mind better, that I'd be able to improve my mental state enormously.

Although this second therapist didn't help me much directly beyond providing me with a safe space to unload cropped up pain and emotions, her approach did help me make some crucial realisations on my own: I, like every other human, need connection and intimacy just as much as I need sleep, and almost as much as I need food and water. Without it, I am utterly alone, and it's only logical that I will feel terrible as a result. I don't have any close familial relationships. I had some close friendships at the time, but I had moved around so much that in spite of being close, these relationships provided me with little connection and intimacy, and I go years without seeing some of these friends in person. And in terms of romantic relationships, I had never had any. And so it's no wonder I felt like shit all the time.

I also reflected a lot on my past and childhood, and I came to better understand how many things had influenced me and had led to my years of anguish and suffering. I came to realise the true effects my childhood friends have had on me. They did not accept me, they reacted negatively to anything they didn't deem acceptable, and they subtly forced me to do things that weren't me. I also came to realise that Japanese society did pretty much the same thing to me as my childhood friends. As a foreigner, you'll never be truly accepted by Japanese society, so Japanese society did not accept me. Japanese society also very subtly reacts negatively to things that are not acceptable, and Japanese society also pressures people in it to conform to societal norms. Both my high school friends and Japanese society did not accept me, 'bullied' away parts of me that they didn't deem acceptable, and subtly tried to get me to conform to their norms. Having experienced all this first in childhood, likely made me extra vulnerable and made my experiences in Japan extra traumatizing.

Fortunately enough, throughout my time in KL I developed a much better understanding of everything, and I gained a lot more self-awareness. I came to understand I needed a proper home, for which I thought Singapore was the perfect place. I also learned that I, like every other human ever, need connection (how did no one bother to teach me this?). I also planned to put effort into making more strong friendships in Singapore, and I was optimistic that I would find the right romantic partner as well, which I thought would likely play a crucial role in curing my loneliness. Although I had come a very, very long way from my lows, I was still very far from being mentally healthy and happy.

Tesla

I've already hinted at an investment I initially made in 2015 a couple of times. This investment was in Tesla. After reading Elon Musk's biography in May of 2015, especially the chapter about what he went through in 2008, I decided I wanted to own Tesla stock, even though at the time I had no more than a basic understanding of the company. I invested then and there.

As time went on and I read everything I could find about the company, it became very obvious to me that Tesla was positioned to be one of the largest car manufacturers in the world in the future, so I bought additional stock later in 2015 and in early 2016, to the tune of $60,000 in total. My swap-parents had instilled in me a very risk averse mindset when it comes to money, so until then I had kept all my money in savings accounts, but I had been thinking for a while that I should do something better with my savings, and Tesla was perfect. I considered diversifying a bit more, but at the time I couldn't find anything else that I thought was a good investment, and I had come to understand Tesla fairly well, so I ended up only investing in Tesla. As time went on and I learned even more, I continued to become more and more confident in my investment, but because I was flat out broke and for a while even borrowing money for living expenses, so I could not afford to invest more for a number of years.

This changed in early 2019. As my mental state improved slightly, I started playing more poker, and I started making money in some very soft games that I had recently gotten access to through my friend. Some months I broke even or lost a little, but other months I won twenty something thousand dollars. By the end of May, I had saved up approximately $50,000, and it just so happened that Tesla was very cheap for nonsensical reasons, so I jumped at the opportunity and bought a lot more stock. I also started writing a blog about Tesla in June of that year. The first post received almost 10,000 views within a week, and was very well received online.

As I researched Tesla more and more throughout 2019 and kept publishing my research in my increasingly popular blog, I further deepened my understanding of the company, and I finally started to understand its true potential. At this point, I was no longer somebody who knew nothing about investing, I knew everything about financial statements, knew how valuations worked, could make detailed financial forecasts, and I had come to understand the industry extremely well from devouring every single piece of news every single day for four years straight. I realised that my previous guess as to the future value of Tesla, at that time worth ~$40B, of ~$1T was too low, potentially way too low. I realised that Tesla was likely to be worth at least ~$2T, and had the potential to be worth as much as $10T if things went well.

On top of this, using my newly acquired financial forecasting skills, I could see that Tesla was also extremely undervalued in the near term. Tesla's stock price had been depressed for the better part of a decade, and there were a lot of short sellers actively spreading misinformation. By forecasting Tesla's financial results for the next two years, I could see that even given a conservative forecast, one of two things would happen over the following two years. Either Tesla's stock price would stay the same, resulting in Tesla being valued the same as other car companies who were stagnant, and in some cases shrinking, compared to Tesla's staggering 60% CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) over the past decade. Or, much more likely, Tesla's stock price would increase significantly.

This lead me to decide to not only invest a portion of my ~$50,000 poker winnings during the latter half of 2019 into Tesla stock, but to also invest a fair amount into long-term Tesla call options. Without going into too much detail about what call options are and the exact 'bets' I made, although I would stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars if Tesla stayed around the same price over the next two years, if I was right, and Tesla stock indeed would double, or triple, or perhaps more, in addition to the shares I held going up in value, I would make quite a large sum off of the call options, potentially an enormous sum.

As faith would have it, even I could not have predicted what happened to Tesla's stock price, nor how quickly it would happen. At the end of 2020, Tesla's stock price was up almost 25x compared to its lows in 2019. As a result, I had turned my $160,000 original investment into $30,000,000, an almost 200x return. Although I highly doubt we'll ever see anything like that happen again over a one year period, I still believe Tesla is extremely undervalued, and I see myself keeping most of my money invested in Tesla until at least 2030-2035.

Move to Singapore

In late 2019 and early 2020, I started to look more deeply into how I could move to Singapore. It seemed to me like the best way to move to Singapore would be to, at least initially, go to university. At first I mostly looked into Bachelor's degrees, because after all I hadn't even finished mine. However, one NUS employee suggested I look into postgraduate degrees, which got me looking into an MBA. This seemed to be much more suitable for me and much more at my level than a Bachelor's, however, I was skeptical that I could be accepted without a Bachelor's.

This indeed turned out to be a challenge, because almost no MBA programs in Singapore consider students without a Bachelor's. They all told me my profile was very interesting, but that the lack of a Bachelor's was a deal breaker, so to please reapply after obtaining a Bachelor's. I tried NTU, NUS, SMU, and even ESSEC, but none of them would budge. Fortunately enough, there was one more MBA program in Singapore which was more open-minded. I don't think I ever screamed so loud as the morning when I woke up and noticed I received an email from INSEAD telling me I was invited to interview with them. The interviews went smooth and I was accepted, which meant I could finally, finally move back to Singapore.

8: Interlude

*Most of what you've read so far I wrote in late 2020 for an INSEAD MBA course on self-reflection. This chapter is a bit of an interlude talking about how I saw my future at the end of 2020.

I've already alluded to a couple of things I plan to do in my future. First and foremost, I need a home: Singapore. Second, I need strong connections, most importantly a stable romantic relationship. Third, I need further therapy to work through my trauma.

But say I accomplish all these things. Then what? How will I spend my time then? I could of course already more than comfortably retire on my current net worth, as I'm already close to having more money than I am likely to spend in a lifetime. And if I continue to be right about Tesla, I'm likely to end up with a hundred, or even a couple hundred million dollars in the 2030s. However, I've never been the type of person who sits on his ass doing nothing, and although I've always desired financial freedom, I've never desired retirement.

So what do I plan to do then, you ask? I've always been an empathetic person, but especially since my panic attack in 2014, I've become even more empathetic. Basically every day of my life for the past six and a half years I've wanted my suffering to go away. As a result, I've not only come to deeply hate my own suffering, but suffering of all kinds. I've also always been a big thinker, so what I really want to do with my life is do something that fundamentally makes the world a better place, and reduces global suffering. I believe that the biggest problem in society today and the cause of the most suffering is 'the tutorial to life'. Basically, children are born with some instincts and inherited knowledge, but by far and large they know nothing, and need to learn how to live in today's world, and they need certain needs to be taken care of until they learn to take care of them themselves. Today, we solve this through parenting and education, but I believe both of these systems are currently atrocious.

I could easily write another equally long, or longer, essay on this topic alone, but for the sake of brevity I will keep things short. Education systems are designed by governments, with as ultimate goal to benefit the economy through making children successful. Besides the fact that, in my opinion, education systems do a piss poor job at this goal, the goal itself is totally wrong. In my opinion, the only two goals of an education system should be to:

  1. Give children the ability to think independently, and to properly assimilate information.
  2. Give children all the knowledge and skills required to survive and be happy in today's world.
Governments have success and happiness mixed up. Success and benefiting the economy should not enter the picture, ever, unless it benefits these two goals.

Today's 'parenting system' is equally terrible. To help illustrate this, here's a thought exercise:

Imagine that you die tomorrow, and that you learn there is a life after this one.

In fact, you can choose from two possible worlds for your next life. However, these worlds are vastly different from the life on Earth you've gotten used to. Similar to how a monkey dressed in a suit would be unable to live and thrive in downtown Manhattan, you are currently not equipped to live in this new world. The two worlds have different systems to deal with newcomers.

In the first world, you'll be assigned to two random beings who are experienced living in it. It's their job to make sure you are taught what you need to know to be self sufficient, and to make sure you survive this initial period, which will last approximately two decades. Apart from that, you are basically their property for those first two decades, and they make most of your decisions for you. Your freedom is quite limited until you can stand on your own.

In the second world, you will also be assigned to two beings, who during the first two decades are responsible for your well-being and making sure you learn to be self sufficient. However, in this world, the beings are carefully selected to make sure they are qualified to fulfill this important role. Furthermore, although they are responsible for your well being, they do not get to make decisions for you. They're guides rather than your masters, and they are there to help you make your own decisions rather than to make your decisions for you.

Given these two options, which one would you choose?

Sadly enough, we currently live in world #1. Not to say that all parents are bad, and this describes the situation somewhat black and white, but fact of the matter is that parents legally own their children, and literally anyone has the right to be a parent, regardless of how incapable someone is of taking care of themselves, let alone a child. It's literally harder to be a janitor, receptionist, personal trainer, barista, or to get a driver's license, than it is to become a parent. Last but not least, it is illegal to hit a random stranger on the street, yet until recently all countries legally allowed parents to hit their children, and most countries still do. What the f is up with that? In many ways, children are treated by society more as objects than as individual human beings.

I believe I understand the problem fairly well, and I believe I have a pretty good idea of how to solve it better than we currently do through today's education and parenting systems, however, I am not sure (yet) about how to actually go about changing the status quo. As mentioned, the education system is mostly decided by governments, and the 'parenting system' is basically written in law. I can't just start a company and bring about change that way.

If I can get myself to a better place, solving these global problem is the single thing I most want to accomplish. Other than that, if I don't need it to make a better 'tutorial to life', I could see myself using my wealth, most of which I have no use for, to start a VC firm that has positive impact as its main investment criteria rather than ROI, and perhaps it'd be fun to write and direct a movie if I have spare time, but this isn't particularly important. And finally, although I'm not much of a retirement-, or even weekend-guy, I would like at least a decent work-life balance. I have the utmost respect for Elon Musk, but I don't think I want to spend as much of my time working as he seems to do. I value my health too highly, and I realise personal relationships are too important to me.

Although I have left out countless details, I think this about sums me up as well as anything can. I had a few good years during early adulthood, but I've also been through a mountain of suffering, and I'm still carrying around heaps of trauma today. But the future is looking quite good. I've (hopefully) left the worst behind me, I believe I really understand the problems I am struggling with today and how to solve them, and I'm hopeful that my future will be much better than my past.

9: Singapore (2021)

Right now it's May 2025, and so I'm not quite done yet, because a lot happened over the past five years.

INSEAD

After moving to Singapore, I quickly got settled in One-North nearby the INSEAD campus. INSEAD was a decent time, but honestly not particularly relevant to my story. I thought that I needed INSEAD in order to qualify for a work-visa in Singapore, and although the MBA degree doesn't hurt my standing in today's society, with the money I made investing in Tesla, I didn't actually need the MBA degree to be able to live in Singapore anymore.

During the initial months at INSEAD, I still planned to find a job in Venture Capital after graduation, but that plan quickly changed to simply setting up something called a Family Office, which has essentially allowed me to stay in Singapore as a private investor in return for ~$50k in yearly tax, accounting, and other miscellaneous expenses.

INSEAD itself was interesting. The other students there were all really friendly, but the classes were mostly dumb. The consulting class in particular made me dumber and lose braincells. I was hyper-logical after researching Tesla for 1.5 years, but then in came the consulting class telling me to live my life by reasoning by analogy and telling me to die for frameworks. That class seriously made me dumber.

Finance courses weren't much better, because I understood finance better than the professors, especially when it comes to risk. Because what MBA finance professors refer to as "risk" is actually just "variance". And what portfolio managers refer to as "risk management/mitigation" is actually just called "being a dumb pussy and giving up money for lower variance". Anyway... {end rant}.

Dating

After coming to Singapore I felt significantly safer and at peace for a while, and in early 2021 I started my quest of finally finding a long-term girlfriend, something I somehow still hadn't managed to do in almost 32 years of life as a human being.

In the early months of 2021 I went on a few dates with a girl I liked, but this too fell through before it went anywhere. At this point I was getting increasingly frustrated with the fact that I could easily find hook-ups and flings with girls I was attracted to but didn't see as life partners, yet when I met someone I really clicked with and saw as a life partner, things never worked out, and always ended within a date or 2-3.

After things fell through with this girl, I had had it and I realised that I could no longer be alone. With my newfound wealth I briefly considered a few crazy ideas, such as putting up billboards of myself and paying influencers to find me dates, but eventually I abandoned all the crazy ideas for something smarter.

In KL, I had come to realise that there was a massive correlation between how I felt emotionally and how recently I had had some form of intimacy. At first I thought it was just sex that made me feel better, but after a little while I realised that the #1 biggest factor in my emotional well-being was the amount of time since I last slept together with someone (not sex, actually sleeping together).

It got to the point that it was like a drug to me, not in terms of being addicting, but in terms of my mental state and my mental clarity being night-and-day from one day to the next. After sleeping together with someone, I'd feel "normal-ish" for anywhere between a few days to a few weeks, after which I slowly returned to my horrible baseline.

In KL, I had briefly considered prostitution as a way to help me not feel as horrible and as lonely, but I decided against it partly because it didn't seem safe, and partly because I thought I'd be contributing to the sex trafficking business, which didn't seem morally right.

But in Singapore, I decided I should try to find a transactional relationship, more commonly referred to as an "arrangement", so that I had some stability in my life and didn't have to constantly be afraid of someone leaving and abandoning me. That extra stability I then hoped would not only make life more bearable, but also make it easier for me to actually date and actually find someone who'd want to be with me long-term.

In April, I briefly was in an arrangement with someone who turned out to be incompatible with me, but in early May something amazing happened.

Therapy

Before I talk about that amazing thing, I'll briefly cover therapy for the year 2021. I started EMDR therapy with someone I wish I had never met and whom I'll refer to as "the rapist", because in a world filled with rapists, she would outrape all the other rapists by lightyears.

Anyway, in February 2021 I decided to cut all contact with my swap-parents and swap-sister, because I felt terrible every time I received messages from them, and I felt like I wouldn't be able to properly work on myself and properly heal unless I was completely cut off from them. I did not block my swap-brother, which was a big mistake in hindsight. I continued to text him 2-3 times a year around holidays.

EMDR therapy is something I had wanted to try for a long time, and around September of 2021 I felt as though I could achieve more through therapy than I had ever thought before, and so I really bunkered down and put a lot more focus on self-healing than I had before, to the point of essentially turning it into my full-time occupation.

This meant that, as much as I could, in my day-to-day life I would spend time self-reflecting, meditating, and digging into my feelings all day every day. I still went to the gym, I took breaks watching movies and ocassionally playing games, and such, but most of my time was dedicated to working on myself.

Phyllis

The only other thing I spend time on was a girl by the name of Phyllis, whom I met in early May of 2021 and with whom I entered into an arrangement. I made it clear from the get-go that this would be temporary, that I was simply very lonely, and that I would be dating in order to try and find my long-term life partner. She was very understanding and supportive in all of this.

It took only a month or two before I realised that even though our relationship was transactional on paper, it didn't feel transactional. I remember thinking to myself that this was kind of what a real relationship would be like, and I thought that Phyllis was the absolutely perfect "sugar baby" and that I would never find someone better to fill this need I had at the time.

A few months into knowing her, there was a day she came over to my place and I was having a particularly bad day. She realised there was nothing she could do to make me feel better, and so she burst out crying... 🥺

Looking back, Phyllis is the first and only person I've ever been able to form an emotional connection with. I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened within the confines of a transactional relationship, and I also don't think it's a coincidence that my swap-mother asked me whether I paid sex after I lost my virginity... I don't understand exactly the why, how, or what, but these are some real sinister coincidences if you ask me.

Throughout 2021 and heading into 2022, Phyllis offered me stability and emotional support throughout some tough times, but times were only about to get tougher.

10: Singapore (2022)

Psychosomatic Issues

Ever since my first official rejection by the Korean girl in Tokyo back in 2013, whom I actually asked if she wanted to be my girlfriend, I've had knee pain when running long distances. After getting home from the rejection, I decided to go on a midnight run:

Items I brought

Ready to run




It rained heavily


I ran all the way from Higashi Ikebukuro to Tokyo station to Roppongi before taxi'ing home. About 15KM

The reason I eventually taxi'ed home after 15KM was because I got knee pain in my right knee. I didn't think much of it, but over the summer, coming years, and even coming decade+ I continued to frequently have knee pain when running. Even walking at times felt uncomfortable and weightlifting often felt out of balance.

Over the years I visited almost a dozen physios to try and remedy it, but even though they all helped alleviate symptoms in the short run, it never went away. The most logical explanation was that I messed something up in my body/knee that night, so in early 2022, I decided to figure out what the hell was wrong, because it was becoming extremely annoying.

And so, I spent ~$10k on half a dozen MRIs and X-Rays to see if those could find anything. But similar to the endoscopy I underwent, nothing was found. I was again referred to a new physio, who was quite good, and suggested I start slow by going for walks a few times a week.

In February - April 2022, I stopped going to the gym altogether and started walking, eventually nightly. Very soon, it became apparent to me that whatever was going on with me was not something physical, because depending on the day, depending on my mood, and seemingly depending on a host of other random factors, my psychosomatic symptoms, my ability to walk/jog, and my general posture changed.

Psychosomatic symptoms are physical representations of psychological issues, usually as a result of an overwhelmed or not normally functioning nervous system. Especially the vagus nerve and psoas muscles are involved in this.

As I continued to focus most of my energy into healing myself throughout 2022, I discovered and theorized that most of my long-term physical ailments were actually psychosomatic, such as my allergies/blocked nose. And lo and behold, in November 2022, after a meditation session during which I realised to not be as obsessed with controlling the future and instead live more in the present, my allergies were suddenly essentially gone, and I was able to breathe more freely.

This might sound strange to you, but pent-up feelings can create tension in one's nervous system and thereby body. The easiest example is anger, but fear (fight-or-flight) also creates a ton of tension. This tension can result in physical ailments such as a blocked nose, ear infection, and tension that creates injuries during exercise.

Dating

Aside from the fact that dates where there was mutual interest somehow never worked out for me, another thing that really annoyed me about dating was that I used to only meet someone I was really into 1-2 times a year. In May of 2022 I finally met a girl I was really into shortly before my birthday on May 26th.

For my May 26th birthday, Phyllis and I went on a staycation, and I think she could somehow sense that I had just met someone I was into, because even though Phyllis didn't verbally bring it up to me, I felt some sort of pressure to talk about us, us being Phyllis and I.

I had felt something similar in early 2022, when I had a strong feeling that Phyllis was into me and wanted more than an arrangement, but it never really came up in conversation. This time though, I decided to speak up and respond to Phyllis' non-verbal request for clarification by telling her about the girl I just met and by reconfirming that I only saw Phyllis and I being in an arrangement and nothing more.

Phyllis suggested we take a bit of a break from each other so that I could focus my energy on the other girl. At the time I had no idea that a girl can tell whether a guy is seeing someone else, because I have no idea how that's possible, but I guess girls can tell somehow someway, so it was very kind of and smart of Phyllis to step aside for a little bit.

Things with the other girl did not work out (as usual), which meant that Phyllis and I reconnected in my new apartment in late June. The mutual attraction was just insane, and in no-time we were back to how things were.

Phyllis and I had chatted about threesomes before, but on her birthday in the 2nd half of 2022 she made it very clear to me that she was very interested in doing a threesome with me with another girl, possibly one I met through dates. At the time I was too happy and content with Phyllis to have any interest in a threesome. The only thing I was interested in other than Phyllis was finding a long-term relationship. But looking back I now believe Phyllis was very subtly hinting at us being polyamorous.

Around this time, Phyllis was also very interested in all the dates I went on, and at this time I was always able to share with her about dates and she always curiously listened. Which made sense, because from day 1 I had made it verbally very clear that Phyllis and I were temporary and I would be dating on the side looking for a long-term partner.

Rapist Betrayer Liar & Ugly Wife

My best friends at the time were two people I'll refer to as Rapist Betrayer Liar and his Ugly Wife, whom I had met back in 2016 during my first year in Singapore.

Until October 2022 I had never shared with anyone about Phyllis, but in early Oct'22 I decided to open up to Ugly Wife and share with her about Phyllis and the arrangement I had been in for a year and a half.

In return, she shared with me that she had a crush on a guy in Oxford and was talking to Rapist Betrayer Liar about opening up their marriage, that they were doing sex therapy, and various other things. She asked me to keep all of this from Rapist Betrayer Liar, which in hindsight put me in a precarious situation, because I was close friends with both of them, and I now essentially had to betray one of them.

Only because Ugly Wife had told me they were talking about opening up the marriage, and Rapist Betrayer Liar sort of seemed to confirm this when I met him, I decided to keep the information about the Oxford guy from him and not meddle in their marriage. But honestly, I should've told him then and there, but Ugly Wife put me in a really really shitty spot.

I also shared with Rapist Betrayer Liar about Phyllis during a chat in Jan'23. Somehow I went from seeing the two of them quite often in 2021 and 2022 (like once a month) to almost not at all in 2023. I guess they didn't like the fact that I was in an arrangement with someone?

Lastly, I somehow had a few emotionally terrible months in October and November right after all this, during which I went from spending ~3 days/week with Phyllis to only seeing her every other week. I don't know exactly what happened, but I think Ugly Wife in some way drove a wedge inbetween Phyllis and I and inbetween Rapist Betrayer Liar and I.

11: Girls & Healing (Jan'23 - Apr'24)

Phyllis

At the end of 2022, I started wondering what life would be like without an arrangement and whether I'd be okay without it. So when Phyllis decided to go on a 4-week europe trip at the end of 2022, I was really curious how I'd feel without her.

At the time I thought I felt quite okay without her, but when I later read back our text messages from that period, I realised that I missed her a lot and I was flirting with her heavily. The best example of which is this text, which to me was just humour at the time, but I now understand this is high-level flirting:


After this message, things between Phyllis and I changed drastically.

First off, we went on a trip to Langkawi together, which was amazing. Even though I wasn't aware of it at the time, I think this may have been the first time in my life I was truly happy, and to this day they're the best memories I have, even though for some reason it's difficult to think back to them.

Even though Phyllis had always been supportive of me dating and even went so far as to verbally say she didn't want to be in a real relationship with me, this all changed in 2023. She still didn't go so far as to say it verbally, but it felt as if she very clearly wanted to be in a real relationship with me. I could also tell she wasn't as comfortable with me going on dates anymore, which resulted in me being less open sharing about them, because I didn't see the point in bringing up things that hurt her.

Even I, never having looked at Phyllis as a potential life partner because she didn't check all my boxes, started to seriously consider just being with her. There were dates throughout 2023 that I went on during which I just wanted to leave in the middle and go be with Phyllis. Usually they weren't very good dates though, so I saw it as a bad sign that I only wanted to be with Phyllis when dating wasn't going well.

At the time, I didn't want to share with Phyllis that I was thinking about being in a real relationship with her, because I thought it'd make it harder for her to be there for me as emotional support as part of the arrangement. But in early 2023 I did share with her that I was thinking about it, also because I could tell that she wanted to talk about it.

Throughout 2023 there were a few times where I was like "Okay, YES! Let's do this and be with Phyllis." but every time it was short-lived. Once after passionate sex I was like "No, I don't actually want this", another time I changed my mind by the time I reached home, etc. etc. And so ultimately I told her in late February "I don't see you as a life partner", and I gave her a list of dumb excuses such as lack of intellectual connection as reasons for it.

I'll also say that during the ups-and-downs of our arrangement, we had our first "downs" in 2023. I never really argue with anyone, as I prefer to just sit down and talk about things rather than "argue". But during these talks with Phyllis there were numerous conversations during which the words coming out of her mouth made absolutely no sense and didn't align with what we were talking about.

This confused me, and so as I tried to figure out what she was actually trying to communicate to me, I paid more attention to the underlying feelings she was trying to communicate, which by the end of 2023 had made me hyper-sensitive to Phyllis' feelings, to the point where I could immediately tell if I said something that upset her, so that I could bring it up and discuss it immediately, rather than something going unaddressed for weeks.

Charmaine

In March of 2023, I went on a trip to Hong Kong. As soon as I got to my hotel, I started receiving upset texts from Phyllis for not texting her back yet, which was very unusual. Looking back, I think that she somehow knew that I'd meet a special person during my Hong Kong trip and that she was becoming insecure and scared of losing me.

That special person I met on March 9th, a girl by the name of Charmaine with whom I went on the best first date I've ever been on. A strong intellectual connection used to be (and still may be) the #1 thing I look for in a partner, and I was able to connect with Charmaine on this level unlike with anyone ever.

During dinner, it turned out she hadn't fully read my profile and didn't realise I actually live in Singapore, so I assumed the date would end quickly, but she insisted we go for a drink after.

The date was simple, but indescribable. Whenever I meet someone I really like I tend to take things slow and so I wasn't planning on even asking her for a kiss, but I had to make sure she knew how much I liked her, especially given the distance, so I asked if I could kiss her. As I turned around (I had almost gotten into my taxi already), she gave me a peck on the lips.

Due to all the rejections I had faced, I tried to not come on too strong and hold back my feelings initially, but within days I was all-in and could not contain my feelings for her anymore, and I knew she liked me too.

However, as seems to be my fate, in less than a week Charmaine stopped texting me back. She was clearly into me, but for some reason stopped texting me back. I tried to talk to her more over the coming weeks, but she never responded. By late March I couldn't believe it but I was certain that Charmaine had rejected me.

I remember more than ever wanting to restart my life and making my way to Hong Kong earlier to have another chance with Charmaine. I desperately wanted to restart it all, because it felt as if I had missed out on the best / most compatible girl I'd ever meet.

My crush on Charmaine did not diminish much. And she did text back twice in May, but the texts were very short and they made very little sense, which was strange for someone so intelligent. Eventually she blocked and removed me from Instagram in early June, but in October we reconnected. At this point I had to know why things hadn't worked out between us, and so I asked.

She told me that from her perspective it was her schedule (work + recently started therapy) and the distance, both of which made sense, but at the same time I was happy to and able to travel to Hong Kong frequently, and we liked each-other so much that I felt as though there was more to it.

I will add that I think Charmaine's on-and-off communications with me somehow indirectly taught me how to set emotional boundaries, something the existence of which I still have a hard time wrapping my head around, but alas.

End of the arrangement

As 2023 progressed, the arrangement with Phyllis added more and more pressure to my life. Not only was her sex drive higher than mine, she also wanted to spend more time with me than I was comfortable with. By early September I knew that I had to end the arrangement for my own sake, but I decided to hold off until after her birthday late September, because I didn't want to ruin her birthday.

As a result, September 2023 was extremely tough for me, because I felt like I no longer could be myself around her. Her birthday in particular, I really enjoyed, but at the same time it was also horrible and tough to get through, because deep down I just wanted to end the arrangement.

The first weekend of October I finally talked to her about it. There were a few tough conversations, but in the end she broke down crying asking me whether I thought things would change between us. With tears in my eyes I was honest and said "yes, but not that much".

After she left, I continued to bawl my eyes out for over an hour.

Laura

I hadn't dated much in early 2023, not because I wasn't allowed to or didn't want to, but because I felt like dating during that period was hurtful to Phyllis. Phyllis' well-being and our arrangement were more important to me than dating, so I barely did.

That changed after the arrangement ended, and so I went on ~8 dates in the month of October and some more in November. Out of all those dates, there is one I have to talk about. A date that happened on Sunday November 12th with a girl named Laura.

Laura's work involves shifting through resumes, and so I decided I'd send her a boyfriend application resume + cover letter:


The date with Laura was fucking awesome. As soon as I saw her I knew she was girlfriend material, not just because of her stunning looks, but because of everything. I'd go into more detail, but words cannot describe how awesome the date was, so I won't waste any effort.

Less than a minute after the date, as I get in my Grab, I start receiving texts from Charmaine telling me she's planning on going to a trip and implying that it may be to Singapore. At this point I'm like... FINALLY I'm going to be able to be in a real relationship, because there is absolutely no denying that Laura is into me and to top it all off I might even have to choose between her and Charmaine because I get the feeling Charmaine is also once again very interested? I honestly couldn't believe it.

Usually after an awesome first date, such as the one with Laura, I take whatever actions I think are most likely to lead to a second date, but this time around I decided to stand up for myself after she didn't text back for three days, and I told her that it really upset me. Honestly, I only let her know 10% of how hurt I was because that Wednesday I smashed and broke my phone, and I at the time was not a person who would ever do anything like that.

As with everyone else I had ever liked, things with Laura did not work out. After I texted her 10% of my frustrations for not texting back for three days, she told me she had had a few bad days too and that she was now leaning towards not going on another date. Which honestly made little sense considering how epic our date was. But alas, such was/is my life.

Healing

In the following weeks and months I felt atrocious, to the point that heading into December I stopped dating altogether and decided to refocus on my own healing journey, which I had put on a backburner in October and November as I went on more dates.

As for Phyllis, I didn't see much of her in October, but we reconnected in November. Around this time she was struggling with the status of our relationship. I think she must've felt societal pressure to conform and so neither getting money nor a long-term commitment must've been difficult for her. I once again told her that she meant the world to me, but that I did not see her as a life partner.

Nonetheless, she continued to be there for me, especially after her Taiwan trip in December. I felt truly horrible and Phyllis was there to support me.

Around new year was the last I heard of Charmaine for a while. She promised me to go on a trip with me and to me it seemed all but certain we'd finally meet again, but then she cancelled and decided to go on a trip with her mom, which upset me to the point that I felt done with her.

Afterwards, I pretty much bunkered down and focused 100% of my energy into healing myself. My life was once again, 4 days a week hardcore focusing on my pain, suffering, and worst feelings for hours at a time with minimal breaks, only to then spend 2-3 days recuperating with Phyllis. Phyllis was a fucking angel during this time. No money changed hands, but in spite of that she was there for me in every way possible. Deep down I already knew Phyllis wasn't after my money, but this period proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that she loves me for who I am.

As this healing period went on, I started experiencing flashbacks of being abandoned as a kid from younger and younger ages:

  • First day of elementary school (age 4). The teacher distracted me so that my swap-mother could leave. A sign that I was already severely traumatized and that my swap-parents had already fucked me up. Even as the teacher distracted me, I could instantly tell when my swap-mother was leaving and I attempted to run after her crying.

  • Vaccination (age <1). I didn't know how it was possible to have a flashback from such a young age, but I vividly remembered a place where I knew I had gone to receive vaccinations.

  • A pre-school daycare center (age 2-3). My swap-mother brought me here. I rememeber feeling unsafe with the people there and bawling my eyes out all day waiting for my swap-mother to pick me up.

  • Left with friends of swap-mother (age 2-3). I was left with friends of my ex-mother who live in a large free-standing home. Even at this age I was already severely traumatized, because I was too scared to leave my swap-mother out of my sight to go play with the other children in fear of my swap-mother leaving. I was then assured she wouldn’t just leave and that it was okay to go play, but LO AND FUCKING BEHOLD, some time later as I’m playing I asked where my swap-mother was, and I WAS FUCKING TOLD SHE HAD LEFT… and I was made to stay overnight there too... like WHAT THE FUCK... you can't make this shit up. Classic textbook abandonment of an already severely traumatized child.

  • A daycare of some sort in Amsterdam (age 1-2). I remember a daycare center next to a river where I was left and just felt completely alone all day. There were some toys, but not many. Even now thinking about it sends shivers down my spine, because it was so difficult getting through the day.

Before I talk about the flashback of flashbacks, I'll mention that during this period my physical well-being started to suffer as well. I fell physicall ill once with a fever that was a clear result of my mind. I also grew physically weaker and weaker to the point where going to the gym was out of the question. Not only that, towards the end of March and into early April, I couldn't even make it walking to the supermarket without getting a panic attack, without collapsing, and without feeling like someone was violating my boundaries.

In the middle of April, one day laying on my couch trying to focus down and dig into my feelings, it happened. I had a brief visual flashback of my own birth. First I sucked my thumb for a bit, which I assumed was related to breastfeeding, and then with my eyes closed I could see myself being taken away from my birthmother and into a hallway with a lot of lights, presumably to be put in the incubator for a week, and then be taken home by the wrong family.

12: How to Save a Life (Apr'24 - Jul'24)

Suicidality

After this flashback I felt extraordinarily vulnerable. So much so that I thought it would take me weeks, if not months, to get back to normalcy. Phyllis showed up unannounced that night, but I felt so vulnerable that I stayed curled up in my bedroom too frightened to open the door.

Afterwards I texted her that I thought it was time for us to finally be just friends, essentially friendzoning her, although there was still a small part of me that thought maybe I do want to date her. I didn't close the door on that possibility completely, but I thought that I was far too emotionally dependent on her at that point in time to make that choice.

A week and a half after the flashback I felt so much better already that I decided to download a dating app again. The very next day Charmaine texted me. I don't know how she texted me within a minute of my date with Laura ending or the day after I am ready to put myself out there again, but it must mean she's somehow extremely in touch with my feelings.

I chatted with Charmaine daily after this, but the week after I had a date set-up with someone and I just felt terribly all day long. I almost wanted to cancel the date, but I thought I should at least try and go and see how I feel. However, before the Grab left the driveway, I felt so strongly that it was wrong to go on that date that I went back up to my apartment and cried for an hour making a list of 30+ things I loved about Phyllis. The next day (Friday May 1st) I showed up to her workplace with a rose (the first rose I've ever bought for anyone) and told her I wanted to try and make a serious, committed relationship between us work.

Over the weekend I texted Charmaine the news that I was talking about dating a best friend of multiple years. She took it well and encouraged me to prioritize myself and that girl in that order.

Over the next two weeks Phyllis and I talked about a number of topics, but long story short, the talks halted when it felt like I had to make a choice between dating Phyllis and dating others, and I didn't feel ready to be exclusive and not date anyone other than her.

After Phyllis accepted that things wouldn't work out between us, a few very important things happened:
  • She shared with me that she had been suicidal for a year and a half and that I was the first person she felt comfortable sharing it with. She hadn't brought it up before because she didn't want it to influence anything between us.
  • Phyllis said she'd probably need time away from me to get over me.
  • I then shared that even if we don't talk for weeks, months, years, decades, it doesn't fucking matter, I will always always ALWAYS be there for her.
  • She shared that knowing herself, she won't reach out when she needs help.
  • We spent an amazing afternoon together where it felt like nothing could go wrong ala luck potion in Harry Potter. It felt like there was a mutual understanding that this would be the last time we'd be together.
About a week after this it suddenly clicked inside me. Phyllis had not only told me she had been suicidal for a year and a half, she also told me she won't reach out when she needs help, meaning that in essence she could kill herself at any moment and I wouldn't know... this sent me over the edge, because when I say that I love Phyllis, that's a major fucking understatement.

I immediately started reaching out to Phyllis to see how she was doing. She initially didn't respond, but as the days passed I became more and more frightened for her well-being. Eventually the last weekend of May she responded, and I poured all my fucking energy into sending her the best text message a man has ever sent a girl, making sure she knew on the deepest level of deepest levels that I had her no matter fucking what.

She came over to my place the next day (first Monday of June) for a week together that was about to change my life.

Visions

Phyllis and I spent most of the first week and a half of June together at my place. My memory of this time is very vague, because the things I experienced were batshit insane. I've never taken drugs (voluntarily, more on involuntary drugs later), but I imagine that what I experienced was what an MDMA trip is like.

I started having all sorts of visions and I was in-and-out of consciousness, especially the first few days. A lot of the visions had something to do with movies, such as Tenet (time-loops). I also felt like the universe was pulling me apart (between Phyllis and Charmaine). I had a feeling that Phyllis was going to disappear from the world. At one point Phyllis said "Remember me" and "It's not your fault".

I couldn't fucking sleep or eat for the life of me, and at one point when Phyllis got up in the middle of the night to go to the living room, I couldn't leave her out of my sight for more than 10 seconds, because I was so fucking scared she'd jump off the balcony.

I also alternated between finding her the most beautiful girl in the world and finding her ugly, which was extremely weird. We had the weirdest sex ever that was good, but also bad.

Lastly, about four days into this, as I was walking into the kitchen, I suddenly experienced telepathy. I could hear Phyllis' voice in my head and I knew it was her. It was the weirdest thing ever, because I never thought something like that could be real. But since then I've googled it, and apparently some people experience telepathy with people they have strong emotional bonds with, so I guess I'm not the only one?

During the weekend I casually said to Phyllis: "so we're in a relationship now?" even though I don't really know why I said it. She never really confirmed but I was pretty sure we were.

Then by the middle of the second week of June I started to sober up and I felt like what happened was extremely wrong. I didn't feel like I wanted to be in a relationship with Phyllis, especially not like that. Furthermore, I felt emotionally raped and because Phyllis had been the one physically present, I could only assume that she was the culprit (I have since changed my stance on that).

I went over to her workplace in the evening for a weird talk, during which she told me to get permission from a therapist before I could talk to her again, and during which I told her I didn't think she was ready for a relationship.

I also cut off Charmaine right after, because I felt so scared and unstable that I just wanted to focus on stabilizing, which I suppose for me involved cutting off my #1 and #2 emotional supports... perhaps that wasn't such a good idea in hindsight, but I was scared of both Phyllis and Charmaine at this point.

The next few weeks I refocused on myself and quickly stabilized. Late June I felt ready to send a scathing email to my swap-parents explaining to them everything that I now knew they had done to me and give them one final chance to be part of my life:

START EMAIL

I imagine this will be difficult and painful for the two of you to read, so I recommend you wait to read this until you are in a comfortable place, preferably with somebody you trust near you to support you in case you need it. This is not urgent.


Father, Mother,


I feel the need to end the silence and share with you the indescribable pain you have caused me.


The way I view things is as follows:


Father, you have an immense amount of hurt inside of you, presumably via generational trauma because your mother went through the holocaust as a jew. You are incapable of facing this hurt, and because you are incapable of facing and healing your own hurt, you are also incapable of understanding the hurt inside of others. As a result, you are incapable of emotionally helping others who are hurt.


Mother, you have an at least equal amount of hurt inside of you due to your strict religious upbringing. You are incapable of taking care of your own emotions, and so you need others to take care of your emotions for you.


Because father was incapable of taking care of mother's emotions, mother felt that she needed children to take care of her emotions for her. On some level father understood that mother needed children and agreed, and he has told me he was 'converted' and became religious upon my birth. But most likely what you felt was the burden of mother's trauma that had been directed at you being diverted away from you and being transferred onto me.


I've had numerous flashbacks of the early years of my life of being abandoned over and over and over again, including:

  • Being abandoned within minutes of being born and being taken away to an incubator

  • Being left at some sort of day care in Amsterdam

  • One particular instance of being left at a day care in Leiden (nearby Stedelijk and church) with people I did not feel comfortable with, only to cry my fucking brains out all day

  • A time when I was left at the large home of a friend of mother somewhere near Voorschoten. I think these were the people who gifted me my rabbit stuffed animal, and I think I may have stayed overnight. But because I could sense that I was about to be abandoned, I wouldn't leave mother out of my sight, only to be told by her she wouldn't leave and it was okay for me to go and play. And lo and behold, a while later I asked where my mother was and I was told she had left anyway and had just straight up lied to me and left me... un fucking believable

  • And of course my first day of elementary school. There's no way I could forget the horror of that day when my mother (with the teacher’s help) tried to distract me so that I wouldn’t notice her leaving


At this age I was already beyond traumatized by your failures as parents, and I was trying to do my best to cater to mother's emotional needs in the hope that I wouldn't be abandoned and left alone anymore.


My mother's emotional needs were so intense that it nearly killed me on a number of occasions, including before I was even born and when I ended up with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck three times. I don’t believe that was a coincidence, but rather unborn me going crazy from sensing the amount of pain I was about to go through and almost preferring death over it. Thankfully, you ended up having two more children later on to take some of the burden off of me. I strongly believe that without the two of them I would have succumbed under the pressure of taking care of mother's emotions and I would not be alive today.


Understanding all of this, it's no surprise that, after I left to go to university and finally got some MUCH needed physical space between us, Daphne took on more of mother's emotional needs and fell emotionally/mentally ill as a result. In my opinion, the physical symptoms were merely psychosomatic (physical manifestations of emotional pain). I've experienced a lot of symptoms similar to hers, and they're all explained by trauma. And finally, it's also no surprise that after I left your marriage collapsed. It's because I was no longer there to act as a barrier/dampener between the two of you.


There is one more thing that mother did to me that absolutely destroyed our relationship. In 2016, shortly after I had moved to Singapore for the first time, over the phone we talked about my throat infection at the time and I explained I thought I may have gotten it from having sex. You then immediately asked me two questions:

  1. With a boy or a girl?

  2. Did you pay for it?

I’m assuming you had a bad day and the word sex somehow triggered you, but these are FUCKING INSANE questions for anyone to ask, and the fact that my own mother could say shit like that to me hurt me deeply. There is no excuse for this.


All this may make it sound like mother is responsible for most of my pain, and although it is true that she is the direct cause of the majority of it, father is indirectly EQUALLY responsible for all of this. Not only by not taking care of his wife and letting that responsibility fall to his children (mainly me), but also because you were mostly absent for my entire childhood and you didn’t contribute shit. Sure, you made money, but who gives a fuck about money and a ‘nice’ house if you’re severely traumatized and in severe daily emotional pain by age 4. I know you are more-or-less incapable of detecting the emotional pain of others, but this doesn’t make you any less responsible for it than mother is. BOTH OF YOU ARE EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR MY PAIN/SUFFERING.


All in all, the first 35 years of my life were a living hell. The immense amount of pain and suffering I've been through at your hands is something I don’t believe either of you will ever be able to understand. Both of you FUCKED UP. It should be illegal for people like you to be parents. Neither of you can properly take care of yourself, so why should you be allowed to take care of others? I was more of a parent to the both of you than either of you ever was to me, in the sense that I took care of the two of you (emotionally) way more than the two of you took care of me. Mother used me to feel less alone and to soothe her emotions, and father allowed this to happen so he didn’t have to.


So make no mistake. The amount of hate and anger I feel towards the two of you is something that may never go away. However, I also want to stress that, I understand that you both are also victims of your environments, and so in that sense none of this is your fault. I also understand that, just like every other human being, you are well intentioned.


Furthermore, I am also grateful for the positive things you did. Mother generally allowed me to do my thing and allowed me a lot of freedom, which is something a lot of parents fail to do. And father supported me financially in 2017 during the worst time of my life. So thank you for these and other good things you did that I cannot remember, because the horrible things overshadow the good ones. And technically you could’ve been worse parents, but that doesn’t make you not terrible parents. And it doesn’t change the fact that neither of you knows a fucking thing about anything that’s actually useful in life.


On the bright side, after a massive amount of therapy I’ve been able to process a lot of the shit the two of you put on me, and so I am in a better, more stable, and healthier place these days.


Going forward, I don't know whether I want any sort of bond with either of you. Perhaps if I happen to travel to Europe one day, I'll consider visiting, although I currently cannot imagine it being a happy visit. And at least for the foreseeable future, I don't foresee myself getting over the hate and anger I feel towards the both of you, but perhaps this letter/email will help me to let go of some of it.


Lastly, I strongly urge the two of you to find yourselves good therapists (tip: look into EMDR therapy and the book “The Body Keeps The Score”). I urge you to do this for yourselves, but I'll be honest that all the trauma you yourselves carry with you contributes to it being nearly impossible for me to have any sort of a bond with either of you, because I suspect I'll just end up getting hurt again, which I will NOT let happen again, because I’ve taught myself to prioritize myself and to protect myself from people that cause me pain. In the case of mother, I'm even happy to pay for your therapy, because if I recall correctly your financial situation isn't the best.


So in short, if you want to do something for me (but really for yourselves) PLEASE GET YOURSELVES SOME FUCKING THERAPY, and learn to take care of yourselves so that others don’t have to do it for you anymore.


I wish you well.

END EMAIL

I never received a response from my swap-father, indicating he just doesn't give a fuck about me or our now non-existent relationship. He found himself a new girlfriend with three daughters after he got divorced from my swap-mother, and he also kept as much money to himself as he could. He cares more about money than about feelings.

However, my swap-mother's response was even worse. She told me that "no matter how much I hate her, she will always love me", which on an emotional level really translated to "no matter how much you care about me, I will always hate you". My swap-mother's "love" as she refers to it is the #1 most painful thing in the world to me. If I was trapped in a room with her, I would attempt to kill her, failing that attempt to kill myself, and failing that even press an imaginary button that would kill every living thing in the universe.

Instability

As June came to a close, I reconnected with Phyllis over a strange late-night video call that felt like the rapist, my EMDR therapist at the time, was present. During this call it felt like I was asked to tell Phyllis what role I saw her playing in my world, but I didn't understand the meaning of the question and so I simply answered what role I thought she could play in the world. She was studying to be a psychologist, and so I told her I thought she could be the world's best therapist.

I then had a very weird but interesting first week of July. It's around this time that during a session with the rapist she did something to me that I still don't fully understand. It initially made me happy, but as soon as I left the session I was like... it's a really bad idea to do this with a therapist.

The first and second week of July I then felt as though I had been turned into some sort of "vessel". It felt like I was healing others or something through things like working out, doing yoga, etc. I can barely remember, but it was the weirdest time of my life. I also started having additional visions of what I think was a sort of heaven in the 2nd week of July.

Then one night (I think July 10th or 11th) as I went to bed I suddenly felt a really gentle energy wrap around me and I felt loved for the first time in my life. I knew it was a girl who had somehow found me in my sleep and I was excited to go out and try to find her. By midday the girl was too anxious and wanted me to know who she was, and so she told me she was Laura. After this followed one of the weirdest and scariest weeks of my life.

During this week, it felt like at times I experienced telepathy with dozens, if not hundreds of people at the same time, which included a few celebrities such Steph Curry, Barack Obama, Usain Bolt, etc. I know this sounds crazy, but it's incredibly difficult to describe this week. I'd summarize it as it felt like I was balancing the weight of the world on my shoulders.

How to Save a Life

I also saw Phyllis in person again a few times this week, as she stayed over at my place three times. The third time she came over was July 17th in the evening and she showed up with five clear knife cut marks on each wrist. When I noticed, I immediately became concerned and asked her about them. She refused to talk about them which was a major red flag to me, because she had never refused to talk to me about anything ever before.

We then went to bed, had sex, and had sex two more times in the morning, and everything seemed okay, apart from the fact that I received a text from the rapist who told me she and my friends were concerned and asked me whether I'd consider going for in-patient treatment. I don't know exactly how, but it appeared as if she broke confidentiality and talked to my friends behind my back?

I told her I was with Phyllis and we were doing a lot better. I was vehemently against it, but I'm always open to change my mind, so I told her we could discuss it the next Monday during the next session (it was now July 18th, a Thursday).

Phyllis and I then had lunch and after lunch she had to leave for work, but as soon as she got ready to leave, I could tell she got frightened. I connected her leaving with her fear, and so I convinced her to stay a while longer. She had never before been scared around me or in my apartment.

The next three hours are a haze and I barely remember a thing. The next thing I clearly remember is us being in the bedroom and her wanting to leave again. I was still incredibly frightened for her life and was against it. I don't remember the exact order in which things happened, but I know that the first thing that happened was was that I once again could clearly hear her voice in my head (aka telepathy), which I hadn't heard since early June. She was telling me clearly "don't let me go".

For the next ten minutes I physically kept her in my bedroom against her verbal words, but not against her will which was saying "don't let me go". Furthermore, she opened the balcony sliding doors at some point, which we had never opened in 2+ years of us living there, which further frightened me that she may jump.

At some point she asked to call the police, a request which I did not deny as I instantly gave her a phone to call. Instead of calling the police she called her best friend via Instagram video call.

After about 10 minutes, the situation became so emotionally volatile that I felt that I had to leave the apartment, and so I did. I went for a 20ish minute walk and when I came back there was police waiting for me. My first thought was that she had stabbed herself in my apartment and that I'd get framed for murdering her.

To my shock, Rapist Betrayer Liar and his Ugly Wife were also there. How Phyllis' friend could've called the police and ~30 minutes later the police showed up alongside my at the time two best friends is beyond me, but it happened.

I asked whether Phyllis was okay and to see her, I'm pretty sure I explained about the knife cut marks too. I was told she's okay, but I was looked down upon with disdain and I felt like people were lying to me. I was incredibly frightened that she had actually stabbed herself.

I was asked to come to the station to give a statement. I volunteer as a third party present for interviews between Investigation Officers and Young Suspects, so I assumed it'd be similar and I'd be home later that day. But that wasn't the case...

In my mind, that day I confined Phyllis to the top of a skyscraper she was attempting to jump off of.

13: IMR Confinement #1 (Jul'24 - Aug'24)

I was brought to the police station, but instead of simply going to give a statement, I was put in jail for the night without even receiving a phone call. I did give a statement, but honestly I was under so much stress and still believed Phyllis, my only emotional connection, to most likely be dead, so the statement I gave was void of details and only painted a general picture of what had happened.

After a completely sleepless night in jail, I was brought to a place called Institute of Mental Health (IMH), but refering to that place as anything with mental health in the name is an insult to actual mental health professionals worldwide, so instead I refer to it as "Institute of Mind-Rape (IMR)".

During my in-take I explained to them everything that had happened, and I asked them to confirm things with the rapist, whom at the time was my therapist that I trusted fully. I assumed I'd be allowed to go home soon.

This assumption was reinforced when Rapist Betrayer Liar showed up and started talking about bail, but instead of bailing me out he had come to lock me up. His words were "We think it'd be good for you to stay here". Whom he was referring to with "we", I have no idea, but it certainly didn't include anyone who had my best interest at heart. If only I had been allowed to see Phyllis and make sure she was alive and well, I'd have been more-or-less fine in an instant.

I have never taken drugs. I have not drank alcohol for >10 years. I don't smoke. And I do not even drink coffee. I stay away from any and all mind-influencing substances.

As soon as I was admitted, I decided to drink some Milo, which I later learned contains "vitamins" in order to "reward" patients (more like victims) who take their drugs (refered to by IMR as medication).

As a result, I started hallucinating. I thought that I had to go find Phyllis and so I did. There was a door that went into a hallway that was half-open (half-broken, but looked half-open). I decided to try and push it to attempt to go through it. Next thing I remember I wake up strapped to a bed and sedated.

I now know that even though no one had told me I wasn't allowed to go through that door, and it legitimately was half open, when I attempted to push the door open, nurses/guards restrained me and sedated me.

So now, a person who has zero resistance to any sort of drugs was drugged even more, and as a result I started hallucinating and seeing even more visions over the next few days. I was restrained and sedated at least two more times (if not more) for going through doors I wasn't allowed to go through. It also turned out there were drugs in all the food labeled with "Thin Therapeutic Fluids". So yeah... I was drugged out of my mind against my will and I had no idea what the hell was going on most of the time.

At times I thought there was a big virus raging on outside, at times I thought I was talking to the Singapore Prime Minister and he wanted to send me a helicopter to pick me up, and I denied and requested a car instead. At times I had to choose between being raped by Phyllis, a goddess, and Laura, a devil. Another time I was told I had to forget things in order to be happy, and I think Charmaine raped my mind via a gorgeous visual hallucination of outter space to make it happen.

But the most horrifying vision was when I woke up from a slumber accompanied by Charmaine's and Laura's energy and I felt like I had been asleep and tortured for centuries. I thought they were taking me from place to place in time trying to keep me safe and as soon as I woke up I was like... "THIS IS THE FUCKING WORST ONE OF ALL, PLEASE TAKE ME OUT OF HERE".

There was thunder and rain outside and I could hear loud screaming. It came from behind a door and I knew it was Phyllis being ravaged and tortured by evil creatures. I knew the only way to save her was to go to her, hold her hand, and then go to some sort of heaven together.

However, I was fucking strapped to the bed. I desperately tried to get out of the restraints, but I couldn't. I then heard "Frank, your parents set this up for you". At this point I got rid of the last remaining bits of care I had for my swap-parents, because if they really had anything whatsoever to do with the situation I was in at that point in time and/or with Phyllis' suicidality and/or suffering, I knew that even within my wild imagination there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could think of that would make things right. There was nothing I could think of that could get back at them for what they had done to me, and seemingly were doing to Phyllis.

I believe that experiences like this are always based on at least some sort of truth. So yeah...

I experienced many more visions, but for brevity and to not make myself seem too crazy, I'll stick to these.

Well okay... one more hilarious one was that my brain had been turned into five 2-dimensional sliders... as if whoever was in charge of me had tried to simplify the human brain from ~100B neurons into five 2-dimensional sliders 😂

Sobering up

After about five days of insane visions I sobered up and asked a nurse why I was there, because I had no idea why I was there.

Over the course of the next week I came to understand that from one day to the next, all my rights had been stripped away from me, I was essentially no longer considered human, and a couple of "doctors" were now in complete control of my life. Which makes sense, because a few "doctors" who talk to you for 10-15 minutes 2-3 times obviously understand you better and know better what's good for you than you do... (sarcasm obviously).

I then started receiving daily phone calls from my swap-brother. I had no idea how he knew I was there, because I had almost no contact with him, but I guess someone contacted him? At some point he suggested I fly back to The Netherlands, which was a hell no from me. He also admitted that he had informed my swap-parents of the situation, in spite of me insisting years ago that if we were to continue talking he'd not share anything about me with his parents. I should've hung up the phone at that point, but I was still lacking in mental clarity somewhat and recovering from the things that were being done to me.

After about a week of me avoiding all the drugs in that place (no milo, eating unlabeled food, etc.), at some point I couldn't take it anymore and I broke down crying in front of the entire ward (~50 staff + patients). This is honestly one of the proudest moments of my life being able to be that vulnerable in an environment like that.

However, within 1-2 minutes a "doctor" came to talk to me and told me I have to start taking oral drugs. I was vehemently against that idea and attempted to reason with her that I had been super unstable the first 4-5 days on drugs and the best behaved patient in there for the week prior while I avoided all drugs. She neither listened nor cared and essentially put her own pride above my well-being, because I know she had to feel like she had done something for me. Which in her case meant forcing drugs onto me, because otherwise she wouldn't feel like she had "helped" me. She (and probably most "doctors" in that place) puts her own pride over the well-being of her "patients".

That evening a nurse came to me and said my only choices were another injection or taking oral drugs. I pleaded with him that this was rape, that I did not consent to this, and eventually I cried before accepting my fate. The drugs made me sleep worse, made me unable to think, and worst of all unable to feel anything.

After another truly torturous week, I was finally released just in time for Singapore's National Day. Because make no mistake, my time spent in there was worse than I can put into words. The fact that it's possible that from one day to the next you go from being a free man to a man with essentially zero control over his life, after involuntarily confining a long-term girlfriend to a bedroom for ten minutes without trial, but really after saving someone's life... there are no words to describe this nor the torture I went through during the three weeks I was locked up in IMR. I've left out a lot of details as to how bad it was, but more to come, because I've been locked up in there two more times since Jul'24 for even less nonsensical reasons, and those times I was tortured even worse. So stay stuned.

14: Phyllis is Alive (Aug'24 - Sep'24)

First off, I need to state that after my release, I found out that all my chat histories on Telegram with Phyllis had been deleted from before July 17th, and even on Phyllis' end they had all been deleted from before Nov'23.

Anyway, after my release, a lawyer had been hired for me by Rapist Betrayer Liar and my swap-brother in relation to the ongoing investigation against me for involuntary confinement. This lawyer told me I have to keep taking the drugs that were hurting me, because if I don't, "they'll know", without being able to explain how anyone could find out. My own laywer essentially threatened me with fucking jail time if I didn't take drugs. I also was essentially forced to see a private psychiatrist, which I had no interest in doing, but alas.

I dropped this lawyer quite quickly, because he was attempting to twist the truth in my favor, even though the truth more than spoke for itself. And because I just wanted to talk to the IO directly and tell her my story, and "he could not support me if I chose to do so".... like wtf. I was also quickly losing trust in swap-brother at this point in time, especially after I read what he told IMR about me:

"His brother reported that he broke contact with his family (except brother) for 2-3 years, he was getting 'weird ideas' about family and alleged that parents had neglected and abused him when he was younger"
Last dates I saw my swap-family members:

Swap-mother: April or May 2018
Swap-sister: Summer 2019
Swap-father: November 2019
Swap-brother: February 2024

When I saw my him in Feb'24 when he visited Singapore, I opened up to him about a few of the ways in which my swap-parents had hurt me. He saw me cry for fuck's sake when I told him that my swap-mother asked me whether I paid for sex after sharing with her that I lost my virginity. And then he had the guts to refer to my entire childhood trauma and early childhood abandonment and emotional abuse as "weird ideas"?!?!? WHAT THE FUCK

Another WTF thing in this letter is: "Felt that he was able to connect with other people's emotions"... it's called fucking empathy you imbecile. This "friend" is Rapist Betrayer Liar btw, whom I still (foolishly) trusted at this point in time.

Talking of him, after my release I decided I had to tell him what his Ugly Wife shared with me almost two years earlier about the guy in Oxford. I first gave her the opportunity to tell him, but she said "you have too much on your plate and need to focus on yourself". The next day when I met him I told him, but honestly I think he probably didn't take me seriously and his ugly wife probably told him I'm crazy and told him not to trust me.

In the two weeks between my release from IMR and seeing Phyllis again, there is someone by the name of Lynette who arguably saved me life. I had never been suicidal in my entire life, but I was bordering on it here and there after the things that IMR did to me. Which is messed up, because you should go to IMR suicidal and come out feeling better, but for me it was the reverse. I went to IMR feeling alright, yet came out suicidal-ish.

Lynette is my favorite yoga teacher, and if not for her classes I may not have lasted those two weeks without Phyllis thinking/feeling she was dead. Something I never knew throughout my life but that Phyllis taught me over the years was that I'm worthy of love. In mid-April 2024, I realised that Phyllis, on a very deep level, hadnot just taught me, but also shown me, that I am worthy of love.

After my confinement to IMR, however, I had forgotten this fact and it wasn't until Lynette gave me a hands-on adjustment during yoga class that I almost burst out crying and once again understood that I am worthy of love. There were multiple such yoga classes where her vibes really lifted me up and got me through some tough times.

Phyllis is alive

I would never describe my internal world as "hearing voices". I may have used that term once or twice in the privacy of a therapy session, but I have said a few times to others that I've experienced telepathy. Either way, while I was locked up in IMR, there would often be alarms going off in the ward, and every time it did I could hear "Phyllis is dead", "Phyllis is dead", "Phyllis is dead" in my head, as if the fucking place tried to brainwash me into thinking she is dead.

Irrespective of this, just based off of the last time I saw her on July 18th, I was extremely concerned for her life and well-being and I didn't trust it when others told me she is alive. After I got out, I received a few texts from her, and there was cut watermelon, baked brownies, and a cute post-it note in my apartment, indicating that she had stayed over during my confinement. Another sign that I did the right thing by temporarily confining her to my bedroom, because if I hurt her that day, she would've never stayed there or prepared any of those things for me.

But in spite of all of this, I had to see her and confirm with my own eyes that she was alive. Everyone was telling me I couldn't see her, because I'm not allowed to interfere with a witness or some bullshit, but eventually she asked if I could leave some shoes that she left at my place outside for her to pick up after work. I literally begged her if I could see her, even if only from afar, just to make sure she was alive.

When we did finally see each other, we spent the rest of August and September together, but not without hickups.

Aug/Sep

First, I'll mention that shortly after my discharge I came to understand that dating Phyllis and dating others are technically two separate decisions. Most people in this world are monogamous, but polyamory is a thing. And so it's not impossible to be with Phyllis and still have other emotional connections, such as the ones with Charmaine and Laura, at the same time.

When I brought this topic up with Phyllis, I got mixed responses. At times she'd say things such as, "never", "I'll never be a part of that", etc. etc., but then she also said things such as "What'd that be like?", "How would it work?", and "What'd be in it for me?". On top of the fact that she used to always be very into and even pushing for threesomes during the first year and a half of us knowing each other, makes me lean heavily towards her being at least open to it.

Phyllis and I also discussed further about other things regarding our relationship, such as finances, children, etc. As for finances, I am a selfish person and therefore I want my partner(s) to be financially free as well, because it allows them to prioritize not only themself without having to worry about money, it also allows them to prioritize me and our family better than they otherwise would be able to.

Hence, I'd want to make it so that Phyllis (and/or other partners) don't have to factor in money when making decisions, such as whether to work or not. My best idea for accomplishing this is giving them money akin to a salary of a well-paying job. For example, $50k/yr for ten years, $100k/yr for ten years, and $150k/yr for ten years, for a total of $3M tax free after 30 years, that they can mostly invest, because I'll pay for most big shared expenses such as rent/mortgage, groceries, utilities, etc., but not for individual expenses, such as clothes. This way, if something were to happen to our relationship at any point in time, she'd be pretty well set up and not have regretted quitting her job if she decided she'd be happier not working and doing something else with her time.

The last thing I'll mention from this period is an Oura ring that I first saw on Phyllis' finger on July 17th when she showed up to my apartment with five clear knife cut marks on each wrist.

In Aug/Sep my fear of and hatred towards this Oura ring intensified further, because I simply had a really bad feeling that it is the most evil physical object in existence. If I had Elon-money, I'd buy the entire company and dissolve it.

Further reasons why I felt terrible about it is that Phyllis wore it 24/7, but I convinced her to take it off during sex every now and then. When we had sex without the ring, it was amazing. When we had sex with the ring on, I felt completely drained after.

Furthermore, the last weekend of September I was feeling terrible about how things were going and when she came over I was in tears saying "How can a person I love so much care so little about me 😣". Phyllis then took off the Oura ring, and immediately I could tell she does love me and does care about me.

It seems as if this ring in particular was really messing with her energy flows and blocking her energy/vibes from reaching me and letting me know she loves me.

15: Forced Separation (Oct'24 - Nov'24)

Taking a step back and looking at what happened between mid-May, when Phyllis shared with me that she had been suicidal for a year and a half, and late-Sep, when we ended up being separated against our wills, I was focused on one thing and one thing alone: Saving Phyllis' life.

Even in September, there were still moments where I burst down crying in front of Phyllis because I still had so many bottled up fears for her life. And until our separation in late September/early October, I continued to emotionally and verbally reinforce to her that I would be there for her no matter what, and to please reach out to me whenever you need something.

As a result, come October I was drained. I cannot understate to you the fact that I had expended my everything and my very last bit of energy in order to make sure Phyllis wouldn't die, kind of like Netero towards the end of the Meruem fight in Hunter x Hunter:

8:22 - 9:16

And so I was almost entirely out of strength at this point and had no choice but to stop worrying about Phyllis for a little while, so that I could check back in on myself and see how I was doing. And unsurprisingly, if your only emotional support is severely suicidal, you decide to make saving her life your sole focus for 4+ months, get locked up and tortured by the world as a thank you, and numerous people you trusted start to betray you, well... unsurprisingly I was in bad shape.

Then during the first week of October, money suddenly went from my account to Phyllis' without me initiating any transfer. Logical conclusion would be that Phyllis stole it, and I did feel like she did, but at the same time I know she'd never knowingly steal from me, and she was with me at the time of the transfer... I contacted Wise (my bank at the time), and they couldn't give me any information, not even where the transfer was made or from which device it was made. All they said was "we're following you're case".

It's also around this time that we essentially took a break from each other, but really looking back it was more like people around us forcefully separated us.

On top of that, in addition to still feeling emotionally raped from what happened early June, which gave me telepathy and turned my world upside down, a number of other things Phyllis had done and said had come out:
  • She suddenly ignored me and didn't text me for weeks in mid-April right after the most vulnerable time of my life
  • She didn't even text me for my birthday
  • She hadn't visited me at all during my confinement to IMR
  • She had broken a number of promises
  • And some other things
And so when I stopped worrying about her life in early October, I actually felt incredibly hurt by all the things that seemingly Phyllis had done to me.

As a result, on Monday October 7th, as I was feeling the most suicidal I've ever felt as a result of not paying any attention to my own feelings for a long time, I ended up letting out some pent up emotions to Phyllis over text that were quite intense (called her a cheater, emotional rapist, said it'd be her fault if I killed myself, etc. Not the type of texts I've ever sent her or anyone).

Within 30 minutes I regretted the texts and deleted them, but apparently not quickly enough, because the next Thu I received a call from a police officer asking me to come give a statement at the police station because Phyllis supposedly filed a police report against me for harassment, which looking back seems overkill for a few text messages.

The officer this time took my statement and let me go home, but not before making sure I understood that I was not allowed to contact Phyllis in any way shape or form. When I followed up with him via phone call for an update two weeks later, it turned into the weirdest phone call of my life:
  • I asked him whether he had spoken to Phyllis yet. He said no.
  • Then a little later he said he had spoken to Phyllis.
  • When I asked him how he had spoken to Phyllis, he refused to say.
  • I then asked whether he had also told Phyllis it's illegal for her to contact me, to which he said yes.
  • Then at the end he denied telling either of us it was illegal to contact each other.
  • He finished by saying that if I promised not to contact Phyllis until the other IO's investigation had ended, he would drop his case against me...
Like what the fuck... one would think the blackmail is the worst part, but the worst part of this is that he almost certainly told two people in love that it's illegal for them to contact one another, and made it illegal for Phyllis and I to do so... which is in my eyes the worst crime in existence. You cannot tell two people, especially not two people in love, that it's illegal for them to contact each other.

Name change

Another thing I should mention is that on August 15th, shortly after my release from IMR, I decided to change my legal name in Singapore via a Deed Poll, from Frank Christiaan Peelen to Frank Lee. I had actually been contemplating changing my last name for years, and after the things my swap-family did to me, I now finally pulled the trigger and changed my name to something more Singaporean, because I hope Singapore will be my long-term home.

It's also an homage to two individuals I respect a lot: Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien-Loong. And last but not least, I can now pick up the phone saying "Frank Lee speaking", which sounds like"Frankly Speaking".

I also wanted to get this name change reflected on my passport, but unfortunately The Netherlands isn't as liberal as Singapore and instead of costing a few hundred dollars and taking a day as it does in Singapore, the process in The Netherlands takes upwards of six months, costs thousands of dollars, involves speaking to psychologists and psychiatrists, and there is no guarantee of success or even obtaining your desired name, because you have to give five options for new last names...

As part of this process I spoke to two therapists registered in The Netherlands. The first one was like... do you want me to fill in the form you need now or do you want to sit here and talk for an hour? Because based on the in-take leaflet I had sent her, it was clear a new last name would do me good, and so she was happy to help me without even talking to me.

The second one I talked to was unfortunately horrible, and sent me over the edge with her questions relating to my swap-family to the point that I had to end the call after thirty minutes, because she was making me physically sick. This was on Monday, November 18th.

Then on Tuesday November 19th, I had come to realise that the rapist, whom had been my trusted EMDR therapist for the past four years could no longer be trusted and so I ended things with her. Just a few of the red flags that I somehow overlooked over the years:
  1. She almost cried when I stopped sessions in October 2023, indicating she wasn't just emotionally attached, she was very emotionally attached to me.
  2. She broke confidentiality and talked to my friends behind my back in July 2024.
  3. She was probably the #1 reason I got locked up in IMR in July 2024.
  4. She is the one who emotionally raped and violated my boundaries for years.
  5. She established some sort of emotional relationship with me in June 2024.
  6. There were sessions, especially in late 2024, where I felt like I was the one comforting her.
  7. There were moments, especially in late 2024, where I felt like she wanted me to look at her boobs, which was beyond disgusting.
So yeah, I finally dropped her on Nov 19th.

LPA

In the wake of my release from IMR in August, I started looking into doing an LPA (Limited Power of Attorney). I didn't think I had been declared mentally incapacitated at that time, but in retrospect maybe I was? Either way, an LPA couldn't hurt in case the world decided to strip me from all my rights again.

I knew the only person I could trust with this was Phyllis, but before I was able to finalize an LPA with her as my #1 donee, we were separated, and so I had to figure something else out. At the time, I still thought that anyone other than my swap-family being in charge of me in case an LPA came into affect would be an improvement, and so I decided to go with Rapist Betrayer Liar as my primary donee and another (at the time) friend as my second donee.

This LPA had two important clauses:
  1. Do anything in your power to keep me out of facilities like IMR, because I do not believe it conducive to healing. (both friends had visited in July and could sense how terrible that place was)
  2. Do anything in your power to stop me from taking psychiatric drugs, because they make me feel terrible, only mask symptoms, and do not promote healing.
Both Rapist Betrayer Liar and the other friend accepted and signed this LPA on the portal, and I had almost gotten a certificate issued by a GP making it legal and effective, but before this happened, Rapist Betrayer Liar took matters into his own hands.

16: IMR Confinement #2 (Nov'24 - Dec'24)

Thursday November 21st

On Wednesday November 20th, I had an indescribably bad night where I felt tortured, felt like a science experiment, and during which I experienced all sorts of flashbacks. I could come up with a number of theories as to why, but the simplest and most likely explanation to me is that because I dropped the rapist earlier that week, which Rapist Betrayer Liar had voiced concerns about, the two of them decided it was time to lock me up in revenge for no longer wanting to do therapy with the rapist. Sounds crazy perhaps, but it's the simplest explanation, which to me is usually the right explanation.

On the morning after that horrible night of Wed Nov 20th, I took a grab taxi to Phyllis' home with a Penguin stuffed animal she had given me for my birthday back in 2022. Clearly the IO couldn't make it illegal for us to contact one another, besides he had also denied ever telling either of us it was illegal to contact one another, so I had apologized to Phyllis over text in recent weeks for my early October outlash, and I had texted her once more with an update about some of the things that had happened to me, but she never responded to me.

Around 7AM, I reached her place and rang the doorbell. I don't remember exactly what I was told when I asked for Phyllis, but she didn't come out, and so eventually I set on the staircase near the elevator, crying and holding the penguin stuffed animal, not really knowing what to do. It was a Thursday morning, and usually on Thursdays she goes to volunteer at a dog shelter, so perhaps I would run into her I hoped.

It didn't take too long before Phyllis came out. Based on her verbal words I didn't think she was happy to see me, so I was prepared for the worst, but we took the elevator down together to the Grab pick-up spot in front of her HDB (name for affordable housing in Singapore, like flats, that most Singaporeans live in).

Before I move on with this story, I'll share here an email that I sent to the IO in charge of the involuntary confinement investigation against me. I sent this to the IO in early November. FYI, Phyllis never pressed charges against me, the investigation against me was by "the state".

START EMAIL


Dear ******,


I am writing you this email to provide additional context to your on-going investigation against me on behalf of the state.


The first thing relevant to what happened is a conversation between Phyllis and I in February. I didn’t realise it at the time, but during a conversation about suicidality, she was indirectly trying to tell me she was suicidal. Regardless, in the middle of May, she told me under no uncertain terms directly that she had been suicidal for a year and a half, and that I was the first person she felt comfortable enough to share this with. (We have been each other’s #1 source of comfort since we met in May 2021). After I told her I would ALWAYS be there for her no matter what and that she could ALWAYS reach out to me, she told me that knowing herself she wouldn’t reach out when she needed help. These 2 things combined (suicidality and not reaching out) started a spiral of me becoming more and more worried for her life in the following months.


Late May, I could sense she was becoming more and more suicidal. Early June when she spent most of the week at my place, due to a number of things that happened and things she said, I felt so scared for her a few times that it felt as though she would kill herself that night.


Fast forward to the middle of July, on July 17th she showed up to my place with 5 clear knife cut marks on each wrist. When I asked her about them, she refused to talk about them, which I respected, but it made me even more scared because that had never happened before in 3+ years of knowing her.


That night we had sex, the following morning we had sex 2 more times, and all was okay until she was about to leave for work around 1:30PM (start at 2PM), at which point I could tell she became scared. Intuitively I could tell she was scared of leaving my place. I convinced her to stay longer. We then spent a few hours in the bedroom. Around 5PM she once again wanted to leave, but I was still extremely scared for her and worried about the way she was acting.


At this point I physically confined her to my bedroom and attempted to calm her down. She had never before been scared in my place or around me, which have always been the places she felt safest and slept the best (she sleeps more at my place than at her own home). Further corroborated by the fact she spent a number of nights at my place while I was confined to IMH.


During these ~10 minutes where I physically confined her, she opened the balcony sliding door which we NEVER open. It made me think she was going to jump and I tried to keep her away from the balcony as much as I could.


At some point she told me she wanted to call the police. I did not deny this request and handed her my phone to call the police with. Instead of calling the police, she video called her best friend Dalila, even though she could’ve called the police herself. Dalila, whom I am very grateful for because she’s always tried her best to be there for Phyllis, and whom I had asked to keep an eye on Phyllis a couple of times since late May but mistakenly not told about Phyllis’ suicidality, is the one who ended up calling the police.


Before the police arrived I went for a walk, because the situation became so stressful that I felt like we were both going to die. Phyllis could’ve left at this point, but she chose to stay at my apartment, giving me confidence that I made the right choice by protecting her and keeping her inside.


Before I continue, I’d like to further emphasize 3 points:

  • Phyllis chose not to call the police, even though she could’ve.

  • Phyllis stayed at my place after I left, even though she could’ve easily left at this point.

  • Phyllis stayed at my place for a number of nights while I was at IMH, prepared cut watermelon and baked fresh brownies for when I returned, and left a post-it note saying she knew I did not mean to hurt anyone.

These are not the actions of somebody who was traumatized by what I did to/for her. Otherwise she would’ve immediately left and definitely not stayed at my place for multiple nights while I was in IMH.


After I returned from my walk and the police was there, the first thing my mind went to was that Phyllis had stabbed herself in my apartment and that I was going to get framed for murdering her. That is how INTENSE my fear for her life was.


The police took me to a backroom in my condo and wouldn’t let me speak to her. They told me Phyllis was okay, but Frankly I did not believe them. I then carried this fear for her life, as well as the stress of feeling like I still had to save her life with me to the police station. I thought I was only going to give a statement, similar to the AAYS scheme for which I volunteer. But instead I was processed, and thrown in jail for a night. I was neither allowed a phone call, nor told I would spend the night in jail. I wasn’t told anything. And due to the most intense fear and stress I’ve ever been under, I was unable to give a proper statement. I was also unable to sleep that night in jail.


The next day I was sent to IMH, where I explained everything during my in-take. I also told them to check with my Psychologist of now almost 4 years, Linda, whom I’ve already introduced you to, and whose report you should already have. My best male friend Daniel then showed up and talked about bail, which made me assume I was finally going home, but instead I was admitted against my will.


I have never drank coffee, I don’t consume alcohol, I’ve never smoked, and I’ve never done drugs. During the first ~4 days they drugged, sedated, and restrained me against my will. They attempted to cut me off from every single thing I loved. They essentially tried to cut me off from love itself, and in a way tried to kill me. They almost succeeded too. Last but not least, they attempted to reconnect me to my ex-family, whom has caused me severe suffering for the past 35 years, and whom I had managed to cut off completely in mid-April after years of intensive therapy. That is an unforgivable sin.


However, after 4 days, they fortunately stopped drugging me and I came to having no idea why I was there. It wasn’t until a week later when a lawyer showed up that it was explained to me why I was being confined to IMH, and things started to slowly make sense to me again. Even though I was the most well-behaved patient in IMH after the initial drugs and sedatives wore off, the IMH doctors nonetheless felt it necessary to force further drugs upon me during the third week, which has left me feeling (pharmaceutically) raped.


Regardless of the SEVERE suffering I endured during my confinement in IMH, the point I’m trying to get to is that those IMH doctors have no idea who I am as a person nor what my day-to-day mental state is like. At best, they have a snapshot of what my mental state was like during the most stressful and fearful days of my life while under the influence of various drugs and sedatives that they forced upon me and that were messing with my mind.


Therefore, I ask that you disregard this incorrect IMH report and instead focus on the facts, primarily the fact that my actions on July 18th were extremely valid, if not courageous/noble, given what I knew and sensed about Phyllis’ suicidality and mental state as the closest person to her. Although deep down I know that my actions and choices on that day were the right ones and most likely saved her life, at worst I made the mistake of keeping her in the safest environment against her will for 10 minutes based on a lot of evidence pointing to her being severely suicidal (verbal, behavioural, and especially the 1st time self-harm marks).


And to be Frank, the only person who can convince me otherwise is Phyllis herself. But she neither chose to call the police, nor chose to leave my place when I left, nor avoided my place while I was in IMH, nor avoided me after I got out of IMH, nor filed charges against me. It is absolutely ludicrous that this case is still on-going, in spite of the fact that neither of the two people with the best perspective of what was right and wrong on July 18th (Phyllis and I) have taken any actions that indicate that we want this case to exist. Both of us just want this case to go away as soon as possible. In the months after IMH, we were talking about going on a trip later this year, but I am still not allowed to travel due to these ongoing investigations.


I hope that this helps you gain a better understanding of everything that happened. Please do your best to resolve this case as soon as possible, because it’s extremely difficult for me to be cut off from the person I love the most in this world, and I know that deep down Phyllis feels the same.


Thank you and kind regards,

Frank


END EMAIL


The #1 point I want to make here is that Phyllis has never given off any indication that she wants to be away from me or my apartment, and if anything her behaviour has indicated she wants to be near me and wants to be at my apartment.

Getting back to the Grab drop-off spot where we were on the morning of November 21st, Phyllis once again chose to exhibit similar behaviour. Phyllis could've easily ordered a Grab and gone to volunteer, but instead we hung around each other for 20-25 minutes. To be fair, we didn't really talk, but we just hung around near to each other. I think she was texting a bit, and I was starting to calm down after what had been a terrible night, and honestly almost two terrible months without Phyllis.

After 20-25 minutes, suddenly two police officers showed up that separated us. I have no idea how they showed up. The one I talked to was extremely understanding, but once we were done talking, Phyllis had suddenly disappeared. I decided to go look for her at the animal shelter, but was never able to find her there. Then I received text messages from both Rapist Betrayer Liar and Phyllis saying that they'd meet me at my place, which excited me, because I couldn't wait to see Phyllis again.

Once I reached, they were waiting for me in the lobby. We went up, and as soon as we entered my apartment, Rapist Betrayer Liar started berating me for the state of my apartment. There were a few chip marks in the paint where I had hit some things against the wall to release some of my anger and frustrations in prior months, but it's my apartment (renting, but will pay for damages to paint ofc) so he should have no say in that and so I disregarded his comments.

Then Rapist Betrayer Liar started telling me I need to go for a medical check-up and I'm like wtf are you talking about, there is no need for anything like that. He tells me he wants to take me to NUH or some private facility for a medical check-up, and I just have no idea why he would want that, and I tell him no, I don't need anything like that.

These conversations are then interwoven with small-talk, jokes, chats, and what I have now come to understand was SEVERE emotional manipulation of the absolute worst kind. I now understand he was in some way using my love for Phyllis against me in order to get me to do whatever he wanted.

Shortly after, two paramedics showed up at my apartment, and I was like... what the hell. At this point I was like, I am sleeping at my own place no matter what. I'd like Phyllis to sleep with me, but even that is unimportant. I am simply going to sleep here.

It's hard to put the next bits into words, but in the most disgusting, manipulative way I was ushered out of my apartment and strapped into a stretcher. Next thing I know we're at some facility where some person talks to me for maybe a minute or two. I then ask Rapist Betrayer Liar to order a grab so we can go back home, because I was promised I'd sleep at home, but no. Long story short, I was admitted to IMR for a 2nd time, even though it took me two more days before I realised I was at IMR, because I was told the medical check-up would be at NUH or a private facility.

I hope you can now start to see why I've nicknamed this ?person? Rapist Betrayer Liar. I used to believe in the good of every human being, and I used to believe that every human being is good at their core, but Rapist Betrayer Liar shattered that belief of mine. The things he did to me, I cannot understand how he can live with himself, and I can no longer believe that every human being is a good person, not even deep down.

Second Confinement

This time around I wasn't drugged straight away, but I nonetheless had visions. Why? I have no idea, but I refer to them as "not-really-visions visions". Most of them are too personal to share, but I'll share this snippet:

I realised that when you put together the initials of my old name and my new name:

Frank Christiaan Peelen
Frank Lee
F, C, P, L

You can perfectly spell out Frank, Charmaine, Phyllis, and Laura... coincidence or fate? What do you think? You can also spell out Love FCP with our initials 🤯

Anyway, even though I barely slept at night and had a lot of "not-really-visions visions", during the day I felt quite normal, but the way the staff treated me was beyond inhumane.

I once again had no idea why I was there, and so I (initially very politely) asked the nurses why I was there. You'd expect a response clarifying or at least a non-answer, or at least some sort of words coming out of their mouths. However, I was completely and utterly ignored.

For the first few days, they allowed me to call Phyllis a few times. I pleaded with her to visit ASAP, because I had a feeling that she might not recognise me if I was locked up there for too long.

Over time I grew more frustrated at the situation, and although I was never violent, I did get more upset at being completely ignored by the staff and not even told why I was there.

On Monday, I was completely done. I saw the "doctors" who also wouldn't tell me why I was there and ushered me out of the room within ~10 minutes. I was done with playing games and just wanted some goddamn fucking answers. But mind you, in spite of my frustration with the situation, I was completely non-violent and never treated any of the staff impolitely. The worst I did was refusing to leave the room when the "doctors" said they were done with me in <10 minutes.

Then Monday afternoon, after all the other "patients" had been brought back to the dormitory and I was left all alone in the cafetaria, a person, whom I later found out was my case worker, came to talk to me. I did not feel comfortable with that person whatsoever, as she "felt" like my swap-mother, the most painful thing in the world to me. There was another nurse on staff by the name of Jia with whom I felt more comfortable, so as long as she was near I said I'd be okay to talk. There were also 20+ other nurses in the cafetaria, whom I demanded leave the cafetaria before we speak, because I had no clue why there should be 20+ others in the room.

I don't remember what the case worker and I talked about, but I'm pretty sure I was upset with her for hurting me. Then the 20+ others re-entered the room and all of them started coming at me. I remained non-violent, but I tried to walk away from them holding onto the penguin stuffed animal. Eventually, the 20+ staff grabbed me, put me on a bed, put restraints on me, had the fucking guts to rip the penguin stuffed animal out of my hands, tearing it in numerous places, and injected unknown drugs into me in multiple sites on my body.

Throughout all of this, the worst I did was shout things like:
  • "Get away from me"
  • "You're hurting me"
  • "Fuck you!" / "Fuck off!"
  • "Do you even know my name?"
  • "Do you have no self-awareness?"
  • "Phyllis save me!"
For the next few hours I was restrained to the bed. I refer to this incident as "the first rape", because almost the exact same thing happened again the next day, but worse.

At this point I had come to understand Rapist Betrayer Liar was the one who locked me up, and so I added things like "FUCK YOU {his real name}" to my repertoire of things I shouted as the guards restrained me and forced drugs into me via injection. This time I was restrained until morning, which made for an extremely unpleasant night. This incident I refer to as "the second rape".

The second one that had me restrained throughout the night was so bad that I broke the next day. A "doctor" came to see me and spoke to me, and told me I need to start taking oral drugs, which I was extremely against, because I knew how bad they made me feel, but I could no longer resist the raping and knew I had no choice but to cooperate. I cried and said things like "why me", "why me"... but I had no choice but to take the drugs.

Phyllis' visits

Before the first rape I had tried to call Phyllis, but suddenly the ward phone no longer connected and gave me a "The xxx customer can't be reached" message. I tried calling her every day, without any luck, until the very day after I took oral drugs I tried calling her again, and miraculously it connected... coincidence? I think it's much more likely that IMR was using Phyllis as a manipulation tool. Frank doesn't do what we want him to do? Cut him off from Phyllis, which to him represents life and love. He does something we want him to do? Okay, we can give him a bit of Phyllis (aka life and love) back. FUCKING DISGUSTING

Also, the very next day after I started taking oral drugs, I was allowed to have a phone (like all the other "patients") from 10AM to 7PM, which made passing time a lot easier. And that weekend Phyllis visited (or was allowed to visit), but she didn't really feel like herself and she told me the only reason she was there and the only reason she cared about me was because she pitied me. I was like... well she said she cares about me, so I'll focus on the positive and take that I guess.

Phyllis visited once more the weekend after. When she arrived, I could instantly tell from her face that it had been extremely difficult for her to make that visit, because she looked pale and did not look like herself at all. I did my best to send her all the good vibes I had in me to make her feel better, and fortunately after thirty minutes she was smiling and acting like herself again :)

Immediately after I received my phone, I found a text message from the Officer investigating me for involuntary confinement on July 18th. Unsurprisingly, the IO cleared me completely and concluded no wrong-doing on my part.

About a week after I started taking oral drugs and almost two weeks after being admitted, I started to be consumed by hatred, because the drugs this time didn't just make me feel worse, they made me feel like I hate Phyllis... which was something unacceptable to me, and so I decided to start hiding the drugs under my tongue, bringing them to the toilet, spitting them out, spitting on them, and then peeing on them for good fucking measure before flushing those things down the toilet.

The first day coming off of the drugs was somewhat of a bad day. I felt like I hated everything and I kept thinking, "if love is real, please Phyllis give me a sign". And within 10 minutes a friend texted me and I started feeling a lot better.

It was at this point that I decided I needed to cut a lot of people out of my life who weren't very good friends. Obviously I deleted Rapist Betrayer Liar and his Ugly Wife from my phone with no hesitation, but all the friends I had in common with him chose his side and so I had to cut them all out of my life, because they all believed me to be mentally sick. Thinking that there are mentally sick people out there, and thereby believing that the human mind is a binary thing with only two inherrent states, goes against my worldviews so violently that I cannot be connected to anyone who views the world as such.

Psychiatry

Mental health is neither binary, nor a spectrum. Everyone has "mental health issues", because everyone's mind and everyone's life is unique. No two human individuals are the same, and so why anyone would even attempt to categorize and label human minds is beyond me. If someone feels comfortable with a 16-boxes personality test such as Myer-Briggs telling them who they are, that's cool. Or if someone feels comfortable being treated by psychiatrists who choose to put you in one of a few hundred boxes, then label you, and then treat you as such, that's also cool.

But I sure as hell don't feel comfortable with that. I am one of 8+ billion unique human beings living on earth, and to even attempt to understand what's wrong with me and categorize my mind (and thereby me as an individual), especially after only a few 10 minute conversations, is absolutely batshit insane.

From my perspective, every "mental health condition" is simply a symptom. Anxiety? It's a symptom/emotion/state of being. Depression? Symptom. Suicidality? Symptom/state of being. Addiction? Symptom. All of these are signs of a normally functioning human brain, albeit often times under severe stress. And all of these usually have underlying causes.

Psychiatry believes that if your spouse passes away and you fall into a deep depression, you can just take drugs and feel better. Same story if you are addicted to substances because your life is trash and you just want to escape it. Psychiatry (and unfortunately large parts of the world) believe that you can take drugs and go through "treatment" and suddenly all is better. I vehemently disagree. One cannot drug away real life problems. It doesn't make any sense to take drugs for a depression as a result of a spouse passing away, but to interfere with people who consume alcohol for depression. Psychiatric drugs are drugs/substances just as much as alcohol is. Psychiatry is essentially a vessel for big pharma to push its drugs onto people.

Unfortunately the world doesn't see it this way. Want to know why? Because Psychiatry is a religion posing as a science.

PSYCHIATRY IS A RELIGION POSING AS A SCIENCE

Let that sink in

Why? Psychiatry is to big pharma what research backing up the health benefits of tobacco and alcohol would be to big tobacco and beer/wine companies.

I'll go into more details soon, but for now let's get back to my life story.

After deciding to spit all the medication, another week passed before I was finally released.

I asked for Phyllis to be my next-of-kin, but I was told she declined. Probably because IMR made her think I need a full-time caregiver. Seriously, they demanded that whoever was my next-of-kin would check in on me daily via phone, or ideally in person. I'm a 35-years-old male adult... but they didn't believe I could take care of myself. I told the "doctors" that if they're so concerned with my well-being, they should just check in on me themselves, but for some reason that train of thought went over their heads and they demanded that my next-of-kin check in on me daily.

Someone else picked me up and drove me to MBS (Marina Bay Sands hotel), because for some inexplicable reason Rapist Betrayer Liar had been allowed to take home my keys and wallet, probably as an insurance policy so I would see him again. Phyllis met me there and suggested we just head to my place, because she had stayed there again and she said the backdoor lock was out of batteries, so she was able to help me stay at my own place after all. Someone else ended up retrieving my keys and wallet from Rapist Betrayer Liar, so I didn't have to see him again fortunately.

17: Healing myself yet again (Dec'24 - Mar'25)

After my release in mid-December, I once again felt terrible. Significantly worse than I had before my admittance. And although I never became severely suidical, there were times where I was so fucking angry and sad that my mind went to it. I also for some weird ass reason started having Dutch voices in my head, even though I hadn't spoken Dutch in like five years.

IMR had diagnosed me with full-blown Schizophrenia this time, but rather than being Schizophrenic and then being diagnosed with it, it was as if they diagnosed me with Schizophrenia and I became Schizophrenic as a result. Fortunately enough, with my extremely strong coping and healing skills, acquired over years of meditation and hard work on myself, I was able to heal myself over time and put myself back together.

The friend that dropped me off and was asigned as my next-of-kin, right before he dropped me off I decided to share with him that I had actually been spitting the drugs. It was as if he immediately passed this information onto IMR and ratted on me, because they called me the next day and the phone call was a bit odd, and it felt as if they knew, so I all but know my (now ex-)friend ratted me out. It was also as if they were still able to use Phyllis as a manipulation tool, because Phyllis had been texting me on and off while I was in there and while IMR was under the impression that I was taking the drugs, as soon as I was ratted on, Phyllis stopped responding to my texts.

Over the following months I worked extremely hard on myself once again to put myself back together. I built a dozen legos, which was very therapeutic for me, and I also started writing down what had happened to me over the past year. That version is too insane to share publicly though. I experienced many supernatural things much wilder than telepathy. If I published that one as a work-of-fiction, people would still call me crazy, and as such this story of events is a watered down (but still very true) version of what happened to me over the past year, because I suspect even telepathy will be hard for many to accept, but more on that in a bit.

I also continued to do yoga with Lynette. She gave me a hug a few times, which was tremendously helpful, I really needed those, because I hadn't received real physical touch since September, other than a hug from Lynette in early November. I also got myself back in shape and spent ~15 hours/week in the gym. Which cost a ton of energy, but I enjoyed it and it felt therapeutic at times. Lastly, I continued to do therapy with one other therapist, but she didn't have the "emotional bandwith", and so she ended up dropping me for crying too loud... 😑

As for Phyllis, she checked every single one of my stories on Telegram, and in February she came over to my place to talk, and one more time in March. Both times I cried tremendously, and both times made me feel a lot better afterwards. Especially in March, I felt like things would finally be okay, especially after she picked up my phone call, I just cried like crazy as a result.

Lawsuit

In January, I looked for a lawyer in order to pursue legal action against IMR. My goal was (and is) to make sure the things that happened to me will not happen to anyone else, because money cannot compensate for the things I've been through. My goal is to reform the MHCTA in Singapore (the law that makes it legal to lock up people who are deemed a danger to themself or others, but as proven in my case the burden of proof is pretty much non-existent), as well as IMR itself.

I'd like the MHCTA to only allow locking up of people against their will who have attempted suicide. Anyone who is deemed a danger to others can be dealt with by the police and the regular justice system. Of course, people can also voluntarily admit themself to IMR.

As for IMR, I'd like it to be a legalized euthanasia facility, where patients are given a private room (cannot work on oneself without privacy) and if they are suicidal, on day one receive a plastic knife as a sign that their cries have been heard. Caregivers then ask each and every day "What can we do for you?", and do their best to help the patients. If patients don't get better, over time you can upgrade their suicide weapon to a real knife, pills, perhaps a gun or a high floor, etc.

If after a few weeks patients are still suicidal and the caregivers have been unable to help, patients should be able to design their own death. They should be able to get 1 or 2 days to spend with any friends/family they want to and just have a really nice 1-2 days. If at the end of those 1-2 days they still want to kill themselves, they can choose to end it in the most pleasant way we know of. (injection that will make them die in their sleep?)

Anyway, in January I hired a lawyer to help me sue IMR. Our first step was to obtain a medical report, essentially stating IMR's position towards me. This is what we received late March:

I refer to your request for a medical report on FRANK LEE, formerly known as PEELEN FRANK CHRISTIAAN. Mr. Frank was first seen and admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) between 19 July and 6 August 2024. He was brought by the police after being arrested for an offence of wrongful confinement on 18 July 2024, when he alledgedly stopped his love interest from leaving his residential unit. He presented with paranoid delusion against his parents and his sister, auditory hallucination and delusion that he was able to communicate with others telepathically. Accounts from multiple sources, including his love interest, his brother, his friend and his private psychologist all corroborated the above, and they also noticed that his speech became disorganised and irrelevant, which was observed during the early part of his inpatient stay too. He was admitted to IMH and detained for treatment in accordance with the provisions of Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act 2008, as he was assessed to be suffering from Schizophreniform disorder, a mental illness, and that this was deemed necessary for the protection of his love interest. Following a period of inpatient treatment, despite still harbouring paranoid delusion against his family, he was discharged from IMH when the risk posed to his love interest was deemed to have reduced. He opted to seek outpatient treatment with a private psychiatrist of his choice. 
Mr. Frank was re-admitted to IMH between 21 November and 11 December 2024. He developed worsening of his paranoid delusion, now also against other people including his brother and his friend, and he still harboured the delusional belief that he could communicate with others telepathically, which sometimes manifested as auditory hallucination. Accounts from multiple sources, including his love interest, his brother and his friend all corroborated that his condition had deteriorated with the aforementioned psychotic symptoms, along with his disorganised and irrelevant speech, which was observed again during the early part of his second inpatient stay. He had sent threatening messages to his parents and his love interest, and harrassed his love interest by showing up at her house and workplace on numerous occasions against her wish. He also shared his intent to punch his friend to the treating team. He was admitted to IMH and detained for treatment in accordance with the provisions of Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act 2008, as he was assessed to be suffering from Schizophrenia (diagnosis progressed from Schizophreniform disorder due to the now longer duration of his psychotic symptoms), a mental illness, and that this was deemed necessary for the protection of primarily his love interest. Following a period of inpatient treatment, despite still harbouring paranoid delusions, he was discharged from IMH when the risk posed to his love interest was deemed to have reduced, and his love interest planned to set clear boundary with him and considered applying for a restraining order. He was given outpatient appointments with IMH for continuation of his treatment, although he opted not to return.
I initially planned to write a letter in response, which I started work on but never had the opportunity to send or even consider sending. I'd add it in here in its full glory, but it's too full of cursing and hatred to publish, so here are the main points a bit more structured and presented with more emotional restraint:

when he alledgedly stopped his love interest from leaving his residential unit.
IMR refering to Phyllis, the love of my life, my #1 emotional support, and someone whose life I saved, as a "love-interest"... this alone should be grounds for prosecution. How can they claim to know Phyllis' feelings towards me and claim that this love is one-sided? What the actual fuck. We had sex three times in the two days before my confinement, and during the confinement she stayed at my place, baked brownies, cut watermelon, and left cute post-it notes for my return, and then after I got home we reconnected and had sex dozens more times over the following month and a half... for IMR to claim Phyllis doesn't love me back.... that is relationship interference on the most criminal level.

He presented with paranoid delusion against his parents and his sister,
"Paranoid delusion" as I understand it means that I incorrectly believe they are a threat to me. Thereby IMR is claiming my feelings are incorrect. What makes IMR an authority on other people's feelings? There exist no grounds on which IMR can claim it knows my feelings better than I do. Do they know me? No. Do they know my swap-family and how much they've hurt me? Also no.

auditory hallucination
"Auditory hallucinations". How can anyone claim that another person experiences auditory hallucinations? That would require knowing exactly what another person is perceiving/hearing. I never talked to them about sounds, so IMR claims it knows what I can and cannot hear? That's much crazier and more delusional than hearing something others don't hear.

delusion that he was able to communicate with others telepathically
BIG ONE. This is why psychiatry is a religion posing as a science, and the worst religion of all. Because yes, I (and some others) believe we can communicate in our head with other real people proven to exist via telepathy. You don't have to believe us, but there are billions of people around the world who pray to god, a being not proven to exist. So I ask you, is telepathy crazier or is praying crazier? Does it even matter? Believing in both of these should be perfectly acceptable as long as you don't force your beliefs upon others, which unfortunately a lot of religious people do anyway. Furthermore, if psychiatry is coming after people who believe in telepathy now, who's to say they won't come after other religions and people who pray in the future, claiming all religious people are crazy and should be locked up! Please watch your back religious people of the world. Psychiatry will come after you sooner rather than later for praying, talking to god, and believing in god. Religion is acceptable for now, but eventually won't be if psychiatry has a say in it.

He was admitted to IMH and detained for treatment in accordance with the provisions of Mental Health (Care and Treatment) Act 2008, as he was assessed to be suffering from Schizophreniform disorder,
Wait... so I was assessed to be suffering from Schizophreniform disorder when, where, and how? Because this clearly states that I was admitted and detained after a diagnosis was made? The law clearly states only people who are a danger to themself or others can be admitted? But I was admitted because I was diagnosed? When, where, and how? Are long-range "telepathic" diagnoses possible now?

and that this was deemed necessary for the protection of his love interest.
If this was a movie, I'd say: "If you say love-interest one more ******* time", but it's not. Me being deemed a danger to Phyllis is the most insulting thing ever uttered in the history of mankind. Phyllis' actions and behaviour showed I did nothing wrong on July 18th. Besides, the police should deal with these kinds of things, and the police investigation concluded no wrong-doing on my behalf.

He opted to seek outpatient treatment with a private psychiatrist of his choice.
This was actually set as a condition for my discharge, or at least I was given the impression that I had to see a private psych in order for me to be allowed to go home, which I did for a few weeks, until he didn't feel the need to see me anymore.

He developed worsening of his paranoid delusion, now also against other people including his brother and his friend
Who is IMR to decide who my friends are and who I have to connect with? I made it crystal clear to my swap-brother back in August that I was not going to talk to him again. And Rapist Betrayer Liar I kicked out of my life as soon as I came to my senses a day or two into my 2nd confinement as I realised what he had done to me, by lying to me and emotionally manipulating me in order to get me locked up a 2nd time.

and he still harboured the delusional belief that he could communicate with others telepathically
Covered this before. Watch out religious people, because if telepathy is delusional, then praying is very delusional. I don't think either is delusional, but psychiatry clearly believes otherwise.

He had sent threatening messages to his parents
I emailed them in October unleashing some emotions at them, because I realised they were the ones who emotionally raped me as a kid, not Phyllis in early June.

harrassed his love interest by showing up at her house and workplace on numerous occasions against her wish
Harrassed? Who says so? If she felt harrassed she would've left to go to shelter instead of hanging around me for 20-25 minutes, and/or she would've asked me to leave her alone, which she never has. The only people who have told me that Phyllis has felt harrassed are untrustworthy third parties with no idea how Phyllis actually feels.
Her workplace is a public gym, where I showed up on November 20th asking for her. Big deal... she wasn't even there.

He also shared his intent to punch his friend to the treating team
If Rapist Betrayer Liar got off with just a punch, that would prove good does not exist. It was in response to them asking if I wanted that asshole to visit me. I told them honestly I would punch him if I saw him.

this was deemed necessary for the protection of primarily his love interest
Covered this. Most insulting thing said in the history of mankind.

his love interest planned to set clear boundary with him and considered applying for a restraining order
Did she now? IMR has interefered in our relationship ever since separating us and telling me she doesn't love me. Who knows what they've told her? Regardless, both in July and November she stayed over at my place. In November she even left her clothes at my place for two months, clearly showing an intent to return. Are these the actions of someone who doesn't have feelings for me? She also never applied for a restraining order.

In short, IMR (& psychiatry) attacks people's beliefs as it sees fit. The world considers psychiatry to be a science, but how can one claim that things like telepathy (and thereby) praying are delusional and fake? How can one claim to know another person's feelings better than they do? And above all, how the hell is it legal to come inbetween love, interfere in relationships, and tell two people in love that the other person doesn't love them back?

Lawsuit of lawsuits incoming.

18: IMR Confinement #3 (Apr'25 - May'25)

Long story short, before my lawyer and I were able to start a lawsuit, I was taken to IMR for a 3rd time on April 17th, of which a video with fake subtitles has circulated online:

https://www.reddit.com/r/singaporehappenings/comments/1k6p4lu/man_35_apprehended_by_police_outside_1_raffles/

https://mothership.sg/2025/04/man-35-apprehended-by-police-outside-1-raffles-place/

https://www.stomp.sg/singapore-seen/least-653k-lost-scammers-who-impersonate-real-life-friends-victims

https://sureboh.sg/2025/04/25/35-year-old-man-apprehended-by-police-near-1-raffles-place-incident-captured-in-viral-video/


If you ignore the subtitles and listen closely, you can frequently hear me say "Phyllis", proving the subtitles are fake.

At 0:03 I say "Phyllis help me"
Again at 0:15 I say "Phyllis help me"
At 0:24-0:25, I once again say "Phyllis" twice this time.
Again at 0:52, I say "Phyllis help me"

Did I black out at times and also say a few other things I don't remember? It's possible, but I don't remember blacking out. I'm pretty sure the subtitles are all fake, as per the title of the video.

Either way, more importantly, further context needs to be added.

I was simply sitting on the sidewalk crying and trying to talk to Phyllis who was just off to the right. However, I was unable to talk to Phyllis because a number of her colleagues and a really disgusting looking guy were inbetween us.

I never pushed anything and no one ever asked me to leave, to stop talking, or to stop crying. About five minutes before this video two officers showed up and started getting into my personal space, which made me uncomfortable and so I sat a little further away, continuing to cry and talk out loud.

Eventually two more officers showed up and this video happened. I was taken into custody and shipped off to IMR straight away without going to the police station to give a statement and without ever being told why I was arrested. To this day (May 14th) I still do not know why I was restrained by the police or why I was brought to IMR for a third time.

All I did was sit on the sidewalk, cry, and talk out loud.

Third Confinement

The third one was 10x worse than the November/December one. So bad that it's hard to put into words. I had to constantly talk out loud to myself to comfort myself, because the things that were being done to me were so torturous, I barely managed to survive. My best guess is that IMR got scared of the messages they received from my lawyer, decided to lock me up again, and attempted to torture out of me the idea to sue that place.

There was one night in particular (Sat Apr 25th - Sun Apr 26th) during which I was restrained, drugged, and isolated in the hallway. I don't want to go into any further details, but to say that it was the worst night of my life by far bar none would be an understatement. The fact that a night that horrible and torturous like that is possible has made me lost all faith in humanity and has made me lose faith in the existence of good altogether.

Other snippets:
  • I asked the nurses to call the police to do a wellness check on Phyllis, explaining that she had been suicidal for over 2 years and just saw her only emotional support forcefully taken away by 4 police officers. No one listened.
  • Lies, lies, and more lies. I was told I'd be allowed a phone call after breakfast, then after medication time, but never got one. During my almost three weeks there, I was neither allowed a phone, nor a phone call, nor a visitor.
  • One day I got a call from a "pharmacist" who sounded an awful lot like a girl I casually saw back in 2016-2017, and whom I was in contact with (txt only) until October of 2024, when I had to cut her out of my life after she started trashtalking Phyllis and saying that Phyllis was only after my money.
  • The last weekend I pooped blood and became so physically weak I couldn't walk anymore. They thought I was faking it. I asked to please be taken to the hospital to get a MRI done, but they didn't really care. Gave me a rectal exam and put me on some drugs.
  • First session with a doctor, he was clearly gay and trying to hit on me. Asked me all sorts of irrelevant personal questions that had nothing to do with me being there.
  • Just like in July, they did their best to make me forget Phyllis and to make me think she is dead. There were moments where I was all but certain Phyllis died, but I held onto the mantra "There is no nuclear war yet, so Phyllis is alive, because if someone murdered her, I'd start an actual nuclear war in retaliation".
The rest I don't even want to talk about or remember, because it is still too fresh and painful. But trust me when I say I am not in a good place at the moment, because every time IMR locks me up, I feel 100x worse after my release than before my admittance.

When I got home on the day of my discharge (May 5th), Phyllis was there. She left within two minutes, but not before I cried louder than I have ever cried in my entire life.

My keys were at home, which were missing upon my discharge, which means that Phyllis visited IMR, was probably not allowed to see me, but was allowed to take home my keys and stay at my place. There were also various items in the fridge (expired chicken steaks) that only could've been bought while I was confined.

All further proof that Phyllis at a minimum cares about me and is not a "love-interest" as IMR refers to her.

Outro

And that's about it. My life thus far. All almost 36 years of it.

I'll be honest and say that I'm currently doing worse emotionally than ever, excluding the times I was locked up in IMR.

Considering that no one has told me why I was arrested by the police and brought to IMR for a 3rd time on April 17th, I am honestly frightened to go outside in the fear that I will again be arrested and brought there for some non-sensical reason.

I am also at a point where, if my relationship with Phyllis doesn't work out I think I'll just choose to spend my life completely alone, because it'll mean that love just isn't for me, because it seems like the more I like/love a person, the more this person stays away from me or is kept away from me. Phyllis, Charmaine, and Laura are all examples of this. Instead, I'll just stay inside, write, maybe do yoga every now and then, maybe file some lawsuits, and see what happens.

I understand that some of the writing from the last twelve months is very raw, but so are the emotions associated with what was done to me over the past twelve months. I apologize if anyone got offended by my vulgarities at times or the intensity and honesty with which I share my feelings and beliefs, but after everything that's happened over the past twelce months in particular, I am simply out of fucks left to give.

And to be honest, the version I've written down here from the past twelce months is a watered down version of events, because the full story that I've written down for myself is too insane to share. I could turn it into a fictional / horror novel, and people would still think it's absurd. That's how horrifying the last twelve months of my life have been, after an already very difficult first 35 years of my life.

Anyway, on a more positive note, I started working on a white paper/book last year, the main topics of which are Society, Governance, Parenting, Education, and Mental Health. I've only managed to finish one part thus far, but hopefully I have more time to write in between lawsuits and such.

Thank you for reading if you've read this far! 🙏

Frank

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