Anime Festival Asia 2014

The date has been set. I'm ready to go Singapore again this year.

Living With Disability

After I read a post on Ephemeral Dreamers' article (collaboration with Foshizzel), Coping and Living With Our Disabilities. I've decided to share this. I don't really share about this even to the people who I always talk around the internet.

I was born as a normal child and live like other normal kids. Most of my childhood filled with only playing with my cousins. I always got bullied by "friends" and I never fight them back because my dad told me so. To tell the truth I was a crybaby that time.

Around 2002 during primary 6, my eyes starts being a bit blurry. I told my dad about it and he thought that I'm playing around and wanted to wear glasses. After few months during my tuition class, my teacher pointed my mistake that I put the number 9 instead of 5 for my answer and he told my dad to take me to the eye clinic. After few examinations we were told that I have Glaucoma and I started wearing glasses. I thought it's just a normal blurry eyes until the early 2003, I always feel the pain and discomfort around my head especially at the back as I'm going sleep.

On March 2004, the discomfort feeling behind my head started getting stronger as my head going to explode anytime and I also felt the pressure around my eyes. Everyday I looked at myself in the mirror my eyes were swollen so badly. I went to the eye clinic and the doctor said I am in a very critical condition and must undergo a surgery; if not I will lose my sight forever. Of course I'm scared that time, scared of both the surgery and losing my sight. My mom, devastated, cannot accept the fate that I will lose my sight that time.

For the whole April I didn't go to school because of the surgery and I didn't inform my teacher about it. After I got discharged from the hospital my sight was very blurry that time, I almost can't see anything, even what was written on the paper. After few months my sight gradually getting better and it seems that I'm a photosensitive. During my secondary school, Form 3, my teachers told my classmates about my visual impairment and told them to help me if I have a problem. After few weeks few of my classmates bullied me for having this disability and calling names to me. I told the teachers about it but the bullies still won't stop (even after got lectured by them many times) until the end of 2007. I've lived in solitude for 4 years (2004-2007), of course I received supports from family members.