My life suddenly began to feel magical right from the first day of the year 2013. It was also the day when Girls’ Generation / SNSD had their comeback with the song “I Got A Boy”. That was the period when I began to observe some extra-terrestrial / extra-ordinary / other-worldly phenomena in their performances of “I Got A Boy” on music shows. I could tell from the artistes’ expressions that there were something strange going on during the performances. I could roughly hear some weird voices in the music that was playing in the performances too.
In my personal life, a few weeks before 2013, it seemed like I already subconsciously began to feel the presence of something invisible around me in my house sometimes. Rather than thinking it as something scary and threatening, I somehow felt that it was some sort of positive energy that was silently helping and nudging me at times, and at one point, even helped to improve my relationship with my father too. Although I didn’t know what it was, I treated it as a nice being and welcomed it in my heart. Since its intentions were good, I just let it be and didn’t think too much about it.
There was one evening when I was alone in the house. I was in the room, sitting at my table with my laptop, probably watching some youtube videos. The ceiling light was on. After some time, the light began to flicker, on and off. At first, because I was engrossed with looking at my laptop, I just ignored it. But as the light continued to flicker for a long time, it started getting really annoying and at the spur of the moment, I turned my head around to look at the light and blurted out angrily in Mandarin, “Why won’t you help me?!” I was surprised at what I had just said. What surprised me even more was the light really stopped flickering immediately for a moment as if it was also shocked by my sudden blast of anger. The light stayed on for a long number of seconds this time before flickering again. I finally decided that the light bulb must have gotten faulty so I just switched off the light so that it wouldn’t bother me anymore. But this incident made me realise there was really a presence of something spiritual around me whose energy could sustain the power of light and I was actually subconsciously aware of it the whole time.
Another night, I was alone in the kitchen looking at myself in the mirror. I was touching my face, trying to squeeze my blackheads. I was somehow aware that there was “someone” (a girl) standing somewhere behind looking at me. I wasn’t really bothered by it because by then, I already regarded it as a friend. Then, I heard a girl voice in my head saying in Mandarin “Stop squeezing or else you would get even more acne scars!” I thought I imagined that voice in my head so I shrugged and continued examining the blackheads on my face. In the next second, all of a sudden, a lizard came crawling out from behind the mirror on the wall. I could vaguely see some strange red markings on the body of that lizard. Totally caught off guard, I was shocked and immediately ran to the living room where my mum was watching tv. For awhile, I didn’t dare to go back to the kitchen again to have a second look at the strange lizard. I wondered if that “girl spirit” whom I thought was my imagination actually made the lizard appear just to scare me away to keep me from touching my face any further. Did that lizard with strange red markings came from another dimension?
For the first month of 2013, I had been following SNSD’s “I Got A Boy” performances. When I heard weird voices in their performances, I thought I could do something to help them by singing along with them (sort of cleanse the bad voices away). I even made an effort to learn the Korean lyrics of a Kpop song for the first time in my life. At that time, I saw myself more as an outsider, just offering my help. I didn’t know why I was suddenly doing such things but I knew I had to as if I somehow knew that I could do such things. I was totally new to these spiritual things too. However, after following SNSD for some time, I felt like the bad energies all came to find me too.
In March 2013, I became paranoid, thinking there were evil spirits out there chasing after me. I just received a new tuition assignment to teach an Indian student mathematics. During our first lesson on a weekday night, I went to her house for the first time. I noticed how her housing block looked kinda gloomy and eerily quiet. When I stepped into her house, her living room’s lights were not switched on so it was very dark. I went straight to her room which was dimly lit and sat by her table to start my lesson with her. The whole time when I was teaching, I found the student rather quiet and unresponsive. For a moment, I wondered she was possessed. I sensed that my “friend” was actually there with me too, sitting at the bed in front of me. I was communicating with “her” in my head, sort of asking “her” to help me and wait for me because I felt a strange bad aura around the house. After the lesson, I left the house and walked along the corridor to take the staircase down. When I turned to the staircase, I saw the light there was flickering. I was so scared. I think I was at the second floor and the staircase was the only way for me to get down to the ground floor. I stood there for a moment, not sure if I should go down the stairs under the flickering light. Then, I felt a sense of energy within me which seemed to urge me to just go ahead so I took the courage and started walking down. Miraculously, as I hurriedly made my way down the stairs, the light stopped flickering and stayed on throughout until I left. It must have been the help of my “friend”. And I never turned and looked back again. I quickly left the place and took the train home, hoping no evil spirits managed to catch on to me. After that night, I never had a second lesson with the girl again, simply telling her mum that the location wasn’t convenient for me.
Slowly, my paranoia and bizarre thoughts got worse. I left Taenggu and went into depression. My whole world was turned upside down. I started hearing bad voices, everyday trying to escape and hide myself from the evil forces outside. It was a dark, frightening world.
In May 2013, I was diagnosed of schizophrenia and was admitted to a wellness centre at a mental hospital. One week later, I was discharged and had been on regular medication ever since. There was a few days at home when I suffered from side effects of my medicine: blurred vision, burning sensation on my chest, muscle spasms, restlessness. Especially at nights, the side effects got really terrible that I couldn’t get into sleep. I had to get out of bed several times to walk around the house because I was really restless and uncomfortable. There was one night my mother accompanied me out for a walk to ease my restlessness. Halfway through the walk, she received an overseas call from my Fifth Aunt who lives in Sarawak and talked to her over the phone while I was walking a distance in front of her. After that, she didn’t tell me why my Fifth Aunt called so I thought they were simply catching up with each other. Many days later, after a meeting at a medium’s house to pray and chase away any evil spirits whom I thought were disturbing me, my mother finally told me what my Fifth Aunt said to her over the phone that night. My Fifth Aunt, who was totally unaware that I was suffering from mental illness at that time (my mum didn’t tell her), actually called her out of the blue to ask if I was doing fine. She and her family just came to Singapore to visit us in December 2012 (about the same time when I became aware of something invisible around me). We took several photos together during their stay here. When they went back to Sarawak, her husband showed a Buddhist monk / ShiFu one of our photos taken at the Underwater World in Sentosa. The monk / ShiFu took a look at it and pointed out to him that there was a “girl” standing beside me in that photo. So, my Fifth Aunt who was worried called my mum at an astonishing right time to ask her if I was doing alright. And indeed, I wasn’t well at that time. But what my Fifth Aunt said reaffirmed my belief that there was indeed a spirit that had been following me around at that time. And now I knew it was a girl / woman. But I was confused. Wasn’t schizophrenia a mental illness? Did schizophrenia have something to do with spirits? If it was true, was this girl spirit a good one or a bad one?
After taking the medicine for a few months, the voices in my head slowly subsided. I guess the medicine not only helped to balance the chemicals in my brain, it also reduced my ability of getting contacted by spirits. Life seemed normal again, except at nights when I went to sleep, I still heard some random voices in my head. I remembered one night when I heard a loud voice of an Uncle speaking in a Chinese dialect which I didn’t understand. But these voices were relatively harmless and they didn’t terrify me anymore. But that question was still bugging me. What exactly is schizophrenia? And who is that girl spirit?
Thinking hard about it, this spirit never actually speak to me audibly before, probably also very seldom in my head. However, “she” (now I believe it’s a “she”) did show up to me a few times over the next 4 years in other obvious ways, perhaps only at times when I really needed “her”.
One afternoon, I was in a bad mood and was talking to my mum over the phone in a rude way while lying down on the sofa in the living room. I hung up the phone and a few seconds later, an odd looking joss stick (in the picture below) flew from behind, over my shoulder and landed somewhere on my chest.
No one else was in the house at that time. We had many joss sticks on our Buddhist deity altar cabinet in the living room too but this one in particular looked really odd. It was short, thin and flat, and had a sharp tip. When I saw this, I knew it must have come from the spirit in the house. But I wasn’t frightened. Rather, I understood that it was trying to tell me not to be so rude towards my mum. It was actually teaching me to be a good daughter. So I have been keeping this special joss stick with me as a reminder to me till now. A few nights ago, when I took this joss stick out again to take a photo of it for the purpose of this post, I could feel a strong energetic pressure on my hand while I was holding it.
There was also a couple of other incidents after Taenggu and I got together too. One night, it was already past midnight. I was alone sitting on the sofa in the living room after a shower and in a daze. The rest of my family were already asleep in their rooms. Then, I heard some weird sounds of someone flipping pieces of papers that came from somewhere near the fridge in the kitchen in front of me. But my view of the fridge area was blocked by a wall so I couldn’t see what was going on there. Immediately, I got the message. The spirit was trying to scare me to urge me to go to bed, go back to Taenggu’s side and sleep together with her. In my head, I said “Okay, I will get up and go to bed only after you stop doing that.” After awhile, the flipping sounds stopped so I quickly switched off the lights and went to bed immediately.
Another night, Taenggu wasn’t around at home. She went to the US with the other members and was going to have a performance the next day. That night, I had flu but I still had to sing some songs for them to prepare for the performance. I couldn’t focus when I was singing. I was drowsy and my mind was getting shifted around with several voices. When I came out of the shower, I sat down in the kitchen alone while my mind was in a mess. Again, the rest of my family were already asleep then. I started feeling depressed because I was both physically and mentally unwell. At one point, my senses were shifted to the living room. The living room was dark, only the two red lights on our Buddhist deity altar cabinet were on. I was somehow looking in the direction of that cabinet. Suddenly, one of the red lights started blinking. Must be the spirit again. But I was initially scared. It just kept blinking. In my head, I asked “But how do I know if you are a good one or a bad one?” After awhile, it stopped blinking. But this time, the red light seemed to be shining even brighter than usual. I felt more safe and calmer now. I knew “she” was trying to tell me that “she” was aware that I was having a hard time and reassured me I wasn’t alone and “she” was still there with me even though Taenggu wasn’t around. Slowly, like a psychological effect, the voices also subsided and I went to bed, feeling more comfortable and peaceful.
Sometimes, I hear voices asking me “Who are you? Where do you come from?”. Blatantly, I would say, “I’m Celeste. I come from Singapore.” as if it wasn’t obvious enough. But slowly, I begin to wonder if the voices (if they come from real people) weren’t actually asking about me but were asking who that spirit, who has been helping me, was. Honestly, I don’t know either. So eventually I stopped answering that question. But at least one thing I believe is, “she” is a good spirit. I read somewhere which said that the good spirits are always soft and silent. Probably one day “she” would show up again and answer that question herself. Who is “she”? Where does “she” come from? If you happen to hear “her” answers, please let me know the answers too. <3
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