I’ve been tasked to work on a trauma diary for every ten years of my life. The hilarious thing about this was I was considering doing it anyway, then someone I’m working with asked me to do it, so now I’m putting it all together. It’s one thing to know you lived through some shitty, horrible things. It’s another thing to physically write those things down and then look at the sheer number of shitty things you’ve survived. This is gonna be one helluva project.
i literally have trust issues so deeply ingrained in my psyche that i don’t trust my therapist enough to tell her everything i’m thinking & my ass wants to work on processing???? lmao
I studied in Japan for a while, and now I’m just trying to make sense of the things I went through — and remember the parts no one else saw.
The photo was taken in July 2018, during my study abroad in Japan.
Couldn’t sleep the other night, ended up doomscrolling like usual.
Came across someone’s comic — she were sharing a few personal stories about being stalked or stared at in really uncomfortable ways by men. Two or three posts maybe.
And then, in the comments, someone just had to say:
“If it happened once or twice, okay, but this many times? Feels like the artist’s just being paranoid.”
I was furious.
Because sometimes it’s not that you’re overthinking.
It’s that you know exactly what that "off feeling" can turn into.
And yeah — it took me right back to 2018.
And again in 2022.
Two experiences I’ll never forget no matter how hard I try.
🇯🇵 2018: WHEN I WAS STUDYING IN JAPAN
In 2018, I was studying at a vocational college in Osaka that focused on ACG — anime, comics, and games.
Our class had students from Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea.
Things were pretty normal at first.
Then this guy from Hong Kong — let’s call him Q — started making everything uncomfortable.
His Japanese was a mess.
He often gave answers that had nothing to do with the question, and most of the time he didn’t even understand what the teacher was saying.
The school required foreign students to have at least N2 level Japanese, but he was clearly nowhere close.
At first, I honestly tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe he had trouble with social interaction.
Maybe he just didn’t know how to communicate well.
But over time, the things he did started getting more and more intense — and way past the line of just being “bad at socializing.”
🛑 IT WASN’T A MISUNDERSTANDING
We — the Mandarin-speaking students — actually tried talking to him.
We told him straight-up, in a language he could understand:
“Hey, your behavior is making people really uncomfortable.”
We weren’t being vague. We weren’t just avoiding him.
We said it clearly, directly, and more than once.
But every single time, he denied it.
Flipped the whole thing around and said we were misunderstanding him — or worse, that we were ganging up on him.
But it wasn’t just me who noticed.
Other classmates saw it too.
Even I, someone who usually tries to keep things chill, ended up snapping at him in front of everyone once.
I remember venting to my family about it.
They thought maybe he had some kind of condition.
Maybe he struggled with social cues or didn’t know how to interact properly.
And honestly?
If that had been the case, I could’ve had empathy for him.
But the harm he caused was real.
The people he stressed out were real.
I can try to understand someone — but that doesn’t mean I have to take shit from them.
🤔 I STARTED DOUBTING MYSELF
There were times I seriously wondered if I was just being too harsh.
Too sensitive.
Too unforgiving.
I kept thinking —
“Maybe I misunderstood him”
“Maybe I wasn’t welcoming enough”
“Maybe he was just lonely and didn’t know how to express himself”
And honestly?
That kind of self-blame eats you alive.
I hated how I kept trying to make excuses for him in my own head —
even when I knew how messed up it felt being around him.
But then I’d remember —
C was too scared to come to class.
Other girls were stressed out, tense, constantly looking over their shoulders.
Even some of the guys were on edge.
It wasn’t just me.
It was never just me.
And the fact that I still kept wondering if it was?
That’s what pisses me off the most.
🎯 C WAS HIS MAIN TARGET
C was a girl from Hong Kong who had known Q since language school.
Even back then, he wouldn’t leave her alone.
During a test, he told her to let him copy.
She said no.
And he actually said:
“Why won’t you let me look at your paper?”
After they both entered the vocational college, it got worse.
He’d block the door so she couldn’t get into the classroom.
Made sarcastic comments at her almost every single day.
This guy was 33 years old acting like a jealous kid in middle school.
It was pathetic and exhausting.
One day, she found all her files missing from the shared school computer.
Everyone else’s stuff was still there — only hers was gone.
We couldn’t prove it was him, but let’s be honest.
Everyone had the same thought.
😤 IT WASN’T JUST HER
H, one of the Taiwanese guys, sometimes stood up for C.
That made him Q’s next target.
One time while washing brushes, Q cut in line and whispered:
“Better watch yourself when you’re walking outside.”
Like… are you serious? Who talks like that?
A and J, two girls from Korea, said he stared at them all the time.
And not just a glance — like, full-on locked eye contact with that dead look that makes your skin crawl.
They’d try to ignore it and act normal, but you could see it was getting to them.
We all felt it — that tension, that pressure in the air whenever he was around.
🎥 RECORDING FOR VIDEO
One afternoon after class, A, J, and I were heading to the train station.
There was only one escalator down to the platform — and Q was already there, waiting.
We saw F and G, two Japanese classmates, nearby.
We quietly told them what was happening and tried to avoid him.
But he followed us anyway.
He got on the train, sat near F and G for a moment, and then made his way toward me.
I raised my voice, in both Japanese and Chinese:
“Don’t talk to me.”
I made it loud on purpose, so the people around would hear.
So they’d know he was bothering me.
He didn’t back off.
We moved to another train car — he followed again.
J took out her phone and started filming.
He actually tried to grab it.
Started yelling:
“You’re lying! You’re trying to frame me! I’m just trying to teach you girls how to behave!”
God, the "let me educate you" type is everywhere.
I snapped:
“What would we even get out of lying? You’re the one who keeps harassing us.”
J told him:
“If you stop following us, we’ll delete the video.”
And of course, he said:
“I wasn’t following you!”
Finally, he walked away — but not before throwing out:
“Don’t piss me off.”
M, one of our Japanese classmates, quietly reported the incident to train staff.
To this day, I’m still grateful she did. Eventhough Q was ran awy that time.
⚠️ HE KEPT TRYING TO INTIMIDATE US
We showed the video to our teacher the next day and explained the whole situation.
Thankfully, the school took it seriously.
Q later claimed he was going to sue A and J (spoiler: he didn’t).
He also tried to corner H and C again.
We ran straight to the faculty room to report it.
H said he’d stay there until a teacher came, and I stayed too — I wasn’t about to leave them alone.
Q and C started yelling at each other in Cantonese.
Then Q turned to H and said in Mandarin:
“What does this have to do with you?”
H was furious and jumped in immediately.
Eventually a teacher arrived and pulled Q aside.
A little while later, they came back and told us that Q would be expelled — though they couldn’t share any details.
It was over.
But by then, I was already mentally falling apart.
I couldn’t sleep.
I kept skipping class.
I couldn’t focus at work.
I was exhausted, burnt out, and constantly on edge.
I still feel sorry to the teachers and coworkers who had to deal with me like that.
🚇 2022: HE SHOWED UP AGAIN
Four years later, I thought it was finally over.
But at the end of 2022, I saw him again — on the MRT in Taiwan.
That day, I was taking the train from work to go to school and take a final exam.
(Because my Japanese diploma wasn’t recognized in Taiwan, I had to re-enroll in college from scratch — like a full reset, just to get a valid degree here)
Out of nowhere, someone sat down next to me.
He said hi, leaned in close, and started talking.
I heard his voice — and froze.
It was him.
I didn’t reply. Just kept my head down, hoping he’d shut up.
He kept talking anyway, saying stuff like:
“People really misunderstood me.”
I got off one stop before the transfer station, hoping to shake him off and take a different route.
He got off too.
I hid in the bathroom. Peeked out. He was still there, hovering.
I left the station. He followed me out.
Even tried to pull his mask down so I’d recognize him better, I guess?
At that point, my brain was yelling one thing:
“Get out. Get away. Now.”
I walked fast and called my family for help.
They were in a taxi heading somewhere else for the day, but the moment they got my call, they told the driver to change course and came straight to the MRT station where I was.
They also called the police.
I told the station staff what was going on. And finally — when the police showed up — he backed off.
My dad took me to school. I barely made it to the exam.
But the whole time, I was terrified the train doors would open and he’d be standing there again.
Originally, I was supposed to keep working through the end of the year.
But after that day, my family told me to quit early.
So yeah — I lost a few days’ pay.
Still pissed about that, honestly.
Not just because of the money — but because he got to take more from me. Again.
🧠 IT’S NOT PARANOIA
After that encounter on the MRT, I was shaken for days.
I thought I’d buried all of this.
I thought it was something I had survived.
But that’s the thing with trauma — it doesn’t stay buried just because you want it to.
It comes back. It shows up uninvited. It walks up and sits next to you on the train.
Sometimes I still ask myself:
“Was I just being too sensitive?”
But no. That’s not it. That question only exists because we’re taught to prioritize being nice over being safe.
If you’ve ever seen danger up close — if you’ve ever felt the moment when your body says “get out” before your brain catches up — you know.
That instinct? That discomfort? That gut-level fear?
It’s not paranoia.
It’s protection.
You’re not overreacting.
You’re just remembering too clearly.
[Note: This post is based on my real-life experience. Some sentences were edited for clarity with help from ChatGPT, but everything that happened is real.]
"Being on the run wasn't that easy... You see, back then I was a child and our way to moscow was really difficult. It has been weeks from kazakhstan to freedom for my family. Freedom from not being shot on the street in the middle of the day."
