Part1 New York

Chapter1: My Earliest Memory 

A strange, tickling sensation woke me up in the pitch dark.

A hand was moving inside my underwear. 

It was stretching out from my right side where my father usually slept. 

Is he mistaking me for mom? But mom has hair down there. He must be half asleep.

So, I turned over to her left side, where my mother was sleeping, expecting his hand to drop.  

But it grabbed the back of my underwear. 

I froze as questions rushed into my mind.

Is he not asleep? What does he want? ……Mom?

All I knew instinctively was that I couldn't stay there for another second.  

I pulled myself straight out of my parents' bed and without thinking, rushed into the nearest restroom and flushed the toilet.

Water gushed so loud the whole family could have woken up.

My memory becomes vague but I must have returned to my bed, telling myself: I woke up to use the restroom, and eventually fell asleep.

The following morning, my mother hugged me while saying in Japanese "Otousan ni 'mego-mego' shitemorattandatte? Yokattane." This translates to something to the effect of, "I heard Daddy 'caressed' you. Good for you." Except, the word "mego-mego" is not so explicit. It is an obscure and uncommon onomatopeia that I remember only my father use. It was strange hearing it from my mother.    

I was dumbfounded. Mom seems to be happy about it, so I guess that's "good?"

I gather that I was about four years old at the time. Some time afterward, on my first day of preschool, I brought a giant stuffed animal that my grandmother had sent me from Tokyo. It was a realistic plush cat that meowed and moved with a switch of a button. It was beautiful and cool but useless nonetheless. There were no pockets to hide anything inside—only a hard socket for two batteries. Disappointed, I never brought it back to school or played with it at home. 

I wondered for a long time why this particular, seemingly random memory stuck with me. One thing for sure is that I wanted to hide something. 

I don't remember much else about preschool but I recall coming home from it one day. Mom's homemade cake frosted with whipped cream was on the dining table. Soon after I put my finger into it and licked it, she asked me if I did it. Her voice was already stern. I said "no" in reaction. To which she yelled, "Usotsuki ni sodateta oboewa arimasen! Usotsuki wa dorobo no hajimari!" "I've never taught you to lie! Lying is the first step to becoming a thief!" She slapped me in the face which shocked me and I cried.

It must have been the first time my mother hit me. She was always chasing my younger brothers around to hit their butts with a wooden paddle.

"You were a well-behaved child," my mother told me later in life. Apparently, I didn't cry much and took care of my younger brothers. I was so easy to raise that she had gone to the doctor to ask why my brothers were always crying to which the doctor said, that's normal for babies.

In any case, to punish me for lying, my mother took me upstairs and told me to stay inside a dark closet. The door wasn't locked so I could have easily escaped but I didn't dare. All I could do was hit the light switch. It was a narrow walk-in closet, with a shelf. On it, I noticed an image peeking out from a piece of silky fabric. As I uncovered it, an image of a scantily clothed woman looking like she is in pain was exposed. It was a cover of a magazine and there was a stack of it. I flipped through the pages and instinctively knew that they belonged to Dad.

My tears stopped and I came to my senses. How come Dad didn't get punished for lying? Mom was happy when he lied. If what he did to me was not "good" after all, that means Mom was fooled. How can I trust such a gullible parent? Since that day, my distrust of my parents—especially of my mother—grew deeper and deeper. 

Although I stopped fighting with my brothers over who would get to sleep between our parents since that day, I would sleep next to my mother at the edge of the king-size bed whenever I got a stomach ache or caught a cold.

Every time, I asked myself "Why don't I sleep between Mom and Dad anymore like I used to?" Then the memory would flashback. "But that was just a nightmare. It didn't really happen." "Well, if that's the case, why don't you sleep between them?" and the infinite loop will go on until I manage to fall asleep. 

Chapter 2 Corporal Punishment

Chapter 3 Workaholic

Chapter 4 Identity Crisis

Part 2 Tokyo

Chapter 5 Uni 
Minority

Chapter 6 DV 
Boyfriend

Chapter 7 Taiwan
Sex crimes

Part 3
Chapter 8 Psychedelics
DMT

Chapter 9 The Emerald Triangle

Chapter 10 Gestalt Therapy

Chapter 11 Microdosing

Chapter 12 

Epilogue

I wish I could write about my experiences in Japanese because it could inspire fellow Japanese to face reality and think outside the box. Japanese are notorious for being oblivious to information that is common knowledge in English and making the language barrier one of their main excuses.

Still, I've decided not to, for fear of getting arrested in Japan for writing about my profound experiences in life. I can't talk about my trauma-healing process without speaking about how psychoactive substances have helped me over the past couple of decades. I'm not addicted to any of the medicine so they are more like amulets—they give me peace of mind knowing that I can rely on them if I need it. But ironically, the combination of simple possession and speaking about them puts me in a lot of danger from the authorities. 

It's an example of how little freedom of rights is practiced here in Japan. It's an example of how backward this country is but also how backward America has always been. After all, it is the latter that made psychoactive substances illegal during its occupation of Japan after WWII for its racist agenda that continues today.

Even before I had any knowledge of proper usage though, substances made me more aware of myself. I guess I was lucky. No illicit drug was more harmful than the experience of being molested by my father at the age of four.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of the drugs that I've experimented with since my teenage years, but I am not here to advocate psychoactive substances. It takes a variety of factors such as a good guide, set, setting, dose, integration, etc to make the experience safe and successful.

Plus, there are more important things than drugs like respecting each other's boundaries. I probably didn't need to use so many drugs if my boundaries were respected in the first place. No one—not even a parent has the right to invade other people's bodies—even their children; especially their private parts. That also means, taking "no" as an answer. If these basic morals are ignored, no psychoactive substances can help but do further damage instead. Therapists sexually exploiting their patients in treatment for trauma is a preposterous story we hear too often and one that I've experienced myself. 

This is why I'd rather advocate comprehensive sex education first and foremost. We need to prioritize sex ed that teaches adults and children alike that we have the right to say "no," run away, and tell someone if we are made to feel uncomfortable by others' indecency.

This is one of the main messages I want to convey through life lessons. It's not meant to harm. It is meant for harm reduction. But authorities who claim justice would purposely misinterpret it to make a living. It's a pain to live in Japan with an open-mindedness like mine.

I am a Japanese American so I can leave Japan. In fact, I've been going back and forth for work, but at the moment, I am settled in Japan for two reasons.

First, Japanese food culture makes it easier to eat well here. We do need to be mindful of where the food is sourced though. Radioactive pollution from the Fukushima power plant leaking since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami is still very relevant today, no matter how hard the media try to make us forget it. 

Second, I could get welfare in Japan and this would help because I can't work due to my mental illness, namely Complex PTSD. 

My chances of getting arrested are low if I don't write about my past experiences with drugs as there will be no way for the authorities to guess how much stash I have. I have started writing in English though because I would feel like I am imprisoned intellectually and spiritually if I don't write at all.