by Zhander P’ng
I want to say this plainly, even if it makes people uncomfortable.
I am neurotic.
I overthink.
I spiral.
I feel urgency where others feel patience.
I see ten steps ahead and panic when it feels like no one else is moving.
And for most of my life, this has made my love hard to receive.
Not because I don’t love deeply — I do — but because the way I love comes with momentum. With pressure. With intensity. With a kind of please-see-this-now energy that can feel like control, even when it’s fear wearing the mask of care.
This story only makes sense if I start there.
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How It Actually Started
This didn’t begin as a philosophical debate.
It began the way many family moments do — quietly, imperfectly, with concern.
My mom came home from the hospital carrying medical results. Not hers — my aunt’s. In our family, we don’t treat health as an individual issue. We’ve always held things collectively, especially as parents age, bodies change, and time starts to feel less theoretical.
There’s also a new dynamic in our family now: for the first time, we finally have an official medical doctor among us (the youngest of five). That matters. It changes how information flows. It changes who people turn to. It changes the weight of a piece of paper.
So the results were shared. Not publicly. Not casually. But within the family — because this is how we look out for each other.
No drama. No panic. Just that quiet heaviness that comes when numbers don’t look great and no one quite knows what to do next.
I remember the feeling clearly:
Okay. Now what?
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When My Mind Does What It Always Does
As soon as I saw the results, my body reacted before my thoughts could catch up.
Tight chest.
Fast breath.
That familiar internal alarm: If we don’t act now, something bad will happen.
This is my pattern. When something feels fragile, I move fast. When uncertainty shows up, I reach for structure. When fear enters the room, I start building plans.
I know this about myself now. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed either.
Because I also know this: when I don’t slow myself down, my urgency can become overwhelming for others — even when my intention is care.
So I did what I’ve learned helps me show up better.
I used ChatGPT.
Not because I think it’s “truth.”
Not because I worship technology.
Not because I believe it replaces doctors, judgment, or lived experience.
I used it because it does something my nervous system struggles to do under stress:
It slows things down.
It organizes.
It doesn’t panic.
I fed the information in. I asked questions. I cross-checked patterns. I translated medical language into something usable.
And then I did what I always do when I’m scared:
I turned fear into structure.
Meal plans.
Shopping lists.
Daily routines.
Clear priorities.
Concrete steps.
Love, made executable.
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Trying to Help Without Taking Over
When I shared everything with my parents, I was careful. I explained that these were my thoughts, my responsibility, my care. That AI was simply a tool helping me organize and communicate clearly — so my intensity wouldn’t overshadow my intention.
I also said something that mattered to me deeply:
I can analyze, plan, and structure — but execution has to happen on the ground.
Real change doesn’t come from telling someone what to do.
It comes from doing it with them.
Living together for a short time.
Cooking side by side.
Shopping together.
Practicing habits, not preaching them.
That was the heart of it.
Then my dad replied.
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The Message That Triggered Everything
His response was calm. Polite. Contained.
He said, “AI should help us understand what we don’t know — but shouldn’t be treated as gospel. Disclaimer noted.”
And something in me tightened.
At first, it felt like dismissal. Like a quiet step backward. Like he was distancing himself from something uncomfortable and calling it caution.
I could feel my mind sharpening arguments before I even realized it.
Truth hurts.
Truth is ugly.
Stop hiding behind language.
I wanted to push. To confront. To make him stand in the discomfort with me.
And this is the part that’s hardest to admit:
That urge wasn’t about truth.
It was about relief.
I wanted him to carry the fear with me so I wouldn’t have to hold it alone.
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The Pause That Changed Everything
Instead of responding immediately, I paused.
And in that pause, something quietly rearranged itself inside me.
This wasn’t about AI.
It wasn’t about belief.
It wasn’t even about disagreement.
It was about authority.
My father wasn’t rejecting reality. He wasn’t dismissing care. He wasn’t invalidating me. He was drawing a boundary around where authority lives for him.
I will use tools, he was saying.
But I will not outsource truth.
And suddenly, I could see it differently.
That boundary isn’t weakness.
It isn’t denial.
It’s how he stays intact.
More importantly — he didn’t disengage.
He read.
He acknowledged.
He stayed.
And that matters more than agreement.
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The Sentence That Changed Everything
This is the sentence that reorganized my entire response:
Truth doesn’t land where safety isn’t present.
If I had pushed — debated, corrected, challenged his framing — I might have felt brave. But I wouldn’t have been loving. I would have been threatening safety in the name of honesty.
And once safety is gone, truth has nowhere to land.
Sometimes insisting on truth is just another way of avoiding vulnerability.
Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop.
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The Kind of Love That Doesn’t Feel Powerful
I didn’t feel powerful when I understood this.
I felt quiet.
Exposed.
Humbled.
I realized that my neuroticism isn’t something I need to eliminate. It’s something I need to translate. Tools help me do that. Writing helps me do that. Pausing helps me do that.
What doesn’t help is forcing people to meet me at the depth of my fear before they’re ready.
Families don’t fall apart over facts. They fall apart over how facts are delivered.
And we only get one lifetime with our parents. One chance to learn how to love them without demanding they evolve on our timeline.
I don’t need my father to agree with me.
I don’t need him to bless my tools.
I don’t need him to call it truth.
I need him to stay.
Because staying means we can still act.
Staying means care still has a channel.
Staying means love remains possible.
And that’s the truth I’m willing to protect.
