One true thing that happened to me in 2013 - 2015 was this blog!

Just a few years ago,  I started deleting the blog entries here hoping that I would be able to delete all blog entries and pretend that Depression did not happen to me. 

But for some reason, maybe deleting got too difficult that I kept on delaying it until I totally forgot about deleting all entries. 

Good thing, actually! Because now, when I learned about my then boyfriend's (and now husband) infidelity from 2013 to 2015, I started to question everything that happened between the two of us, if there was even the two of us. I started looking over Google photos of 2013 to 2015, what did we have? What were we like? What was I doing? Where was I? Where was he? What were we busy doing? As I looked at our photos, I saw how little good and fun memories we had. It started making sense. He was actually busy cheating on me, betraying my trust.

As I looked at the photos to see what were actually untrue, I started deleting the photos of him and me together. I so love deleting.

Now, I am still looking for what was true that happened to me. You see, I spent the past eight years of my life with him, and majority of which I learned was actually full of lies. Anyway, I started looking for what was true... and I remembered this blog! 

I am sooo happy that I forgot to delete this blog site. It's only now that I realize that this is the only true thing that happened to me in those years. But, there's one year missing, 2012. That's the year that I was able to delete. 

A very interesting article

Just thought of sharing this -

East meets west 

:)

Fight Depression [beware: tips here are nothing new :) ]

The past few months were difficult on my part that has made writing on this blog almost impossible. But I thank God that I was still able to share some ways to fight depression. On to more suggestions...

1. Know yourself. Accept. Move on. Focus on moving forward.

A lot of those who suffer from D may have been rooted from family issues that are unsettled. While there are very few who get to settle their issues in their family in an amicable way or through the presence of trained therapists, most do not get to settle their pains and heartaches that started in their families. Unsettled issues that have not been made aware through self-reflection or talk therapies may lead to more damages such as difficulty in relating with other people, family and marriage breakup, drug addiction, and a whole lot more. Being aware is the first step. Accepting and addressing this issue is the second step. Moving on despite inability or impossibility to settle issues is another step. Is there a last step? Maybe just keeping on your focus to move forward is the last step.

2. Forgive.

Whoever may have caused your pain or trauma, forgive. Forgive him/her and forgive yourself for letting pain control your life. When pain or anger controls your life, moving forward is very difficult to do. Forgiveness is a choice done even when it is still painful to forgive. It's chosen even when it is painful. When you forgive, you are setting yourself free from the pain and anger and allowing peace and happiness to reign over your life. 

3. Find out what works for you.

Although you may find some suggestions here helpful, there are still so many hundred ways that will work for you but will not work for me. So, always, go back to knowing yourself and find out which would be the best ingredients for you to fight depression.

Only happy vibes allowed

This picture may seem just an ordinary dinner with friends. Yes it was a dinner but it was no ordinary.

Beside me was my cousin who is 8 years younger than me. In front of us are his friends since grade school.

The dinner happened because my cousin invited me to just eat over our delayed (or not happening?) plan of putting up our own school. When I told him I'm sorry that our dream school does not seem to go as planned, I was feeling terrible and so frustrated at myself. He replied that it will happen in God's time and that we should just have dinner. I thought that the invite for dinner was only an empty offer. But it was an offer that actually happened, a sincere one.

So the dinner happened. These friends of his were also there when we were planning our school. And so to have them during that dinner made me feel good because there was no judgement on their part. Only happy vibes and stories of their adventures.

Looking forward to be with positive people!

Coping with...

Dealing with an illness and working to pay the cost of being ill can be taxing. Really taxing. How ideal it would be to just rest and wait until completely cured and not having to work to be completely well. But reality is, you gotta work and pay the bills for your medicines and doctors' professional fees.

So how can one deal with an illness while still working?

1. Listen to your body. Those little and seemingly not so painful but really and actually painful throbs may mean nothing but it can actually be really something. So listen to your body when there's a throb or unusual feeling that you get. You're lucky if the symptoms are physical. You can detect easily.

2. Embrace the changes. Side effects of the medicines may be too much to bear but remember it's for your benefit. But if it's too much that your work and daily performance is affected already, tell your doctor.

3. Seek help. Sometimes you want to bear the difficult process of becoming well alone. And you can manage anyway. Other times, you feel alone and like you cannot tolerate the emotional, mental and physical pain that comes with the treatment. Acknowledge that time and seek help.

I hope these tips help.

Another Battle

Battle against Depression should have been over last year when my doctor told me I can stop taking my happy pills.

But another battle has started. This time it's my battle against PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome.

One of the symptoms of this PCOS is depression. Ha! That damn D has come back (or maybe it never actually left!) through another form - in the form of PCOS.

You ask me now how I am. I do not know anymore! I've stopped asking why I have this. I am in this state where I am in complete surrender. I am no longer questioning God. I am only struggling now to accept His plans for me and obey him unconditionally.

Instant Happiness

Don't most people prefer what is instant? Instant noodles. Instant coffee. Instant soup. Oh the list goes on and on. These things instant don't make us think anymore. We just grab it and use it. Our needs at that moment are instantly satisfied.

Lately, three things or events or choices made me instantly happy.

1. Going out with friends/Catching up
I know too well that depression makes one act like a hermit. This kind of living just makes the process of healing more difficult. And no matter how difficult it is to face friends and family, no matter how awful you feel inside, no matter how negative you are, you just gotta push yourself up and meet people. But you choose those people who make you feel safe and comfortable. Hanging out with people who only see what is ugly about the world will not at all help you.

2. Reading the bible
I would read the daily readings. Surprisingly, when I took it more seriously (meaning taking time to really reflect on it), I realized that human sufferings of today are no different from the suffering of the past. The only different is the time. But everything else is the same. From the feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and desperation to feelings of being saved, forgiven, and loved are all the same. Whatever you are going through now, it is there in the bible. The solutions for your problems are also in the bible. It's very comforting to know that you are not the first one to actually experience the difficulty and  most importantly, it's relieving to know that the solutions you are looking for are just a bible away. So go and grab that bible.

I even made an Instagram account for all the bible verses that really struck me. Posting them and rereading them are really great reminders for me to hold on and just keep the faith. Please click the link below.

A bible verse a day takes the sadness away

3. Taking time to hang out with family
Just this weekend, I was able to spend time with my family - my parents, siblings, nephew, aunts, uncles, and few cousins. We spent time chatting and eating out. In the course of our socialization, the conversation turned to talk about something more serious; one that makes the sharer more vulnerable. This kind of conversation is something new since our clan is known to be stoic. Our conversation became a discovery of issues that are actually common among other families. Since we found out how this same issue of one family is shared by other families, we felt somehow relieved knowing that we are not alone and we actually have the same issues. Acknowledging how these issues destroy different families in one clan is one way to break the pattern so we do not repeat it in the next generation. From this discovery, we shared how one copes with the difficulty. At that moment, my history of clinical depression made more sense. Suddenly, this "burden" became somebody else's instrument to be saved.

If you notice, these things do not take too much financial spending. All these require are time and effort - then you will be instantly happy.

Not of this world

Today, I will remember that I am not important. That I am not of this world but that I am in this world.

to give

"I have shown you that by working hard one must help the weak, remembering the words that the Lord Jesus himself said, 'Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving.'"

I have heard this bible verse "Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving." many times already. But this time, it has a different impact on me.

Could it be that people tend to be unhappy because they expect to receive? Receive anything from material things to receiving words of encouragement, acknowledgement of one's effort, affirmation, even love.

Could it be that to be happy, one should give what she thinks she doesn't receive or what she thinks she needs or wants? How hard is that! To give words of encouragement when you yourself do not feel encourage or is not encouraged! To acknowledge someone's effort when your effort is not given attention to! To affirm someone when you yourself are thirsty of affirmation! To love when you yourself do not feel loved!

Sigh.

Something to think about, reflect on, and pray for - to give and not to receive.

solace in a strange world

Last Friday, the Gospel spoke to me: "Truly I say to you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. ... You feel sorrowful now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice; and no one will take your joy from you. When that day comes you will not ask me anything. Truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you."

Today, another line from the Readings struck me: "Indeed, I put no value on my life..." Paul said these words to Ephesus. I truly do not understand its essence within the context. I just don't. But it spoke to me.

You see, that's what I exactly feel - my life has no value and I put no value on my life. Like I can disappear from work and home and no one will notice. The only person who will most likely notice is my partner. I just don't seem to feel like I matter to anyone. And so, I want to go somewhere else - to a place where no one knows me and no one should really make me feel like I matter because they are strangers to me and I am a stranger to them. Here in my world now, I feel I should matter because they are not strangers to me and I am not a stranger to them; but I don't matter.

That's what I've been praying for - for my life to have value. Or maybe somewhere, even in a strange world, I would I actually matter. I have value.I can put value on my life.

Right now, I can only close my eyes and imagine life in this world where I feel I am valued, my life has a value, and that it's living with a purpose. But after a while, I open my eyes, and see my world again - where I don't seem to really exist.

So, please bring me to a world where I can really feel I exist, my life is indeed life, and happiness is the name of the air I breathe.

Where to?

Where do you start when you find yourself sliding back to the deep dark dungeon called Depression?

Feelings of worthlessness and self pity have been becoming all too close to me once again.

To  help myself, I'm reading again
my Kindle copy of "The Depression Cure".

The Royal Family for Mental Health Awareness

I love them. But now, I love them even more. Kudos to the Royal Family for their new advocacy - mental health awareness.

Watch this video.

Campaign video of Heads Together

On silence

True.

Barely breathing

Struggling to keep myself alive

Pia Wurtzbach in each one of us

Miss Universe 2015, Pia Wurtzbach posted this on Instagram -

It started making sense to her. Maybe she meant all her struggles, her three tries to get to where she is now.

I feel so much for people like her - for people who struggled a lot and finally saw the reasons for everything. I look up to them. I want to find out how they did it. I know the answers must be - "Never give up, never give up your dreams, just keep believing, etc."

What else did they do? Aside from mentally psyching themselves? I'm asking these questions because none of the things that happened to me make sense, still. I still am finding out why those had to happen. Why? I wanna know and feel that all the struggles to choose what is right are all worth it. And for now, I see no reason why those pains are worth it.

I was once like her -

Pia Wurtzbach was once remembered by her statement in Star Magic Philippines (an agency for actors and actresses in ABS-CBN) that she will be one day Miss Universe. She also tweeted one time after Gilas Pilipinas lost in a game that "...babawi tayo sa Miss Universe.''

I remember before saying to my family that when people see me, "Uy, si (my name) yun" (in a delighted and amazed tone, of course). I said that when we were in the car and we saw on the sidewalk near ABS-CBN a news anchor walking. I knew how to psyche myself.

I also did dream of becoming the first lady governor or the first lady mayor of my town. Yes, I wanted to be a politician. I don't know what happened. My trials made me lose confidence in myself. I stopped trying. I stopped believing in myself. Eventually, what I thought and how I perceived myself probably reflected so much in my actions that people around me would also look down on me. I accepted those moments when they would treat me like I'm worthless. I didn't care. I got hurt, of course. But I just accepted that I'm really worthless anyway. For a looooong time, I lived with that. I think, I still live with that. But slowly, I'm trying to change what I think and how I perceive myself. I want to bring back my confidence and faith in myself. If I had those before, I want to even level it up.

Never giving up - 

Her win would probably mean so many different things for different people. But for me, she is one proof that determination to continue struggling, trying, and believing in one's dream can lead to its realization.

The realization of one's dream cannot be achieved without ardent prayers and surrounding with people who believe in you. So I guess, no, I believe, that with one's determination, faith, and being with the right people can lead to one's success.

Thanks to this Miss Universe 2015. It was not only a venue to showcase a woman's inner beauty. It also ignited so many dying spirits in women.

On where we probably got the habit of comparing ourselves

I think we all had that moment in our childhood when the elders would say, "Gawin mo yan, tingnan mo si (your cousin's/sibling's/anyone's name here) kaya gawin, ikaw hindi? or "Ay do this, would you like to be like (your cousin's/sibling's/anyone's name here) na hindi nya alam/gawin? Diba ayaw, kaya gawin mo na." All these things have made us somehow look to others to compare ourselves, if we're good enough or if we're simply enough. I don't think it did us good. So now that we're older, we get that habit of doing something because we just gotta be better than others or we just gotta beat the rest. And this has only become worse because of Facebook and other social media platforms.

There's nothing bad about wanting to be the best. But to the point of thinking that we are far superior than others? I don't think that is good.

Sometimes, we can't blame our elders because the unthinking, narrow-minded sector of the society would treat people depending on how "the best" you are. "The best" in this context refers to those people who supposedly studied longer - doctors, priests, lawyers, etc. The longer your name is with all those titles, the better because that means the more that you will be respected. Never mind if you don't pay your taxes as a doctor. Never mind if you sexually abuse your followers. Never mind if you can be bribed. Just as long as you have the title, you should be respected. Respect is earned not because of what you do as a human being or how you good you treat others, but because of what comes with your name.

And this is the sad, very sad reality that we live in. This very sad reality is the reality that our parents want to spare us from. So what happens? They push us to our limits, to be the best ... even to the point that comparing ourselves with others is their way to motivate us.

Running for life

How have I been? Self-check is very important - not just for the Depressed but to any one. Why? Self-check allows you to think about your mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional state. It does not only require thinking, but also feeling.

With regard to my state of happiness, I am happy that I've been working so hard to keep myself sanely happy by doing yoga and running. These replaced my pills. And I'm glad I try so hard to commit myself to these two physical activities that I try to make sure that I build my daily schedule around it. Even more so that I really have to shed off the pounds I gained from taking the anti-depressant pills that could also have contributed to my weight gain. 

In fact, yesterday I did a 10-K run at the 39th Milo Marathon! I was and still extremely happy that I finished it. I thought that I wouldn't be able to. At 2K, I was already feeling like wanting to give up. I was looking around me and trying to find a place where I could just hide and tell my boyfriend (who also ran and went ahead of me) to pick me up there after the run. The feeling was made even worse when I realized that the marathon marshals on their bikes were behind me which meant that I was the last person!

But I went on. I continued. I do not remember anymore what was going on inside my mind that made me continue. I guess the run-walk interval helped. The run-walk didn't put too much pressure on me - just the right pressure to make me finish. Also, I kept on convincing myself that I want to be known as the "finisher" - that one person who finishes something that I start - be it on running or any project  or academic-related work. I was looking for many reasons to continue running - aside from my thoughts, I saw the reasons to run in the old - that lolo and lola who were way older than me but were running! Also, I tried to pace my running with this couple whose speed were probably just the same as mine. Running with these two made running feel less lonely. 

I realized that running is very similar to life - sometimes, you just feel like wanting to give up because you're already feeling weak and you're way behind others anyway. But, because you choose to go on, you do everything to find all the reasons to continue. Until you reach that point where you can somehow easily continue no matter how hard it is or how weak you already feel. And when you reach the finish line - you realize, wow... you can really do it! With positive thinking and choosing to stay strong, everything is possible! 

Adjustment

September 30, 2015 marked that day when Doctor told me he's liberating me from my meds. Of course, I looked forward to that day when I could be happy naturally - you know without the help of any medication. Freeing me from medicines after three years is a huge victory on my part! I know that even if with medication and I still wouldn't help myself, I wouldn't be a-okay. But I did help myself. My family did help me - not in the way though that I hoped :) Their help, I would call falls under tough love. All that knows me well - friends from work, friends since birth, my boyfriend, helped me in one way or another.

But what Doctor probably forgot to tell me was that my body and its entire system would also adjust without the help of Fluoxetine. For the first two weeks without any medication, I found myself, crying so hard, getting too emotional, and just really having a difficult time controlling my emotion called sadness. Victims of this adjustment included my mother and my boyfriend. Details not important in the discussion. The point is that I had a terrible terrible terrible time adjusting. Since then, I resolved to help myself even harder. How?

by exercising

I would need to exercise more often! So, to help myself motivate to exercise, I signed up for a 10K run! Committing myself to that 10K run would serve as my motivation to train regularly. 

And yes, I finished the 10K run! It's another victory! It was not fast but I finished it. I did not give up and that is what mattered and still matters.

by helping others

Another thing that has been helping me is being more conscious of going beyond myself - this means that I would need to see and think logically that the world is not about me and my bouts of depression. I started to give regularly to the Church through the seminary where my brother is a spiritual director. Aside from that, I helped the seminary by asking my colleagues to donate their books for the seminary because a lot of their things were damaged because of the Typhoon Lando that hit my hometown.

These two things: exercising and helping others were very helpful as I continue to live without any medication.

Other ways to help me be happier and more positive would include:

keeping myself away from people who are so negative
sleeping for 6-7 hours a day
praying wholeheartedly (through meditation)

Those three, I need to work on since lately I have been surrounded with people who are too negative and so stressful to be with, I have been sleeping irregularly, and have not been praying religiously.

Waiting for me to happen

It's been four months since I last blogged! Just what happened?

The entire month of June, I was out of the country. I savored every day of the 30 days of June with my parents who I really did not grow up with. So you could imagine the clashes and all the adjustments that had to happen.

July was all about adjustment. I was longing for the places and the lifestyle I enjoyed while I was out of the country. Also, I was blessed to be accepted in a part-time job in one big university. Though the location is not entirely pleasing to my sense of smell and sight, it is accessible from my place.

In August, classes started in the university where I really "belong." Of course, there's not much adjustment in terms of preparation but the fact that I'm working for two institutions that are a bit far from each other (although very convenient to travel because of the LRT)  makes the adjustment for my body and mind more challenging. But I'm hanging on.

September was when meetings for my business venture started. This business venture makes me so excited. But it is also very demanding in terms of time. I'm blessed that God sent me people who seem dedicated enough to work with me until every thing materializes. This business is not for me, it's His. That's why I named it after Him. All these business meetings happened while of course, attending to the demands of work.

I started feeling weary when October arrived. Well, actually, that feeling started in September. I think it just got worse in October. So I decided to spend more time on exercising which would bring out all the endorphins - hormones that make us happy. I signed up for a 10k run on November 8. I have yet to sign up for a 5K run on October 25. All these runs I do because I would like to keep myself sane. By the way, last September 30, my really awesome psychiatrist just put me off from taking Fluoxetine! I've been taking Fluoxetine since 2012 and to be cleared from taking any medication for depression is really a milestone!

Today is October 6. More days to go before October ends. But now, I'm already pushing myself hard to do what I find difficult to do - finding meaning in all that I do.

That bee

It's amazing how even a bee helped my thoughts steer away from feelings of self-pity. 

I woke up one morning with my mind fresh from the happy celebratory mood that the news of my brother's appointment as judge brought. But with that joy, was also a feeling of questioning - "What have I done to bring pride and honor to my family?" (You see all my siblings are respected in their own fields!) Of course, being uncertain about many things and not knowing what my life is for, I started feeling anger, sadness, and disappointment. I was conscious that I was starting to think of negative thoughts so I went to my mother's garden to water her plants and of course, to help me think of only good things. 

As I was watering the plants, the negative thoughts were still lingering in my head. I felt really terrible about myself that tears were prepping to fall. But before my tears could even fall, a buzzing sound was surrounding my left ear! A bee briefly buzzed near my left ear that I didn't get to cry! I laughed after that buzz. I thought how even a bee would help me divert my thoughts into something positive.