I love the girl

Just looked back through all of my profile pictures on FB, back on photos as old as 8 years. I see a girl who wanted to be wanted, a girl who liked herself, and wanted to be liked by herself. She sought adventure in foreign lands, foreign relationships, and in nature. She had always been a child of nature, long before she even knew she was being called. She fell in love, with people, with life, with old churches, her best friend. She’s always wanted more from life, somehow she got addicted to the adrenaline of adventure and being in contact with the strange. She loved art, and learned how to express her beautiful soul. And then she tried to fit in, to belong, be accepted and loved by others. She projected an image of success, youth, potential, direction, passion, certainty, when deep inside she was torn apart, fighting for the faith that had been challenged forever. She grew wings for her own liberation, experimented, played with herself and with danger, not with caution but with an all-in defiance of reason. She had rocks, like her friends whom she keeps until now, and hope. Her everlasting hope that maybe God is there. She plunged into the dark headfirst, broke her wings. She thought it was for love, but yes it was. She broke her wings but not her soul. She found the pure. Pure loss and nothingness. She tried again.

And this is the final photo on her profile, which she doesn’t plan to change anytime soon.

Taken by Burtz of Blinkbox Photos

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Color your hair, cover your ears

Tags

be yourself, express yourself, fashion, hairstyle, sense, style

I used to be known as the girl who changes hair color every week (not that I would dye it that often, but hair color has a way of transforming itself as you wash it everyday.) Whatever the hair color would be though, people will always have different opinions.

“Wow, that’s so nice! Can you color my hair too?” / “Hey, you changed the color again!”

And there’s the other half: “You look like the smurfs.” / “The last one was better.” / “Why don’t you color it purple instead?” “I don’t like dyeing because it makes the hair dry.”

Hair dyeing left me with a very important lesson — that people will always have something to say, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What matters is how you take them, or not take any of them.

Why you should live with fear

Tags

fear, inspiration, life, live, living

Because every attempt to rid your life with fear 😱 is futile.

The goal isn’t to be fearless, but to live life fully despite the fear.

Fear often comes when you’ve got one foot in the unknown. Getting that foot back into your comfort zone just to avoid fear will do you no good.

So live, despite the fear.

What you can’t tradeoff

It’s quite easy to lose track of things you’ve learned and accepted earlier, no matter how hard it was to arrive at such learning and acceptance. 

For weeks I’ve been at a constant battle between adjusting my reality and adjusting my mind in embracing it. 

Constant complaints and picking on little things do not seem healthy physically, mentally and emotionally. So I’ve been literally telling myself to either love this reality or shut up altogether. 

But now I’m starting to grow dependent on a drug that puts me to sleep, without horrible dreams that come in the wee hours; and if they come to wake me up, I’m robbed of the brief moment to react and be scared. And then sleep is mine again. 

This battle was first about urban and rural. Rural won. Manila and Cebu. Cebu won. Now it’s convenience or comfort.

Sometimes it’s about adaptability, practicality and a bit of sacrifice. And sometimes it’s about wellbeing. Is it really practical to trade peace of mind? Know the things you can’t live without and accept that there are things you can’t live with. 

Dent on wellness

Tags

bipolar, borderline disorder, depression, mental health, mental illness, wellness

“Now I know what to do when you have an episode. I’ll listen, hug you, tell you I’m never gonna leave you, and then we’ll cry together. 

Just remind me when it happens again.”

My boyfriend must have forgotten what episodes were like. I never really thought of giving it a name. Depression, borderline, bipolar. Didn’t matter as long as I’d get well, my way.

But what happened tonight lead me to helping Jason understand and really learn about it. This website was very helpful:

International Bipolar Foundation 
Consequently, I learned new stuff. Like maybe I’m incapable of making business decisions, that my dreams are too big, I’ll never get it right with money, I was manic when I steered our lives to this direction. 

Until now I can’t fathom the thought of taking meds or professional help. Maybe I will get by with a hug. Maybe not. Till the next episode. 

Thanks Trech.

Just coffee or beer

Tags

EQ, health, mental, mental state, mental wellbeing, psychological health, psychology

My mental state says I need some coffee or beer. “You’re overspending,” a response I never imagined would start cutting me off from the world.

It’s sad that I’ve got nowhere, no one to run to. I know, friends, you’re there. But I’m here.

I tried remembering the time when it wasn’t like this. I’ve had this mental state thingy since time immemorial. But I had someone. A friend or a stranger. Always. Until now.

Meanwhile in my head… “What if I get unstable sometime in the future and it gets real messy?” “Well, we’ll go through it together. I’ll help you sort it out.”

Deadlines for change

I gave myself (or the Universe rather) a deadline. June 5. When my life would start to change. Specifically, when our sales would start picking up. June 5 came. And nada, nothing happened. But in my mind, there’s that voice that keeps reassuring me that change was happening, only that I couldn’t see it.

Yesterday afternoon, my boyfriend told me the sales was still down. But something in me wasn’t going down with it.

Now that I’m drinking with my boyfriend, I thank the Universe not because sales are up, but because I don’t mind anymore. My day would no longer be dictated by the sales. And I’m happy that my boyfriend is somebody that I can drink with and make love with no matter what happens in the world.

And yes we’re just done drinking. Time for the other thing.

Paa sa preno

Naghihintay ako ngayon sa labas ng gym; naghihintay na matapos mag-gym ang nobyo ko. Kasabay ng paghihintay ko ay ang unti-unting paglubog ng araw, pagbukas ng nakalinyang mga ilaw ng poste na nagpapadilaw sa dahon ng mga halamang nakalinya rin sa kalsada. Para bang nakalinya silang lahat sa aking harapan at alam kung saan papunta, katulad ng sandaang sasakyan na hagip ng aking tanaw.

Bago lang nagkaroon ng direksyong pupuntahan itong buhay ko. Dala siguro nitong nobyong hinihintay ko.

Kurbada itong daan kaya mahirap matanaw kung saan liliko, magtatagpo, mapuputol, nagmumula, patungo o matatapos.

Kurbada rin itong buhay ko. Sobrang kurbada na sa dami ng paliku-liko at madalas na pagkaligaw ay minsan nalilito pa rin ako kung nasa tamang daan ba, kahit na sinasabi ng kutob ay, “sige lang, tumuloy ka.” Pero ang paa ay nakapatong sa preno, handang tumigil, lumiko o kahit pa bumalik anomang oras.

Paano ba nagkakaroon ng direksyon ang buhay ng tao na katulad ng sa mga puno, poste at kalsada?

Home is not a place

Did you get to read my post, “There’s a place for healing,” which I wrote shortly after moving out of the city? Just to summarize, that move was because I needed some help dealing with depression.

Three years later, here I am spending a month in my hometown, facing the horrors that pulled the trigger – pollution, congestion, traffic, and majority of the population that just don’t give a damn.

To my surprise, I felt at home. In place of awkward moments that I anticipated from people I had never seen since, are warm hugs of welcome. People still walk crazy fast, and I was walking at their pace because “I don’t want to be in the way” of somebody who’s catching up with whatever, yet I kept a certain calm within. To be honest, I see people in a more caring light. Maybe it was just my disturbed soul then that zoomed in on the ugliness of the environment. And now that I am calm…

I would have wanted this ending: Now that I am calm, I am no longer limited to only one home, I am home wherever I am. Home is not a place, but a state of being.

But in my remaining days, I’ve been having dreams of my boyfriend, my parents, my dog Lucas running by the fish pond. I cannot live without the ocean breeze, the huge starry sky while I drink milk; nor can I live without the dozen different sounds of birds that my dad feeds every afternoon, birds that sometimes share in our kitchen; nor my mom’s orchids and guava trees. I cannot be away from the waterfalls and the mountaintops.

I am still a big-city misfit.
That’s undeniably my nature.
And that’s fine to embrace.

 

From the other side of “healing,” here’s a friend’s piece: Prinzel, my friend

Do you feel small?

Tags

connectedness, feeling small, god, inspirational, oneness, progress, self-help, spirituality, universe

Do you feel small? Do you want to work on your feeling small?

Start working on your feeling BIG first.

And everything else shall follow.

Feeling small