“My art is something that allows me to express myself fully without feeling guilty afterwards. In doing so, I am able to cope with strong emotions in a healthy and productive way. It also allows for ample reflection afterwards, letting me ask myself questions like ‘what else can I do to feel better, to heal’ and ‘how can I respond to the same situation if it happens again?'”

The post Fighting Off Her Demons appeared first on Silakbo PH.

I wish it were easy to explain to you how my mind works. When I come home from school every weekend, worn out like an old sweater, your hugs stitch me back together, one seam at a time. I hope you know how much I love every instance we sit by the balcony and talk. You know, those Friday nights, thick with humid air and your cigarette smoke and my endless chatter; those Friday nights when I can shake the exhaustion of school from my bones while you ask me about the latest medical phenomenon I learned in class. “How does the heart pump blood,” you would ask one week. “How do our eyes actually see,” you would ask during another. You tell me you enjoy watching me explain as animatedly as I can, and I love that you listen, that you understand. You see, these concepts are relatively simple to explain because they are concrete things, objective things, things you can read on a textbook and observe in another human being. I’m sorry my mental illnesses aren’t quite as easy to observe and comprehend.

Well, they are, in a way. I witness you and dad and my siblings and friends caught up in the path of a typhoon and that typhoon is me. I am a hurricane of anxious thoughts and and half-meant suicidal jokes told wryly with a joyless grin. I am the calm before the storm, pleasant and cheerful, then suddenly I am the storm, winds roaring a hundred kilometers an hour as I jump from idea to plan to plan to idea. And then the blustering winds die down until I am nothing more than a weak breeze blowing on a sunny day – except I don’t feel the warmth of the sun because here I am stuck in bed, and I don’t want to get up and I don’t want to feel anything and I don’t want to exist for now (or forever).

But please don’t be alarmed, because I promise I’ll try my best to explain what it’s like up here behind my face. To be honest, I still don’t know why I am the way I am and maybe I never will. A couple of times, during one of our more vitriolic disagreements, you asked me if this was your fault, if you had fucked me up enough. But I know – and please believe me – that this is my mind’s fault and no one else’s. Does it matter what caused my anxiety and bipolar though? I just want you to know that I try and fight and claw my way out of this godforsaken chasm I find myself in every day.

Three years ago, I sought out a psychiatrist behind your back and dad’s because I was terrified of what you would think of me. Would you still believe that I was your first baby, the child you bore and raised two decades ago? Or would you see me like how I see myself – a shadow of your daughter, a parasite thriving in the dark, afraid to live? You see, mom, this is what depression and anxiety love to tell me every chance they get. I am useless, I am worthless, I do not deserve value and love and care. I’ve grown used to this internal monologue, this tug-o-war of self-hate and self-pity. Depression and anxiety are frenemies that love to one-up each other in my head, keeping my mind trapped in a never-ending battle with itself. I imagine every outcome I could come up with, rationality be damned. I agree and disagree; I catastrophize and the anxiety grows louder. My thoughts screech like bullets ricocheting into a deafening roar and I am held captive. What were once whispers are now screams, ordering me to bottle up these feelings, to stay silent and unaffected, to don a mask with a grin so wide, no one will believe that I was unhappy. (But I was. I am. Enough to wish I dropped dead so I could finally get the peace and quiet I longed for.)

When my diagnosis of depression was changed to bipolar 2 disorder just a couple of months ago, everything clicked in my head. Something in my mind, always so foggy and noisy, gleamed like the full moon on a cloudy evening; it was enlightenment. Now I understood the highs and the lows, the excessive energy then the sluggish apathy. I welcomed hypomania to the party in my head like an old, familiar friend.

This is how bipolar works – well, for me anyway. I’m on a rollercoaster and you know I hate rollercoasters, but god, do I love that exhilaration as I speed upwards, higher and higher. Soaring over everything and everyone, I swear I can taste the clouds from up here. I like to think of hypomania as mania’s functional cousin, because these are the times when you see me at my best, sort of. I’m up and about, restless and hankering for something, anything to do. I spew out words a mile a minute because I can barely keep up with all these new and shiny ideas in my head. I am productive. I am outgoing. I am confident. And maybe I am a little too much of those, but I don’t give a shit because these are the times when I can tell my anxiety to go suck it. I am a unicorn, bathing in rainbows and sparkles, and the euphoria is addictive. Each high has its comedown and when hypomania leaves me like a harried sailor abandoning ship, I crash and I crash hard. And you know what this looks like a little too well.

Once upon a time, you told me to put all the thoughts burrowing like worms in my brains into a box. You told me to put that box away. Compartmentalize. Done. I can’t help but feel weak because I am incapable of doing that as effortlessly as you can. My brain simply doesn’t work like that. I may not be as tough as you now, with all your decades of heartaches and happiness – but I’d like to believe I’m strong enough in my own way. Battling with one’s mind every single day is no easy feat. And maybe I can even be strong enough to make you proud.

I don’t blame you. I don’t resent you. And I definitely don’t hate you. Mom, you tell me you enjoy watching me explain things, and I love that you listen, that you understand. So I hope now you understand, maybe just a little bit. Maybe we won’t completely see eye to eye on this and that’s okay. All I really want are your empathy and your patience and your acceptance. Because this is me, this is my life, and this is how my brain works.

The post Mom, this is how my brain works appeared first on Silakbo PH.

Onion-skinned (2017)

Anxiety has the power to turn you into a vulnerable creature. Under its claws, your wings are clipped; you walk away on tip-toes fearing your demons. You’re aware of this, but the claws are too sharp and you grow more and more frustrated with yourself — because who wants to be onion-skinned?

Ang Zahyi Tee (2017)

By its darkness I am swallowed
pale and frozen.

Today I just Want to be Struck by Lightning.(2016)
Today my mind is numb, my body in severe ennui.
Today I just want to be struck with lightning.

Down to My Last Piece (2016)

I created this image in honor of that crucial point in our life battles– including those against ourselves– in which we hold on to that last piece of strength inside us after all else have been expended.

Claustrophobic (2012)

The Power of Perspective (2011)

Sometimes, we deem the world dirty—
Only to realize, in our moments of lucidity
that we just forgot to clean our lenses.
May we live for those moments.

Hiding Place (2011)

People who suffer from depression and anxiety often cope through avoidance.  Some succumb to depressive hibernation, but some find sanctuary in solitude and art. Depression in its severe state, however, is crippling and paralyzing. So that before one reaches this state, it is crucial that the sufferer finds a safe place to hide, be it a support system or a temporary hiatus from the demands of daily existence.

The post Have A Look Inside appeared first on Silakbo PH.

One feels a certain affinity with the poor thing. The past eight months or so have left me feeling like I’m running in a loop. Since I’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression (the D as my friends and I like to call it), my mother has been trying to get me to pray. Every time a wave of crippling sadness hits, she asks if I’d like to go to church, even though we haven’t stepped inside a church together in over two years. She argues that it wouldn’t hurt anyway to try. Always stubborn, I refuse, too busy running into walls.

I know she means well and that fills me with tenderness. She must be nostalgic for my six-year-old self who always felt lighter after attending Mass. For every dilemma, the solution was simple: We would go to the chapel and listen to my favorite priest, Father Ads, as he enlightened my mind, reaffirmed my faith. Perhaps it was his lightheartedness that made me love him. Some people were just like that; their faith made them seem like they were glowing, like they hovered above the ground, divine. Father Ads could make long homilies interesting and inspire so much love for God in me. I remember the feeling, that happiness that made me weightless. If someone had cut me open, I would have poured out light. To follow God was no yolk at all. All I felt was grace.

–

I thought I had put this to rest long ago. It begins with a mathematical problem: A sheep is tied to a post in a field. The length of the rope is 30 feet. Moving in a circle, with the post at its center, what is the area of the field in which the sheep can graze? At a grazing speed of two square feet per day, how many days until the sheep runs out of grass?

Proclaiming myself an atheist, I fancied myself as better than the herds of religious sheep that surrounded me. They moved in circles, content only with the narrow reach of their minds. I thought that by renouncing God, I was somehow more enlightened, smarter, more rational. I thought myself kinder, because I made good choices out of my own free will rather than acting out of hypocrisy, religious duty, bound by the moral code of Catholicism or the fear of eternal damnation.

My mother isn’t religious but she believes it necessary to trust and submit to a higher power. When I started skipping mass, she worried. When I told her that I had stopped believing in God, she asked then what do I believe in. I answered people. I believe in people.

I thought it was a pretty smart answer. The flaw realized belatedly: People are terrible. It’s something A— mentioned often, how his own faith is rendered incoherent by what he experiences with his father; his religious father who goes to church every week and is friends with the Christians in their community, who smiles at these people, invites them to dine in his home, yet reserves little love for his own son.

I can understand A—‘s disappointment, the disillusionment with the flock of God and all He promises. For as long as I can remember, my grandfather has served as a speaker at the chapel on the street of my childhood. He dresses nice every Sunday, guides the people in prayer, and helps organize processions for religious feasts. I remember when we still lived at his house, he reprimanded my mother for hanging a framed painting of a Chinese woman in the living room (idolatry I believe he called it), as if it was a graver sin than the affair that he had in the past, or how he used to hit my uncles when they were younger. How difficult it is for him to forgive minor transgressions, his anger often getting the better of him (the shelf that collapsed in his room when I was in it, the swift kick that followed).

There was little to sustain my faith by way of the people around me. All I could see was their hypocrisy and so I doubted my own sincerity. Except perhaps for my mother, the only person who seemed to take the question of faith seriously. She’s always believed—hoped—that I’ll eventually find my way back to God, not because it matters to her that I be a good Christian, only that I learn what it means to surrender.

She is Catholic by virtue of having been baptized, but she practices Zen Buddhism which believes the path to enlightenment is through the mundane daily life, to experience the world as it is, and in doing so arrive at a profound moment of clarity. I often scoff at her when she talks about karmic retribution and reincarnation, feel myself get a migraine from trying not to roll my eyes, otherwise simply drift from conversation.

“You need to quiet your mind,” she would often tell me, and then invite me to meditate with her. I tried a couple of times but it never worked, I get too distracted. “It just needs practice,” she said. It was time I could not give.

What exactly am I so proud about? What am I so determined to prove? If I am looking for faith devoid of false virtue, I need not look further than my mother. And still, I refuse. Always the obstinate refusal, always the knee-jerk reaction of contradicting her even when I don’t always believe what I am saying, the refusal to cage myself to a single mode of understanding. She tells me about emptying yourself and realizing the world for the illusion that it is. She wants so much for me to yield, to see the world for how she sees it. But all I know of letting go is giving up.

To believe in God is a mark of weakness. To capitulate is a convenient excuse for the failures, the lonely, the lazy, those who can’t bear the consequences of their actions, people who refuse to fight. It’s okay, it’s okay because God has a plan. Believing in a higher power becomes an excuse not to act. Like how my mother says pray as we sit down to discuss what to do about the dog we rescued from my cousins.

The dog is named Ceejay, a two-year-old beagle who was, before we adopted her, had been tied to the spot under the stairs. Unwashed, underfed, ignored. A couple of months after we got her, we found out she had a venereal tumor that she contracted after having sex with a stray dog who was also sick. The tumor had been steadily growing for the past few months. Now it is large enough to press against her bladder, unsettling her into peeing inappropriately. Aside from the TVT, she has a malignant mammary tumor, and an enlarged heart. Her heart condition makes surgery risky because we have no idea how her body will react to the anaesthesia.

My mother says pray and I can think of at least five different ways to handle this better. Putting the dog to sleep, no matter how painful, seems like a better idea than pray. My mother says it’s not in our hands to decide that. And because she can’t distinguish faith from immobility, the tumor grows larger in our dog’s belly, the cancer spreads. I mop up her blood every 30 minutes. On mornings we wake up with the living room floor looking like a crime scene. And all my mother wants to do is pray.

–

For a long time, I ricocheted between belief and unbelief, devotion and skepticism. Less to do with pride, perhaps it was because of my own inadequacies I struggled with religion. Sex, for example. Who’s strong enough to say no to that. Youthful curiosity played a large part in the desire for the experience.  Despite studying in a secular high school with a special science curriculum, we were taught little about the body, about sex, relationships. We’d hold mass on special occasions and set aside an hour every week for lecturers outside of school to come and teach us about God and proper values.

The Christian orientation of my high school, however, never stopped us from making dirty jokes. It didn’t stop us from crowding around someone’s phone on long breaks to watch porn. It didn’t stop me when a boy taught me how to touch myself as we hid under an oversized sweater in an audio-visual room full of people.

Trying it at home was an experiment, exploring different ways to produce the optimal pleasure: what to watch, what to touch, how hard, how fast. After the first time I made myself come, the object became how to recreate the first experience of pleasure. I’d spend hours trying to figure out my body, what it liked, how to navigate it. My then boyfriend surely didn’t know how. Masturbation, though not considered a sin, is frowned upon because it might lead to a person’s isolation. Man was created in the likeness of God and is necessarily relational, hence why Adam and Eve were sexed. Indulging in a singular, personal pleasure, at the cost of human intimacy, is a sin. With this logic in mind, better to indulge in a shared passion, the lesser of two evils.

At least this is how I reason with myself. On an intellectual level, I can understand why the Catholic Church frowns upon pre-marital sex. But I am only human, plagued by deficiencies, driven by desires more often than not difficult—or in the immediacy of the moment, even impossible—to refuse. And anyway, it wasn’t bad at all. On the days leading up to the first night, A— asked repeatedly if I had changed my mind, hoping I would, to remove himself of the responsibility. During, he’d stop when I was in pain, would oblige to continue only when I asked. Afterwards, he apologized for not making me come, apologized each time thereafter for never being able to make me. I never minded, not the first night, not the next. I’m convinced if you love someone, you would never mind. Pleasure becomes derivative, giving way to something more sincere, closer to holy. Sleeping with him was the nearest thing to grace, the most approximate feeling of spilling light from my body.

–

A—’s skin is marked by lines of poetry, except for the compass on his foot and the asterisk behind his ear. His tattoos were the first things I noticed about him and I liked him instantly. Everyone did. He was the kind of person that invited interest, fascination, a character that pulled you in and grew on you until he eventually rubbed you off the wrong way. He had history with one of our co-fellows from the workshop and, months later, rather belatedly, she would warn me to be careful of him.

But at the time I met him, A— was nothing but charming. I loved his poems, and he sounded smart during the workshops even though he had the tendency to ramble, trail off, a quirk I found endearing. There was much to learn from him, his interesting takes on poetry, the beauty of his own writing. A few months later, he will ask me out, and I will agree, with all the enthusiasm of a seventeen-year-old girl hardly believing that such an amazing man could like her.

We often met at night, when work allowed him, when I managed to sneak out of the house. I was promptly returned before sunrise. Sometimes I’d come up with excuses—an all-nighter I need to pull for a group project, a party at someone’s place—to get away, to steal the few hours that I could on those rare nights that I got to see him.

One night in October, he asked me to take his picture. He had cut two holes along with a ragged smile on a white sheet. He handed me his father’s camera, and, standing in the middle of the road, I took a picture of him, wearing that sheet of white with a cutout face, riding his skateboard down the road of UP Diliman. Later, in costume, he skates beside a passing car. Later, he pulls the sheet over our heads and gives me a kiss. There were moments when I thought I would die of happiness. Being pulled out of the mundane, ordinary life I’ve always lived, the romance of it all. The sweep-me-off-my-feet and this-is-going-to-be-forever feeling of an earth-shattering true first love. And not just with anyone, but with someone who appeared to me as larger than life itself, more than I could ever imagine I deserved to have, to keep, as if some generous deity had settled its eyes on me and deemed me worthy.

But novelty eventually wears and makes way for maturity, perhaps a dim understanding. These days, when I think of A— I think often of his remoteness, how I could never read his face, his unreasonable moods. “It could be a gradual disappearance,” he had said at the beginning of our relationship, from the onset the promise of desertion. Still, I persisted. Wanting to understand him, I spent hours scouring poetry collections, novels written by authors he loves, an exegesis to decipher his obscure revelations. I took up a Literature degree in an attempt to expand my reach, hungry for the knowledge that will allow me to divine the meaning behind the ink on his skin, his quiet, his untouchable sadness.

“I never know what to do with my hands,” I told him once, to mean my body has no reason to be beside his, no apparent purpose. He replied, something about a poem that says something similar about hands, my possibility of admission then dropped. I have no reason to be beside you. I have nothing to offer that you could want, that could make you happy. I bring my hands together in prayer, having no other recourse than surrender. The first votive candle I ever lit was in St. Joseph’s Parish when I prayed for his mother’s safety on the day of her surgery. Every time I prayed thereafter, I prayed for his happiness, knowing it was something I could never provide.

Somewhere someone had written that faith reveals itself at every moment as a crisis. Living faith is a constant struggle between belief and unbelief. This push and pull is what separates sincerity from certainty. To believe, despite the overwhelming temptation not to.

This is a game I used to play: Waiting at the corner of the street for A—’s car at night, I’d guess the number of vehicles that would pass before his arrived. The anxiety that my mother would wake up and find me gone or the worry that he will cancel last minute that happens all too often, increasing with each passing minute. I often guessed wrong, but it didn’t matter, the joy of the long-awaited arrival eclipses the doubts that come before. I’d stay up late every night, hoping he would ask for me, too shy to ask him myself. Always the wait, always the quiet hope that if not this night then the next. The gambit to believe they’ll come through every time regardless. Until they don’t.

–

For years, I had been nagging my mother to get a dog but she didn’t want the trouble of caring for one. The only reason she offered that we adopt Ceejay was because she thought it would help with the depression. It could be a source of joy, she thought, something to cheer me up when the sadness got overwhelming. It has been helping: Most mornings when I can’t muster the energy to get up, the only thing that gets me out of bed is having to walk the dog. She likes to nuzzle against my neck at night, to settle in for sleep. When I get home, she stands on her two legs and throws her paws on my thighs, howls with happiness. Some days it can be enough.

When we found out about her tumors and her heart, I offered that we have her put down. The resources we would need to spend for her chemotherapy and maintenance food just didn’t seem worth it. When it gets difficult, I always opt for the easy way out. In the end, my mother said we should wait and pray on it, as if by virtue of time lapsing, circumstances will change for the better, the future (or God) opening itself up to reveal the proper (divine) answer, without resistance, which we will accept without question.

A symptom of depression is indecisiveness. Even the simple task of picking what shoes to wear becomes a herculean feat. The smallest problem becomes insurmountable, turns into a reason to keel over and break down. I missed class because I woke up late: cry. My friend is five minutes late to our lunch: cry. My eyes hurt from crying all afternoon: cry some more.

My studies have taught me that the only way people can exist coherently despite overwhelming uncertainty is our capacity to mentally place ourselves in the past, present, and project ourselves into a conceivable future. After a movie, my mother had asked what I want to be. I could barely get out of bed in the morning and she wanted me to think about my future. I didn’t know. Not because of indecision, not because I didn’t have choices; the future had simply ceased to exist for me. The present barely did. The world was water, I was a sieve, everything just passed through me.

They say you can imagine your depression either as a black dog or a black mist. A black dog you can avoid. A black mist is inescapable. Green sneakers or red flats? Wait or leave? Seek help or work through it myself? It hardly mattered what I chose, in the end, all options were the same. When your choices cease to matter, you could just as well not exist.

–

Upon listing the things I wanted to give away, I realized there was little I owned that was of any value. My laptop would go to my brother along with my tablet. My books will go to G— and E— because they were the two most prodigious readers among my friends, my clothes to K— because we had almost the same size. The instructions would be written on a paper that I would tape to the wall. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a funeral but these rituals are for the living, too, so I guess whatever wake they wanted would do. I wanted to be cremated with my ashes spread wherever they wanted. As long as I wasn’t stuck in an urn, I would be fine.

Preparations would take a day. This included buying a scalpel: light, accessible, but sharp. Delete all my blogs, files, social media accounts, burn all the notebooks I had written on, return everything I had borrowed from friends.

Before Christmas, when no one’s home. My brother leaves for work at 9 AM, comes home around 10 PM, my mother around 7 AM, comes home around 6 PM, leaving me with a nine hour window of time.

You draw a warm bath to dilate the veins, make blood flow easier, the process quicker. I’d leave a note, write it on the wall with a black marker. Nothing will hurt anymore. I’d step into the bath. Text the important people in my life thank you and it’s not your fault. My mother always finds a way to blame herself. I’d turn off my phone and remove the battery. You cut the wrist vertically, to really open the vein. Begin with your dominant arm so that you won’t mess up cutting the other arm. Wait.

–

Old habits remain: I still mouth the words to prayers that have lost all meaning. I still make the sign of the cross before a meal, almost like reflex. Still feel inclined to thank God when something good happens. Sometimes I need to deliberately stop myself. I want to be consistent. I want to take a stand instead of allow myself to be buffeted here and there. Catholic or atheist, faith or unfaith?

I am reminded of how much A— loves scapulars every time I pass by St. Joseph’s Parish on the way home from school. Vendors crowd outside it, selling all sorts of items: flowers, rosaries, pictures, calendars, statuettes. Every time his sister travelled, he would ask her to bring him home a new scapular, never mind that he had a dozen decorating his room. He isn’t particularly religious, but he claims to be a practical man: Whosoever dies clothed in this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire. Some things become elegant in their apparent simplicity. Here is your one-way ticket to heaven, for the low price of 15 pesos.

If it could only be so simple. To boil everything down to a question of yes or no, to render my life into the causal logic of a story or people into flat images to carry around my neck. When I wrote my plans, it felt, for the first time in months, like purpose, a direction, a prospect to work towards. All that peace that settled after finally making a decision to let go, all that peace I imagined I would have afterwards. The candidness of such a life, deprived of any kind of future. My thoughts will finally quiet. A true moment of surrender.

Beside my grandmother’s grave used to stand a massive tree, conveniently located as to provide shade when the family visits on All Saints’ and death anniversaries. It was growing large enough to block the rest of the way, shade slowly turning to nuisance. People talked of cutting it down or at least trimming the branches, but, out of superstition, no one ever did.

Roots only grow deeper. Tendrils cling to flesh being eaten away. This way, the roots of the tree had cocooned the body and as it grew, it carried the remains with it. During a storm two years ago, the tree was uprooted, destroying the grave beside my grandmother’s and exposing the bodies it encased. They salvaged what they could of the bones, gathered them into a pile, lit candles and arranged flowers beside it. I could see pieces of broken bones woven between tendrils of roots, thick mesh, brown dirt.

Reluctance stems from the simple question of inevitability. How do you remove something so deeply entrenched within? Tear yourself away from it? In the aftermath of the fall, where do I begin.

–

A— often prayed when he was sad. On sleepless nights, he would drive his Vespa around Manila, visiting select churches and smoking cigarettes as substitute for votive candles. The typical choices: Quiapo, St. Jude, Manila Cathedral. In the Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton writes that in medieval times, the cathedral was God’s house on earth. Within its walls was resurrected the original, perfect beauty of Eden, inviting visitors to fall to their knees in humble devotion. With the intent of making man surrender his self-sufficiency, architects designed elaborate edifices. These cathedrals stood not merely as humble offerings to God the King, but also as fortresses meant to defend and distract the believer from all that is corrupt without and within. Despite A—’s shortcomings, they invited him to hope for a vision of the future, pure and true.

The only place I can remember with the same sway for me was the hospital chapel of my childhood. It was neither grand nor magnificent, it was a small, modest chapel by all accounts. But Mass every Sunday at 5:15 PM was special because Father Ads would be presiding over the Eucharist. I looked forward to his homilies and having him pat my head at the end of mass as he exited the chapel. I wrote him letters on special occasions, in fancy stationeries, enveloped and handed at the end of the mass. One letter was an apology for missing the Eucharist, throwing the blame to my mother who would sometimes be too lazy to go. Another was a request for him to forgo the mission he was about to be sent on, knowing he would be leaving this church for good.

The medieval man relied on architecture to house him away from sin, I relied on the competence of my shepherds. The priest who replaced Father Ads during the 5:15 PM Mass was not any good. His homilies were dull and he lacked the charisma of his predecessor. My mother and I tried different schedules, even different parishes, but they fell short of that prized one. Perhaps this was when I stopped coming to church, deciding I had better things to do.

If anything, A— brought me closer to God. With him, I learned to exercise patience, kindness. When we were together, I prayed often, visited churches to light votive candles. I always wept when I prayed, that swell of emotion each time. For all my cynicism, the Catholic girl in me was alive. Of course when A— left, the prayers also stopped.

–

My faith is too shallow, too weak, dependent on the fallible, temporary factors of people and books. My faith is too small and so I sink. Or at least this is what my therapist meant when she said, “If you don’t believe in God, how will you ever get better?” as I sat across from her in the veranda-turned-office of her house.

She was the second therapist in four weeks. I decided to seek help when I started fantasizing of suicide on the daily: stab my chest, hang myself, jump off a building, walk into a river? Sometimes it would take a morbid, fantastical turn: imagine myself falling from the sky and being impaled on the metal rods of a construction site. When a cat scratched my arm I only felt relief in seeing three streaks of red on my skin.

I’m a Psychology major. I knew the signs. I knew what was happening. Still, it calmed me down when I wrote my plans to kill myself, down to the detail, even what I would wear. When I told my mother I wanted to see a doctor, she had asked, “Can you just get over this?” The compromise was for me to see a psychotherapist, a friend of hers. On our first and last session, she had broken a lot of rules I’ve learned in class: She couldn’t adapt to my unreceptiveness, she held my hands, she was too confrontational. I was more comfortable with the second one, until she said what she did. If you don’t believe in God, how can you get better? She didn’t bother hiding the accusation. You’ve dug this hole for yourself because you are unfaithful.

How do I argue with her? In class, we’ve learned that religion is important to give people a sense of personal control over their lives. It lends their experiences coherence, thereby reducing anxiety and disappointment. The belief that God controls their lives becomes interchangeable with personal control. In fact, most 12-step programs for various dependencies are spiritual in nature. When we interviewed a recovering drug addict working as a counselor at a rehabilitation center, he told us that it was impossible to recover without believing in a God.

Religion helps coordinate groups and foster cooperation, as well as establish social norms, rules, and consequent punishment.  According to Sigmund Freud, religion is a neurosis, an illusion we cast onto the sensory world as way to control the violent impulses of our id. Hence, God is based on the necessity of a father. Without a Father to enforce the Law, civilization will not be possible. Isn’t this how it goes, If God did not exist, he would have to be invented.

The therapist tells me that she’ll help me, that it’s a process. I don’t have the energy to argue. When desperate, we clutch at what we can. If not God, then a lover. If not God, then this woman. I’d like to think that I’m more enlightened than my religious peers, but always there is a stab of envy. No matter how bad their lives get, they have an absolute stronghold, a bottomless well of strength. I want to say my miracle is to swim but all I want to hear is Rise. Your faith has healed you.

My dilemma presents itself as a simple mathematical problem. Tied to a post with a leash of twenty years of knowledge, school, study, books, moving in a circle, how much of God can I know until I am unable to sustain myself? Even if I extend my arm to lengthen the reach of my knowledge, will I be able to rise to the fullness of life that I desire?

I keep running into a dead end. I keep going in circles. If I believed in God, everything would be so much simpler.

–

I have since stopped seeing her. Despite such a compelling case, I’m too stubborn to let myself be converted back. After weeks lost in a daze of sadness, a trip to the mountains with my mother, and upon our return weeping in front of her saying I wanted the future back, she finally agreed to let me see a psychiatrist. The doctor was recommended by a friend who had her as a professor. She prescribed two pills: first, an antidepressant, second, an antipsychotic which acts also as a mild sedative. I have been strictly taking them, I keep track of my mood, reach out to friends when things get overwhelming, even try out the occasional exercise.

I walk Ceejay in the morning when I wake up. Feed her. Eat breakfast or have coffee, smoke a cigarette, shower, prepare for school. I attend my classes, stay at a café near school during long breaks. I have dinner with old friends, go home and walk the dog then feed her. I study. I take my pills at 10 PM, at least eight hours before the time I’ve set my alarm to go off. If I don’t get at least eight hours of sleep, the sedative I take will make me pass out when I try to get up in the morning. On weekends I can sleep in, my meds making me go for twelve hours of uninterrupted shut-eye.

The neighbor’s white dog still hurls herself against the wall. Instead of planning my suicide, I plot ways to rescue her. Perhaps one night, I will walk over there and cut her leash, drive her to a nearby beach, maybe somewhere in Batangas. She’ll be alone and lost but she’ll be free, perhaps she’ll even be grateful. It’s illegal to steal someone else’s pet, but I’m sure I’ll be forgiven.

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If there’s anything that I have been wrong about, it would be thinking that journaling isn’t important, and I’ll tell you why, but before I get to that I’ll give you a timeline.

•  August 2014: I went to my first therapist session because I was lost, she told me I have depression and anxiety (I just did therapy for 8 sessions, no meds yet)
• July 2015: I went to a psychiatrist in the Philippines, she said I have the same thing (She prescribed me with Lexapro)
• January 2016: I went to a psychiatrist who told me I have Bipolar Disorder (I continued Lexapro and then changed it to Celexa because I didn’t feel any changes)
• (I stopped doing therapy and taking my antidepressants and I had a mental breakdown on July 31) August 2016: I ended up in a psych hospital and I was told I have Borderline Personality Disorder (I started taking Welbutrin and that’s been working for me).

That’s a lot to take in, if I dare say so myself, information overload about a stranger, but I want you to know that you’re not alone. The journey to understanding yourself and your pursuit of knowing who you are mentally and emotionally can get hard times, there are even instances where a professional can be wrong, but it gets better.

I started journaling earlier because I started taking Ambien, and it was making me have blackouts and forget everything that happened the day before. It was like how Lucy from 50 First Dates would forget, except I didn’t forget people, I just forgot what happened. What started as a way for me to remember things later on became a habit, though I did stop for a couple of months because I started being detached. I picked back up on journaling when I was in the hospital because I wanted to do some self-reflection. Now, journaling has become a way for me to hone in my thoughts and keep myself sane. One ultimate way it’s helped me is how it helped me recognize things that I can improve on and the things that I do wrong; talking to yourself doesn’t mean you’re crazy, it’s a really good way to know who you are and feel at peace within yourself. Mental health is such an underrated topic, but it shouldn’t be that way.

I want to touch base with being in a psych hospital, seeing therapists, and going a psychiatrist – because those are often seen with a stigma.

• Being told I was going to a psych hospital scared me, I started sobbing in the hospital and messaging everyone close to me. On the way there, I was shaking, then when I got there I stayed in my room for the first couple of hours. Psych hospitals aren’t what the media paints it to be, there were different areas ranging from highly functional to schizophrenic. It was a way for me to meet people who went through the same things (I was in the highly functional group, all of us in there were people who attempted suicide), it was also a way for me to find resources.
• Seeing therapists doesn’t necessarily mean sitting on a couch and talking about your problems, it’s more of talking about your problems and then finding coping skills to help you manage things. Y’know how it’s easier to open up to a stranger because there’s no personal connection and it’ll be between the two of you? That’s how it is for me. At time it can get tedious, though it does help. And there are a lot of therapies out there, so there’s one that’s bound to fit any need.
• Going to a psychiatrist is basically like going to any doctor, the fear is there, yet when you’re sitting there talking about your situation that fear goes away. I can’t really elaborate on this, however, I want to say that openness with the psychiatrist will help you the most, because the doctor will only base things from what he or she knows.

My aim in sharing all of this is to open up a conversation and suggest a thing that has helped me in hopes that it would help others too. Journaling has been the biggest help for me because talking to myself was a way for me to know that I am my own best friend and I am strong enough to have control over my life, the other resources were just ways to support the work that I have started within. Above all else though and if those things I have shared isn’t your cup of tea, I’d say open up to the people around you, because there’s a high chance that you feel alone and misunderstood, but they’re there for you and people are willing to do whatever they can to help, they just don’t know what you’re going through. This is probably such an overused phrase and even Michael Jackson sang about it (Ay, ang corny ng joke ko, sorry, haha), “You are not alone” holds so much truth, remember that. Being on your own doesn’t necessarily mean loneliness, because when you start knowing yourself more, your company will be more than enough.

PS: I am a message away, here or any of my social media (Lei Ann Grace on FB, titsmcfists on IG and Twitter). If it counts for something, I’m always here to listen.

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Mess is a film that encourages sufferers of mental health problems to seek help.

The post “Mess,” a short film appeared first on Silakbo PH.

Soon I witnessed the reality of what I had written. I was so overwhelmed by this fleeting love others had given my work that I convinced myself to buy more time. I thought that if people could love my neuroses, then by extension they could love me. See, I wrote those essays for a closure people will never accept.

So let’s just be real here. I’m not a hero for giving my demons a voice.

Because I wrote those essays so I could die.

My self-published personal essay collection is essentially a suicide note. This would’ve been my magnum opus. This would’ve been my giveaway to the world. Call me self-centered, cowardly, overdramatic—anything you want. I never loved myself enough to use my writing as a reason to live. I’m using my writing to cement my memories and cement the fragments of me that I wish to live in the world. That’s my hubris. In my mind I feel like I owe it to the world to leave something behind. Yet the greater scheme of things, I’m sure, is bound to erase me.

Here’s the thing with depression: it’s the ugliest, most terrifying presence imaginable. Every day I wake up with monsters in my bed and thoughts of death in my head. Every day I must force myself to say, “No, not today.” Every day I come closer to the edge, wondering if my moment has finally come, if it’s the perfect time for everything to end.

When I was younger, I thought about what I absolutely needed to do before I could die. I told myself I would come up with a collection of my best-written works and compile them in a manuscript. I thought long and hard about how I wanted to die. Thing is, the more you think about dying, the less favorable some means become.

Call it an artist’s flair or whatever. I want to go in the most poetic of ways: by my own terms.

I still haven’t figured out how. Sometimes I think of hanging from the branch of the mango tree right outside my window. Then I realize the neighbors will see and make a fuss. Sometimes I think about drowning. But the body will always struggle to survive, and I know I cannot help my nature. Sometimes I think of taking every last one of my prescription pills and falling asleep. But it’s messy and inorganic. And I don’t want to leave this world carrying the very things that pulled me into the void.

One day I’ll figure out how I want to go. Maybe I’ll publish something better so the world can see how I’ve made an art out of hating who I’ve become. Perhaps this is why I’m hesitant to return to my essays. Each one is a step forward to where I want to be and where nobody else can follow. Nowhere is my suicide note because that’s precisely where I want to go.

Maybe I am romanticizing my demons. Maybe I’m confusing their toxic company for comfort. Maybe I am addicted to misery. After all, it’s everything I’ve known for years. It blinds me and it eats me alive every waking moment. And this is what we don’t talk about when we talk about depression.

It has become a part of me and I can’t stand it. I hate it and therefore I hate myself. And it’s not my illness that colors and inspires my stories. In fact, it hinders me from seeing the lighter side of things. I’ve all but given up on writing because every time I put words on a document, I think about how much I want to die. Every time I write I think about how much I want out.

So really, I’m not brave for putting my story out there.

I’m not brave for wanting to be heard. I didn’t write about longing for the past or taking my meds because I wanted to show how strong I’ve been. I wrote because the noise in my head is so loud and I want it all to end. I’m desperate and I’m lonely and I’m looking for people to love me. Love me before I leave. Maybe you’ll take my fears away. Because I’m so close to fully giving up, I’m no longer bent on moving on.

The post Stop telling me I’m brave for sharing my story. appeared first on Silakbo PH.

How are you? How are things going?

Remember how you’d always say I was into weird shit? I’ve been into this rap group calledthe Sad Boys, including producers Yung Gud and Yung Sherman, fronted by the MC and most famous of the three, Yung Lean. Their music isn’t entirely Billboard Hot 100 material. Yung Gud and Yung Sherman produce trippy, monolithic beats boosted by hi-hats and 808s while Yung Lean raps over them with offbeat, sometimes corny lyrics. Their music videos range from homemade grainy videos of Yung Lean to visual collages that are an inventory of what they like— including Arizona Iced Tea, Fiji water, Japanese culture, and Pokémon.

Somehow, someway, I’m hooked on all of this. Not just me, obviously; so do other people. Sad Boys have been featured by the likes of Vice, Complex, and Fader. They’ve done world tours. Their videos have millions of hits.

But I can say that I’ve listened to them quite a bit. It’s gotten to the point that I share stuff on social media with captions like “crying on my Arizona tears” and “so emotional right now listening to this.” I’m telling you this just because of how big a fan I am. I would buy the shit out of their merch. I would set up a garage sale just to get enough funds for a concert ticket if they toured somewhere in Asia. Sadboys for life, man.

But recently I’ve been feeling bad—bad that while I share my love for Yung Lean and his crew on social media, I’ve been having some kind of dilemma. I recently found out that a friend of mine was diagnosed with depression. And that got me thinking—was I offending him by adopting this faux sad identity? Have I stepped on anyone’s toes?

I look around me and I see people being open with their emotions, their sadness, and their frailty. I’ve had friends tell me about their mental illnesses in the middle of a story they were telling like it was part of their inventory of facts and tidbits about themselves they could drop with no hesitation. I’ve had friends confide it like a secret they couldn’t keep to themselves in the form of a soft whisper or a tap on the shoulder. I’ve found out, most of the time, indirectly—through other people who soften their words with caution. I responded the same to each utterance: silence, with a slow nod. I had the same somber awareness as the people who told me secondhand. This fear of wrong articulation, this fear of treading through the wrong lines of the language of the silent. I didn’t want to dismiss what they have as something less, something you can describe with a string of words. And even if you could find those strings of words, I wouldn’t know what they are in the language I speak.

And this is what unnerves me the most. I can’t understand depression. It’s invisible. I can only wrap the bandages when the wounds are already there. I can only be by your side in the emergency room when the damage has already been done. There are only cures to the physical manifestations but there’s no cure I know of that can take all your inner pain away.

In the vast, fast-paced world of the internet, I’ve noticed that the identity the internet grants—an anonymous one—is one where people can become more open with what they’ve been feeling. Dark recesses hold dark, intimate thoughts—open letters of suicidal tendencies and self-doubt. I could take a step back and think: Are these thoughts real or fabricated just for attention?

On social media, where anonymity is permitted but not fully taken, some people talk about their feelings in awkward ways. I go on Facebook and see all of these pages that share images about depression, self-harm, heartbreak, and suicide tinted with humor. Sometimes they’re so absurd that they’re funny. Sometimes they’re more straightforward. And people share these posts. You look at the comments and people—real people—tag their friends saying “hahaha it’s me” or “dude this is so u.”

I remember seeing a friend lying down on her bed, her eyes wide open looking as if she could see the sky beyond the walls of her room. Her face was pale, and her hands were twiddling a lit cigarette that had almost run out, the smell of the smoke masked by an air purifier that made her room smell like burning flowers. Her fingers were singed by the ashes. She didn’t mind. Her body was there but I felt like she was imagining herself elsewhere. But we both knew that the girl I saw in her room was not a pretty sight.

I remember another friend, red-faced drunk, who, in his drunken stupor, admitted his mental illness. With one glance, I could see him as this brooding red-faced superstar who takes on the general public’s misunderstanding of him as a persona. One night stands and being on drugs almost 24/7 as your personality. What’s not to like? Something straight out of the life of The Weeknd. But I don’t find it beautiful.

I didn’t find them glamorous, because there is nothing glamorous about sickness. It’s so hard to blame people who find an escape in the void during their better days. I respect their boundaries and I don’t know when to step in or sit it out. Am I enabling them? Or am I making them see joy amidst their condition?

One thing I do know is that you are not your pain. Your mental illness is just a single speck in the sky that is your life. It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it. I understand if you don’t want to open up, or you don’t want anybody to know. I will be there when you want to talk about it, and I will be there during the long moments of silence that I fear. Maybe the best thing that I can say is nothing at all. Maybe that’s how we could possibly bond—from your point of view rather than mine.

I am listening to one of Yung Lean’s songs, Emails, and in his drone-like voice I catch these lines:

Lean steady depressed bruh

Emotional boys in the VIP section

One million plants in my room, my walls are melting

Reach out a hand with no gravity cause nobody is helping

When people share random stuff that tangentially points to depression, maybe it’s their way to channel that depression. If sharing memes about social anxiety or existential dread is their way of channeling what they’re feeling into something positive (positive in the sense that it makes people laugh), then who am I to judge?

I can never fully comprehend your situation, but I don’t have to comprehend fully to care about you. In this day and age people are becoming more open to what they’re feeling. But the stigma still persists, which is why I think openness comes in such awkward ways—memes and janky music videos with janky lyrics. We’re living in tough times. We align our identities with brands, celebrities, and movements that feel so hollow once we break through their shiny facades. We needlessly compare ourselves with each other. We are all tireless pilgrims looking for our place in the Earth, looking for real purpose that would make our lives more than just existence. And the burden of that pursuit can be too heavy to bear.

I don’t want there to be a time where I could have helped someone and failed to do so. I don’t want to have done too little or be too late. Even talking about it won’t let me fully understand and won’t help you get through this. But the least and best I can do is try and do my best. And I hope that’s enough. I hope you can see sincerity in the attempt.

Best,

Your friend.

–

Originally published on Scout Magazine‘s May-June 2016 issue. Both the essay and the image are reposted with permission from the author.

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During my last semester in college, I couldn’t wait for graduation to come. I found myself depressed and suicidal during a time when every graduating member of my batch was scrambling to make the most of their last few months in college. There were people challenged and voluntarily living for the fulfillment of orgwork done right. There were people training hard and fighting off the injury bug for the last few games of the season. There were whole groups of friends planning weekend getaways or unplanned inumans (drinking sessions) because graduation would mean their eventual separation. There were couples taking advantage of the last time they are this accessible to each other in college. Then there was me, and all I wanted to do was kill myself.

Earlier that semester, I felt the depression that I thought I had overcome beginning to come back. And it wanted vengeance. I tried to cope with its newly potent form but the agony of losing my first victory over the depression that I’d had since I was 11 got the better of me. All the pain and the grief from the past clawed its way back to me and held on tightly. It got harder to hide the episodes and there were days so bad that I’d burst out crying for no particular reason. When the people around me began to worry and asked me to explain what was going on, they eventually decided that they were better off without me. This was the reason why I never openly talked about it.

I got used to staying quiet. I’ve gotten used to silence and using humor to pass everything off.

I’d rather that people thought I was funny and interesting without having to know that I’m suffering from a crippling mental illness that’s sucking the life out of me and makes expect the worst out of everything. It didn’t help that I also had anxiety and some days felt like a war between fear of failure and the lack of motivation. Throughout the semester, I found myself increasingly isolating myself from everyone and going through each day in school wishing I could already go home. I started getting help from a psychology center that I went to once a week, because talking to trained professional for an hour beat out talking about it with other people who didn’t.

“Just think positive.”

“It’s just a matter of seeing things.”

“Don’t be stupid, pray to God.”

“You’re just making up your own problems because you’re so privileged.”

After a decade of hearing every variation of the above lines, everything began to sound like bullshit. The only thing I had keeping me going were my academics, which thankfully, kept me busy. And even then, even though time flew by relatively fast in that last semester, it didn’t feel fast enough. I still felt everything. I felt how loneliness kept me warm. I felt the stress of having nowhere to go during my breaks. I felt how my car was the only place I could feel safe. I felt how ineffective forcing happiness was. I felt how exasperating it was having to deal with people who think that being kind and avoiding burning bridges was the only way to deal with people. I felt how trying to give meaning to the meaningless world around me wasn’t working anymore, and that maybe taking myself out of it will set things right.

I say this because it seems that every year since 2012, someone from my high school batch has died. And it seemed like I was supposed to continue the curse when I wanted to kill myself back in 2014. I avoided that by getting help. But in the year that followed, three people from my batch died. You could say I felt guilty. I also know that it’s wrong to think that way. But there were days when rationality would be replaced with guilt and I would say that no one will miss me anyway.

But I was getting help and my psychologist was actually concerned about my progress. She called to ask how I was when I had to cancel sessions when I couldn’t get out of bed. She reassured me that I’m better off without the people that I cut off, even if no one agreed with me. She told me that it was okay to be excited for life beyond college because anyway, I had nothing going for me anymore. And somehow, I managed to make it past finals week and when my grades came out, I was even surprised to find out that my grades were this high despite how horrible I felt throughout the semester.

“You’ve been through a lot. And you’re still a good person despite all of that.”

I honestly don’t see how so many people can think that I’m still a good person. Especially because I think I’m mean and ruthless when it comes to how I am with interpersonal relationships. And yet, there are people who still stick around me. It’s a humbling and touching thing to be aware of that. Maybe they see something in me that I don’t. After all, pain is supposed to numb you. And I’m fully convinced that the amount of pain and grief that I have to endure has permanently extinguished that part of me that still has faith in humanity. At this point, all I can truly muster is putting my faith in a handful of people. And I’m content with them valuing me just as much as I do them.

I’d like to say that I’m in a much better place now, because school is over. And even though my last semester in college isn’t what I wanted it to be, I’m having a great time waiting for my graduation ceremony. I actually feel alive.

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