I have accomplished nothing today.

My total sleep for today is 10 hours.

The only thing I did was to clean the exhaust fan in the bathroom and cook dinner. Otherwise I was horizontal the whole day because I needed to enter the zen mode after last night’s trigger episode. I don’t want to take my anti-anxiety/tranquilizer as my shrink told me to do when such event arises because I want to completely be off it. I want to be better soon. I want meds off me. I only have been taking escitalopram (antidepressant) since April and my goal is to stop it by August, according to my shrink’s timetable.

It’s enough that he destroyed me and my mental health. I don’t intend to prolong it. I had given him too much power over me. He doesn’t deserve me and this power. Sending me that painting was an attempt to regain that power but I didn’t let him. Even my shrink was flabbergasted with that action but she didn’t offer any explanation. She was probably waiting for how I would act on it. Being a person with full mental faculties still intact despite nearly going insane, I had the will power to shut him out by ending it with “thanks, got it” as I still had my self-respect with me. If I didn’t, I would have started a conversation and that would open Pandora’s box. But I didn’t because I loved myself more at that moment. It was a painful fall, though, but I bounced back with the help of friends. But it was hard.

He must be messing up other people now.

Not me. No longer me.

But I have to admit I’m still struggling with anger and a whole gamut of other inexplicable emotions.

I was able to overcome yesterday’s anxiety attack without the tranquilizer though, which is already a feat. I just need more will power to continue fighting this. I need to be stronger to be healthier.

As my colleague-friend said, I need a distraction. She asked, do you have Bumble? I said no and people there are worse scammers. I would rather hang myself. She conceded and said, yeah, I guess you’re right.

So I guess I need to have my house built soon so I can be distracted. I don’t need to date to distract me. That’s suicide.

---

My brunch is comprised of side dishes. 🤣 Well, it’s better this way.

Meanwhile, I found that consumer companies have started adjusting their packaging in response to the current high prices. Cream is not necessarily a staple in Pinoy pantries; a smaller package would make it affordable so buyers won’t have to skip it when doing their food shopping. During times like this, consumers stick to basics.

This has been my question to companies in the past few weeks: how are you adjusting your services and your products as people continue to tighten their belts? They have done this in 2008. Some companies survived but some didn’t. As for Monde Nissin, they told me they’re not reducing their packaging/weight but they’re adding “pairs” so that consumers would feel more value for money compared to competition, which have shrunk the sizes or weight. I remember in 2008, I had to ask Jollibee, the bellwether for Filipino consumption, how they would twist and turn as prices of rice and oil skyrocketed. If I remember it correctly, the CEO’s response was they would have smaller rice portion (Jollibee is the largest private sector rice importer in the country). I remember showing in my article the gross and profit margins of that company and computing the differences for several quarters to illustrate how inflation compresses them.

It’s tricky. If your products and services are discretionary, you would have to do gymnastics to be able to ride this crisis. As I have learned during several economic cycles, when you’re not part of the “basics” basket, you should increase marketing spend while sticking to producing your core products and innovations have to take the backseat. This is something that Microsoft and Apple did during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009. This is what I learned, too, in my classes at the Asian Institute of Management.

Let’s see how other sectors would respond. I have yet to receive their email responses to my questions.