Category Archives: mental health

When will you pivot?

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I was chatting on WhatsApp last night with a colleague who just left my company last week. She told me about how she couldn’t take her manager anymore and she tolerated that abusive creature for four years before my colleague has finally called it quits. She’s supposed to have started her therapy today. I told her it’s smart of her to seek counseling after the shit she went through with her boss, whom I don’t have to directly deal with, thankfully.

This colleague also sensed that I’m almost at the end of my tether and she told me to jump before things get worse. With the way things how the new owner is running our company, it looks like things aren’t going to get better. I told her I will just have get my shit together first and get out of this funk before I could pivot. It’s hard to think straight with the lockdowns, the entire shit that is the pandemic, and this heartbreak. I need to be level-headed about this and make sure it’s not just the anger and grief that are doing the thinking for me. It’s also hard to make the jump when almost all companies are laying off people.

The right time will come, I told her. In the meantime, I need to do everything I can to stay sane.

Relief goods for a friend. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have so much love to give but I no longer have the right to give it to the person I wanted to receive it so I channel it elsewhere. So I cooked for a friend whom I call a condominium-stranded individual (I’ve patterned it after the government’s term, locally stranded individual) and sent the food via Grab this afternoon. I knew that ordering food via Grab by tomorrow will be difficult because traditionally businesses shut down during Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. This is to give appreciation to this friend who always checked on me if I slept well and pulled myself out of my bed during the darkest days. He said he knows the road I’m traveling on now very well because he has been on this road when he broke up with his boyfriend some time ago. Days after J and I broke up, this friend took me out to lunch to cheer me up. Then last February, we had lunch again somewhere near Tomas Morato just to see how I am progressing because I’ve been shutting myself out of the world. In March, days before the cases started spiking, we dined al fresco in Makati with some friends in the industry just to check on each other. We all work for competing newswire agencies but it has never been a hindrance to our friendship that has been blossoming for 15 years now. We don’t see each other often but they’re there when I need them the most. Right after J and I talked in his condo for the last time in December, I drove straight to one of those friends’ house in Parañaque because I couldn’t face going home to the apartment that I used to share with J without going through some debriefing. I needed somebody to talk to, to make sense of what just happened. This friend is deathly afraid of Covid but she let me in her home and offered her spare bedroom for me to sleep in that night because it seemed like I was in no condition to drive all the way to QC. I declined and told her I need to go home that night because I’m just delaying the inevitable. I needed to be alone.

I have so much love to give. So I send it to people who do not reject it.

My muslin curtain. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I already finished one panel that is 2.5 yards long and 60″ wide. I’m already on my 2nd one. Well technically I already finished two panels but the other one is much shorter because that panel will be used for that section above my aircon.

Handstitches. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m even surprised at how my hand stitches look even and dainty. I sew my curtains while watching Youtube videos of small homes and alternative living setups, to make my brain occupied and not overthink about somebody.

In search of sunshine

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Fruits and vegetables along CP Garcia Ave. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So yeah, despite having a really bad night waking up at dawn because of a dream, I managed to ride my bike this morning to buy fresh vegetables because we’re already running low on supply. I wasn’t able to buy from my suki inside UP because the university is in a total lockdown since Monday. So my bike trip last week Thursday was my last ride there. God knows when they will open again. 🚲

Breakfast and lunch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

That workout this morning wasn’t much but it made me hungry. It was freaking hot outside!!! Made myself ham sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. I’m still not losing weight.

Folded folding bikes of my girls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It’s a sad sight. My girls’ folded bikes are a reminder that it will be a long time before we can ride out again. Everything is depressing right now. I’m searching for places where I could catch some sunshine to make this dark world brighter.

As I told a colleague, this is the worst time to be nursing a broken heart because I can’t see my friends, can’t escape to anywhere (the four-day Anilao trip is cancelled indefinitely), can’t do anything but be stuck in this room with his ghost. I can’t watch movies because that too reminds me of the moments we watched movies together on iPad or on the TV screen in his Airbnb apartments. Gardening is gardening. Sewing curtains make my hands busy but it doesn’t make my mind occupied. It actually encourages introspection, which is the last thing I need right now. I don’t want to be overthinking the entire lockdown or else it will drive me mad.

Maybe I need to rescue another cat 🐈

Everyday is a battle

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We’re on the third day of ECQ a.k.a. No One Leaves the House. It’s dragging me down mentally and emotionally. I couldn’t bike or walk outside the 6-9 am window because I’m a nocturnal creature so I wake up late. I tried exercising every morning a couple of years ago but I always end up tired by midday, which is hard for me when I need full concentration during writing or editing. So now I’m stuck.

I haven’t had any in-person intelligent adult conversation in weeks. This is driving me nuts. I just want to randomly call friends but I know I would just be a nuisance to them so I haven’t done it. Been ranting about this government on Twitter for God knows how long. It’s maddening. I must stop doom-scrolling in the next few days to ease the tension in my mind and body.

I had been sick the past few days; it’s probably psychosomatic. Probably too high gastric acids due to stress. I just woke up with this gut-wrenching stomach pain that I associate with hyperacidity, an affliction I haven’t experienced again since 2014 when I had my gall bladder removed. Following that stomachache on Monday was the debilitating diarrhea that left me weak and almost dehydrated.

But I had to work yesterday. I edited one story and wrote one story as well. The day before I did an hour-long interview despite the pain and overall weakness that I felt.

Cat loft. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Again, thank God for cats. They’re my stress-relievers. It’s also a constant battle to keep Kimchi from climbing the curtains and going up the windows and the shelves.

Kimchi up again on the shelf. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Despite that, they’re good company and they always crave my presence and always beg to be let in my room and just lie on the floor to be with me. For them, I am their mommy.

Sushi keeping me company while I sew curtains to replace the ones destroyed by her sister. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

So I was kickass at work today

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Another day without riding the bike today. I wasn’t in the mood yesterday because I had a home massage via Zennya (their therapists are in PPEs so more or less I feel safer). As a reward for a really crappy long weekend due to lack of sleep. Probably it was the tea I’ve been consuming lately that’s been keeping me up until the wee hours.

Today I was too engrossed writing a scoop and then editing in between. Being a workaholic has advantages, especially in times like this. (What is this this, you ask. The this I am pertaining to is my journey to self-healing and forgiveness of myself)

I’ve always been busy, never been bored. My hands always needed something to do, like sewing, writing, paper crafting, reading, reading, reading, and more reading. Even when I was on hospital duty (either my dad or mom required long hospital stays), I always had a cross stitch project with me, tons of books, and notebooks to write on (this was in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before mobile Internet was democratized). Unfortunately, my cross stitch projects remind me that I stayed as a caregiver for a long time that’s why I was able to finish them in one go.

I can’t remember when was this but I think this was when I was in college when my mom, older sister, and I took turns in taking care of my father when stayed in the hospital for three months because he had a diabetic foot wet gangrene that almost cost his leg to be amputated. It required him to stay for that long because he needed to grow back his flesh then they grafted skin from his butt onto his leg to close the open wound. The cross stitch project I was able to finish that time is now hanging over the shelf containing my Totoro collection at the landing of our stairs.

This is for a face mask project I’m doing for a friend. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve been sewing face masks since February last year. At first it was due to necessity because there was a huge shortage of face masks because 1) Taal Volcano erupted, scattering ash all around; and 2) COVID. My first attempts were crude because I was just experimenting and I did everything by trial and error. I made the first batch of those for my girls and for him because they were my priority. My regret is that I wasn’t able to hem the seams properly so his masks are still fraying on the inside. I didn’t have pinking shears at that time and I still don’t have now (which reminds me to order from Lazada tonight). I was able to refine my masks only later and I wasn’t able to replace his masks before he dumped me. I only managed to make one improved mask, which I stuffed into his weekend bag the last time he was here at home.

The reason why I continued to sew masks and give away to friends is that it helps ease my anxiety. Imagine the huge burden I had at the height of the lockdown, I was trying to keep six people alive by my lonesome. I had nobody to share that responsibility. Yup, by my lonesome. Upon reflection–which is the only thing that I do whenever I sew because you know, the mind wanders when you sew–yes I carried the weight of the world at that time. I was the head of the household. It took so much gumption and nerves of steel not to freak out at that time. I had to have it together. People were getting depressed left and right; some even died by suicide because it was simply too much. But I could not afford to succumb to depression because I have had five people depending on me.

I am still sewing masks even though I shouldn’t because it encourages my mind to wander while I sew. So what I do is I watch Youtube videos like this below so my mind will not wander.

Because the whole point of making myself busy is to keep me from thinking about him and if I could, I would just want to erase him out of existence.

Now, you may think I’m an 80-year-old granny in a 41-year old body because I’m just sewing myself out of existence. To get myself out of my head, I ride my bike whenever I could. One of my girls asked for a bike and gave me her savings from Christmas presents she received so she can have her own bike. I bought my reporter-friend’s folding bike, which he was contemplating on selling to his TV crew (who in turn refurbish bikes to resell) because he is now very busy with a toddler son and an infant daughter and has no time to ride.

My 20″ wheel folding bike and my daughter’s 16″ wheel folding bike. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

We rode last Sunday together in UP. I had to have training wheels attached to hers because I wasn’t able to teach her properly how to ride a bike. By the looks of it, it will take us a while before I could have the trainers removed.

Hopefully by next month we can have our first dive in six months. I need to book a resort, buy new flippers for the three of us, and have my COVID test. (Ugh! The endless poking on my nostrils!)

So yeah, I’ve been a kickass journo and editor today and will be tomorrow, and the next day, and the following day.

Because I am no one else’s sugar mommy anymore.

(*Oohh yes, the bitterness and anger are dripping from that sentence above. It won’t go away anytime soon*)

Burden

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Marikina Riverside Park. Photo by callmecreation.com

A special person in my life told me that he feels like he is a burden to me that’s why he has pushed me back. To ease the burden. I told him that life is a series of choices and it was my choice to be with him. A burden is an unwelcome load. He was not a load. Nor unwelcome at that.

Anyway, upon stepping back and analyzing things, the truth of the matter is it wasn’t really his feeling of him being a burden that is the main problem.

It is me who is a burden.

My co-dependency is a big weight to carry around. Co-dependency = my happiness depends on the happiness of that person. And if that person is not happy, then the co-dependent feels like she is a failure then she would do more; in the process she will lose herself in the situation/relationship. All the more the other party (if the other party is does not have narcissistic personality disorder) would feel overwhelmed. The other party would feel he is not doing enough to feel equal. Then there will be a feeling of not deserving the love the co-dependent is offering.

And when the other party is overwhelmed, things can get disorienting. The parties lose proper perspective. Then comes the crumbling of something that was supposed to be wonderful. It has become a prison.

So co-dependency is a symptom of something that has to be cured. What disease is this, it is still unknown. It can be insecurity. I really don’t know. What I know is I am a co-dependent that’s why I got involved with a narcissist. My shrink diagnosed that my distant ex has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcs always gravitate towards co-dependents. We’re easy to manipulate.

My shrink is smart, my cousin said. Right off the bat my shrink said, “your dad is an alcoholic.” Ummm yeah, I said. “Your mom is a co-dependent who could not leave your dad.” Spot on.

“You inherited your co-dependency from your mother. That’s what you learned while growing up.”

And she said I was thought-blocking whenever I tried to talk about that relationship with this narc. I still had barriers that I had put up in trying to protect the narc. I was filtering information even with my shrink. “Because you do not speak ill of your partner to other people,” that’s what my mother taught me. Hence, the though-blocking.

So now with this recent ex, my co-dependency has been overwhelming to the point that it may have destroyed his confidence on a lot of things. Knowing that I am co-dependent and yet I jumped into this new situation is not healthy. It will not cure me of this symptom.

I have to zero in on the disease to cure me of the symptom. I need to figure out whether this is because of this inferiority complex I had while growing up. I suffered from very low self-esteem ever since I was a child. Every relationship I had was a failure since I used those relationships to cure me of my insecurities. To validate myself.

My father also had NPD. All my life it was always a battle to win his love. I didn’t realize that it was a losing battle because narcs cannot love other people above themselves. Yes, he loved his children and my mom but it’s always himself first, everyone else comes after.

So maybe that’s where the insecurity comes from. As a little girl I always thought myself as unloveable. I had that implanted in my brain that no one would love me. So people keep scratching their heads why I keep having relationships with ugly men (literally and figuratively). Maybe because I felt they were the only ones who would love me. That’s why it took years before I was able to leave the narc. Unfortunately, it was already too late. I already had trauma.

But the last one was different. We’re both mature individuals albeit with issues. But we have mutual respect for each other so that also made a difference. However, his need for affirmation and fear of rejection is feeding my co-dependency. It was a perfect combination for an unhealthy relationship.

So here we are in this state of flux. Well, it’s no longer a flux since it’s over. It’s a painful but beautiful lesson learned.

This article from Psychology Today helped me recognize that stepping back is necessary. That letting go is a path to curing myself of co-dependency. Until I resolved my insecurities, cured me of my need to be loved to have self-worth, I will not have healthy relationships.

I’m 41 years old. I still have a lot of growing up to do.

Self-medicating with food

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I need to discipline myself again. I realized that I gained all the weight I lost the past year when I self-medicated again with food. I didn’t want to go through days of out-of-whack sleeping patterns again because I was taking pills that balanced my brain but messed with my sleep. And work. Although at that time, it helped me get through the dark days so I stuck with it. But I wanted my sleep back. So now I am off it for a year now and haven’t seen my shrink. I know it’s not recommended to just drop out of therapy but I did. Anyway, something happened again and I blamed myself… I went through self-flagellation and binged on junk food again. I was comforted by food. I knew I hit rock bottom when a friend found me in the dark munching on corn balls. I went through two bags. But it has to stop. I am taking my life back.