Codename Lemonade

I had a mental breakdown last Friday. I took certain part of my job too seriously, and it took an heavy toll on me that it didn't get least reception it could get. There was a project i worked on and put lot of details and effort in for about two weeks. I think the hardest part of this wasn't that (which I initially thought) it felt like no one looked into it or even given them the least testing or how the news was broke just hours upon delivery, or that the realization of how I just wasted 2 weeks of my finite life. It was the struggles over the mental ordeals I went through during this period and how all the efforts of recollecting my mind breaks apart on delivery.

The breakdown lasted till Today that it woke me up with certain resolve. I had a lot realizations and they only helped me to arrive to certainty. I am (shutting down the noises in my head and) taking control of my own mind.

"Can't change the winds, but you can change the sails."

Plea

Close your eyes for they may blind you, your ears for they may lie to you, your heart for it may have fall for anything. For others will not feel what you feel, see what you see, hear what you hear.

Overwhelming pending little things

So, I'll be taking like 1.5 week leave starting this 23rd. I am planning to sort things out, life, home, family and giving thought about how to make life less miserable going forward. Lately I've been really struggling to be as productive, it's as if I've lost the fire I had when I started working again last year. I want to know how to deal with this issue. I want to know how to properly reset when these things came at me, and how to manage overwhelming things at once. I want to be less miserable.

1.5 week might be long, might not be, but this is the only time I have before next year. Maybe it's all arbitrary. People says now is the time. It's correct. That's why I managed to ask for that period of leave. Else I wouldn't be able to.

Hotel of the dead

It's been awhile.

[Contain spoiler for Hotel Del Luna]

So, I just finished this Korean drama, called Hotel Del Luna. I didn't binge watched it even though I did have time to finish it in a day (following someone advice). But that isn't what I want to talk about. I want to talk a bit about this drama and why it matters at the moment. This drama is probably the first k-drama I ever watched maybe in my life, if not in decades (because I don't remember watching any asian drama except japanese or chinese dramas).

I really like it. I didn't feel disappointed with the ending, or didn't feel empty even (because i know very much what feeling empty is like, so this is not). It makes me feel better, or relieved. The feeling when you had to let go, the memories, everything, in a good way. This is what the guest hotel of the dead is all about. A hotel that provide comfort for the dead, of their remorse, regret, pain of the worldly matter. Isn't that nice.

This drama hits me home in several places. Story about death, about remorse, letting go. I've been struggling with this invisible monster, a little help from a fiction does me wonder, if life is nothing but a fiction, of someone else novel. Is it the story of letting go, maybe the romance, yet it makes me want to want more of this life. Like to love someone again. To hope, to feel. I do not know. Whatever you're, god or author of my story, if anyone is listening. Or maybe you do.

Thank you for making the drama. Looking forward to myself.

A letter from me

Couldn't remember whom this one is written for. Hope you're okay there.

What you're going through mirrors something similar to what happened to me until recently. One of the most terrible ones was waking up from sleep to the thoughts about many ways to end myself, and from there i decided that nothing else can be worse than this. Nothing else can be worse than depression. And this thing keep going for awhile. Back many years ago, I wouldn't be able to tell, what these voids, nullity, emptiness were. Then there's this anxiety about some impending feeling that are about to occur if stayed this way. So I decided to quit my last job at the end of November 2017, and find a way to remedy these voids. It has been a while (almost 2 years), I did something else, moved to a new place, and I still couldn't figure how to deal with these dark, emptiness, and hopelessness.

I told myself, there's no way I can live up through next decades, as if there's nothing much interesting there. So, I keep on exploring ways to understand what this beast called depression really is. I expressed it openly now as if there's a beast within you wants to be known, so I implore it, what it wants the most. I talked to it as if I am talking to something that has been long part of me. I keep talking to it, I allow it to be valid, and now I am making terms and peace with it as if I am making peace with myself.

The first thing I figured out was attachments. The most comforting feeling I ever feel when I was depressed, was the feeling of safety, the feeling of belonging to somewhere. And with depression and terrible loneliness it is the thoughts about being in a place you don't really feel like you belong to. Like there's a saying that you can be surrounded by many people, yet still feel so alone. So, I detach myself from the attachments that make me feel so alone, and conditions that come along with it. One of these attachments was my relationship with my old friends by which mostly have moved on with life, got married, have children etc. I didn't severe the relationship, but reconsider the conditions that I had toward such relationship. I quit one of our whatsapp group, and even a simple act like that helped me a lot. I feel, relieved from something that has been holding be hostage for long. And I keep telling myself, in order to move on, these are the rules and terms that I need to abide, that I am no longer attached to such attachments that have been conditioning me for long. I opened a bit about it to my mother back a month or so ago, and I feel like some attachments are necessary and some just needed a reconsideration.

I do not know what your attachments are, maybe it's in the relationship, maybe in things, or maybe it is something of the past. I don't want to be cheesy, but I feel what you're going through, about the inability to do something about it. I just want you to know that you're not alone. :)

- Written at ‎Friday, ‎June ‎21, ‎2019

A Passage

Some days are just miserable. But certain days are just much better, and I am not that suicidal or thinking too much about this comfortable escape, A.K.A. ending life itself. The key lies in having something to look forward to, also known as Hope. And I was/am often struggling on how to reach that point.

Depression is a difficult, long and tiring battle. It is something else, something different. It can stagnate your life to certain point and you must first admit that there is depression happening/perpetuating within you. The next thing is not to identify yourself with such illness. It is far from invalidating yourself, but to disallow yourself from lingering too long in such passage. So another thing I figured out after Attachment and Validity is Perpetuality. It happens that our mind works almost the same as what Newton's first law is stating; an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless it's acted upon by an external force. It's this very nature of our mind that defines how major this illness is.

Today I feel a lot better. It's because I've something to look forward to. I am looking to buy a new motorcycle, watching new anime and getting a new job. Been hyping myself for a while for this. Everything they said about not worrying too much is true, but anxiety apart, when you're depressed you can't see the end of it. So the key is on knowing what to do when you're in such passage.

So I have a reminder for myself when I am going through depression.
- It will pass.
- Songs that attach you to things you currently hyped with. For eg. one piece OSTs.

Mother

Today i finally opened up a bit with my mother. It went really well. Though I managed to divert every religious talk to my favor so it doesn't go as intense. We talked a lot about my social problems, I managed to have a bit of the control over the conversation.

I think I've never feel this different. I do not know how far it extends. But I can feel the production of endorphins flowing so hard now~

Next time I'll try to talk about something more real, about the depression, about the symptoms, about my plans to get better. I think I can be more, feel more, the more I feel better. I can feel it. I want to survive this beast. Allow me, universe, please.