I'm living up to this meme

I haven't told you that I'm seeing a psychiatrist, have I?

About six months ago, I decided to come clean with my family about my issues and went to a mental health clinic at a hospital where I am a regular. The reason was simple: I didn't have to make a phone call to make an appointment. It's all in one app—the less human interaction needed in the process, the better.

Funnily enough, it was actually located in the same area as the pediatricians. My first visit wasn't as nerve-racking as I thought it would be because I was looking at (and involuntarily listening to) babies crying, mothers chatting—everything all at once. It was safe to say that I was distracted.

I had to wait for almost two hours and I was so close to leaving when the doctor finally called my name. I didn't know where to start, but as soon as the doctor gave me some questions, I just blurted out almost everything that I had in mind at the time. I just felt lost, and I wanted answers. I wanted to know what was going on inside my head, and if there was actually something going on up there.

On my next visit, the doctor began to prescribe me a mix of Noxetine and Clobazam to fix my sleep schedule and basically let me chill on a daily basis. My mother was strongly against the idea of me taking these medications at first, and we repeatedly got into an argument. I had a meltdown once and things went ugly, but in the end, we all came to terms with my condition.

I took an assessment called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) even though the result was deemed invalid because I was considered unstable at the moment. My doctor said that I could retake the test later at the end of my treatment, but to sum things up, I had a mood disorder and was diagnosed with depression.

There it was, my answer.

I was wondering if I really did have a problem or if I was simply unable to navigate my way through life as smoothly as others. At some point, I thought that it was probably just me being a self-centric egomaniac. It turns out that I do have a problem, and my doctor was actually taking all my words (and my problem) seriously.

There's a side effect from the medications, though. I sleep more than ever, sometimes even when I'm not supposed to. I fell asleep and almost missed a meeting twice. I didn't tell anybody at work because I don't want them to think that I was seeking attention. They don't have to know. It's enough to just be present and give my all.

Anyway, I stumbled upon this funny but low-key deep video on the internet which says that on a day where you only have 20 percent and you give 20 percent, you are actually giving 100 percent. You are doing your best at the moment. You are giving your all. It's a rather refreshing take on productivity. Remember this every time you feel guilty for not being as productive as you planned to be.

Now, back to my psychiatrist. She is a cheerful, petite lady who wears the cutest surgical caps ever. On my first visit, it was a Baby Shark cap. On my second, I don't remember exactly, but it was either a Winnie the Pooh or a Doraemon cap. She restored my faith in mental health professionals. From the moment we met, there has never been a single judging look in her eyes.

The reason why I kept putting off seeing a psychiatrist was my trust issue. I was afraid of not being taken seriously. I was afraid that the doctor would say it was just me, which probably would've only amplified my doubt and anxiety. Thank goodness, things went a lot better than my extremely low expectation.

I don't know how long I'm going to be seeing my doctor. My next visit is due next week and I'm running low on medications, so let's see what life has in store.

To end this post, I would like to say that I am forever grateful that I took that first step—that I chose to finally see a mental health professional even though it was a rather impulsive decision. It's always hard to start, especially when you don't know what to do or where to go first, but things will eventually get better.

Take that step. Get some help.

Coming to terms with my insecurity

There is a thin line between dedication and workaholism, between devoting yourself to your crafts and being addicted to productivity.

I am borderline a perfectionist in contrast to the nature of my current line of work, which is extremely fast-paced and highly demanding. Sometimes, it frustrates me to no end when I feel like I do not have enough time to craft my words to perfection. But the goal is not to be perfect; it is to be convincing enough so that people willingly take a certain action.

After months of questioning my ability, I finally came to terms with the fact that in the end, while I am at work, I am not crafting a piece of art. If only I could, I would have poured my love for rhymes and poetry into every single piece I work on. But people want to get straight to business. They are not here to appreciate our work. They are here to get what they want.

And so I learned to separate work and passion. A lot of people would tell you to pursue a career according to your passion. Do not fall for that. Most of the time, in reality, you are not there to create the things you are passionate about. You are there to serve people. I just happen to serve them with my words, and I am not even that great at it.

I am lucky enough, however, that I now have more creative space than ever before. I am forever grateful for that, but the space is not entirely mine. Thus, I have rules to abide by and limitations to watch out for. The best I can do is to leave a trace of me in every work I do. A signature one cannot see with naked eyes. A piece of me in every single word I write.

I have my pride and looking back, I am extremely proud of the fact that I have made it this far. I never thought that I would ever witness my words manifested into something real. And I am falling in love once again with writing despite the painful process and the abundance of pressure, mostly the ones I put on myself.

All this time I tend to feel inadequate, secretly incapable of doing what I am supposed to do. In the end, however, as long as the message is clear and people receive them the way it is intended to be, then my job is done. It is not about what I want. It is about what they need.

In a world where you are required to produce something fast, there is no room for perfectionism. There is always, however, room for imagination and creativity, and that is what keeps me going. I might never have another chance like this, so while I am here, I will pour myself into every challenge coming my way, every single task calling for my expertise.

If I mess up, which I actually did many times, I try not to blame myself too much. I have learned to focus on cleaning up the mess instead of grieving for my mistake. Again, there is no room for perfection, but there is always room for improvement. We learn from our mistake and we move on.

Most importantly, I have reminded myself repeatedly that we work to live, not the other way around. Our job does not completely define who we are. We work to make a living, and if you concentrate too much on making a living, you probably would not have the chance to enjoy the living part itself. Oh, the irony.

And on the brink of death, nobody would ask for another day to finish their tasks at work. What really matters is being surrounded by the people who care about you and you care about. We already spend at least one-third of our day, five days a week, working and so we need to use the rest to actually live. To have a life.

There is so much more to life than a job, and in order to appreciate its beauty, I have decided to use the rest of my time pursuing things that I always dream about, writing a piece that I never even get to start, crafting my dreams through words that I certainly cannot pour in my workplace. Life is my muse, and so I have to enjoy living it.

Cheers.

a prompt a day keeps insanity away — day 5

This is the continuation of 'A prompt a day keeps insanity away,' an old series of (excerpt from) short stories, written by me—this time inspired by random lyrics I found on the internet. I may not interpret the prompt the way it was meant to be, so get ready for a huge mess and enjoy reading.

prompt five: if it wasn't for bad luck // you know i wouldn't have no luck at all

'Is it good to be lucky?'

Sometimes I wonder if she realized how much nonsense she's spewing. Being lucky should be a good thing, right? Knowing her, however, I bet the question didn't just come out of nowhere. Something must've irked her—and judging from the long, comfortable silence we previously shared in this 10'x10' bedroom—she must've been thinking about it for a while.

So I decided to jump right into her train of thought and ride along.

'It depends, I guess.' It really does. You see, luck is in a way similar to beauty. It all depends on the eye of the beholder. People say you're lucky for having or being able to do something, but in reality, you might feel otherwise. People feel lucky because they think so, not because they are. 'Why did you ask?'

'I was just... thinking.' For a moment there, she was just staring into space, looking for the right word to turn her jumbled thought into a coherent sentence. She was supposed to be folding her laundry, and I was supposed to be helping her. But that could wait.

'What's the opposite of luck?'

The opposite of luck? I tried to dig deeper into my lexicon and found unluck, bad luck—misfortune. But they're all negations, not a word of its own. Luck doesn't really have an opposite—unlike hot and cold, left and right, good and bad—which is probably why we got all these prefixes and adjectives in the first place.

'Bad luck...?' I finally uttered after a not-so-careful consideration.

And then she chuckled.

'See, there's good luck, and there's bad luck.' She sat up straight on the bed, her eyes sparkling with eagerness to elaborate. It's moments like this that made her feel alive. 'When we say someone's lucky, we usually mean that they have good luck. But think about it. People with bad luck should've been considered lucky, too. It's just that they got the wrong kind of luck.'

That's a rather weird but refreshing way to describe your misfortune. If that's the case, you never really run out of luck. You're just having too much of the wrong kind. It's like dodging a bullet only to fall to your death right after, finding some spare change in your back pocket only to realize that your wallet's missing.

'I... kind of see your point.' My hands reached out to take some of her clean shirts. 'I just don't get why we're even talking about it.'

'I don't know. You, figure it out.' She took some of the folded pants and a hoodie and got on her feet. As she walked away towards the door, she turned around with a witty smile painted on her face.

'Good luck.'

and with this, they stopped

Once upon a time, there lived a human who wore three different masks. The first one they wore to the outside world. They wore it to school, they wore it at work, they wore it everywhere. The only time they ever took it off was around their loved ones.

The second one they wore around their loved ones. The reason was simple. They couldn't risk making anybody worried because, hey, people had enough problems already. Why add one when you could just shut up? The mask was pretty effective, or at least they thought so.

The third one they wore at all time, even when nobody's around. After all, they were too afraid to bare their soul to the world. This mask was initially made as a mean of protection. They had a delicate soul, so they needed something to shield it, even and especially from their own self.

With time, however, the soul grew attached to the third mask.

What they didn't expect was that the mask would turn into a double-edged sword. It protected, but it also prevented the soul from living its reality. The mask forced the soul to play pretend. It's a game you shouldn't play with your own self, but they did it anyway.

They pretended to be brave, they pretended to know stuff, they pretended to be fine. They knew it was wrong. They knew that they would end up living in a world made of lies. But at their worst, they couldn't even call for help. Especially not with the third mask on.

Sometimes, however, pieces of their soul would seep through the masks and show up. These kinds of moment were never easy. After all, it was excruciatingly painful to fight two battles at the same time. They wanted to take them off so badly, but without these masks, the soul would be hanging by a thread. It's a classic problem of survival.

That's why, in the loneliest nights, they would feel like crying but couldn't let a single tear out.

So, they sought solace in words. They poured their heart out in a way the masks wouldn't allow them. But then, words no longer gave them comfort. Only doubt. They no longer felt secure anywhere. The only thing that gave them peace of mind was now killing them.

They began to hope that they wouldn't have to wake another morning, and for the masks to die with them. But did you know what they ended up doing? They wore even more masks. Another one to conceal their emotions. Another one to contain the soul.

Perhaps, they should just stop trying.

but what if things go right?

Murphy's first law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If that's the case, however, then everything that can go right will go right.

Most of the time, I only think about what to do when things go wrong. I always expect things to fail or work against my favor, which is why I have such a low expectation of everything, including myself. I learn to accept and move on, to have backup plans, to hop on to the endless train of possibilities.

I recently moved to a different company, and I have to say that I really didn't see that coming. At that time, I was tired—probably mad at something at work—so I went on an impulsive spree of job hunting. I saw an ad for my current job on LinkedIn, and that fateful morning, I decided to just go for it.

Two hours later, I received a message from the recruiter asking whether I would be down for a technical test. I said yes and completed the test within several days. They invited me for an interview, gave me another test, and invited me again for another interview. Everything happened in two weeks.

Then came the offer. I was a complete mess. I didn't expect to get that far. I submitted my application on a whim, and look at me now. I was definitely not prepared for when things went right. I tried to list the pros and cons of moving to their company, and it all narrowed down to one thing. I had no reason not to move, and so I did.

Today marked the beginning of my second week at my new job, and I'm wondering if I made the right decision. There was never a moment since I accepted their offer where I wasn't questioning my decision. I know that I needed this. I know that it was a good decision, the right one to make at that moment, but is it now?

But that's not the point.

I'm way too used to failure that I never really prepare myself for the opposite. I'm always ready for rejection, for disappointment, for another search. What I didn't expect is that some people out there are actually willing to accept us, which is kind of stupid because of course they are. They probably need an extra hand, another presence in the room.

The same goes with relationships.

I want to be accepted, but I never expect people to do so. I'm not the most social person out there, and I have difficulties expressing my true feelings to the people I care about. I am grateful for their presence, but I have no idea how to properly express my gratitude. Sometimes, I wonder if they feel like I take them for granted. I truly don't. I just don't know how to say it.

So when people go the extra mile to express their respect, love, or gratitude, I truly don't know how to act. When people are being rude, I know not to take it to the heart. When people seem reluctant to include me in their plans or conversations, I know not to bother. When people show discomfort while I'm around, I know to walk away.

But what if things go right?

What if you find the people you want to hold on to for the rest of your life? What if you find a family to come home to even when you're miles away from home? What if people actually care about your happiness? What if they actually want to stay by your side no matter how hard you're trying to push them away?

What if people actually love you?

What if people actually see your worth?

What if you're actually worth something?

What if you're actually worth fighting for?

I guess it's time to figure it out.