Happy/Sad

I have talked about my roller-coaster mood the past several months many times here on my blog it’s almost a repetitive topic. I’ve blamed it on everything from the new normal, PMS, or on my hormones going haywire again. 

Photo from Pixabay

I’m quite struggling with it, to be honest, for I’ve always been that person who’d force herself up every single day to deal with it head-on and try as much not to drown. I don’t have the liberty to just sleep and wallow inside my room all day and wait till it all gets better. I have to get up and go to work or follow a day-to-day routine. 

If there’s something I learned over time, being aware that there is a problem is much better than denying it exists. 

I’ve tried my very best to channel my remaining energy on anything—from makeup to online shopping, to watching funny YouTube videos, to organizing my room just to keep myself busy and divert my mind off it. It worked for a while, but when I’m done the fog comes back. 

It’s especially harder at night when I lie awake in bed alone and it’s all dark and quiet. If you follow me on Twitter, you’d see the polarity of my tweets. Most are a string of normal tweets but late at night, it becomes gloomy, angry, and almost depressing. Like I’d tweet about a past heartache I thought I’ve gotten over and would become acrimonious. It’s as if I tend to feel everything within those hours. Then in the morning when I see the tweets again, it was an odd feeling. Even I would wonder, what triggered me to say all these things last night? 

On the outside I’m okay. I work on weekdays and do my errands on the weekends. I take care of my nephews and spend a lot of time with them. I go out when I can. I watch feel-good shows and movies. I was never standoffish online and would reply to messages and comments. I throw a joke or two every once in a while. I even went back to friendly dating recently. 

But again, after a temporary “high” on something, I’d find myself feeling very low. 

My anxiety is in full force. I get anxious about everything—I worry about my own health, and the health of everyone in the household. I worry about my job security, my bills and other financial responsibilities. 

My reactions vary as well, sometimes I would overeat, sometimes I will have little or almost no appetite. Sometimes it would be difficult for me to sleep and I would lie awake late at night, sometimes I’d be asleep as early as 6 PM. I would have unexplained aches and pains; I would have episodes of confusion and indecisiveness; I would lack interest in things I once enjoyed doing. 

I also have that constant feeling of dread over a lot of things. Last weekend, I went to the wake of my friend’s mom with my older brother. We three were talking about how we are already in that stage in our lives where we are well-aware of life’s impermanence. When we were younger, we thought our parents, being the formidable people in our lives, would live forever. In the last week alone, two of my friends’ parents died, including Tetay’s father.

And it’s not just our parents, with many of our contemporaries dying before their time, we get so anxious thinking about our own mortality.

My brother also pointed out that because he and I are not married, we’ll be the ones who would grow old alone eventually. Hearing that from my kuya was like being punched in the gut because that’s our reality. While I have my nephews who are very close to me, I realized that in the end, they will have their own lives.

It can be exhausting to feel positive and to express gratitude all the time. Even if it has significantly helped me to cope, it can only go so far. I’m having so much on my plate that once again when all of my happy hormones have been used up, I’d feel the wretchedness again.

There are sleepless nights when I wish I could just unload it to someone who would listen to me intently without passing any judgment or dismissing it simply as me being “overly dramatic” or “making a big deal”. It’s not like it’s fun to fake these unhealthy emotions. It’s all too real. 

I’ve gotten so close to crying for help—or maybe I already did but no one heeded. The sad reality is I don’t have anyone in mind who would do that and go an extra mile for me. Everyone is busy with their own problems and concerns, which of course is something I can’t take against other people.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. That day was never a big deal to me even at a time I was in a relationship. But for this year I spent the morning of the overrated day crying for no particular reason. While the sadness has nothing to do with the day itself, something in me just snapped and I lost it. Nothing else can make one feel more alone other than seeing people who aren’t. It must’ve magnified the fact that the only person who takes care of me ninety-percent of the time—IS ME.

After shaking it off I just went on with the day putting on a happy face as if nothing happened. I went out and to have tea and a slice of blueberry cheesecake at my favorite coffee place. I sat there for hours just clearing my head. It wasn’t much but it helped. 

I don’t know how long I’d be in this blue funk but I will try my best not to stay in this mental space. I’m taking baby steps on my path to feeling better emotionally.