What if we die having done nothing remarkable or novel? Is that truly a failure? A while back I wrote about the Novelty of Depression especially in connection to the American Dream. What if our legacy is one of emotional impact rather than vocational achievements? Have we really robbed ourselves of the potential of a [...]
2019 has been quite a year. I have doubted myself more than before and proven myself wrong more times than expected. I’ve experienced lots of losses in friendships and relationships, but my “spirit” or the essence of myself has not faltered. Similar to last year, I will not change all of who I am to [...]
Individualism is heavily present in Western culture. The American Dream is oriented around the idea that an individual’s hard work, perseverance, and goals can help them achieve anything. Whilst that idealist notion is possible for some, the American Dream isn’t easily accessible to all. I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “novelty” in [...]
How magical would it be if you were able to replace the word recovery with living? What if the word tomorrow was synonymous with hope? Pain, a manifestation of strength? Love, an extension of a heaven? Life, an infinite series of existential crises? Welcome, the stars say. We’re glad you’re here. Every day, the sun [...]
I want to write something beautiful. This is what I tell myself when I open my laptop and begin typing. The pressure to expel something worthy when you feel anything but is frustrating. So instead I let a few weeks roll by without updating this blog, but here we are, in each other’s [...]
February 2, 2019 To a friend struggling with psychosis, The entire being of who we are could be theoretical. We can attest that our being is real, but who’s to define what that means? Who’s to prove that we are nothing but a thought? Nothing but a subconscious reality in someone else’s mind? Yet, [...]
I am Filipino American. Filipino before American. I take pride in the resilience of my ancestry and the collectivist spirit in my culture. I am human before I am Filipina. I am human before I am my diagnosis. I am human before I am anything else. I am loved as a human, loved as a [...]
Have you ever seen a child cry during a once seemingly calm moment? Whether it’s while you are serving them a meal, putting their socks on, or encouraging them to go outside instead of watching TV – somehow you find yourself in the midst of a tantrum. You don’t know where you went wrong or [...]
I learn through visuals. I carry a journal with me wherever I go. These pages hold many of the drawings I want myself to remember. For the past two years I’ve been asking people to draw out how they view life as a model. And so I compiled them into 2 pages. These are [...]
I was sitting with my therapist a few weeks ago and we talked about bell curves, statistics, and thresholds of what a “normal” human experience looks like both individually and statistically. A lot of people discourage others to not compare themselves to their peers, but the fundamental thing we talked about in my session was that [...]
This life is all we've got but maybe it's the best we've got too 