np0000

[np0000]

Yeah. I have a job and it's been a month since I was hired. It actually is my first job ever despite being 21. It really does signify that I am an adult. Yeah, I am past 18 and I should have felt like an adult before that but the thing was, it truly is different when you actually have a job and are done with Uni. The first thing I actually bought with my wage was food and I don’t know about others but for me, I felt really guilty about it. Maybe I was feeling guilty that I didn’t give it to my toxic family. I know I am not feeling guilty because I am spending it for myself. I may have felt guilty that I didn’t spend it on my family. But then I realized that if I wanted to separate myself from being their slave and money maker, then I must focus on myself. 

I am again finding myself. Meaning learning what I want, including my likes and dislikes, what I want to do, and actually feel. I have felt numb for such a long time and the only thing that gets past it was whenever I feel joy and happiness when I spend time with my friends, or sadness and pain. And I have always felt sadness and pain. Now that I am focused on healing, I started feeling a bit. I actually started to feel like the job I have is not as good as when I was applying. It’s too controlling and the wage is not worth it honestly for a night shift. They might say that because it’s a US-based company it means they’re technically on day shift but if they based it off on that then why won’t they pay min. American wage. I don’t want to quit yet because it means I still have to stay and work without pay, so I am just staying until the probationary period is over. 

Like fucking hell man, there’s so much shit to do and since it’s WFH and I am still a probie, I have to be in a call ALL the time with on cam. I get that, I am still a probie but I do not need to inform the team leader every time I need to go to the toilet or if I wanted to get water. And then I was told that every hour, what we were doing was being monitored and I do not like it. The company was too controlling and yes, the people are nice but they also need to understand, that this is a night shift and they already pay just a little above the min. wage. I already know my health is failing me. I already work half my shift in pain due to gastro reflux. I feel pain and tiredness and I just wanted to close my eyes a bit. They don’t even give breaks besides lunch break. 

All of these may sound negative and, well, I do not know if I really do feel proud but I guess I do know what I want. I know that the company environment is toxic to me and I just want to focus on my health. I would like to say that before I would have just stayed for the money and experience but I could always look for other jobs at least worth my time. I know my worth now and I saw the metrics on my progress with my job; If I am not at the top amongst the other probies then I am near the top by just decimals. With such numbers, I feel assured that I did my job but I know it was not my best. Half the time I spent trying to stay awake and if that was how it was, how would my numbers be if I worked the day shift? 

Hope for the best in the future.

[np0000]

It is hard to have time and money for hobbies to help with your mental health when you are already working a lot and struggling with illness. However, no hobby is too small or too simple: choose to write a journal, even if it’s just to vent. To draw, even if you can only doodle, even if it is not artistically done. Listen to some music, try to pay attention to the lyrics and melodies.

Watch a show you truly enjoy and imagine the characters in different scenarios. Read fanfiction or write it. Make a Pinterest board or a collage with old magazines. Read a book for fun, it doesn’t have to be a complex and huge book that makes you look like an intellectual. Search for memes to make you laugh, watch some funny videos on youtube or tiktok. Run a blog on tumblr or wordpress.

You can find hobbies that are cheaper than others and that don’t demand as much energy and focus as learning a new language or how to play piano.

Find little things you can do to relax and entertain yourself on days when you are too tired and don’t have as much time and just want to lay in bed. Even a few minutes a day of distraction and relaxing are good enough and hobbies shouldn’t have to be overwhelming or too complicated so they can be “good and interesting hobbies”. The point of a hobby is to have fun with it and you should be the one to decide what you want to do and adapt your hobbies to your circumstances so it doesn’t overwhelm you physically or financially.

[np0000]

I know it may feel awful to have to keep taking medication every day, but do wait for it to start having an effect. Many treatments often take time to kick in, to have full effect. Unfortunately, science hasn’t been able to make medicine strong enough to take away all your pain in one dose. Be patient with your recovery. Remember that it did take a while to get to this point in your sickness and you may not have seen it coming, and that recovery can be just the same: it might not happen in a night, but you will wake up one day feeling so much better and it might take you by surprise how much you went through and survived. Sometimes, just because we don’t see the greater things coming our way, it doesn’t mean they never will! Stay strong in your recovery! 🌿🌱💐

[np0000]

⬆️ book recs 📚 for wellness 💕

[np0000]

Honestly, I don’t see it posted much here, but not having access to large parts of your trauma history is wack really confusing and frustrating cause you can see what you are currently, how you operate, how you feel, how people with certain traumas have similar behaviors, and read between the lines of the implications of shit

But you have no answers to WHY you are like this or WHAT caused it. You can GUESS, you can read between the lines and INFER, but unlike a lot of other trauma survivors who can often pinpoint moments related to it if they sat on it for a bit, all you get is just this blank wall and a “…maybe something in this realm of trauma???”

And like, for those reading this who are a bit more new to trauma processing and dissociative amnesia / memory block outs, don’t fight against it. Don’t dig into it even if the lack of knowing is wack frustrating and confusing. If you aren’t able to reach the memory there / you hit a dissociative wall, its probably a good idea not to try to jackhammer through it. It is probably that bad. It is probably too much for you at the current moment. You don’t need to remember it right now, it’ll come when you are ready to handle it in the future. Please don’t hurt yourself digging for trauma that your brain doesn’t want to deal with at the moment.

It is so confusing and fucking sucks to not have a consistent narrative of who you are and how things happened though. Real talk.

[np0000]

Some days, the brave thing is to stay in bed and rest, allowing yourself to recover, even when your anxiety tells you are worthless if you don't get up. Resisting that pressure that will only put your health at risk and taking care of yourself to avoid more pain and burn out is brave too. It takes courage to confront the fact that you can't live up to extremely high expectations and that you need rest in a society that places so much value in being productive to the detriment of your health. If you can, please allow yourself to take some time off and to recover. Remember that there is courage in tending to yourself when everything else tells you that you shouldn't.

[np0000]

Hard to swallow pills #5

A person's free time sometimes does not correspond to their availability. Your time is yours and you're not a bad person if you want to use it for yourself.

[np0000]

Just thought I'd remind everybody this:

Your past, younger, and more afraid self would be so proud of you

That scared kid who didn't know what tomorrow would be like? They're proud of you for making it even longer than tomorrow

That person who has lost all hope? They're amazed and inspired by how strong you've become

That insecure person who hates their looks? They think you've become absolutely gorgeous flaws and all

The past you may have been unsure of themselves, but you being alive right now is proof that you can survive anything. And that you'll someday be exactly what your younger self wished they were

[np0000]

@ thecitieswithin

[np0000]

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday and I really love my friends because they're the only ones that really celebrated with me despite the distance. But everything else sucked.

I still live at home and my birthday was like any other day truly. It's actually different if we celebrate my brothers' birthday because there's more food and it seems more of a celebration than just delivering everyday take-out like they did with mine. It was my birthday, and the first thing they said to me was "why don't you spend some money for us (not including me) since you're already working?" I was left flabbergasted. Besides my friends greeting me, everything else was just... sad. I realized that I truly do not celebrate my birthday as much as other people did; I actually do not care. Then I realized, since when did I even celebrate it in any capacity? I never had cake on my birthday and the first time I did was something I actually bought on my way to class. It was one slice of chocolate cake and I found it nice even if I wasn't a fan of overly sweet things. It was painfully obvious why I do not value my birthday truly.

Literally, because of my job, I slept the whole day off and the next day after, I spent it cleaning my room. When I was planning on eating something because it was my lunchtime, they literally told me to buy food for myself since I already work. So, I did. When I did order delivery, I told them because I needed the keys and my gosh, they then nagged at me saying there's food and I didn't have to buy food. As if, in the first place, they did not tell me to buy food for myself. Like, I got your memo, why didn't you get your own memo? I decided to order not only because I needed to eat but also because I wanted to at least celebrate my birthday. So here's me wishing myself a happy birthday!

[np0000]

Thank you! Hope everything really goes good for me

New beginnings

Honestly, I have no idea what to do with my tumblr other than a way for me to heal and find myself. I actually find the thought of speaking anonymously quite relaxing. I have never really delved into using social media despite my age and I realized that this was a good time as any to do so. I wanted to do something for myself and I realized that if I stayed the way I was, I would end up combusting. I honestly do not care if no one reads this but at least I have shared my life. I hope doing so will at least help me find who I am because I have missed so much of my own life shackled. I want to find myself and if it meant having others know of my life, so be it. So I just wish that this is the start of something new and good for me.

As I have said, I am 21 years old and a Filipino Chinese. I graduated nearly a year ago with a major in Psychology and damn proud of it doing so during the pandemic as I was juggling Uni, internships, org work, and my thesis. I now have a job, even if I am on a probationary period, and am planning to move out soon. I just want to admit that while all these seem good, life at home is not good. Physically, I am safe. Well, as safe as I can be because I have unhealthy habits. Mentally, I am not. I was thinking that the pandemic brought my family to a semblance of peace, but it was just the beginning. 

A little more info about me is that I am living in a single-parent household, with my mother and 2 brothers, both younger and older. I will be frank about it but my mother was a mistress and she willingly went and accepted a guy who will never bring his mistress into his family. I understand that when I was young but it will never lessen the pain. I have accepted it now and honestly, I just lost my care for him. Now, my mother, on the other hand, is another worse. She understood full well the consequences of going after a man who was married, three times I must add, and who was unwilling to marry her because of her lack of Chinese blood. Now, she is left with us, and damn well she was bad.

My mother, ever since meeting with my father and giving birth to the three of us, has never worked. All the money she has is from my father that has been supporting us and when that stopped, and when that stopped, my mother admitted that she used the money that was in my insurance to make sure she had money. She never told me this and I felt betrayed because that was my money given to me by my father. Now the money would probably be not that big in the US but here in the Philippines, it was. 3 million pesos all gone to her pocket and what she spent on me was less than 1/6th. 

She may be my mother and my policyholder but this was too much. I must stress that all the money she has been using to support herself was the money given by my father to his children, not to her. She should have damn well known that she was already an adult, she was in her 30s, but it never crossed her mind to look for a job, and it never crossed her mind how much all of this is affecting us mentally. And I want out. 

I do not want to stay in this toxic household where everyone is against me just because I blamed her for my mental health. She doesn’t know how much she has hurt me with her lies and betrayals. It’s now worse because my younger brother joins her in verbally abusing me and my older brother just does not care about everything at all. I repeat I am out. I will soon find a place to move out even if it means working 2 jobs. I wish me good luck and even more so to the people who are like me.

[np0000]

Update

So... I realized that if I wanted to move out, I would have to work a second job, and at this moment, I could not handle that stress if I did do that. Living in Manila is expensive. My monthly wage covers the rent of some condominiums but not my other living expenses. At this moment, I do not know if I want to just continue living with my family, save up, and wait for my visa to be processed and accepted, or move out. I do have my own room so I guess that helps. I just do not want to live near my family, especially my mother, who is also sexist, racist, and emotionally and verbally abusive. 

Another thing is that the company I work at does not help me process my papers, only my TIN. I need to process my clearance, which involves getting 2 other clearances and a residency certification, and 3 health insurances. I could process it because I work the night shift, so I have the day to do so, but I need my rest. I have no time to process that shit. The company does promise to pay a little higher than the minimum wage but I do not think it’s worth it. That is why I want to migrate abroad. 

[np0000]

Art by idil dursun

[np0000]

Is it an absolute dream that I get to work in a library that looks like this? Yes

[np0000]

Listen to the silence in my eyes.

[np0000]

🥀🍓.

[np0000]

Loft design by @morakorytowska ⠀

Get Inspired, visit www.myhouseidea.com