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Trigger Warnings, Growth, and then some

It is 1 am and I have ultimately decided to start a blog about my depression. Well, not strictly about my depression (I also have anxiety), but the growth that came with realizing it… ‘materializing’ it. Coming to terms with it. Seeing it be what it is. Like giving birth to an awkward, angst-ridden teenager I never wanted, only it’s a teenager forever, and the teenager is me. It is all very complicated.

So with that, I will try to write about it the best way I can. Be forewarned that may include a little bit of history of self-harm, self-indulgence, and a disturbing lack of self-awareness, but there is a whole lot of ‘self’ going on that it may become tiresome, but I do have some self-deprecating humor that may make it worth the read. You get the point.

Understand though that keeping it as lighthearted as I possibly can, there will always be a gravity to the words that will only ever be left to your (the reader’s) interpretation, as it always has. These are words that bear my opinions, my emotions, and my experiences that of course may differ from others, and that is wholly right and okay. But if you in some ways can relate in this lonely internet to anything here that you read, then it is an honor to contribute to the company you seek.

Also, yes, I have been diagnosed with major depression and anxiety. No, I do not have a medical degree on psychology nor psychiatry. Yes, I am on medication and counseling. Do I intend on being on that forever? Whether I want to or not, I’m not a doctor (as mentioned). Yes, I am working on being better (and discovering what ‘better’ means). Do I think I am getting better? With 5 steps forward, 2 steps back, and 11 steps sideways, maybe.

More than this I am a person who happens to have it. It is not all that I am. And if you happen to have the same thing, it is not all that you are. We are whole in another way.

So without further ado, here is… my blog.

(Very anticlimactic, but you will find that most things are)

An open (love) letter to 30-year-old me

As many of you know, I journal a lot, sporadically, and there would be moments in reading that I come across letters addressed to the me of then, the me of now. I’ve been made fun of for it a while back, as it was such a “teenager girl” thing to do, but say what they will, I find myself doing it anyway. It’s not always a happy experience, but in a way it’s my own expression of self-love that I care enough to offer somewhat. It will be a bit different now because there will be others who will see it apart from myself and that might make it more difficult, but I will attempt to do so anyway.

Dear Rii,

What is it like over there, 4 years into the future? I’ve previously given you little snippets of my life (our life, really), some meaningful, most cringey as all hell, but all true. At least, true at the time. Very much so.

Do you still sing to yourself when you forget the sound of your voice? Thinking, maybe, this time you will have discovered the hidden talent you’ve wanted since you understood what the concept of singing was? Maybe you record it and realize that you still sound the same as ever, raspy and almost like a boy going through puberty, with the sudden unwarranted drops and raises in pitch? Maybe, you wonder, this was never really your talent but you try anyway and have a good laugh after listening to a recording of yourself.

The same goes with dancing. Do you still have those episodic obsessions with pop songs that you can’t help but groove to and watch yourself sway to in the mirror? Is it as silly as it is now, I wonder, to have no real care in moving the way you want with no other company but your own?

Do you still talk to yourself? Be it in the mirror, under your breath in a meeting, while you’re stuck in traffic, or lying awake at two in the morning, wondering which of the many but individual decisions have led up to this moment in time. Is your life the way you expected it to be? Is your life as meaningful as you wanted it to be?

Truth be told, I’m writing to you in the midst (still) of a pandemic (despite what others may say, it still seems far from over), and my mental health has taken a backseat to adjusting, readjusting, coping to whatever this new normal is. Despite the unique circumstances of it all, through the weirdness of going out with a literal mask on, life goes on. It goes on in the most normal as normal can get. I still worry about my career and what it’s coming to, wonder about my romantic endeavors and whether or not this will be the end-all be-all, or even just stress over getting up early enough in the morning to be able to accomplish whatever it is that I have to do for the day.

I hope you still have the same friends as you do now, and have the simultaneously stupid but meaningful interactions you have with them. I hope that the self-destructive (but not necessarily self-deprecating) thoughts are either out or (at the very least) remain at the back of your mind, and you have no real intention of pushing through with the execution of them.

(Tenses are hard when writing to yourself in the future, what is now, what is then, what will be?)

Do you still call your dogs “honey”? Do you still sing-song the names of whatever holds meaning to you?

Is there still that reserve of joy that you tap into in the most difficult of times?

I wish I knew, but regardless, I wish you the best.

I selfishly wish you all the happiness in the world because deep down, you know you deserve it. You know every single person does.

Most importantly, do you think that whenever it is that you are reading this, you are the best version of yourself that you could ever wish to be?

Answer as honestly as you could (even if you’re the only one who hears it). Maybe by the time you get this, time travel would have been invented, and you could let me know what exactly it is I am in for.

(Wishful thinking. But nonetheless…)

Love,

Rii

The New Year post

I’m sort of back? Did you miss me?

2020, the year no one will miss. In the span of my holiday break (from both my work and this blog), I can’t say much has changed. The news circulating nowadays are that of the first batches of the vaccines, varying in prices and supposed effectivity, who gets first dibs etc. You know, with the usual politics sprinkled, nay, tossed in forcibly.

On a more personal note, I have made first ever major purchase (as an adult *coughs*): an iPad Pro 11. My family was also able to get a new puppy, the most adorable baby dog ever with a heart-shaped marking on his nose. Also, apart from the usual family Christmas and New Year celebrations (via Zoom, of course), my boyfriend was able to meet the gang for the first time.

Overall, not bad. A welcome reprieve from the topsy-turvy of pandemic work life.

I have also started drawing again, but this time through digital illustration, something I wouldn’t have dreamed of being able to afford doing. I’m not good at it yet, but it’s actually been fun relearning the basics of art through an entirely different medium. I don’t find myself that frustrated when I get things wrong (yet, haha. It’s only a matter of time) because it feels like I’m rediscovering a personal passion in a whole new way. Now, that may not mean much to others, me being late to the party and all, but I suppose that was what the new year is about for me.

Small yet significant changes that you still count. You may find yourself in the same job, with the same workpay, the same environment with all the familiar faces (that you sometimes get tired of), but hey, you have them. In a year where loss was prevalent, be it jobs and lives, you still got what you got.

I have a blog I semi-regularly update that never would have happened if I wasn’t bored out of my mind in lockdown, and more recently a means of being able to express myself in art again, as well as having survived the COVID-19 pandemic relatively unscathed.

Not to mention that 2020 was the year of so much (and sometimes forced) mental and emotional growth in relation to coming to terms with my anxiety and depression. And although I’m figuratively back up to having to take a full-dose of my meds, I’m not taking it so hard anymore. This is my pace. Relapse be damned. Ha.

I don’t have any intention of coming up with half-assed resolutions (that I’m bound to break anyway), but instead savor the same hope that every single new year brings. A communal moment of revelry and gratitude.

Learning to take the good with the bad, the joy with the sad, and all that jazz.

Much love,

Rii

The Awkward Pause

I haven’t posted anything in almost 2 weeks and my last entry was sort of depressing, but I guess that there will really be moments like that in continuing this. In my short hiatus of sorts, a myriad of events have just been happening around me. Some great, some not-so, and in the midst of it is me. Mid-twenties, sorta depressed, sorta anxious, sorta picking up from where she left off. Trying to figure out if she’s still the main character in her story, which sounds a little more pathetic, a little more egocentric now that I write it plainly.

I still do my weekly intentions, albeit more for myself than to post, just to see if it would change anything, and it did. Just a bit. I don’t remember them as well, or completely forget about them in the middle of the week with no prior documentation of my thoughts laid out. Everyday felt like just another to get through.

So I guess the point of this whole weird awkward pause was to see if I was still really still doing this for myself, because I wasn’t sure anymore if it was helping those who stumbled across my ramblings. Also to see if it still matter if it did, or if I should still just push on in the hopes of doing so anyway. I’ve come to the conclusion that I still will continue, because what harm could it possibly do? Haha.

These past few weeks have reminded me exactly how selfish people can act sometimes, with no regard for the consequences that it entails nor how it affects other people. I’m not going to tell you what exactly happened, (because I’m not really allowed to) but the point of me bringing it up is that it made me realize all of the times that I have been exactly that. Selfish, with no real care for what happens to those around me.

It’s a painful process to reflect on something you take no particular pride in. In a sense though, it’s also grounding. To realize the imperfection and faults of your own, and to be able to own up to it and take responsibility for it once the need arises.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about that, and that’s all the things I have enough energy to write about for now. I will try to pick up the pace soon enough, just not quite yet.

For those who have been following this blog, you have no idea how grateful I am that you take the time to read what I have to say. 2020 is coming to a close, and we’ll be out of it with more to be thankful for.

Much love,

Rii

Depression: The hallway

TW: Talks of Major Depressive Disorder. Not graphic, but a little heavy. If that’s not your cup of tea, feel free to skip. I trust you.

My most recent appointment with my psychiatrist left me a tiny bit bewildered to say the least. To give you a little bit of context, I was supposed to start weaning off my meds at around this part of the year, or at least I was projected to, and I’ve hit a little bit of a setback. (A “riilapse” if you will, haha.) It’s not shocking, but it honestly still feels like kind of a big deal. All I have to do really is still continue my current dose and meet her after a shorter amount of time, and see how things go.

Again, it shouldn’t be a big deal. But it is to me, at least.

I don’t know how other people see how I cope (or at least try to) with problems, because it’s this jumble of “am I really trying hard enough?” and “this is so exhausting, what the absolute fuck”. Like you don’t know how much of the effort you give is going into trying to solve anything, and what is spent on just making the absolute bare minimum. And what if I don’t have enough energy to do both at the same time?

During my sad girl hours at around 2am or so, a little buzzed from the beers I had prior (within my limit of course) I asked myself, “what would depression look like?”, or more specifically “what would my depression look like?”. In the past, I’ve described it to feel “like gravity upped its ante several notches”, but that’s different from the exact metaphor I was looking for.

Then it struck me, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since.

It’s a visualized setting, so bear with me for a bit. Imagine finding yourself in a hallway as your day begins. A corridor lined with several closed doors, and at the very end is one that is mysteriously ajar. You know exactly what is on the other side of that door, but you can’t exactly pinpoint when it opened. On the other side of the door is a way out of all of this, and all you have to do is walk through it.

Too easy.

Behind all the other doors that lead up to it is a choice you have to make everyday. A situation you have to live through, and it takes a good deal of effort to steel yourself before facing what’s behind it. The hallway changes everyday, the number of the doors may differ, the length of the corridor may change, but the only constant is that one door that is always slightly ajar. An ever present option which presence lingers at the back of your mind, perpetually in the peripheral.

You don’t hate the door, you just wonder a little bitterly how it came to be, because you don’t remember when it unlocked itself. Maybe when you were in your emo phase in high school, or maybe when you lost someone important who may have inexplicably left it open for you, or maybe just something else.

On good days, you merely spare it a glance before turning the knobs of one of the other doors in the hallway. On bad days, you sit, cross-legged just in front of it, reaching for the contents within, but pray for the strength to step back. Some days, you reach for the knob and close it shut, and wake up the next day for it to be just as it was all the other days. Gap wide enough to peer through.

I can go on and on about the dynamics of this hallway, but by now you pretty much catch my drift I suppose. And please don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m romanticizing it in any way, because it’s beyond what I intend, which is the complete opposite. If anything, I just wanted to illustrate it better in a way that would make sense to me, and maybe to other people as well.

It’s just how it is. And that’s what I, like many others, have to live with.

Thankfully though, the door at the end of the hallway has gotten less and less inviting. And that’s a start.

Hopeline PH’s 24/7 hotlines:
0917-558-4673 (Globe)
0918-873-4673 (Smart)
02-88044673 (PLDT)
2919 (toll-free for Globe and TM)
Hopeline Philippines

Much love,

Rii

Weekly Intention: Escaping into the clouds, November 17 2020

*From ‘The Universe has your Back’ deck by Gabrielle Bernstein and The Prisma Visions deck by James R. Eads, Original graphic by yours truly*

I have always been an imaginative person. Zoning out was something I regularly did in high school, and I even had this teacher who would get a laugh out of catching me with my head completely in the clouds. There was always a world I could immerse myself into and never really got tired of. As I grew older, my daydream escapades lessened as I was stuck with more of the real world to deal with. This week however, I’ve been catching myself staring into space more than usual, and it would take a bit of effort to get out of it.

Now I’ve integrated my small delusions in my habits, as I used to. Stirring a cup of coffee while imagining myself in a bustling café, or showering and thinking I’m in some obscure indie movie scene. Typing out work reports like it’s gonna save the world (if they knew about what I knew), or making my bed and deciding on the décor for my non-existent 1-bedroom apartment in my mind’s eye. Sometimes I wonder if I live in my head enough to last an actual lifetime.

There are also the scenarios that I play out over and over again like a time-loop of endless possibilities. Like what if instead of this, I said this, or she said this, or he left before she could say this, but this is what I was thinking. And what if because of this, that other thing happened, no, wait back-up, this would be more real I think, and this would be more dramatic. They didn’t have to have happened in real life, but I would always wonder what if it did?

What if?

Now, this sounds incredibly whimsical of course, no doubt about that, but that’s kind of what I miss and now currently enjoy about it.

At the height of my depression and anxiety, there were no whimsy, no fantastical daydreams. There was only dread of the hypothetical, the far off, the unknown. There was only since this happened, it could only mean this, and oh shit what do I do?

That’s not to say I don’t have bad situations happen in my imagination now. I still do, but now it’s usually just to think afterwards “well, I’m glad it isn’t like that really” or “well, now I know how I’d feel if it ever came to that”. Sometimes I just do it to have a good tragic cry by myself for a bit of catharsis (yeah, okay a bit weird, but we all do what we gotta do) and I can pull myself out of it as soon as I don’t want to be stuck in a conjured funeral for more than five minutes.

(You don’t know how many times I’ve actually cried over my own funeral in my head. I’d probably be the best person to give my own eulogy at this rate. And it’s those funny morbid little things that actually make me feel more grateful for what I have now for some strange unfathomable reason.)

I know that it isn’t exactly healthy to be escaping to another world where everything is within the manipulation and control of your mind, simply because that’s just not how the real world works. Now, I guess I’m just trying to channel it more into the energy of attempting to plan for the future, because that’s really always just the blankest slate anyone could ever have for themselves. Whether we want it or not.

“They say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one…”

VII of Cups reversed:
Temptation-Diversion-Confusion
Beware of the things that are being offered to you at the moment – -you are either unable to think rationally now, or something dangerous lurks behind what gilded promises. All that glitters is not gold, and temptation can draw you to ruin.
The Golden Thread Tarot

Till next time,

Rii

Weekly Intention: Counting small victories, November 9 2020

To be completely honest, I had almost forgotten to write about something today. There has just been so much going on, last week ended on a high note (with Biden winning, thankfully, and the victory of the first female US Vice President Elect, Harris) and I with no real new commitments of my own, though busy all the same. It’s kind of nice to bask in the moment of renewed hope for something, even if it’s not necessarily from my own country or community. 2020 sort of taught me to cherish these times more, as it seems so little and far between I can count victories that I’ve emotionally invested in.

It’s a moment to savor just until the next thing comes along, and I’m not being a downer or anything either. Life’s just been like that and that’s okay.

My energy hasn’t been loud or big, as it normally is when I’m more in the mood to isolate, not with the explicit intent of being away from others, but just needing time to settle in what it is that I’m feeling. There’s this restlessness that I can’t really figure out just quite yet, like an itch I can’t seem to scratch, though nothing has really changed.

(Or maybe that’s exactly what I need. For something to change? Just not sure what it is yet.)

For lack of a better term, I feel like I’ve been living in filler episodes, and it’s quite hilarious now that I say it (or write it) out loud. I suppose it’s because I’m turning a year older soon and it has gotten tedious to think about it since I turned 24 going into my mid to late 20s with not really much to show for. In all honesty, I still feel like I’m perpetually in the mental state of a 21-year-old and going into life with barely any idea of how to do anything, and it’s just going to stay that way for a bit more, even as I’m soon pushing 30.

(Millennials amirite?)

One of the resounding lessons I’ve learned (yet still have to find a real solution to) is that people really do tend to be their own worst enemy. Thankfully, my external influences (bless their hearts) have just constantly barraged me with options and opportunities to deal with my circumstances even if I’m as stubborn as a freaking rock to even consider them. It’s always because I have this tendency to learn best the hard way.

My mom always said I was like her in that sense.

So I guess, cheers to the filler episodes of our lives and to the ones who make it worthwhile. To the moments where we leisurely drink tea, dance alone in our rooms, sing out of tune in the shower or in the car in the middle of traffic, to the days that go by in a blink of an eye. Cheers to the days when, if we’re lucky, we learn some small new thing that blossoms into something bigger.

Where would we be without them?

III of Cups: …You are blessed with loving relationships and camaraderie, and this is likely a very social period in your life where you are investing time in the people around you.
The Golden Thread Tarot Guide

Much love,

Rii

Weekly Intention: Love in Paying tribute, November 2 2020

Trigger Warning: Mentions of self-harm (and healing). If that’s not your cup of tea, you can skip. Do what is good for you.

I am still struggling to believe that I started this blog a few months ago now, because in all honesty I’m not really good at being consistent in much of anything unless it is deeply required of me to do so. It has become something a bit more than just my mental health journey, with just a few ramblings sprinkled here and there about my daily life, but I guess that as personal as that is, it still contributes to the whole concept of the thing, no?

As I read my entries, ranging from the ones I’m proud of to those that I just had to produce for the sake of keeping it a weekly activity for me (sub-standard and not-so-great) it’s a bit of thrill to see that even if I don’t get many likes, or as even many views as when I first started this, it’s still something I choose to do anyway. And I’m able to look back and recall the state of mind I was in at the moment I wrote it. This month I suppose holds more importance to me in a sense because soon, it would mark a year from when I last decided to cut myself.

And then next month would mark the anniversary of when I finally decided to get help. Real help. Not liquid “help” that comes out of a bottle.

Sometime around last week, I remember a moment in which I glanced unto my arm where I’d cut, and suddenly noticed how much the scars have faded. Still there, but just barely. Faint enough for no one else to notice, but still visible enough for me to be reminded of what I was, am, capable of doing myself.

And it’s funny that I can never really remember why I did it. I just felt like at the moment I should, and that it was something I very much deserved.

(It’s different now.)

The tiny lines are almost like a quiet tribute to how far I’ve come, and what choices I’ve decided to take on my own, for every day that I struggled but refused to do it again.

And speaking of tributes, I’m writing this entry on All Souls’ Day. A day when we’d usually visit the graves of our dead and pray over them, but since you know, it isn’t exactly safe to do that now, my family decided not to, like I’m sure many others have as well.

In my room, there are three lit candles for my dear ones who have since passed (both my grandmothers, and uncle respectively), and a small bowl of flowers from the garden. And though I don’t consider myself to be religious, remembering the love and lives of those relatives bring me a peace and a sense of safety that can’t really compare to any other feeling. And the thought of living to a degree wherein your loved ones carry your spirit, values, and anecdotes long after you’ve breathed your last breath is (at least to me) the most wondrous and human thing.

We wouldn’t be who we are without the experiences that we share with the ones we love and care about the most, both living and gone. As trite as that sounds, it’s still a part of my truth.

Makes life all that more precious doesn’t it?

The Lovers: A union of harmony, full of trust, confidence and strength. This relationship is one that represents both a physical attraction and a deep emotional bond between them. It can also represent an inner harmony between two aspects of one’s personality: anima and animus, yin and yang, and so forth.
The Golden Thread Tarot Guide

And I heard your voice
As clear as day
And you told me I should concentrate
It was all so strange
And so surreal
That a ghost should be so practical
Only if for a night
Only If For A Night, Florence Welch

Much love,

Rii

Weekly Intention: Blurred spaces, October 26 2020

This Monday is another case of the weekend being over too quickly. I got to spend a little bit of time with my family, sleeping in the day, making grilled cheese sandwiches for an afternoon snack, eating biscuits and scones my mom made (especially for me), and talking well into the night about my failed application for a promotion, beer after beer. A “break” not without the shadow of a heavy workload looming over my head.

I haven’t dreaded for a week to begin as much as this in a long time. Mostly because when I think I’ve started to catch up with the speed of things, everything accelerates and it’s just been so difficult to keep up with the pace. And I know this sounds like I’m venting, but I’ve been thinking it over just to pinpoint the exact reason why I might be feeling like this.

And through a conversation with a friend, I may have my answer. Be forewarned as this is somewhat an abridged version of what it is that I learned exactly, because I haven’t had the time to properly look it up myself.

So there is this thing called “third space theory”:

Third space theory (or hybridity theory) examines how being “in between” several funds of knowledge and discourse can be both productive and constraining in terms of one’s literate, social, and cultural practices – and ultimately one’s identity development.
“Working Toward Third Space in Content Area Literacy: An Examination of Everyday Funds of Knowledge and Discourse”, Moje

Now, with how this theory was explained to me, each person has 3 concurrent social spaces: the first being the home, second being either school or work, and the third space covers everything in between. And from what I have gathered, it came to me that (for at least the great majority of the pandemic) the internet happens to have become our third space as a collective whole.

Well, as the situation has evolved, everyone working or attending classes from home have in essence warped their first, second, and third spaces altogether. The normal amount of effort one puts into their daily discourse has essentially multiplied threefold, and it’s got me thinking that a moment will come when home just stops being home.

Before all this shenanigans happened, on principle, I never took my work back home with me. I did it for my first job, and it just made everything toxic. Sure, I’d take a work call whenever I could, but I’ve always associated being home as my refuge for the day. I go home to unwind. To rest for the next time I have to report to work.

And how weird is it that even now, I’ve come to realize that after all this time even I’ve been taking that for granted? Like why is it even a thing that could be taken for granted?

Absolutely bizarre.

Okay, so before anyone calls me out for being just another bratty millennial and that working from home is not some entirely new concept (because granted, it isn’t and there are actual jobs like this that existed even before the whole COVID crisis), I just…

Did not sign up for this shit. (Excuse my language)

And frankly, I don’t think I’m cut out for it either. I don’t think anyone is cut out to attend two or more simultaneous zoom meetings and is able to come out of it not feeling just a teensy bit winded even without having said anything at all.

But you know, again, that’s just me.

I’m just hoping for better ways to accomplish things as is anyone else. Still trying to hit the mark, and hopefully (soon) I manage to.

III of Pentacles: Several people of vastly varying skills and beliefs work together to join in on a greater cause. Teamwork helps to create something new. Progress is swift.
The Golden Tarot Guide

Till next time,

Rii

Weekly Intention: One step, one choice at a time, October 19 2020

My schedule is packed, work and otherwise. I’m tired but also a good kind of tired. Like rubbish moments will always be rubbish, but life is moving at a much smoother pace than before. I’m not sure how to put it into words, but it’s almost as if the rhythm is set quite nicely, and at every moment I know exactly where it is that I am, and not lost somewhere else drifting.

I’ve been thinking and rethinking about what my therapist told me about stabilizing and having to sort out what normal nervousness feels like as opposed to that of anxiety. The main thing I’ve discovered is that tracking back to the cause of it helps in differentiating the two (even if it doesn’t quite necessarily help in solving it), because at least with regular feelings of panic, I’m able to understand what is causing it. With anxiety on the other hand, no such luck.

It’s so simple that it’s kind of frustrating in a sense. But then it helps when knowing how to act on it, especially when it comes to medicating.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a particular pill that I was instructed to take ONLY when having an anxiety attack, or when I feel like it’s about to happen. So theoretically, if I’m just feeling stressed about a particular meeting, it wouldn’t be enough reason to take that medication as an end-all be-all. That to me is just being irresponsible and potentially damaging to my progress.

But then again, when I am having a panic attack and just outright refuse to take my medication for it, there is little to no chance of it solving itself on its own. Though I suppose, that’s where the state of stabilization comes in handy.

It’s just so much easier to tell those two things apart now. I mean, it’s still kind of difficult in the moment, but as soon as the training (feels really funny writing it) kicks in, I have my course of action in place. Mind-boggling to be honest.

I believe that in mental health in general, you’re presented with a lot of choices, and are trusted with a certain amount of responsibility, and not to mention accountability, for yourself and for the ways you choose to treat it. Do you show up to your appointments? Do you take your prescribed medication regularly? Safely? As prescribed? Do you make the small necessary adjustments to your lifestyle?

(If not, honestly just start there with the reevaluation and how you set your standards as to how much value you put into yourself. Real talk.)

These are questions I ask myself everyday. Every time I glance over to my pillbox to try to recall if I’ve taken my dose for the day (because I admittedly forget more often than I am willing to admit), or if it is still paramount to take them (like when I drink alcohol too short a time beforehand).

I am not saying that I make the right decisions all the time (I mean life alone is difficult enough, hello), but I try to.

The important thing I suppose is being thankful in just having the ability and the resources to choose. Not many do.

VII of Cups: A range of choices present themselves to you, some of which promise power, riches, victory and love, and others that instead present you with disaster. Danger lurks within the choices, and wishful thinking and fantasy can lead one into trouble.
The Golden Thread Tarot Guide

You go back and forth over the options, overanalyze, make lists of pros and cons, and ask a million people for their opinions before you decide on something… You want to get something locked down, so you decide too fast. Instead of asking a million people, you don’t even really ask yourself.
“The Spiritual Method for Making Decisions You Feel Good About“, Gabrielle Bernstein

Much love,

Rii

Weekly Intention: Dusting off and picking oneself back up, October 12 2020

Lately, I noticed that whenever I come back to this time of writing for myself, I’ve been more and more melancholy about it. I guess it’s because it’s one of the only times in the week where I’m able to mostly let my depression sort of surface and breathe for a little bit before holding its breath again and diving deep within the waters of my mind. I’m not really sure if that’s a healthy habit, but it’s what is allowable (and not to mention, socially acceptable) for now.

That’s the thing about healing and going on this journey I suppose. The feelings and emotions don’t disappear, they just… simmer down. Kind of like rocks smoothed over by the tide. Still there in all its dense weight, but the sharp edges are sanded down little by little. There is less and less of outwardly expressing it because it kind of stops boiling over to a crescendo into the “real world”, the physical world, and I guess I have my medication to thank for that.

(This almost has little to do with the cards I picked for once, or maybe they do, and I will just be able to draw some sort of connection later after writing this.)

I guess that during this time, it being Mental Health Awareness month and all, I wanted to focus a little bit more on the disorders I have themselves, even if it is nothing really new. There is still a stigma against having a psychological disorder, even I have to admit that I’m still wary of volunteering the mere fact that I have it. Sometime last week I found myself having to declare that I indeed suffered from it on a health insurance form, not fully knowing what that might entail for me (or my insurance). And what bothered me a bit was just having to write if I had one, as well as whether or not I’ve had any absences from work or hospitalizations due to said mental illness, without even describing or even identifying what it was.

I mean, I get it. It’s not news that people with major depression or disorders with the same gravity pose a threat to themselves, but that risk can be abated and treated. It just felt like that risk being so vague as being reduced to a simple yes or no question sort of made light of the whole concept in general. Which in turn makes me wonder how exactly it factors in to being insured.

But that’s just my personal opinion.

This post is shorter than the ones I’ve posted in a while because I’m simply not in the headspace to write about it any further. I feel like my attention has been divided and spread so thinly with all the tasks I’ve been assigned to recently that the rest of me is failing to keep up. But that’s life and we keep having to march on still.

Knights of Swords (reversed): Though you are exuberant and it is difficult to match the excitement you have, your desire to act, and to achieve your ambitions have led you to lose focus, and therefore scatter your energies without a coherent plan. You are not taking into account the consequences that your actions could lead to, meaning that danger could very much lie ahead.
Golden Thread Tarot Guide

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius

Much love,

Rii