Hey guys! Wow, what a month it has been so far – just when you think 2020 is almost over, the world (at least the Philippines) has turned upside down again with at least 5 typhoons in a row (since October), 2 of which (including the latest one) were record-breaking disastrous. As of today, the typhoon is over but we have at least two provinces that are still experiencing aftermaths with the severe flooding. In case you want to help out – here’s a post from WhenInManila that contains a list of organizations you can donate to.

I don’t want to come off as selfish by talking about my own personal struggle when a lot of people are suffering right now, but because I can’t sleep (running on the third week now), I thought of unloading some my thoughts here.

It’s self-diagnosed but I’m sure I’m not OK. I’m also most likely not alone given we are all going through the same situation. Pre-pandemic, we could easily get rid of mental stress by hanging out with friends, visiting family, traveling to our favorite places, going to the karaoke and drowning our sorrows with alcohol. Eight months of pent-up stress has worn down my mental and emotional capacity. I’m finding it hard to sleep, and even harder to wake up – therefore impacting my energy for work and non-work activities. My dreams have become far more interesting than reality that I really don’t want to wake up every morning. And then there’s the guilt about not being able to do my work well when I am lucky to even have work — everything is just piling up. Everything has become so overwhelming. I’ve tried listing down the things I need to do to get better.

• I need to start considering therapy. I’ll just give it a try, get a professional diagnosis — whatever this is I’m going through, I can no longer wing it by myself. I don’t know if I’m ready though. I know I have a lot of repressed emotions and memories from my childhood, and I’m scared of opening a can of worms.

• Reassess my goals and activities. There’s so many things I want to do and I’m always frustrated because I’m not progressing at any of them. Do I really need to learn the piano? Is blogging really still a passion or am I just clinging to an old flame that’s long been put out? Should I just sell my gaming consoles because I didn’t buy them to just gather dust?

• Get off social media — again! It’s a warzone out there. You would think that calamities or disasters would bring people together – but people are bickering even more. Is it really so hard to accept that people have different opinions, beliefs, principles and values? What is the point of throwing labels at each other? I don’t participate in these discussions but I can’t stop people from posting about it so, while I love my Twitter time, just minimizing usage isn’t enough – I may need to go on an indefinite break.

• Reconnect with friends and family. It’s harder to do this now, and easier to just disconnect from everyone to be honest, but going through my old photos while archiving them to the cloud, I was reminded of the many friends I’ve made that I had close connections with but have now been reduced to online “friends” I don’t even interact with anymore. Just check up on them – ask them how they are? I’d appreciate if people asked me that. I also need to see my mom already – I haven’t been away from the rest of my family this long.

• Take a break. From everything. Hopefully I can go home soon and take a long break for the holidays if work permits. I can’t wait to be in the mountains of my hometown, surrounded by nature, living a simple slow-paced life not worrying about anything. That would be heaven.

Look at me adding to my already long list of to-do’s. But I need to do these for myself, otherwise I’d go crazy before the pandemic ends. This is the worst my mental state has been ever and the first step to getting better is accepting that I’m not OK and that I need to do something about it.

How about you, stranger on the internet – how are you?