Today is one of those days where I don’t know how to cope. I sometimes wish life never gave me these lemons, but life really also seemed to never give me a choice.
Last October my mother passed away. I am not one to show much emotions around my parents, but it's true what they say, that you really only feel that tinge - or maybe more like a stab - of regret when someone is already gone.
My relationship with my parents growing up was strained. I am in a Filipino household, old-fashioned, and sure enough a stereotypical Asian one. As I grew older they changed and became more open to things. I guess losing my brother when he was only 26 also helped change their minds.
I remember how my parents cried when it happened. I knew I had to be strong for them. I haven't shed a tear that whole funeral week, and I'm not proud of it. It was done out of a mix of a multitude of things - perhaps shock, my tendency to have a delayed emotional response to big events, the pressure of having to be strong for my parents...
My father had his son cremated on his birthday. Six years later, he lost his wife a month after their wedding anniversary.
It breaks my heart, very deep inside, trying to imagine the amount of loss he has since experienced. I have never seen him crumple into a heaping pile of tears. He was a man of toxic masculinity. Men don't cry, men this men that. But at that moment he was simply a man who has experienced loss all over again. He kept repeating how unfair it was, that she told him they would grow old together, that they would still spend decades together...
Once more I had to be strong. My mother, my very own mother who had refused to visit doctors her whole life, who had, just a month before her passing, actually started listening to me and started taking my advice to go to doctors for checkups.
She was diagnosed with diabetes with numbers astronomically high that the doctor was shocked that she was still up and walking. It scared me, but sge was finally getting medication, and that also gave me a bit of peace at the same time.
I know she was doing it for me, in the hopes of living to see grandchildren, to see me have my own family. But she couldn't hold on and succumbed to a heart disease that was made more complicated by pneumonia.
She had an angioplasty where we found out that half of the blood vessels supporting her heart had been blocked and have not been working for years. Her heart had been suffering, possibly surviving numerous heart attacks over the years, but she held on. She had been holding on, all this time, because she knew she was still needed.
Before I got married last 2023, I remember her telling me of a dream she keeps having. Her mother and my brother had been visiting her, asking her if she already wants to rest, that she can come with them whenever. She told me she always refused because she knew I still needed her, she knew I was still so so alone.
Perhaps when she knew my heart is already at peace having found the love of my life, she felt that she could go, that she was actually free to go, not because she was being held captive, but because her mind is finally at peace knowing that I will be taken care of.
I don't know why I write this here, but I guess I just need to let it all out. I have always been struggling with my mental health. I was one of those gifted child stories who lost their giftedness when life became too much.
Now I have been late-diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. Things make sense now. It was not a superpower, the 'gifted' child was simply just the hyperfocused kid. When financial problems dawned on my mind, the stress overshadowed the so-called superpower.
While my classmates worried about homework and group projects, I, too, worried about that, plus what we're going to eat tonight and tomorrow. Where do we get the money to pay for a school project, and home utility bills. While my classmates slept comfortably at night, I slept 5 to 6 hours a night, to wake up early the next day to go to school early because there's no electricity at home and I have to work on my homework in the library where there is lighting.
Come uni, I had to answer a mental health questionnaire, and because I answered truthfully, I was flagged for a mandatory psych visit before I could even enroll. I got my very first diagnosis - depression. The doctor was shit in all honesty but I did it and paid for it just to get enrolled.
Years later, and many many doctors later, I finally know that it's actually bipolar disorder. And after years of advocating for myself, I finally know I'm not defective, I'm simply Autistic, and Hyperfocused.
Unfortunately the generations of unchecked physical health in my mother's side of the family has finally reared its ugly head and now I am facing so many health issues I feel like I'm making a grocery list.
Health issues they put down to simply being 'hated by faeries' turned out to be fibromyalgia.
Being too soft, moany about pain, and moody on periods is actually PMDD and PCOS.
Having lower back pain isn't 'just' because I'm overweight, having widespread joint pain isn't just because I lack exercise. It's a desiccated disc in my spine, from weight lifting.
Asthma, diabetes, chronic vertigo and migraine, and some more unknown conditions possibly, being figured out by endless doctors appointments and labs and imagings. I've gotten so used to taking MRIs i actually fall asleep in it.
I realize now that I am grieving many things at once. I am grieving my losses in the family, both immediate and extended.
I am grieving the gifted child and her sparkle of curiosity for the world.
I am grieving the athletic, active person I once was. That person who used to work a full shift and then proceed to brisk walk eight kilometers afterwards.
I am grieving that person who used to lift, do martial arts, and walk all over the place.
I am in a state of grieving and it feels like there is no end
But i know there is. I will keep going.
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
2087
dededos
