So, while everyone else is bashing Grace Poe and Nancy Binay, here I am, contemplating about my sick head and its place in society.
I was 16 when I started cutting myself. I also did cut myself once when I was 14 but that wasn't out of sadness or anything, I just felt like doing it, at least that's how I remember it. Anyway, it didn't happen again until I was 16.
It was my first year in college. I was losing focus in my studies, the daily commute was stressing me out, I spent too much time applying for this certain organization I don't even know why I wanted to be a part of in the first place, there were just too many people everywhere, they were always too loud and always moving too fast, the 493-hectare campus seemed like a wild jungle with its kings and predators and I was this fragile insect. I didn't know what I was doing in college or what I would do after I've finished it.
The semester was about to end and all I could feel was anxiety and fear. I couldn't bear thinking about the future. I couldn't understand why I was failing myself purposely without intending to. It was confusing. I lost confidence, I wasn't "smart" anymore. But somehow I knew I could do those schoolwork, I knew I could write those papers, review for those exams, but somehow I didn't and I didn't know why. I blamed myself for being lazy. My chest felt heavier everyday. I would cry in bed and not sleep. I didn't cut myself so I could feel pain, I cut myself to escape it.
I struggled my way until the semester ended. I finished the first semester with two INCs, a 3.00 (1.00 is the highest, 5.00 is a failing mark) in Social Sciences (which is very ironic since I love social sciences and I've been reading about great thinkers even before I was allowed to), a 2.00 in PE (wtf), a 1.75 in Communications, and a 1.00 in Math. I aced Math. That's the biggest puzzle. I surrendered on everything else except Math.
Math made me feel better. It was different from all the other classes primarily because the professor was fair, progressive, and a nationalist. As a professor, he was an authority figure by title but he never made us feel inferior. He treated us as his equal. No symbolic violence could be felt in his presence. But my opinion of this professor and his class is related to how I felt at home in the forefront of the struggle for national democracy and is a different story entirely. I haven't realized all of these yet back then. I didn't know yet that it was these characteristics that motivated me to finish his class.
The next semester and summer classes was the same thing all over again. I could remember that I stopped thinking about my "worries" and, in a sense, was snapped back to reality during the PP 1017. I was already a nationalist, I just didn't know how to get involved.
The first semester of the next academic year I found out that I was given a Delinquent status. I wouldn't be allowed to enroll unless I finish my requirements for the INC subjects. I tried my best to. There was no other way. At this point I still cut myself whenever I felt extremely stressed.
I can't remember exactly when I stopped but I know why. I joined the fight for national democracy and I found a purpose. I realized why I must continue living. It was no longer just about me and my internal struggles. It was about the 99% (yes) and their everyday struggles. It was something bigger than finishing college. I dreamed of quitting school and working full-time as an activist. I felt down on some days but I "marched" on, there was no way but forward. Depression would kick in but there was always a better future to look forward to whether or not I realize it at that moment. I would talk to the "comrades" about it, and they would give me strength to keep on going.
But such things could only go on for so long for someone like me. I was consistently active for that year and inconsistently the next. The entire hullabaloo started again when I entered a relationship. My neglect of school dawned on me and I panicked. In addition, I found a new obsession in the form of my partner and everything that surrounded him. My mood disorder was triggered. I started cutting again. I didn't sleep. Some nights I would roam around, walking to nowhere. I drew a lot, which was something I wasn't fond of before. I became negligent of my duties in my academic org where I was holding a position. There was a standoff within the organization between the "reds" and the "non-reds". I took everything personally. I got depressed again. Then I was gone. I stopped school, took a job, and took a pause on being an activist.
I tried going back to school a year later. Went back to being active in the fight again. School lasted only half a semester this time, and being an activist a year. The last time I cut myself was the summer two years ago though I do not remember consciously doing it. Everything is a cycle I can't get out of and at the same time, a tangled web I had weaved.
Now, here I am, a misplaced former activist struggling with her own state of emergency. I'm sure I would have come out a lot worse if it weren't for all the things "the movement" taught me--Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, objectiveness, contradictions, selflessness, and other things no meds or therapy could have given me. Though I might momentarily forget these things and sometimes even question them when I'm having a bad episode, they are already a part of my self, and I will always believe in them deep inside of me, and that's what helps me keep my head together. It's the little inaudible voice that stops me from going amok when I'm manic and prevents me from cutting again when I'm depressed.
I wish I could go back to being tibak, but I am not brave enough to give up the comforts I have now for something I might give up on again in a year or less. If I'm going to do it, I must do it with all of me. If I'm going back to school, I must make it to the finish line this time.
For now, though, all I could do is help as much as I can in spreading national democracy as the sharpest line and do it the best way I know how--creatively.
Be your own advocate. Serve the people.
The Aftermath
Found these photos sometime ago in my old email.
April 4, 2006. VGA Camera, Nokia 6610.
