Give me a bittersweet ending

Two weeks ago, I was ready to say I love you.

For a while, we were okay. I thought that, finally, things would change. But hearing myself say these words now just makes me want to hit myself in the head. I've thought this too many times before, what made me think it would be different this time?

I don't remember what happened nor why I had a sudden change of heart. But I remember the feeling. I never forget the feeling. I don't remember what was said because I rarely talk back anymore. Whenever hurtful words are said I make sure it goes out of the other ear. Whenever I am hurt by your actions, I make sure to let it pass. No point in bearing unnecessary stress. So I let it go. But not the feeling. I just never forget the feeling.

Arundhati Roy said something about it in The God of Small Things, "When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do.They make people love you a little less"

I thought things would be better as long as I kept you on the edge and on your toes. That you'll strive as long as you weren't too comfortable. Man, I had really thought... Stop. I have to stop blaming my thoughts.

Ningas kugon.

Truth is, I don't want to talk about it anymore but we will, because you will ask--what happened? You were changing to a better person. You have a job now. You rarely go out with your friends anymore. I have no answer. I chose to forget it all. Except the feeling.

We're not even back to square one, we're way behind square one. And I don't know where we'll go from here. I'm just tired of fighting for something I'm not even sure of. For now, I feel myself slowly pulling away, yearning to let go, to move on, and to start over.

Too bad, I was ready to say I love you.

Some things happen in real life

I co-organized an event with a childhood friend last Saturday. We were grade school classmates and he's one of my last remaining contacts down south (Alabang-south). He currently owns a studio and is in a band with one of our former classmates. They were best friends then and still are.

Anyway, the event was last Saturday and things went well. Drank and smoked up, the usual. Except that it wasn't as hardcore as when you go to, say, a typical gig in B-Side, Saguijo, or Cubao Expo, where everyone's fucking wasted it goes past fun and back to not-fun.

I was supposed to be the host of the night but because, hello, this is me, I messed it up by being awkward and dorky. I couldn't even remember what I said and I even tried to smoke up thinking that it would give me more confidence and make me more talkative, because it usually does. All it did though was make me more jittery and forget what I was going to say. I couldn't say anything decent primarily because I was on foreign ground and I didn't know a single person in the audience.

I was saying things about who the previous band is, who the next band is, who the upcoming bands are, but what was going through my head was, "Hello, I don't know any of you. I don't know why I'm here. Where am I even? I don't know who the band that played was. I don't know who the next band is. Actually, I don't know any of the bands. Can I get out of here now?"

So after the second stint, I just stopped. I don't know which was worse, doing a bad job at hosting or quitting like a spoiled brat.

(My mood is coming down at the moment, so this post is starting to sound depressing, but Saturday night wasn't; it was just all things awkward.)

Well, life went on,.

Then it was time for my friends' band to play. My co-organizer was the drummer and our ex-classmate was the bassist. It was a challenging set for them because they couldn't hear themselves and 3/4 of the band were already wasted.

Anyway, it was before their last song I think when it happened. Their vocalist thanked me and at the same time decided that it would be brilliant to make fun of their bassist. It went something like this:

"Oh, yeah, happy birthday to (name of some guy)! Also, thanks to (my name) of Makati (I'm not even from Makati.) She was our emcee for the night. (Pause.) They said that our bassist used to have a crush on him. (Loud cheering from the crowd.) (Gaddemit, thisisnothappening.) I don't know. That's what my bandmates told me. (Cheering, shouting, whistling.) (Keep smiling. Be a sport. Just keep smiling.) Is that right , (name of bassist)? (Crowd cheered louder.) (Bassist shrugged.) (Crowd and band still laughing.) (I was already dead inside but my face was stuck in an awkward smile.)"

To top it off, this bassist lost his balance and fell off the stage in the middle of the song. I know. The stage in the bar was barely knee high so he was able to catch himself from falling face down and in an attempt to regain his balance, ended up sitting on the edge of the stage. It wasn't that bad. Still, it was bad.

While it was true that he did have a crush on me, we were twelve, for crying out loud! He looked creepy then, I never hung out with him and rolled my eyes whenever I would catch him looking at me. Yes, I was a little bitch. But I regret all of that now; he's a really decent guy and currently in a relationship with a really beautiful and charming girl but that's not the point.

The point is, I can't seem to stop embarrassing myself. I do it so effortlessly. Scenarios like this look so adorable on TV but believe me, in real life, it isn't. It's all good fun though, so, 'til next awkward moment. I get one everyday anyway.

Oh, and somebody uploaded a video of what happened to Facebook.

Filler Post

Diary entry alert. A day in a life nobody has to read.

I liked UP's class schedule, Wednesday being the mid-week break. Even if I had already left the "premier" university, when they implemented the Monday "lie low day" instead of Wednesday, I was appalled. For logical reasons, Wednesday was set as the in-between for the Mon-Tue and Thu-Fri stress so that students would have had enough time both for academics and everything else. Setting "Monday" as the third weekend instead of the usual "Wednesday" just to be in accordance to GMA's let's-commemorate-holidays-on-Mondays Act was beyond me. No matter how you look at it, Mondays were never meant to be a "lie-low" day and Wednesdays were perfect to do in-between stuff because of all obvious reasons. I'm just repeating myself herfe.

I have been working hard for half the week and I'm scheduled to do so until its end; I thought I would barely get to this Friday with my sanity still intact. Today though, a Wednesday, proved to be a lot of things. I am physically and emotionally exhausted but also  feel very together overall. I will have to wake up in 3 hours time but that's a problem to be dealt with later on. I'm just glad that I'm still given this slight chance of being human.

I should update my employers on what I've been up to today but I don't feel like it.
C and I are still talking. I'm sure I'll have the guts to tell him what exactly I've been feeling and thinking soon enough. Please wish that everything goes well.
I sincerely and desperately hope that this week ends up to be as productive as I expect it to be. JUST PLEASE.

That's all.
And I don't want to go on my event on Saturday but I have to because obviously I'm a co-organizer. Bleagh.

Stressing out stress

Obviously I can't handle stress very well having a mood disorder. I either sulk and do nothing or try to do everything and still end up focusing on nothing. Last week I could barely lift my head up from the pillow so much as plug in my laptop charger, now I want to do everything and more, but too many things are running in my head I'm on an internal panic. But it's the relatively nicer kind of hypomania, and I'm thankful.

I had been down for weeks which the recent job loss scare aggravated, and I only started feeling that I was going up again I guess just two days ago; I was able to finish a report for work and yesterday another one. It never comes without a cost though.

I can't express my emotions very well in person, or I express it too well, I don't know. It's either I end up bursting into tears or into an ugly fit of anger. There is a recent event that has been stressing me out, but I can't talk about it because it shouldn't really concern me. Part of me would like to believe that I just don't understand grief very well and the ways that people cope with it but the saner part of me knows that I'm sensible enough to know. 

I don't hold back much when I write here but this time I think it's better not to divulge much detail. One important thing though, and I've said this too many times before it must be the truth, I don't think C and I are going to work. It's too complicated and I don't think I should be in such a taxing relationship. I could easily give up the good times in exchange of losing the stressful scenarios too. While I recognize that all relationships are stressful, I should also recognize when it's time to let go. I JUST DON'T FUCKING KNOW HOW OKAY. 

For the past almost two months, I really thought we could live like this. Me doing my thing, him doing his. I wouldn't even have to hang out with his friends and family when I don't want to (and believe me, I don't want to) and he assured me that I don't have to. But this recent event just turned the entire relationship a whole 180 degrees.

I know that he's not feeling well, he's sad and all, but I just can't empathize. Not only that I can't empathize, it also annoys me when he opens up to me and says the wrong things. But I guess it's true love when you ask the person how he feels and listen to him in spite your internal turmoil. True love is something I'd rather pass out on then.

Why be with someone with friends and family you don't want to be with? And on the other hand, why be with someone who doesn't want to be with your friends and family?

So, C, if you're reading this, please break up with me. See, I'm not even decent enough to do it myself.

---

I'll probably regret posting this and it will probably ruin the life of me despite trying my best to keep it toned down (yes, that is toned down, it's all worse inside my head). Oh, well.

Random Lists to See If I'm Still Alive Dot Com

At the top of my head, what makes me smile, rocks my socks off, and makes me warm and fuzzy inside LATELY (meaning I might have a different list entirely tomorrow depending on my mood):

• Natalie Portman
• Chatting online (sometimes)
• When someone randomly suggests a song
• Daft Punk
• Vampire Weekend
• Zac Efron and Hairspray
• Caravan Palace
• When our neighbor plays One Direction 
• (the previous 5 being they provide me) an opportunity to break out into a song and dance number
• Breakfast in the middle of the night (read: bacon)
• My youngest brother being witty and silly
• Photos of things that we will never see again e.g. Global Gutz, Bubble Jug
• My father watching The Price is Right
• Little River Band, Bread, Dan England and John Ford Coley, you get the point
• Hanging out--and just hanging out, no work talk whatsoever--with the prod group

Well, that was a short, pathetic list. I rarely smile lately anyway and I can't really look at Portman's photos and watch Efron's videos all day. I'll try to make one again tomorrow.

I cannot believe people are still talking about this

• Mention the F-word to someone. Even if you don't get an explicit response, you can still deduce their reaction from their gesture. You will almost always notice a shudder or a quick shift of position. People are either afraid to talk about it (people roll their eyes when, you know) or agitated to talk about it with the purpose of debunking it when they do not understand that it is, and always has been, tied up to socio-economics. It's never just about the gender.
• Rape may not have been the main idea of Vice Ganda's joke but defining which-joke-is-what is the least of the things we need to concern ourselves about. It reduced "rape" to something as mundane as a supporting idea to a superficial "fat" joke and that's that. If you don't think rape is wrong and is serious as fuck, you probably also like jokes about The Holocaust then.
• The joke was foul, that is a given. But would it have elicited this much commotion had Jessica Soho not been the subject? Of course not. People are more alarmed that this was done to someone who supposedly sits on a higher moral, intellectual, and admit it, socio-economic ground. Oh, please. We should be clamoring for responsible journalism as much as we are asking for the sanctioning of this type of entertainment.
• This is a battle of the giant networks, that should also be a given. Do I still need to explain this? In any case ABS-CBN admits defeat (which will not happen) and Vice Ganda indeed does get sanctioned for this, what good will that bring then to the fight for gender equality, as clearly, that's what most Jessica Soho defenders are supposedly banking on. You're right, Miss Soho, this is not about you, but the retaliation clearly was not about women liberation either.
• The elite also exists in media if you haven't noticed. This boils down to the use of media as an intellectual state apparatus. Similar to the tug of war of the majority and minority in our political system's national level, we are stuck in the middle of this debacle that neither enlightens the consumers nor engages them in a real democracy. People are only given the chance (or more aptly, the illusion) to comment, bash, and choose their sides but only in their personal spaces. Nobody talks about the real issue in the news. There is no clear and alternative explanation offered except in the tiny spaces within the internet (which will also cease to exist if they pass the Cybercrime Prevention Act into law). 
• The state doesn't like it when people know things. The state doesn't like it when people's opinions are different from what they're taught to believe. The state likes spectacles like this because it takes the attention away from the real problems. The state likes controversies like this because it keeps the people ignorant and on the surface. So why does sexism still exist? Why do the masses vote for someone like Nancy Binay and Bam Aquino? Why do the giant networks air crappy telenovelas that romanticize being oppressed and maltreated? The state condones and perpetuates this type of media--and culture--because it benefits from it, and vice versa. Welcome to the status quo, ladies and gentlemen.
• So-called issues like this will arise and die down much to our amusement and disgust over and over again. There really is nothing we can do about this unless we tear the system down. You get me?

A note to self tonight

Worrying and being frustrated will do you no good. Be at peace. Some things change slowly and some things never, these things would test your patience, but you can always let them go. Know when you're just being a quitter and know when you've been hanging on for too long.

Work hard and concentrate. Know which things you need to focus most of your energy on and which things should receive little or none. Turn negative energy into positive. Be mindful but wise.

dead fish coming through

i had the crazy idea of drinking tons of water thinking it would miraculously wash away the pain.
i also tried meditation
and masturbation
i also tried exercising
playing happy music
even to songs that make you feel important
like "The Final Countdown" and "Eye of the Tiger"
those sorts
i have tried talking to a friend (a little bit)
also tried playing with my siblings
but through all of these i just stared blankly and sat idly

there really is no way but through yourself, huh?

the ungrateful kid

i think i'm about to lose my job.

i care a lot but i can't muster the courage to deal with it
at this point i can't imagine any future
or my brain just don't want to entertain the thought of it. whichever.
i would really rather just... just.
while other people fall into depression without any reason, i always do, there's always a trigger and it's always my fault
maybe i don't have BD and i'm just spiraling down a tangled web I myself weaved
i know i will have to face this problem sooner or later
that is the right thing to do and i would like to believe that i'm still capable of doing the right things
but this is myself talking
and this is myself not doing anything

O

i have been given a choice of fight or flight. i see nothing as the choice i would like to make. i will float through and just be nothing. not live and not even die, just nothing.

i hope i am not indulging but i am also scared that i might be. i don't want to make an excuse. this was all me. this has nothing to do with BD or whatever over-analyzing of self you expect to hear, it's all me.

i wish i could say something. that i've been through a lot and i didn't know what to do, but life wasn't that bad and i did know what to do.

if i would be given another chance of course i would like to do things differently but see, i'm not sure if i would. that's how messed up i am and i'm starting to doubt if that would ever change.

being me means always having to say you're sorry

Why did I even give up on drugs?

i need to be numbed
nothing helps
overwhelmed
and not that kind.
i'm falling or walking
on a vast or narrow, dark or blinding
on what is endless or falls too short
time's at speed or clock not minding.
when i'd rather see nothing at the end and have it
than the glimmer of light that is beckoning
me to come close and embrace
the escape for a while, no more
no more
no more

Lips
the drum beats across the bass
the heartbeat at speed
bump
closer to almost skin
feel without touching
grind
down and up, slide and
fly
almost touching of

Which is it, the beginning or the end?

The transition between the summer and the rainy season brings in mixed feelings: the need to wake up and the urge to sleep in. While I didn't really have a "summer" kind of summer this time, the change in weather still hits as hard as any other year. Because after all, what makes summer "summer" is the weather. Or I can just keep telling myself that.

Days are still relatively hot and humid despite the occasional soft gusts of wind whistling through. The nights carry the very much missed cool breeze that makes stepping out to smoke a stick (or a joint) during witching hour more and more tempting everyday. Like such cheesy lines, the transition of seasons is both welcomed and not. While it signals the good end to a carefree season, the incoming weather brings in another challenge of not getting caught between the sheets of comfort and instead, choosing to get up and catch up on everything you missed being a (messed up) lazy summer bum.

In my case, the transition is equal to the pile of work left undone and the words left unsaid. I'd really rather take this as a cue to play "Dog Days Are Over" while eliminating the backlog one paperwork at a time. All the while I thought summer was my season. But summer of 2013 has taught me that as it turns out, I was just stuck in the highs of 2009, the speed of 2010, the romance of 2011, and the surprises of 2012. All the events of summer 2013 were some of the few things I don't look forward to reminiscing. Plus they all happened within myself and within a radius so short it might as well have been a dream or more aptly, a nightmare.

June 2009 - Went back to school like a rockstar
June 2010 - Was in Aurora for a really big thing I can't really say here
June 2011 - Varekai. VAREKAI.
June 2012 - Went back to the Film side of things

Maybe I should stop relating my life events to the weather, but one's got to look back in history, especially one that lives within a pattern that is yet to be broken. It's pretty clear that an overhaul is going to happen and I am more than ready for it, good or bad. At the moment though, I'll start by taking a long bath. If I'm going down, I might as well go down smelling good.

ARGH

Fuck this. No focus. No motivation.

I need some drugs. Just kidding.

I'm aching for a life revamp. Something new. But I'm always looking for something new. New love, new work, new environment, new highs. If I keep on looking for something new time and again I will forever live la vie boheme. I'm still not sure why that is such a bad thing though. Maybe I should go to that faraway land and hope that I will never get the urge to return. I should learn the good in the steady.

I was being a typical working petite bourgeois keeping passion projects on the side that I could already imagine myself being as boring and common for the rest of my life, but no, I just had to screw it all up.

Drama Aside

I have lost touch with myself. Two months ago, there were three related episodes/elements/events that triggered all of these reflexive posts online and a bit of self-destruction with a lot of self-contemplation offline, and I have just realized that I haven't shaken out of it since. I am looking forward to the day that I will be able to go back to those nasty conversations and write about them with the sensibility and full-grown humor of a proper hindsight. The only thing I need to focus on right now is to not stop moving. I need to get back on track with work and my relationships with people stat, or else I'd be broke, alone, and struggling with a very bad case of depression before I know it (i.e. in a few days time).

I have spent too much time trying to hold myself together that my life has started to fall apart. It took all of Me to try to stay afloat that I have forgotten my Self, and hence failed in trying to make it better.

Hashtag Selfie

I know this feeling. I've been here too many times before. It's the brink. The in-between. The moment of panic seeping in because my mood is about to swing hard and swing far to one of the poles. I'm steadily on my way to the peak of a rollercoaster.

Someone talked to me today, a former comrade. She's bipolar herself and is an active acitivist despite. She is still in treatment and urges me to get in touch with the movement again. Like what she said to me, I also believe that being with a collective would help me a lot but I just can't see that happening right now. I'm such a weakling. It was tempting though, to work far away doing what I love to do. I just can't trust myself yet. Maybe in time. Maybe.

I should stop whining and get a grip of myself. I should take advantage of this hypomania to finish all of the work I've been putting off. No more excuses, I said, then so be it. I'm not being judgmental by saying this, I know what it feels like to be judged, but reading all of the rants of other people about what they're going through made me realize that I need to step up. I was an opinionated, annoying, but very responsible control freak, and I'd like to be like that again, only better.

Too much sugar and I'll go up, too little and I'll go down.

It's a beautiful Saturday morning.

It's been a week without medicine and things are surprisingly steady. I have been unbelievably cool and very together. I lost a huge amount of money on a failed business venture, which means I am broke right now, which also means I will not be able to buy the camera I was saving up for. Somehow though, I have managed not to freak out.

A Saturday after a Friday night out feels like the morning after an awesome sex, even doing the dishes feels like a superhero duty I am more than happy to do.

Look up. It's a vast sky.
It's not there so you can lie on your couch and watch crappy TV.
Move.
Create.
Indulge in cliches.

On Freshman Year, Self-Harm, and the Fight for National Democracy

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.

Taking Control

What's it like to not have thoughts racing in your head? I cannot seem to remember.

I haven't taken any meds in more than 48 hours. I thought I would just quit. I thought I would stop going to the doctor, stop taking medication, and everything would just go back to normal. At least the normal for me. I would be back to being the unsuccessful undergrad who does everything and nothing alternately, she struggled everyday and hurt herself on some days but at least people loved her, or at least that's what she thought. Even so, I would give anything in the world for that.

Now I'm back to the void. I don't know where I stand in this world. I can't stand to be like this, I can't stand to be like that. If I'm going to keep avoiding each and every stressor, I wouldn't become anything.

Not taking meds have taken me back up, I guess. But I still feel empty. I want to do a lot of things. I want to get drunk, get wasted, and know what it feels to be alive, again.

I am tired of being a zombie, of being a victim of my own self, if there's any more "self" left in me to begin with.

I like this state, I like feeling. I like not dissecting my mood. It is just what it is and I make the most out of it. It is only then that I become a human being. Or I'm just overreacting. Nevertheless, not paying any attention to "it" would mean that there isn't going to be any way for me to make it an excuse. From hereon out, I will no longer tell anyone else, unless absolutely necessary.

Because my doctor was right. It might not be just the mood that has caused the recent events, it might have been largely me. My decision-making and my fucked-up personality. I may or may not have thought of "this" as an excuse to do what I felt like doing. Nevertheless, that's not going to happen again. Whatever happens from this day forward is just me, no mood disorder involved. I will take accountability for everything. I am no longer in treatment. I am taking control.

Burning Bridges

Yesterday, when I went to my pdoc I expected to tell her a very long anecdote on all the events she missed since I last took a visit. But of course I was only able to tell not even a fourth of a story. I told her the gist, the titles of each chapter, the lines out of context. She gave me a speech about how I should get more control, make healthier choices, and get a better lifestyle. She emphasized on taking care of my relationships with others, I shouldn't act on something just because I had the impulse to. She said that "this" is not an excuse and I should check if maybe there are also "personality factors" involved. That I wouldn't want to burn bridges with people close to me and have no one in the future.

I was pissed off at first. If there's anything I have always been scared of was "this" would become an excuse. I'd like to think I'm afraid of that more than anybody. And I have always wanted to think that I've been doing great despite "this". Maybe not so great, but hey, the last few weeks have been some of the worst weeks of my life and I'm still here. I still have a job, I'm not "living the summer", I haven't had sex with a stranger.

Truth is, I know what she means. I may still be here but my relationship with other people have been crumbling. Maybe it is more about being tactless, proud, and selfish than having bipolar disorder. Maybe I am the problem. Maybe it is time for an attitude check. Maybe I am really not capable of human relationships because I'm impossible, unlovable, and self-righteous. I am never satisfied and always disappointed with other people.

Even I would want to burn the bridge between myself.