A recent post I made in a certain forum made me realize that I haven’t told anyone much about these things, especially the ones closest to me. Well, I suppose it’s about time. I won’t be able to leave these things behind until I drag it out from the shadows into the light.
I didn’t entirely realize this until about a year—or two—ago, but I have bipolar disorder, more popularly known as manic-depression. An extensive research into certain articles pertaining to psychology also suggests that I have exhibited mild symptoms of various other disorders: social phobia, avoidant personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. I will not go into detail concerning the nature of these disorders, since it will take me forever to finish this if I do. You can go read about them on your own time.
Let’s start with social phobia and avoidant personality disorder, since I experienced symptoms of these early in life. As children, my mother was terribly protective of me and my brother. Unlike other children who experienced parental protectiveness, I didn’t mind, because it excused me from the tiresome process of socializing with other children. I have always wanted to feel like I was needed, but I was also afraid of hurting others and myself in the process (those of you who have watched Neon Genesis Evangelion know what I’m talking about—yes, I’m a Shinji Ikari). By reason of this dilemma, I experienced that sense of fading away that certain loners had—every day I would wake up and touch and speak to myself to make sure that I wasn’t fading away completely. I guess that, deep inside, I already knew the remedy to my problems; that’s why I started writing.
Disappointing, isn’t it? You were all probably expecting me to say that I started writing because I wanted to make a difference in this world, and if I had that puffed-up sense of superiority that some "writers" have, I probably would. But fuck that. I created various people in my imagination and talked to and wrote about them. Then I would read what I wrote to myself to make sure I still existed and that I wasn’t a failure.
Those characters weren’t perfect either; they all had their ups and downs. I detest western superheroes because of their two-dimensional personalities, and that’s why I never wrote about people like that.
No matter what I wrote, however, I never was fully satisfied. So I wrote, and wrote, and wrote some more until I felt my hand would fall off. I never told anyone I was writing; I always pretended that I was just drawing some stupid shit—well, I did draw stupid shit occasionally.
Let me digress a bit. Maybe some of you wonder why I love to watch anime (Japanese Animation). More than anything else, I have been influenced by anime. A lot of the things I know in life came from watching anime and trying to uncover the meaning behind every show I saw. This is not to say that every anime I saw was a work of genius (some of them were crap); but a lot of them are ambiguous, and I tend to interpret every thing I experience in a way most people couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I guess some call that "genius", but I’m not going to start patting myself on the back. Let’s just say I’m unnaturally perceptive and let it go at that. In many ways, anime kept me from total self-annihilation.
Now that you’ve read all of that, I’m sure you can imagine how hard school was for me. I grew up in a very democratic family, a family that believes you shouldn’t conceal anything from your children and that they should be given free will to discover what is right and what is wrong—within certain boundaries, of course. If the discovery would prove physically harmful to the child, it is heavily restricted. So when I went to school, I just sat there, watched, wrote, listened, and shut up. I never recited anything and never spoke to anyone until the middle term of my third grade. One teacher believed that I was stupid because I never said anything. Maybe she was right. But then, I remember an old saying that people who didn’t know when to shut up were also stupid.
I’ve always watched people, have you noticed that? I’m not sure if they noticed me noticing them; since no one complained, I guess they didn’t care. But I digress again.
It grew progressively worse when I was in high school. I didn’t believe that I had what you would call true friends—I did have four playmates, but I never considered them friends even though we still met occassionally for 4 more years after elementary. I was still afraid of people, and I always believed they were throwing stares of malice in my back like a pair of sharpened knives. Nonetheless, I still watched them—partly due to my distrust of them, and at the same time I was also fascinated by them.
Before I forget, let’s get into my symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. When I was younger, I tended to count my steps when I was walking, touch various things and bounce them around, put them into my mouth or nose, and so on. I always got distressed when my things weren’t in the right order (or disorder), and was forever making sure I had everything I needed and didn’t leave anything untended when I leave the house (sometimes I go as far as retracing my steps after walking for ten blocks and going inside the house to make sure I didn’t leave anything on). It may not seem much to you, but they are still symptoms of OCD.
The hardest days of our lives was when my father quit his job in the US and returned to the Philippines because of stroke. My mother never had what you’d call a stable paying occupation after Anderson-Blake, so we got into trouble financially. We tended to forgo decent meals and occasional trifles to pay for various every day expenses. My mother had to borrow money from many of her close friends just to make ends meet. The foreclosure scams GSIS pulled on us didn’t help very much, either. I stopped writing due to the heavy stress I’ve been experiencing. I guess I was still alive, but that proved to be of little comfort, and I frequently considered suicide.
When my father died, it just made things a bit worse.
I’m not going to be perfectly clear concerning the details of my antisocial personality syndrome. My mind was in a terrible mess during that period. This was also around the time I started college, and my mother worked in Hawaii as a caregiver (thanks to my aunt’s help). My father’s death demoralized me more than I would have believed. If I could have only cried when he died—and whenever I had felt miserable—then things probably wouldn’t have gotten worse. A few things I noticed was that I began to lie a lot more. I’ve also had frequent thoughts of doing violence or fatalities to anyone who got in my way, but I kept a tight grip on them. One thing that really stands out was my total disregard for my own safety, as well as the safety of others. I vaguely recall myself almost getting run over by many vehicles—I was even curious to know what would happen if I did get run over.
Looking back, I have been through a lot of accidents, but somehow I have lived through them all; my body seems to know when I was approaching fatal dangers. That conjures up a rather peculiar possibility. I don’t really put that much stake on Providence, but it all seems just a little too far-fetched to be coincidence.
All the stress I have accumulated since childhood up to my father’s death had somehow transformed itself into manic-depression. A manic-depressive tends to be very friendly—gregarious even. They are sometimes highly optimistic, highly cynical, and full of energy. Manic depressives experience extreme periods of happiness, sadness, anger, etc. I went through them all. Most of the people I’ve made contact with in Tinig.com are familiar with this phase of my life, since I was in my prime in the forums back then. It may seem antithetical, but a lot of people were attracted to my openness, and I made a lot of friends. That ultimately paved the way to my slow, but steady, recovery from the brink of total madness. I still have to keep I tight grip on my emotions, but all in all, I am on the mend (I hope).
So there you have it. If—after reading this—some of you feel the urge to break your ties with me, go ahead. I don’t fucking care. For those of you who’ll stay friends: welcome to my world, and thank you very much for staying.
