I often hear that line from people who are healing and dealing with personal struggles, and never did I imagine myself figuring out what they are trying to say. Isn’t that uptight to say? Isn’t that unfair for your family, considering that they have been with you? Isn’t that selfish for you not able to acknowledge other people’s presence, especially your friends? These are the questions that always come to my mind whenever I heard that line, and I couldn’t relate to it, not until the pandemic started.
Before the pandemic, I thought I was strong enough to handle myself and protect myself from anything, including my mind. Everything seems easy and fun at the same time. Whenever I feel down, I manage to continue my day without thinking too much about it. However, I realize that it’s because I never had time to feel the pain. I am surrounded by people who are fun to be with, my friends and classmates, and it’s because of them that I can cope with sadness much easier. Here comes the strict implementation of the health protocols, we were asked to stay at home and as much as possible refrain from going out, which means that I can’t see my friends and classmates more than usual. From that day on, I slowly recognize the feelings lying on the line, “You only have yourself at the end of the day.” Now, you would think, “well, I have my family,” but the thing is my family is one of those people who doesn’t have much bonding time because we are busy with our individual responsibilities.
I was stuck at home for almost a year, and there was so much going on within that time. Anxiety, loneliness, and stress kept on hunting me, and not to mention I was mentally exhausted with the online classes. I cried almost every night for an unknown reason. There were times that I was crying straight for more than a week, which on the other hand, ruined my sleeping schedule. I don't sleep until 3:00 pm, and I woke up at around 8 pm, then stay up for the rest of the night crying and overthinking. I tried to be productive, but I only ended up messing things around. I overthink and drown myself in sadness until I realized that no one could pick me up but myself alone. My only enemy is myself, so I have to fight against my mind. Luckily, I slowly learn to stand on my own. No one knows my silent battle, but I am learning a lot from it. I get it now- I was dependent on people. I depend on my happiness on whoever around me since before, that even having an emotional breakdown, I wasn’t able to manage them as I thought I did, instead, I just forget the feelings and invalidating my own emotion through spending more time with friends and things that make me happy for a moment. Look, I didn’t mean to say that it’s a bad thing. However, we have to learn how to defend ourselves in times that no one will be there for us. We have to independently get out from the things that ruined our mental health without invalidating our emotions. In short, we have to feel the pain and embrace them, so that the next time we would have the same struggle, it would be much easier for us to handle them on our own.
Furthermore, we have to enjoy our own company because it was never the responsibility of other people to make us happy. We have to find our happiness within us because once again, “We only have ourselves at the end of the day." People in our life are just driving tools for us to move forward, but ourselves alone is the engine to move smoothly. For now, I am slowly recovering from the things that almost ruined me, and I can finally say that I am happy by myself, and I don’t need anyone to fill that emptiness within me because I can do that for myself.
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