The White Noise is Just Too Loud

"I can make it" I said to myself even though all I could hear everyday is the white noise that seem to grow louder and making it impossible for me to think of anything else.

"I can do this" I said to myself as I stare into space once again, waiting for something to happen. The thing is, nothing is happening and I feel like I am just keeping my hopes up because I know that if I allow myself to be vulnerable to this type of melancholia, there would be chaos and I have to face a lot of questions from different people who will keep on asking me, why? It's tiring, it involves a lot of people making hasty conclusions about me, and it's something I don't need at the moment.

However writing this article right now is something I might need -- a release.

The chest pain is still there even though I tried everything to soothe it down, from listening to happy music to meditating, and doing my best to always be happy, yet I still feel it. I still feel the sting. It's very weird because I don't know how it started. I also feel empty at the same time in the same area. How can something be both painful and empty at the same time? Which one started first, the emptiness or the pain? Why? It also seemed like I've been feeling empty for a very long time (for a conservative estimate, let's just say about around 2 years) but it also seemed like the pain was always there as well, in some way it just escalated dramatically these past few days.

In those two years, I had been pushed beyond my limits in fundamental aspects (physically, mentally and emotionally) in order to deliver outcomes that my program so required. Basically everyone in my class is either anxious, depressed or just really lucky. At those times, I had so little time to sleep, how much more with time spent thinking about my well being, or mindfulness, or basically becoming a better person? It was rush hour all the time. Instead of slowing down to think if I am overworking myself, I use it to think about how I can be more efficient or how much work I can get done as fast as possible.

Because of these, I was very vulnerable to mood swings. I was always angry, frustrated and critical at a lot of things and everyone around me, including people who would go through a lot of lengths just to appease me. I hated myself. I keep feeling like a failure in a lot of things, about having such small capacity to do work, about being so inefficient, about always being mean, about being unable to give enough to this and that. My relationships suffered a lot and I became and still am, always tired (even though I don't do that much work these days).

I've been doing my best to keep myself happy, like watching really nice K-series, but things like these turn out to be just mere distractions from the hurt that I'm really feeling instead of something that genuinely makes me happy. Somehow, these things have also evolved into something more sinister for me. Watching those rose-colored fantasies painted in K-dramas, I feel shameful surges of envy even though I know very well that these are fundamentally fictional. For now, I'll slowly take it off the list.

Even spending lazy quiet afternoons on good days are making me feel isolated. The white noise is too loud and is becoming more and more unbearable. The chest pain is still there and it's becoming an obstacle to my breathing. All while I keep feeling like an empty bowl.

But you know what? To hell with everything else, but I am not giving up. Know that I know that this statement is so easy to say, but is so darn difficult to do. Yes, things seem bleak and dark and stone-cold dry these days (that somehow it seems like a miracle or a bit stupid on my part that I am still hoping that things will get better) as I am experiencing another mega-titanic slump (again) for the nth time in the past months.

But the thing is I know better that this is not the most important part of the struggle. It is not on the amount of struggle I am experiencing at the moment but it's the fact that in the midst of all of these shitty and hostile conditions, I am still not giving up.

"Fall down seven, get up eight" and "If bitch ang life, then dapat mas bitch pa ka (If life is bitchy, then be bitchier)" became the wise words from people that I am somehow living by right now. I am not stopping until I emulate the grandest version of myself possible. I am not stopping until I am happy, until I have learned and grown from my experiences, until I have freaking won. So let the white noise drown out everything, let this horrible chest pain continue for now and let this emptiness continue to eat me alive while I'm still alive. I'll accept all of it for now because I know that all this pain and emptiness I am feeling is all temporary and besides, I will be much noisier when I blow my victory horn at the end of the day anyway.

Never say die. 🔥

P.S.

I forgot the person who quoted "If bitch ang life, then dapat mas bitch pa ka (If life is bitchy, then be bitchier)". I found it somewhere in one of my social media accounts. Whoever you are, thank you for this quote. It's very motivational and is helping me go through really rough patches at the moment. I hope you stay inspired. 🌄