Stop the Stigma: Mental Illness in Today's Society, and My Own Struggle With OCD.

So a few weeks ago, I came across something on Facebook that irked me to no end. It was one of those situation posts where they name a situation and the roles of people in it, and you had to assign a friend a role by typing in whatever instruction they gave you (for example, "Your Wedding: your groom will be  the first friend that pops up when you type the letter "R" in your Facebook friend search engine, your maid of honor will be "H", etc, etc.).

In this instant, the situation was "You are in a mental hospital." The roles involved patients running around naked, licking the walls, and other preposterous things. The sad thing about it is that kids would pass this post around, tag their friends, and laugh about like it was nothing but a joke.

Like being mentally ill wasn't a serious problem.

Like receiving treatment for said illness was something to snort derisively at.

Like they had any idea what they were talking about.

Usually when I bring these things up to my peers, some will agree with me, and some will brush it off, saying "Geez, take a joke, will you?"

Right. People losing their identity, suffering from a problem they can't explain, a problem they just can't seem to solve no matter how much they try. Wow, that is a hoot. Hahaha.

I've seen this question brought up so many times, and I want to add it here, because it's probably one of the most insightful things I've read: You wouldn't tell someone suffering from asthma to "Don't make a big deal out of it, man. Just breathe." You wouldn't tell a cancer patient, "Just fix your cell count. Grow the normal amount." So why is it we think that the proper way to help a mentally ill person is would be to say "Be normal, you're acting like a freak" or "Stop moping around and be happy"?

We can't. I suppose it's hardest to relate to or understand mental illness because it's in an individual's head, and try as they might, other people will never know what's going on in another person's brain.

So if you don't know what it is you're actually making fun of, tell me again why you're doing it? To compare it to a more pop culture topic, it's like hating Twilight without having read the books or the movies. You do it because you think it makes you look cool. You do it because other people do it. You do it because if you don't, people will think you're obsessed with sparkly vampires. But have you taken the time to read the books? To actually know about it yourself and form your own opinion? No, you just jumped on the bandwagon and began spouting things of which you really know nothing about.

Nowadays, when people go around using the word "retarded" lightly, other politically correct people snap their head around and tut-tut at them. Why do we stop at that word? Why not tell people who say "Oh, yeah I'm totally OC, I'm so neat" or "Dude, you're changing the plans again? You're so bipolar" that they're just as politically incorrect as the people who use the word retarded?

These illnesses aren't to be taken lightly. They're not an adjective with which you describe your personality, they are real disorders, which a lot of people truly suffer from. I should know: my senior year in high school was marred by a nervous breakdown, two hospital stays, three months of recuperation, and endless hours of therapy. I had to fly home from our Australian Christmas trip because of my obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I spent New Year's in and out of consciousness (thanks to the sedatives the gave me), only briefly getting up to watch the fireworks from my window in Medical City. My freshman year at Ateneo was cut short by yet another breakdown, which prompted by family to send me to the States for further treatment, where I stayed for 2 and a half months.

While I was there I spent some time in a residential facility. Possibly the most difficult chapter of my life: I was all alone; my mother was not allowed to visit or talk to me, and so I spent my days dialing and redialing her number hoping she would pick up. It's still quite difficult to talk about it, so I think I'll stop here. Someday, I'll be able to get the whole tale out, and if it helps people like me shed the stigma of their disorders, then it'll be worth the pain of talking about it.

The other day I saw on Tumblr a campaign by the city of Sacramento called Stop Stigma Sacramento.
It described everyday people with everyday jobs and lives, dealing with their own mental illness. I hope to start something like that here in the Philippines, with the help of psychiatrists and therapists, because there are a lot of you out there who have these problems and just can't find a hand to hold and the help they need.

To finish on a lighter note, I really want to praise Jesse Eisenberg. He too, suffers from OCD, and deals with it and his career. If he can get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, then there's that much more hope for the rest of us.

**And watch his new film Now You See Me :)) It's kickbutt.

Bookworm Since Birth

A Day In The Marketplace

Granted, the marketplace was situated in modern-day Manila, and not in Belle's France, or Jasmine's Agrabah, but it was magical all the same.

It was Rockwell's The Next Big Thing's Bazaar, and I had already bought myself Loki and Thor shirts and a Harry Potter bookmark. I was all set to go, when I decided to take a closer look at a jewelry stall. Now, prior to visiting the bazaar, I had already sworn off trinket-buying. I had more owls and fake gems than I knew what to do with. But my friend was still off buying clothes, and so, out of boredom, I decided to take a closer look.

They had absolutely everything. They had syringe pendants, carousel necklaces, literal hearts (none of that fluffy Valentine hearts, I'm talking pendants that looked like your own beating heart), skeleton hands that worked as a cuff so it'd look like it was grabbing you, and so much more. Soon,  I had asked for a basket and was stuffing it with finds.

The first one I grabbed almost got away, actually. I was poking around, when the vendor started talking to the girl next to me about how they had a glass-encased rose necklace, a la Beauty and the Beast. My head immediately snapped up, and I started telepathically yelling "DROP. THE. NECKLACE. DROP IT. DROP IT." Finally she did, and my hand shot out and grabbed it.

There were also a lot of flying horses around in the form of pendants and rings. Now, I've yet to add horses to my jewelry zoo, and so I looked around for the perfect addition. Meet Pegasus!

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One of the last things I got was a real, working compass, just because I wanted to paint with the colors of the wind. 

And last but not least, a charm bracelet to tie it all together. It's got everything a fairytale fan could ask for: crowns, spindles, castles, carriages, a slipper, and of course, a wishing star to hope that one day the fairytale could come true.

And I Go Back To The 90's All The Time

Okay. Enough Taylor Swift pun-titles.

Just kidding. I've got a million more where that came from.

One thing I realized today was that 3 of my favorite series were all published in the 90's/early 2000s. Then the more I thought about it, I realized that the same 3 were the only series I reread, multiple times, for fun.

Every now and then (mostly during the scorching Manila summers), I hit a lull, reading-wise and I start turning to familiar, comfortable reads. Sometimes I just miss them so much that I just pick em up, even though I'm the midst of a violent tug-of-war by at least 5 books, all vying for my attention. And those familiar reads are, in no particular order: J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (no duh), Tamora Pierce's Immortals Quartet, and Meg Cabot's The Mediator series.

To be honest, I haven't read the entire series as many times as people think. I've gone over each book at the least, twice, at the most, five. That being said, there are some passages that are permanently marked in mind: The time Harry got a lemon lolly at the zoo, Ginny's valentine to Harry, Fred and George promising a toilet seat to Molly, Harry's adorable "Wangoballwimme?" to Cho Chang...

I can't stop fangirling over Tamora Pierce's books. I feel like one day, I'll just have to plop down and post a 100-paragraph post on the awesomeness that is her Tortall Saga. What I love the most about it is how it stretches over generations (The first series has Alanna as the protagonist, and the third is narrated by her daughter, Aly) The Immortals Quartet is just 1/5 of the Tortall story, but it's my favorite, because of two words: Numair & Daine. They are my OTP. I shipped them even before I knew what OTP (One True Pair). I remember back in my freshman year of high school, when I was reading the last book for the first time, being so overpowered by a case of kilig-giggles, that I had to stop reading, because I was in the middle of the Reedley lobby. 

Possibly the most-read out of all three. Fun fact: The Mediator is part of the reason I dislike Twilight. It's actually a very petty reason, but when you're in 7th-grade, these things matter. The last book of the Mediator series (which was published before Twilight) was also named Twilight, and I just so happened to be reading it when Twilight-mania arrived. I pooh-poohed the new Twilight, saying my Twilight was better. And there it is, for the world to know: the trigger that sent Salve Villarosa into a manic hate-frenzy toward sparkly vampires.

The Mediator is about a girl, Suze, who can see ghosts. And it's her duty to send them on to the next spiritual stage: heaven, hell, purgatory, the next life, what have you. The books are hilarious and sweet, and 13 years after the first book's publication, still pop-culturally relevant.

I've yet to find a new addition to these legendary books, but with the new bundle of books I've lugged home, here's hoping.

A Little Piece of Childhood

I'm usually very stingy when it comes to praising books. "Too mushy. Too cliche. Too much a rip-off of that other book. IF I READ ABOUT ONE MORE GOSHDARNED LOVE TRIANGLE I WILL START BOYCOTTING YA FICTION." So what I love is when an unassuming book creeps on me, bites me on the ankle and turns out to be an excellent book.

That being said, the latest ankle-biting book I've read has gone above and beyond excellent.

 When I picked this up a few days ago, I merely gave it a cursory glance and mind-yawned at the thought of another Alex Flinn fairy-tale retelling. True, she had written A Kiss In Time, which is possibly the most adorable modern take on Sleeping Beauty out there, but she had also written Beastly, which was in and of itself, well, truly beastly. So though I've seen new Alex Flinn books published the past few years, none of them ever found themselves in my hands.

But, I am a sucker for Rapunzel, and so, for lack of another book to read, I purchased Towering.

Boy, was I in for a surprise.

The story takes a unique turn on the fairytale retelling route, as it starts out more macabre than magical. I'm talking small town up in the boonies, no cell service, long-missing kids, ghost of one the aforementioned kids crawling through the bedroom window, and your good ol' spinster old lady who lives by herself. So obviously with all this, you'd wonder how the story would ever get back to a blonde girl in a tower.

But it does. I can't say much because it'll spoil the whole story, but it is truly an amazing modern retelling. It's witty. It's mysterious. It's romantic. It's one of the few modern fairytales that teeters right on the edge of this world and another.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I saw that my Disney calendar was flipped to today's date, and today's picture just so happened to be one of my favorite scenes in Disney history:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame probably has the most underrated score of all time. Up till the 1998 Oscars, every Disney film of the 90's has been nominated for Best Score (mostly due to the talent of one Alan Menken). Then, mysteriously, HoND was released with nary a nomination its way. Out There should've been nominated for Best Song, at least. Tom Hulce's voice is angelical; I was so disappointed to learn that he had retired from the business. But anyway, this frame of Quasimodo standing on the balcony, belting his lungs out, probably ranks #2 on my favorite Disney scenes ever (1st would be Hercules belting his lungs out in front of a glorious sunset, and 3rd would obviously be the lantern scene from Tangled). 

Back to the topic of books though, I'm afraid I've only added to my to-read pile, rather than actually....reading them. I'm actually running out of places for them. Maybe I should go and find myself a nice tower.

Home For The Weekend

After the first week of my acting residency in Cebu, I flew home for the weekend, the primary reason being Iron Man 3.

My high school batchmates planned to watch IM3 together, and I am not one to turn down any chance to see Robert Downey Jr. The movie turned out to be pretty good; much better than the second one anyway. But nothing trumps an origin story, I think. Plus the music in this film was severely lacking and completely deviated from Ramin Djawadi's original musical concept for the first Iron Man. I think that was the only problem I really had with the movie: it didn't have any of the sass shown in Iron Man. The finale was spectacular however.

But the real happy news was when I went to Fully Booked and out of boredom rather than expectation, I asked if they had The Elite (sequel to The Selection by Kiera Cass) yet. Imagine my shock when they actually said the shipment finally arrived. And so I was directed to a cardboard box, and I grabbed my own copy literally hot off the presses.

Then today I spent my morning lolling about Fully Booked at The Fort, and once again, out of sheer boredom, made my way to the biography section, where two books immediately caught my eye.

I am beyond excited to read both these books about two very different daughters of monarchs. This is the first biography I've found about Anastasia that focused solely on her. As for Marie Therese, I've been curious about her since I watched Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, when Kirsten Dunst whispers to her newborn daughter, "Oh, you were not what was desired, but that makes you no less dear to me. A boy would have been the Son of France, but you, Marie Therese, shall be mine." That tender scene is one of the reasons I decided a while back that I would give my firstborn daughter the middle name Therese (the other reason is that I want to name one of my children after my mother). I've never read that much about Marie Antoinette's daughter, especially what happened to her after the revolution.

So now I'm well equipped, book-wise for my second week in Cebu.

49-Day Book Challenge: Day 17, Genre You Rarely Read (But Wish You Did?)

Easy. Classics and biographies.

I wish I was able to read biographies the way I do YA books, but the writing's obviously more sophisticated and flowery, so it takes more time for me to struggle through a chapter. I'm getting better at though; like they say, practice makes perfect.

Classics are a whole other matter. I've tried again and again to get into reading them, but I always end up caving and running back to YA with my tail between my legs. I don't know, they just don't hold my attention the way modern books do. Though lately, my determination to finish a classic has been strengthened by one awesome English teacher, Ms. Ng. Her love for Jane Austen & F. Scott Fitzgerald is totally infectious. Now I've decided to tackle The Great Gatsby. I love the time period it's set in; in fact, the YA book I'm reading now is set in the Jazz Age as well, so you might say I'm prepping for it.

Next question on the list is a tough one to answer: Favorite biography. Decisions, decisions.