A Filipina Mom Blogger

“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” Bill Clinton

Did you know that the Philippines has the highest incidence of depression in Southeast Asia? In 2004, there were over 4.5 million cases of depression reported in the Philippines.

Jeanne Goulbourn shares her wisdom on depression.

“Depression is a condition that knows no social class; it could strike anyone regardless of intelligence, educational attainment and financial standing.”

This wisdom she has learned in the midst of pain brought about by the sudden and untimely demise of her well-loved daughter, Natasha, who suffered from depression. As she grieved over her daughter’s passing, Jeanne said she asked God what losing her daughter meant, and prayed for a sign. The sight of over 100 dolphins convinced her she had a higher calling to help people with depression.

“I prayed that if I see five dolphins, Natasha might be in hell. If I see 10 dolphins, could she be in purgatory? But God, if you show me a lot of dolphins, more than 10, I know my daughter is with you. We saw about 108 in Puerto Galera,” she recalled, saying the sight was so rare it even brought the boatman to tears.

Like Jeanne, we know our grief will always be a part of our life and we eventually find ways to resolve it. She and a group of friends from various sectors formed the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation (NGF) five years after the death of Natasha. Its primary advocacy is to promote awareness on depression.

Not many know what depression is. I have written about suicide prevention and mental health before just to raise awareness. I don’t claim to be an expert on mental health. It’s just that in the course of my grief work at the Compassionate Friends Philippines, I’ve come across a few observations of these mental health issues.

1. Shame often prevents a person from seeking medical help because of this stigma towards mental illness. And even if they ask for help, the gravity of their problem is minimized as mere despair. Oh yes, I know of one death by suicide from a friend because of this reason alone.

Read more…

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak. Whispers the oe’r
fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare

Picking up the pieces

As we as a nation try to salvage what bit of dignity of we can still salvage on the failed operation of the police, the failure of the government of Noynoy Aquino and the wanton disregard of some irresponsible members of the media for the safety of the hostages, we should also examine how we as Filipinos dealt with the situation and conducted ourselves. Yes, the incompetence of the police, corruption and government and perhaps the arrogant demeanor of some media outfits are so routine to us that we’ve accepted them as a fact of life and part and parcel of being Filipino but at the end of the day, we must not allow these so-called realities cloud our ability to feel compassion – and more importantly to show this feeling of sadness and grief outwardly to those who are really hurting.

Read more…

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln

Butch turned 51 years old today. He is two years younger than me. As in all birthdays in my family, I celebrate it with food. The more we praise and celebrate life, the more there is in life to celebrate. This time around, I feel bad for waking up late and not preparing a special menu as I used to do in the past before my life became so busy. I love that he did not complain though. He even bought his own birthday cake for lunch. It makes me think that birthdays are nature’s way of telling us to eat more cake. (kidding!)

We spent the afternoon at the resting place of our beloved son watching the pretty blue dragonflies hovering nearby as well as the white-speckled butterfly that fluttered by the flowers on the basket. Just watching the wonders of nature was enough joy.

Earlier, I bought bright orange and pink flowers to brighten our living and dining room. I added a pale violet orchid plant to add the final touch on my antique writing table. He loved the flower arrangement and I hope that made up for my laziness today.

Read more…

Read more…

Arriving in Manila as a tourist in another country and to hear deaths of tourists in my own country was just so sad and shocking.

I just arrived from Kota Kinabalu at 10:00 PM tonight. I knew about the hostage taker Sp Rolando Mendoza when I read twitter updates at around 3:00 PM, the time I checked out from the hotel. It alarmed me that it started at 10:30 AM and still not much progress on whether the hostage drama would end. My husband said that a person like that is unstable. That should have been a warning signal for the negotiators.

Boarding the plane back to Manila at around 7:45 PM, I had no idea that a bloodbath ensued at 7:30 PM. There was no wifi at the Kota Kinabalu airport for me to monitor the hostage drama. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it to end in bloodshed. The bad news was relayed to us when my husband and I sat inside our taxi cab.

Read more…

The Groovies, my high school classmates (circa St Theresa’s College Cebu 1974) once again got into the groove of bonding moments. There were reasons to celebrate. Our class salutatorian, Deirdra came home from New Jersey for a visit. Birthday celebrants needed to make a wish and the groovies from Manila missed Cebu. You know, I look forward to these small reunions. Groovies remind me that we are still cool and awesome despite the passage of time. I draw inspiration from classmates that still manage to look good.

Marget Fernan-Villarica not only hosted the party but our stay as well in her lovely, comfy home. Our current president, Nerissa Soon-Ruiz gave this brilliant idea of auctioning off our give-aways to raise funds for our batch project. What fun!

Tess, the preceding batch president told me to write an article for our Coral reunion last year. It is only this year that I got to read the printed version of the STC Annual 2009.

Here it is:

Is there life after high school? To be honest, I was relieved when my high school graduation ceremony ended. In high school, I was a painfully shy, mediocre student with average grades (as in 81 to 85). I often felt intimidated by the smart and outspoken girls. You know how it is in high school – there are the popular girls and the invisible girls. I was one of the invisible girls but I was lucky enough to have a few friends who made me feel like I belonged to a group.

So do people ever recover from that intense high school social experience? Some don’t. They spend the rest of their lives trying to justify what they were, or were not, in high school. This is why high school reunions are so emotional, especially the first one. I declined to attend the 25th High School class of 1974 reunion because I was not ready to face that dreaded high school experience once again. Coupled with five deaths of family members in Cebu, I felt Cebu was just bad news for me and going home was not an option at that point.
Read more…