Disability Week: Why give a big damn about it?

Life is full of inexplicably odd surprises: at a moment, you are on the top of the world, then down low like a gutter flower. When I was young, I was misguided, broken, and reckless and I have learned lessons the hard and tough way because life was fairly and unfairly imperfect. I explored so many things and lost all the love that I had to give and later on shifted the course of my life forever. I got sick, my illness deemed needed a lifetime cure. Being manic-depressive and surviving it is surely a battle that one has to accept and embrace forever until death to eternity.

My experience with the healthcare programs in the Philippines that addresses this mental issue is but limited. One thing is the cure: the medicated drugs you have to take on a regular basis to balance out the emotional and hormonal disorders in your system, but another thing is also the developmental and functionality of patients struggling with this kind of case. There is Occupational Therapy (OT), which keeps your mind focus on the aspects that will make you a responsible and productive person of society.

Surviving my disorder privately is not easy at all. There are preconceived notions from the public as well as prejudgment amongst institutions of being inadmissible and an outright outcast. People in 3rd world countries don’t necessarily understand this situation and take it lightly as a joke. Sometimes to the point of being branded with name-calling misdemeanors, rudeness and bad attitude. It is not right and proper to kid with this matter. Being diagnosed with a lifetime illness at face value seems to be so funny the 1st time you hear about it but experientially, there is something wrong on how this is being treated, socially-speaking. Healthcare programs should not only have the maintenance medications but also have society accept this occurrence in life – that it is but normal, and treat survivors as human beings, not like some machine that when a part gets chipped off, it gets thrown away like a piece of non-recyclable crap.

I am not pleased at all. Although I sound a little disappointed of Asia, there are things in life society does not get to comprehend right away. People don’t know what kind of war you are fighting inside of you. They just don’t understand. With this, I don’t point fingers and accuse, but all we have to do is responsibly deal with the illness we have, take the necessary precautions, engage in activities that will help you get better: be it prayers to God, arts and crafts, songs and movies, anything that will put all the pieces that have torn out and apart from you – back together again as a whole in its entirety.

Filipino:
Maliban sa paggagamot, kailangan din natin gumawa ng paraan para pagbutihin ang ating mga sarili sa pangkalahatan. Hindi lamang dapat tayo nalilimitahan sa ating mga gawain, dapat natin tanggapin sa buhay ang ating mga karanasan at ang mga bagay-bagay na makakabuti sa ating sarili, katawan, at pag-iisip.

Spanish:
Me llamo Erika. Esta loco y es la verdad. Pero en realidad, yo tengo un corazon grande.