May 20, 2022

I was browsing Facebook and I saw this post that my best friend shared to me. It is a post of a woman where she experienced near death because of stress. She almost say goodbye to the world. Let me share you the picture first.

From her post, she said that never in her life she suffered something like to the point that her body become hard and numb, she can't breathe and had less oxygen, why? Because of stress.

When she was rushed to the hospital, the doctor asked if she had a fight with someone. People often thinks it was a made up or in Filipino term "arte lang yan", but you never know until it happens. She woke up with a difficulty in breathing, when in fact there are lots of reason to wake up but not in that way.

I will end the translation on that part to tell you that it happened to me too.

It is true. It happened to me too but my suspicion is I only have low blood because I did a BP on myself and I did had low blood pressure. Remember my post titled Near Death Experience at 2am, I thought it is just like that. I thought I just had a heat stroke and a heart burn because that was the combined feeling I felt that time. After I saw the post of the lady on above picture, I realized what happened to me was the same as hers. I didn't lost my senses or passed out because I don't want to pass out. I calm myself because I don't want to go to the hospital. I don't want my family to worry. I don't want someone to get horrified.

Before it happens I had lots of stress I know, even from the past days before it happens. However, I thought that those stress are just normal stress, normal irritation, worriness, and pressure because I always feel it at work. I never thought that if it accumulates, that will happen.

Stress is not really good if we don't know how to react to it. All of us feel it everyday, but we have our different ways on how to act from it. Some are more pressure and become negative that start from simple stress. Some find solution afterwards and stress is just a warning, not the one that will trigger to make you feel bad. I can have both of two. I react to stress and solve the problem but I get irritated while solving. The problem to this problem is that, the problem I am solving should not be my problem but there is someone that is causing the problem and that person doesn't care she is spreading negativity to lots of people.

Not only that, I have lots of build up of stress from past problems to present and it is growing. My cells are all dying because of this and that is the worst that I am giving to my body. It seems I am not happy about my life, but nope, I am happy but it doesn't last long. It will replaced with little problems. I do everything to find an outlet to remember all my worriness for a sec but still it is still in my system. That is why I almost died that night.

My Realization

I don't want to list down all the reasons of my stress. I don't want to share all of my problems. What I want to share is that, I have poor mindset. I only have one life. If I die, I know what will happen to my family. I know what will happen to my friends, to my dog Unnie and my close friends at the office. I might not be the favorite in all aspect, but still my passing will be painful.

I only have one life. Problems are part of our daily lives and I can't solve it all in a day. What makes it worst is that, I have anxiety. I always feel I am useless when I not doing anything so I continue to be busy, to be useful, but I completely forgotten I am just a human and I get tired. I need to rest. I need to get a rest, physically and mentally. I need to stop being busy and just lie down in bed, listen to music, watching good series and it doesn't matter if I binge watch, as long as it refreshes my brain and reset everything that would be fine. Can I do this to myself?

First, I need to accept that we only have 24 hours in a day and I can't do everything. I can only finish what I can finish in a day.

Second, realistic planning. I need to lower my goal and if I failed to achieve, that is okay.

Third, rest. Rest means sleeping longer time, watching favorites series, eating good food, talking to loved ones, just feeling refresh after it.

Fourth, refrain from overthinking. I always tell myself to not to overthink but its hard. I need to search for more valuable information and strictly apply it.

Fifth, forgive myself. I am hard on myself. It seems me and myself are not bff anymore. It looks like I have two person inside of me. I need to believe in myself and forgive myself if I failed in something. If I can't do my plans, I will start again tomorrow. It is okay if the results is delayed as long as I will not affect my mental health.

Since our everyday life is not getting easier, we need to acknowledge every little things we accomplished everyday. It is okay to fail. It is okay to not meet goals, or even if you don't have money. It is okay. What matter is that you are healthy physically and mentally. It is never to late to take care of ourselves.

Images are screenshot from Floramae Encinas FB account