i have to confront myself about my looks

The past 3.5 weeks, I’ve been losing weight a steady rate. Part of it is because of the nausea from medications and part of it is from me just… making myself throw up. I’ve always struggled with the ideal of being a “skinny” girl, or even being the “too tan” girl. Personally, I think it is deeply rooted in the way that I was raised.

ang itim mo - you’re so dark

In the Filipino culture, you’re constantly criticized by your family and friends. “Ay Jakki, tumaba ka yata?” (Jakki, I think you got fatter?) “Jak, ang itim mo naman!” (Jakki, you’re so dark!) That was the normal conversation when greeted by family you haven’t seen in awhile. It’s almost engrained into your brain that you need to be thin and white to be considered beautiful. Morena (tanned skin girl) was never something I heard be considered beautiful. You wanted to be Mestiza or Chinita, a fair skinned girl.

Originally living in Hawaii, I was as dark as the red dirt that surrounded me. I was always out in the sun playing with my friends and having fun. Until one of my cousins introduced me to what Likas was. It was the infamous whitening soap widely used by everyone in the Philippines. They’d use it on their face and on their bodies, almost giving them an ill-appearance. Drowning in long sleeves, hiding under shade, applying copious amounts of sunscreen. It took me a long time to become comfortable being tan. Even now, I still hide from the sun if I can because I don’t want to be tan. I get anxious when my skin tone changes darker than my BB cream. It’s sad.

ang taba mo - you’re so fat

And with my weight, it’s always been something I’ve struggled with. I remember the jabs my family would throw at me, even if they were “playful”. Taba. (Fat) I hated that. I hated being called that, even when I was wearing a Size 0 pair of jeans. Taba, because my stomach hung over my shorts a little. Taba, because my cheeks were a little puffy. I hated it so much.

So when I moved to Japan, in my opinion, it got worse. I was surrounded by small Asian girls with fair skin and beautiful long hair. I was a American Size 2, but I wanted to be a Japanese Size S. Which surprisingly, are extremely different depending on where you shop. I wanted to be small. I wanted to move to Washington as the petite Asian girl who just came from Japan. And I was. If I had any photos of me back then, you could just see that my body was so much smaller. My collarbones stuck out. The gap between my thighs, Maverick could walk through if I just stood there. I was small, and I liked it.

In Germany I kept myself small by running an incessant amount for races. In Korea, I finally started to let myself grow. I ate much more, I lifted, I drank protein, I felt… healthy. I felt fit. This pregnancy though, really messed with my head. Watching myself grow was hard for me even though I knew that who I was growing inside was absolutely worth every pound. I didn’t eat much during my pregnancy. I ate a lot of salad and I ate a lot of fruits and veggies.

the problem now

9 months postpartum and I’m still struggling really hard. I lowkey enjoy that the medications make me nauseous so I don’t eat. It’s curbed my appetite, and I kind of like losing the weight. Even though I’m extremely weak and the way I’m losing weight isn’t ideal at all… Like Sean said, “it’s like opening the gates back up to an eating disorder.” I used to starve myself in Japan. I’d tell my family I ate while I was cooking for them and that they could go ahead and eat. If I did eat somewhere, I’d come back home and throw up. That’s when I learned how to apply foundation to hide the red dots on my face from the blood vessels bursting.

I am scared that I’m going back down that road, but in my head, I’m okay with it - and that’s the problem. I always said, “I can control it, so it’s fine.” Right now I’m not losing that much weight, so it’s fine. No, it’s not… I’m tracking my calories and activity to show myself that I NEED to eat, but sometimes it backfires and I get anxious when I see how much I’ve eaten. I’m getting help from it. I’m trying. I’m trying not to go back down that road, but right now, it’s what feels comfortable.

what is your stress monster?

That was the question of the day today in the afternoon. What is your stress monster? If you could describe your stress monster, how would it be?

Well, I described it first as a pale, skinny girl. A girl almost skeleton like, sinking cheeks, ribs showing right under the collar bones, barely hanging onto life. I pictured myself from when I felt the need to be an excessively small girl who fit all the size XS and double zero clothes. When I see myself in the mirror sometimes, I feel so heavy. I feel like there’s parts of me that want to rip my skin off if I could.

Then I thought about this morning, when the voices and the mumbling got so loud that it was almost impossible to bring myself to therapy. The stress of reading that a good high school friend had passed away just shook my body. It felt like my world had collapsed in on itself. The remnants of the events from yesterday to this morning amplified every mumble I heard before. I picture someone angry, someone dark in the shadows, no eyes, just black holes. I picture someone who would make you wish that you were dead. A creature not meant to live on this Earth.

My NP said I had to wait 2 weeks before she’d give me an antipsychotic, even though I’ve been this way for YEARS.

I’m tired of my stress monsters. I need them to go away.

more nightmares about genuine fears

Last night I had another nightmare, but it wasn’t anything like the night before. This time it was me, Mav, and Sean going into this giant home. Most of the windows were boarded up, but you were still able to see inside. The entire time during the dream, I was moving Mav and I under windows and behind objects to stay out of sight from someone who was going around the house trying to look at us. The feeling that someone was trying to see if Mav was inside to take him so they could hurt him. It started out slow from window to window, but it quickly picked up speed. The biggest fear I had was being seen by this person (unknown who it was) and that they get a glimpse of Mav and take him from me.

This is a genuine fear of mine, ever since I was pregnant. I did not like the feeling of having someone watch my every move and read things that were so personal to me - especially for their own mental gain. This happened to me before. My medical privacy was breeched last year and I only found out because I did an audit on all of my records to see if anyone outside of my providers had been viewing them, and surely enough, there was. I think this is that fear manifesting itself into a dream now, one that I’m not comfortable with at all.

fucking nightmares

I hate when I have nightmares, especially the ones where you wake up relieved and go back to sleep just to go right back into it. That’s what happened to me last night. It was two different nightmares that I kept going back and forth from, or maybe it was the same one but different times in the same place? I don’t know. They were new nightmares though, ones I had never had before. That’s probably why I felt so shook when I woke up. Usually when I have nightmares, it’s me stuck in a loop in my old neighborhood in Germany. This time, I was in a house that seemed familiar, but also new.

The beginning of my nightmare started with me and Mav on a ride. The ride wasn’t secured, so I had to hold Mav with one hand and the seat with the other. The ride got faster and faster and we were being tossed around until we finally launched into what looked like a window. We crashed into a dark hallway, and Mav was limp. His eyes were barely opening, and he was barely responsive. I was running around trying to call for help, but no one would help me. They said I shouldn’t have done that if I knew what was going to happen. They said it was my fault. All I did was cry and cry. When I woke up, my heart was racing - but was put at ease when I was able to touch Mav’s warm body next to me, sound asleep.

The next part of the dream was me wandering these hallways that seemed so familiar. I was looking for a restroom that looked like something out of Harry Potter, lol. But no one would come with me because spirits were wandering in the hallways. One spirit in particular kept following me, it was a shadow of a woman that I couldn’t make out. I kept trying to escape the area she was in, but she kept popping up. I woke up again. It was hard to sleep. I kept going in and out of my dreams, and each time, touching Mav’s body to make sure he was alive.

Today was a pretty rough day. I really hope I never have that nightmare again.

bent necked lady and why I was so afraid

It took me exactly 2 years to watch the Haunting of Hill House. I watched the first episode with Sean last year and when I saw the bent neck lady, I told him that it was a series that I was not willing to watch. Not in fear of the bent neck lady, but the fear of living through what the show was going to go through. After watching it, there are some things that completely hit home for me where I could say, “yeah I can completely relate to that. fuck.” other things, I was just like, “meh that’s stupid.”

But looking back at it, it was… well, kind of the bent neck lady that scared me. I would find myself afraid at night to go to sleep or to even think her name aloud. It wasn’t her that I was afraid of, it was the image of my brother hanging that I was afraid of. I don’t think I’ve ever written that in my blog. I always mention my brother committed suicide, but I never mentioned how - he was a bent neck boy. So to close my eyes, and see my brother as my own personal bent neck figure, is probably the scariest thing that I can imagine. Because sometimes, I imagine it is a bent neck lady, but that lady is me.