I wrote this a few weeks after getting out of the shelter. I edited it now.
Explanation of why I wasn't online from January 2023 to July 2023.
After months of not being able to access the internet, I'm just really happy I'm no longer at the shelter. I don't feel like logging in to my social media accounts. I check my fb everyday, but i feel like twitter is too noisy and i don't like ig. I love watching youtube videos so I'm on yt most of the time.
I should start this diary at the time I wasn't online. I remember the date coz it was the day after our payday lolz. January 17, 2023. That was when I had another nervous breakdown. I didn't have any for years, but I didn't drink my meds, so it happened again. They brought me to a facility called Shelter of Goodwill Health Services. My mom signed a contract that I would have to stay there for 6 months. So I had no access to any gadgets nor internet. At least we have local television, they don't have cable, the only stations with clear signal were gma 7 and tv5. I watched the news sometimes to keep up on what's going on outside, but sometimes I get sleepy at around 6pm, that's after drinking our meds and the doors are locked for all dorms.
The shelter is located at magalang, pampanga. My mom visited me every week. It was a psychiatric and rehab center so there were drug rehab patients as well as those with mental illness. At the time I was there, there were over a hundred guys who were mostly drug cases and about 20 plus women with mental illness, only a few women were on drugs. I was one of the psychiatric patients. The doctor said I have schizophrenia, but I'm not the worst case coz there were some who were injected with drugs instead of just given tablets. I take oral medicine.
I don't know how to describe my experience there, but I will try on this blog. I feel like I just wasted half of the year, but it gave me time to think about lots of things and time to read the bible actually. I finished the new testament and I chose some of my favorite bible verses which I'm going to share on this blog. I tried reading the old testament but most of them I don't understand, so I stopped trying.
I felt like a prisoner there, it's different when you're at your own house of course. I'm just really glad it's over. We all felt like prisoners, you know no freedom to do whatever you want and of course you can't go anywhere. You see nothing but the people and things around that shelter. Every single day is the same thing. There are exact times for meals and time when they will close the doors of the dorms so no patient can go out at that time coz it's time to sleep. If not for the usb with bts videos that I requested from my cousin, Ate Tan, I might not have been able to survive that shelter. I also asked her to print lyrics of bts songs, so that helped as well. I'm really grateful that she was able to give the usb and print outs.
There were different psychiatric cases there. It was the first time, I really felt like I was in a mental hospital. The previous ones I went to wasn't like what I saw there. There were more than 10 dorms, and each has more than 10 people. In our dorm we are 12, I stayed for 6 months, I got out of the shelter July 18, 2023. There were some patients who came and go, but near the end of my stay, we were 12 in my dorm. There was someone who have been there for 2 years. Not sure if her family doesn't want her out or they couldn't pay the bills. I can't forget her coz she always talked to herself and she's noisy. Even when it's time to sleep, she'll keep on talking. At least there were some people I can talk to with sense.
I thought I won't be afraid of mental hospitals, but when I think about the time spent there which would've been better spent blogging/vlogging/working, I really don't want to go back to that shelter or any facility like that.
There were some good things that happened like the gifts I received from student nurses who interviewed me and all the prizes I received for winning games (individual or team).
We always get up at the same time every morning. I can't remember now if it was 6am or 7am. We do the exercise first for a few minutes. Then breakfast. Then we do our assigned chores. Mine was to sweep and mop the floor of the office. Once that's done. I watch tv or talk with my friend Joy there or read the Bible. After lunch, most of the time some of us were called to be interviewed by student nurses. There were different ones every few weeks. Once the student nurses are going to do their last interview, they give their interviewees a little gift like face towels or toiletries. And sometimes they also give foods and prizes after some games. I won the grand prize in bingo, well the prize were just cup noodles, but I was excited to win. They wanted to give another prize and the one who won was the student nurse assigned to me, so she gave me the cup noodles she won. I was happy coz I had additional food to eat for a few days lolz.
I had an allowance of 1000 pesos every week for grocery. I bought lots of biscuits and other snacks and also sanitary napkins. The free foods that were included in our monthly fee sometimes were not really delicious, so if I don't want to eat those foods, I'd give it to my friend and I would just eat snacks and biscuits. I think I lost about 40 lbs. there.
When there were games and we were allowed to choose who to team with, I would always choose to be with Joy and we won almost all the games, we're both good at it lolz. One time there was a game that included the boys. One team was all the girls and the other 2 teams were all boys. It was like a quiz show where they would ask a question and one member would write down the answer of the team. It was general knowledge and I know some of the answers, so I would tell the writer. I got excited that we answered correctly, but I reminded myself that I should focus on answering each question, one at a time. At the end, they tallied our scores and our team won! I really love that part. 😍
When I received the usb with bts songs and videos, I would watch it with Joy and we'd have a good time. I also had another friend there named Jas, she's not staying in our dorm, she's in the vip area, but she's allowed to visit our dorm. She would join us in watching the shows of bts, not the music videos or concerts, but the reality show. One time she had a usb with movies in it and we watched movies with her. There were times that there would be volleyball games. We're not players so we would be at the sideline and watched and just talked to each other. After the games sometimes we would sit outside of our dorms near mango trees and the gate. Some days there would be a fishball vendor outside the gate and those with money held by the nurses will buy. Jas has money with them and she would asked a nurse to buy fishballs and hotdogs and she would share those with Joy and me. Sometimes she would asked for mt. dew softdrink and they would give it to her and we would drink too. So when I received food from my mother when she visited, I gave some to them as well.
We don't have refrigerator and we don't have lockers. We had one storage box under our bed. Good thing, no one stole from anyone's box, until near the end of my stay there. 2 new women came to the shelter and then some of our things went missing. I counted the fabric softener that I had and someone took one from it. Another time, I was away from my bed coz I was watching tv and then one of the women there told me to look at my box coz one of the thieves took something from it. I looked and counted the foods I had there and 2 were missing from my beef noodles. I knew who took it and I intentionally said out loud and let her hear, I said that the one who took my food will lose something more someday, it was in tagalog, but that's roughly the translation. Then a few minutes later she pretended that someone put the beef noodles on her box like someone played a prank on her and she gave the beef noodles to me. I took it and didn't say anything anymore.
Another time, I saw her wearing my pants and I just didn't want to deal with her anymore so I just told her, it's yours, she wanted to give it back to me, I don't want to wear pants that were worn by someone else. That's another reason I was so glad I was out of there. I didn't have to deal with people who had no respect for another's property.
Joy had colored pencils, she received it from one of the patients there who got out already. I asked for one pencil so i can write and she gave me one, she's really kind. I had receipts from when my mom visited and would give me things she bought, so I used that receipt paper and write things I want her to buy the next time she visits. Over time I had lots of receipts and I used those to write a diary and my plans on what I want to do after I get out of there. I was also able to write the facebook accounts of my friends and I added them when I was able to logged in again to my fb. The sad thing was, I couldn't find my close friend there, Joy, I couldn't find her account. I don't know if the email she gave me was wrong or what. The account that Jas gave I found so I left her a message. She still hasn't responded which meant she's not out of the shelter. I also found the accounts of other acquaintances and they're now on my fb friends' list. I plan on going there again to visit and give gifts to Joy and Jas if they are still there. I don't know when I can do that. I'm still building my online income stream, once I'm earning a big income then maybe I can go visit them.
