depressive episode

if i were trying to sound articulate or artful in describing depression, and if my audience was someone else, i might try harder to string words together. but this is for me and for future me, so:

i began feeling depressive symptoms in october and they lasted through to december, worsening over time. i started meds end of december. this depressive episode was the most severe i've ever experienced: i had no control over my brain; it was always on overdrive, ruminating obsessively over how anxious i felt over all the blurry/undefined tasks i had not done yet. at night i had heart palpitations and couldn't fall asleep for hours, watching the light behind the window blinds change color over time. i'd wake up hours before my alarm in a panic, and hate myself for waking up. getting out of bed was difficult on the weekdays, impossible on the weekends; 8am filled me with dread for the whole day and i was sure that in no time it would be 8pm and i wouldn't have accomplished anything i intended to do. i couldn't remember where i left off in any of my classes, and couldn't concentrate on lesson planning for more than 5 minutes. after my work day i'd take a nap or lie on the couch until it got dark - it was easier to be asleep and unconscious than to be awake and exhausted. eventually walking up and down five steps was exhausting and my legs felt heavy and weak. i had no interest in my plants, could not focus on books or shows, (did i watch anything in the fall?), did not want to exercise, did not want to cook. 4pm felt like a death sentence - it was dark, ever present zombies of my brain more active as i just waited for the day to be over. every morning was a death march waiting for bedtime. january wasn't much better.

but february there was a beautiful sunset and i enjoyed that - i had not felt enjoyment in months. doing laundry and touching the cold water to rinse the detergent off the cap no longer felt like dipping my tired hands in ice. i made a banana bread. flowers i didn't expect to grow pushed out two tiny yellow flowers, and my accident snow pea plant outgrew its trellis. by march i was able to lesson plan for longer. i made some cowboy cookie dough. i went on walks by myself, and my brain began to quiet. by april i was doing things i typically enjoyed doing. time slowed, my brain slowed, i was able to stop thinking consciously about regulating my breathing.

the things that got me through this episode: one episode of breaking bad a day for structure. one walk a day and pokemon go. my pills. emmanuel cooking for me. siblings meeting with me every tuesday night. yoga, at first. consistency. and time.

feb, mar, april check in

 feb
-first time i picked up dumbbells
-movie nights with esther chata and ebi
-went biking with emmanuel, david, & hannah
-got groceries by myself for first time

mar
-got j&j vaccine
-started webtoons, gardening, reading, and baking again
-researching stanford??
-said no to willard bc fuck that
-finished breaking bad
-spontaneously bought macodes petola
-gym reopened
-started tending to my plants again

april
-got to spring break, started better call saul
-trying to finish attack on titan, jujutsu kaisen, boku no hero academia
-

jan check in

 -first full month on meds
-insurrection, inauguration, gamestop, lol weird month
-doing yoga with adriene
-started watching breaking bad
-mostly able to get through the days
-generally baseline
-started css and r slowly

dec check in

 -finished the semester
-read The Mountains Sing & Know My Name
-vegas yikes
-did html online course
-picked up meds
-zoom with family

oct, nov check in

 oct, nov

-i honestly don't remember much of the past two months. depressive episode with bad anxious symptoms
-most days i wait for the day to be over
-nice biking trail behind house
-demy & jon's wedding was a nice getaway
-most if not all of my thought processes are pretty much 100% the same as 2018-2019 first year teaching
-started "doable" devos - aka minimum effort. some things that came out of devos: god rescued me from having to be a perfectionist. i worship (value) competency at the expense of my wellbeing
-emmanuel built out the computers
-since adolescence i've had a hard time being present in whatever life stage i am. somehow i subconsciously expect myself to have accomplished the equivalent of someone who is at least 10-20 years older than me. why do i do that
-intention: start explicitly writing out my subconscious expectations for myself

watched queen's gambit, kipo, started she-ra; his dark materials is back

jul, aug, sept checkin

 july
-in a rush to move out; found a place, visited, applied
-designed a shit ton of things for t.c.
-invited to join are
-west asian meeting
-wrote article with xitlaly

aug
-moved out
-interviews!
-stressful month with e & e; conflicts and therapy
-stupid design contract addendums
-got hired and started teaching
-esther moved out

sept;
-stressful last minute designs for t.c., gseis, labor center, nail salon
-idk how tf i'm doing anything

work that is sustainable is: joyful, meaningful, collaborative, relational, interdependent, healing, reflective
work that is unsustainable is: forced, frustrating, bitter, lonely, painful, stagnant, triggering

things i have had to stand up for myself for this year:
-microaggressions from white male teachers
-had my job stolen from white female deficit minded teacher
-pbs censorship
-efci censorship and dehuamnization
-parent censorship of my personhood
-students sexually harassing me
-clients violating design boundaries
-

april, may, june checkin

april:
-super busy design month: data for democracy housing brief, learned after effects for students deserve animated designs, curriculum censorship bullshit, design recipes for me & emmanuel, labor center figures for workers & learners report
-photoshoot for demy & jon
-lots of cooking

may:
-design: work on 80+ pgs of unseen costs
-meet with curriculum team to heal and organize
-Liberated ES planning meeting
-murder of george floyd

june:
-white censorship bullshit from efci
-june 7-june 21, sleeping1-4am everyday working on nail salon, unseen costs (88 pg + 25 pg)
-extreme stress: weight loss, eczema, nausea, headaches, etc.
-anniversary photoshoot


quarantine binges:
westworld season 3
punisher season 2
dark
midnight gospel
kingdom
avatar & korra
killing eve
the great
love, victor
gentefied

feb & mar check in

feb
-started off month with working out, cava for lunch @ woodbridge plaza, plan out invoice for labor center, finished Ibram Kendi's book, got yogurtland, studied cset, sign up for roth ira, watched comedy with jon & demy. in the midst of knowing i have a shit storm coming up
-started long term subbing at lorin griset. met students, agonized, brainstormed, pushed through with resistant students, formed positive relationships. learned from last year
-worked out with alicia
-PBS video calls for lesson
-worked on infographics for workers & learners project
-released data for democracy immigration brief
-took cset!
-read educated
-updated design portfolio
-created logo for save CA ES

mar
-last few PT sessions, still not healed
-school closed starting march 13 (end of quarter 3)
-found out mrs ells is a fucking asshole and is going to kick me out of my job
-during school closure, i: designed for ucla labor center worker & learners small infographics, made several edits to PBS lesson, designed data visualization for housing brief for data for democracy, designed logo for liberated ethnic studies model curriculum coalition, created covid-19 for students even though i'll be booted out by fucking ells, and more
-ran at least 3 times a week
-cooked farfelle w/ mushrooms, spinach, caramelized onions; made egg tarts, made chunky veggie pasta, made creamy chicken rice soup
-cut each others' hair
-read glass castle and the hate u give
-binge watched dark on netflix

a school

the first couple times i subbed at this school, i had to say little more than "okay folks, we're gonna get started" to get everyone's eyes and attention. it was a nice change. i could relax a bit, sit in the chair, get some other work done while they self-managed. when i subbed for an econ/wh teacher for three weeks in january, however, i began to make some observations. or perhaps the observations were made of me.

the first incident was with the teacher i was subbing for. "are you ryan?" offering my hand. "i'm eunice, nice to meet you." "can you give me five minutes to finish this email?" of course i said yes. is asking someone to wait a power move? i don't know. he explained his unit(s) to me, sifting through messy piles of papers on his desk. eventually the students came in and i sat to observe his lecture. "if you get A's it's bc you are increasing your brain capacity and making your brain worth more so if you're a doctor and get paid more it's bc you deserve it bc you invested in your brain." and "if you get knocked down in the field, what do people call you? that's right, you said it, not me." and "i'll be out this month, this is your teacher, euniece."

if my insides weren't dying yet they were now. i sat next to him to review the econ project. "to clarify, my name is eunice, and i go by ms. h in the classroom." he apologizes and corrects himself to the class. could that have been avoided? i don't know.

for the next couple weeks, i stressed much, slept little, planned my ass off unnecessarily. partly because his lessons were shit, partly because it was my only way to resist what i perceived to be an ideologically hostile environment. i taught the students that economic markets were different than economic philosophies, and that marx's ideas were a utopian reality intended to fix perceived wrongs. it was the best i could manage, especially because whenever i said marx, a collective shiver seemed to arise through the room. it was like i said voldemort or something. in the world history class, i asked students whether it was okay for someone incompetent to declare war. at which point a student heatedly said, "that's your opinion. i happen to think he was right in the suleimani strike."

through those weeks, it was small moments that quickly began to erode my sense of well-being and safety. moments like these:

"i taught in south central la." raised eyebrows, downturned mouth, a reactive "oh wow."
or, while working in the faculty room: "hi tiff!" a white male. "i'm not tiff." "oh.... all good... all good... you looked like tiff from behind..." where was the ownership? apology? i don't know.
or, another, "euniece." from another white male.
or, a white male with dreads in the lunch room.
or, an older white teacher: "we should really send you to africa. that'll teach you to complain." what the fuck?
or, "i student taught at valley. that was a school." to which i pursed my lips and did not respond.
or, getting in my car and seeing a tesla in front of me driven by a student.
or, "freedom writers." after my introduction. to which i say "i don't like that movie."

jan check in

-finished stupid ucr extension graphic design course
-had couple days notice to sub for 3 weeks for an econ/wh teacher at mater dei, was stressed af to plan for an incompetent capitalist teacher
-joshua tree trip: no itinerary, just did whatever we want. was great. hiked, climbed, took photos, ate pizza, rested at airbnb
-experienced a ton of weird microaggressions at md, felt the upper/middle class culture killing my insides
-finished brief #2 immigration for data for demoracy
-found out i'm doing labor center's workers & learners brief
-got chosen to be part of team for pbs' asam documentary lesson building
-called, interviewed, chosen in a day to cover for lorin griset until june
-revamped budgeting sheet

i feel insecure about not having my own classroom, but i'm reminding myself that this year i am doing a ton of stuff to better myself as a teacher:
-took english methods course
-took ucr extension graphic design course to get supplemental auth.
-studying for/planning on taking cset
-even did ux/ui course on top of all that just to learn for kicks

and now just to keep track for next two months:
-data for demoracy
-ucla labor center
-ucla gseis staff directory
-pbs/aaaj lessons
-study for cset
-lorin griset long term subbing lesson planning

nov & dec check in

nov
-just working n stuff
-prof john recommended me to prof cecilia
-dogsitting
-miss my students, sad i'm subbing

dec
-white elephant with rainbow squad
-watchmen, mr. robot season 4, his dark materials
-reading books
-nanor's wedding
-visit sd friends
-bought a baby monstera
-gardening with michael

twelve

your presence, quiet
your absence, deafening
in joy i pause
to cast my gaze and find that
in your wake i've made me

can i outrun
the grief in my limbs?
it is my bones

every year
i write to give life
to the turmoil death left
a blinking dash
morse for words i know not


every year i try to write something and i end up with unpublished drafts. today i rode my bike and remembered that he ran while we biked. i looked for flowers to press but didn't find any that reminded me of him. i read a book in the bookstore and remembered that he took us to b&n on weekends and it was one of my favorite things to do. he drove us after some rounds of chemo, too. i made mac & cheese with broccoli because i remember that he liked it. i drew a portrait of him and watched coco because i like that dia de los muertos celebrates life and memory.

this time every year, i am contradiction. i want to be alone but i also don't. i want people to know but i also don't. i don't know if i want to grieve in public or in private; is it worse to feel sad and alone where no one can see you or where people who don't know you can see you? especially this year, i laugh because i chose a person who makes me laugh; but shortly after i cry because we cannot laugh with you. or you with us. is there a difference between me missing you and you missing me? do the years make it easier or harder? am i closer to you or further?

fall check in

aug

-plants with michael
-first couples therapy session
-processed fullerton & mater dei
-e starts nursing school

sept

-processed santa ana
-started subbing more
-making guava jam
-dog sit magnus & valla
-lots of conflicts
-liking la vista
-interesting to see different schools and see educational inequity unfold
-invited to design for ucla gseis

oct

-fancy bridal shower for nanor
-finally cleaned living room
-spoke for cohort 4 and visited my students
-processing for anaheim
-started ucr design class

july checkin

-hot pot with rainbow squad
-chernobyl with demy and jon
-signed up for ceramics class
-signed up for PT
-tramway with sender friends
-ucla lc still wants me on as graphic design consultant!
-babysat the hoffmanns
-sequoia trip
-gardening!

june check in

-last week of school; cried a lot, laughed a lot, had closure with my students
-bridal shower!
-renewed my license and retook my picture lol thank goodness
-presented my thesis
-graduated!
-prepped for wedding decorations for two weeks
-got married!
-best month

may check in

-last month of teaching

-alicia graduated!

-ethnic studies students presented their YPAR projects

april check in

-feeling better about teaching
-spring break:
saturday: hair/makeup, pokemon go with aries & gloria, demy bday dinner with baby caden
sunday: bum in bed, study outside; buy skincare, wedding plan; ask emmanuel about april 27, lesson plan at demy's/watch got, Mary Poppins, spiderverse
monday: beach with michael and planning at paris baguette
tuesday: donate bottles, study at OCC, run 2.8 mile, write thesis stuff
wednesday: visit uni teachers, work on thesis at woodbridge center cha for tea, sit in sun for a bit, get groceries, hangout with gloria, run 1 mile, climb, watch kdrama episode 1 of Her Private Life
thursday: cook pasta with emmanuel, cut his hair, study, alicia
friday: study, gas, groceries

-watched avengers
-esther's last overflow concert
-tender greens with demy, ramen with rainbow squad

march check in

-picked up my dress
-got my shoes
-made the invitations
-finished website and sent out invites
-baby shower for caden
-worked on a fun v6 at la boulders; trying to return to climbing when i can
-still struggling everyday/week. this fog is debilitating
-looking forward to seeing joshua

-unit wwi (people's experiences) and unit russian revolution going well
-some students still ass holes
-most students not
-on good days, i feel purposeful and fulfilled. on bad days, i want to quit

feb check in

-fighting inadequacy, powerlessness, frustration, under-appreciation all day
-some things i'm thinking about: what does it mean to be "good enough" - instead of perfect; how can i rest restfully to sustain myself for the long run
-i am not my anxiety or depression
-soon this will be over
-i am not my productivity or lack thereof
-maybe i should "look back and celebrate" instead of "look forward and be terrified"

jan check in

-depression during winter break
-bad anxiety week 1
-strike for 6 days, got to sleep better at night
-going back to teaching, switched naydelyn out. got new students. still anxious.
-new mantras "just get through the day" and "just be good enough"

dec check in

-finished first semester of teaching
-went to utla march
-counseling with ruth and mom lol
-finally winter break, bumming with siblings & pokemon go & mrs. maisel
-deep debilitating anxiety

nov check in

-it is currently thanksgiving break, this month was a blur and i barely remember anything
-this month was just working on the imperialism project; was really frustrating because many students didn't do the project
-i'm having a harder time setting boundaries/knowing what i'm in control of and what i'm not in control of
-i want a way out. when i feel trapped and option-less is when i feel the worst (i.e. living at home, solid landings)



self talk mantra
i am enough
it's okay if the students don't do work
it's okay if i rest
it's okay if i don't know what to do in a week
it's okay to be tired and anxious
it's okay because it's my first year teaching

ten years, now eleven

10.31.2017
it is strange to me that dad passed away ten years ago. i don't really keep count of the years so it could be five years for all i know. ten years usually sounds so celebratory but in this instance it twists my throat and gut into unsure knots. when i was in san francisco, janet, whom everyone on the streets called grandma, shared about how she lost her father when she was a child and started to cry. i looked at her white hair like a foretelling of my future, staying grief. this week in class, roxana shared about the altares created during dia de los muertos - about how they signify celebration of life and how they invite re-memory of loved ones so that they do not disappear. i appreciate this; i don't know how the taiwanese culture remembers the dead. i don't know if they do, but i do know they fear the emotional pain as much as some cultures fear the dead.

it is not yet the 31st, but today i borrow from c.s. lewis' words in preparation for tuesday:

"no one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. i am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. the same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. i keep on swallowing. at other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. there is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. i find it hard to take in what anyone says. or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. it is so uninteresting. yet i want the others to be about me. i dread the moments when the house is empty. if only they would talk to one another and not to me. there are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that i don't really mind so much...then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this 'commonsense' vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace."

some things i dread all of october: the unbearable secret which no one in the room knows, the screaming desire to tell everyone and no one; feeling like i am living two timelines at once as the present becomes irrelevant and bothersome. the compounded grief as the years move me further from the epicenter of my memory of him; like i am being moved further from shore with no mind to my protesting legs and lungs. it's cruel because the waves don't give a shit. thinking/hoping i am ready to be sad that day and never being ready.

10.31.2018

i had forgotten that i wrote this last year and never published it. it is october once more and i am reflecting (obsessing) about the impossible challenge that is teaching. october is obscenely difficult for first year teachers, but something that is giving me pause is the ethnographic work that we are doing with our adviser. i think undoubtedly my parents were my first teachers in life. because my mom and i have such a contentious relationship, i remember my dad fondly as someone who i knew i could ask for math help. i often did not want to because he would inevitably teach me ten steps ahead of what i had to know in class. even so, i could tell that he loved math. "a function is just a black box," he would try to explain to me for the fourth time. "if you put this number in the black box, something happens to it and it comes out like this." i never understood that analogy as hard as i tried.

i grieve the fact that he will never see me accomplish my dreams. i grieve that there are things i will never be able to ask him or know about him; that i have to imagine and fill in the blanks with conjectures. this year, after the first half of the month passed and my terrible anxiety and anticipation of the day passed, i found that the actual day was manageable even though i cried in every period telling my students. i'm not sure if it's because i cried it all out earlier in the month or because it's been 11 years. in some ways i hope the pain will never disappear entirely, because it would feel like a disservice to him.

oct check in

-october been really rough. all of week 9, can barely get through the day without crying
-i hate planning day by day. i hate not knowing what i'm going to teach.
-i hate when students treat me disrespectfully. darlene reminded me that it's because they are acting out of their non-thinking brains. they are reacting from their trauma. that in a way, because i have created a safe environment, they know they can act like that.
-to that, i say that it fucking sucks
-i wonder if i could choose another career and be happy and not stressed
-is sacrificing my wellbeing to meet my stupid high expectations and moral obligations worth it? idk
-this month was so hard; when i look back i hope i remember how hard it is so that i don't ever dismiss someone else's teaching struggle. also so that i remember where i started at

teaching

i'm not sure what the purpose of writing this is. i have been feeling a lot this month and i just want to record it. it is mid october and i am in the thick of teaching. everyone tells me that october is the hardest month on top of first year teaching being the hardest year. i am miserable. i can't count how many times i have wondered what other jobs might be like, or if i would enjoy another working field other than education. are the possibilities still endless? can i still try other things? is education still hold the transformative possibilities i thought it did - even as i'm watching my students give up in class or drop out entirely or get sent to other schools?