I haven’t written anything so personal in a long time, but even more so, put myself under scrutiny and in a state of extreme vulnerability.

So what about?

I am currently in the phase of my life where I am starting to feel the urgency of taking action on what seems to be keeping me trapped at the bottom for almost a year now. Most of the people I know — friends and family — have no idea that I am fighting a mental illness that might have worsened after I was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. While this is a very sensitive issue to talk about, I reckon that finally freeing myself from the guilt and bit of darkness through this form will help me see what I have lost over the years — that drive and passion that led me to create this space. Another reason which I would say the one that put the nail in the coffin is seeing the people I love hurting because of the situation, which, of course, hurts me to the core, as it was never my intention to cause them pain in the first place.

But why do we hurt the people we love? Why do we end up dragging them down when all we wanted was a happy ending? Are we to blame for things that are not easy to control?

It took someone very important to me to come to my senses and only start realizing the importance of not only fighting your battles, but actually beating them. I have brought three or four people to this journey, perhaps, who have witnessed firsthand my struggle to thrive beyond recovery—to feel in love with life again. And this is not the first time my personal relationships have been put at risk just because I have not realized that my behavior has affected those around me, both in the past and more recently.

By allowing my thoughts to trap me in the darkest place of my mind, it becomes so easy to forget the beautiful things that get me up every morning, including the people who stand by my side and fight alongside me. By not being more helpful when they need me to be, and by expecting so much from them, but offering nothing in return, I have not seen that I have slowly taken their happiness away. And by doing so, they had to endure the strain and stress of my battle, which I did not see was already taking a toll on them, and which eventually became such a consuming task that exhausted their beings.

Fret not, it’s not like my days were all bad. There are days when I win, but when I don’t, I try my hardest not to let it win over me.

You see, we all have our own experience of dealing with mental illness. My experience might be different from yours, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all get to the point where everything just seems all dark and all we see is the option of escaping from everything and everyone we’ve ever known, and that’s when we don’t always realize that we might already be hurting the people we love. While there is no excuse for the pain that our situation may cause them, it is not our fault, so to speak, to suffer from mental illness. For all we know, this isn’t something that we’re willing to sign up for.

However, the gravity of the situation calls me to recognize that we should take full responsibility for taking care of ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we stop asking for extra support from others, but rather that we take a proactive way to come up with an action plan to actually beat it every time we suddenly begin to feel overwhelmed, anxious, or sad. There’s no set formula for this, but this could be anything small, like taking deep breathing exercises or simply making a phone call to someone we love and pushing ourselves to recognize that there’s more to what our exploding mind is telling us.

For the first time in my battle, I finally found myself also concerned about the people around me. I don’t know if it was because of fear or a heavy heart that made my mind and body react, but it kind of tapped my back and led me to this very important realization. Nonetheless, if it was because of fear, then you can be sure it’s a good fear. The kind that helps to keep us safe and alive, the kind that helps us to get back to our senses, and the kind that gives us realizations of life.

As for the people I may have caused pain, I apologize from the bottom of my heart for becoming selfish enough not to see that I was not only hurting myself in the process, but all of you as well. There have been a number of rough patches along the way, but I remain extremely grateful to all of you who have not given up and supported me through good and bad.

Anyway, the only thing that matters now, and that I promise to keep my focus on, is that feeling of excitement about what life is going to offer me from here on.

You probably already know this — it’s not always easy, so be thankful for the people who always choose to stay.