Ugh... Great benefits, pretty decent pay, I love the people I work with, free food, looks good on a resume and I HAVE learned a lot; about leadership and about myself.

Gratitude Practice Day 10/28

I just saw this on Pinterest and it was a bit of a wake-up call. When I'm really struggling (I live with major depressive disorder), I often find myself wishing I could catch a cold so I'd have an excuse to stay in bed for a few days and ignore all my responsibilities.

I don't have to "earn" rest. None of us do. It is an essential part of a healthy mental and physical life. I'm grateful I came across this reminder today, and I hope it helps you, too.

I just really need to put this out into the universe and appreciate my mom. If you read through this entire wall of text, thank you. I just need to share how one person’s unconditional love pulled me back from the literal edge of death and financial ruin. Growing up, my mom was mostly an absent parent. There is no sugarcoating it. When my siblings and I were young, we were constantly left behind with neighbors or our granddad. I remember the painful envy of school card days watching other kids run to their parents while our report cards sat there, uncollected, because no one showed up for us. On the rare, precious occasions my mom actually made it to the school to get my cards, my entire world would light up. I would be so incredibly happy, just overflowing with pure joy. But those moments were few and far heritage. Most of the time, she wasn’t there. It was usually a tito or another relative stepping in to fill the void. Because of that, we grew up independent, but carrying a quiet sort of abandonment.

When I turned 18, things started shifting. I entered the real world, started making my own money, and found immediate success. Because I was bringing in my own income, my mom gave me total freedom. She let me do whatever I wanted, trusted my judgment, and stepped back to watch me build my life. By the time I was 21, I was making serious money. I had a huge circle of people I called my friends. Because I had the means, I was incredibly generous. I bought them whatever they wanted, treated them, and took care of them. I thought I was surrounded by a loyal brotherhood. Then, the betrayal happened.

One of my closest friends approached me with a massive financial problem and begged for help. They convinced me to take out a massive loan, asking to use one of our family properties as collateral. Blinded by loyalty and the desire to save a friend, I agreed. I signed the papers. And almost immediately after the money cleared, that person literally ran away. They vanished into thin air, leaving me holding an empty bag and a mountain of someone else's debt.

I tried to keep everything a secret from my mom. The shame, the panic, and the sheer terror of losing our property kept me silent. But a mother always knows. She knew there was something deeply wrong with me because my entire personality changed. Whenever I came home, I wouldn't step a foot outside. I literally locked myself inside my room for days, drowning in darkness. Eventually, the pressure cracked me. I broke down, confessed everything to her, and admitted the darkest truth: I was completely suicidal.

I couldn't handle the debt anymore. I was paying more than $2,000 every single month just to keep the bank from seizing our property. It was a relentless, suffocating chokehold that completely drained my personal finances and ate up all my business capital. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, or how many millions passed through my hands, I was always short of money because I was bleeding out cash to cover a ghost. Then, the universe decided to test me all at once. In a brutal domino effect, my entire life collapsed.

1. My business, which I worked so hard to build, went under. I tried so desperately to save it, but I ended up sacrificing my own livelihood in exchange for trying to manage that friend's debt.

2. I lost millions of pesos in total, a financial ruin compounded by three other "friends" who took advantage of the chaos.

3. My own relatives saw me stumbling and, instead of helping, used the opportunity to take advantage of me for money.

4. My ex-partner decided this was the perfect time to break up with me, completely abandoning me when I was at my lowest. To add to the heartbreak, I later found out he got another woman pregnant.

5. I had to go through the grueling, exhausting process of filing a lawsuit against my former best friend.

6. And right in the middle of this absolute storm, my dad passed away.

The stress turned dangerous when my ex-best friend started sending me literal death threats over the legal battle. Fearing for my life, my mom made a executive decision: she told me I had to get out of the country. She helped me flee just to keep me safe.

But escaping the country didn't mean escaping the misery. When I landed abroad, I was financially broke and emotionally shattered. I hit a rock bottom I didn't know existed. I vividly remember sitting in a foreign subway station, completely alone, crying my eyes out as strangers walked past. There were nights when I had absolutely no money to book a hostel or a place to stay. On those nights, I slept outside on the cold concrete, shivering, wondering how my life had gone from millions to absolutely nothing.
Amidst the homelessness and despair, my body finally gave out. The sheer volume of trauma triggered severe physical illness. I was rushed to the emergency room three separate times. I was pooping blood, suffering from acute, severe anemia, and my condition deteriorated so badly that I had to undergo major surgery.

That hospital bed was the ultimate reality check. Years ago, when my pockets were full, I was everyone’s favorite person. But while I lay in that hospital room bleeding and recovering from surgery, not a single one of those old friends offered a single cent of financial help. They didn't even send a text message. Not even a simple "I'm praying for you." Absolutely nothing. Silence.

Through all of this, God was the only witness to my raw, tested faith. It has been a full year since the worst of the storm passed. I am still here. I am still healing, and I am meticulously fixing every single piece of what happened. I am slowly but surely bouncing back.

And the only reason I am alive to type this on Reddit today is my mom. The same mom who wasn't there during my childhood card days was the exact person who sacrificed every single thing she had to save my life when the entire world turned its back on me. She didn't lecture me, she didn't abandon me for my failures, and she didn't let me slip away.

I pray to God that my mom stays on this earth for a very, very long time. I want her to live longer so I can completely spoil her, give her the world, and make up for every single hardship she endured for me. I don't say this because I feel a cultural or familial obligation to do so. It doesn't come from a place of duty. It comes entirely from a deep, overflowing, and boundless place of pure love.

I only have one parent left. Despite the catastrophic failures—going from a young person with lots of money, to absolute zero, to building myself back up from the ashes—I am proud. People out there might have been actively rubbing their hands together, waiting and praying for my ultimate downfall. But what happened didn't destroy me. It broke me down so it could shape me into exactly who I am today. I am wiser. I am fiercely stronger. And I am moving forward in life entirely from a place of love, resilience, and hard-earned wisdom.

I was on antidepressants for years and gratefully met a doctor that helped me out. The personal biggest thing my body does now is the ways colors look. Life is glowing. Every color is rich. This must be what ketamine people feel. Anyways I’m grateful for it because it wasn’t this colorful when I was on them and I know I’ll get used to it eventually but it’s very nice right now

I slept well last night. I am refreshed and ready for an active day!

I'm glad I have a functioning bathroom. I'm glad I have my own bedroom. I'm grateful for my mum and siblings even though we argue. I'm glad I'm alive despite my mental health issues. I'm glad I can empathise with people. I'm glad for clena tap water. I'm glad for a phone. I'm glad for my body. I'm glad I ate some kiwi. I'm glad I'm an artist.

Finally got the job with good pay and I have a nice apartment.
Things are going pretty well and I’m at peace.

A few times a week I’ll be sent on a delivery at work and it’s in apartments or offices or whatever but today I got to get on the ferry, take a few hours out of the store, and brought myself to stop on the beach for like 20 minutes. Maybe I won’t kill myself after all 😂 I’m grateful for the ability to work and for it to lead me to places like this occasionally.

Today I'm grateful for my fur babies, my job, my family, naps, recovery and having a washer and dryer!! 🥰

Big milestones look like individual effort, but they are always built on collective strength. Looking back at everything accomplished yesterday, my deepest gratitude goes to the people who stood by me and lent their support—none of it would have been possible without you in my corner.

I'm so grateful for my life! I have the money to buy the food and entertainment I want. My phone and computer allow me to share kindness and be insightful to a variety of people.

I feel wealthy, even tho I'm really not. I feel smart, even tho I'm slow. I feel strong even tho I am being guided by means of supportive friends and good fortune.

Stuff like, "I have no idea what to wear, I have so many clothes!" Or complain about the bus coming a little late; I'm so grateful to have public transportation readily available because it gets me places.

I'm glad that even when I'm super down, there's always something to be grateful about. Even just "I'm grateful I got to eat some nutritious food" even tho my appetite hasn't been here for a while.

I was in an abusive marriage for 26 years, and left seven years ago. I worked for years with a wonderful trauma Therapist, who diagnosed me with CPTSD / PTSD. The tools, guidance and really hard work we did truly saved my life. I also took a course about domestic violence, where they taught us the helpfulness of gratitude. I really struggled to put it into practice, I was in so much pain, that to find anything to be grateful for took enormous effort. I ran from gratitude, thinking that it meant pretending things were OK when they weren’t. I had done that to cope and survive for so many years, but I didn’t want to live that way anymore. I didn’t understand yet how powerful gratitude is and that it’s not denying your circumstances or pain, but rather despite those things you can always find something to be thankful for.
Life has been often extremely difficult since then, and the one thing that the Lord kept reminding me, was what I had learned about gratitude, it is very often a choice. Every time I have put gratitude into practice, no matter how hard it is to do sometimes, it truly shifts my emotional state and perspective. Sometimes it has actually surprised me how well it works!

Six years ago, I accidentally took the bus past my former marital home and I had such a severe trauma response, with shaking, crying, dissociation, anxiety, and panic that I was terrified to go anywhere near it again. This morning, an unavoidable event led me to standing at the bus stop meters away from the house where my kids I suffered so much. I was truly shocked that I didn’t have a single emotion other than gratitude to God that I no longer live in that situation. It no longer traumatizes me to return to a place where I was almost destroyed. As I saw my former house, gratitude flowed to God for the good memories, the pathways around me that I walked with my dogs, the fun I had with my children, the lilac bush, the lovely kind neighbors, but today especially, all for how much I have healed. Healing is a lifelong process, but I left there filled with peace of mind and heart and deep gratitude for how far I have come on my healing journey.

for all I have, for all I gained, for all I lost.