hiiikristianaa:

samanthamel:

donnasaurs:

erouke:

asdfmichelle:

cindaye:looserfaacee:nicolewhaat:cynthiaargh:cool-bananas:areyouserious-ohshiet:

I’m going to share something close to me. Something some of you may not understand but I’ll try to explain it the best way I can. My parents were only young when we migrated to Australia. They lived in a small house in the suburbs and together raised 4 Filipino children, including myself. We were happy and generally kept to ourselves. On the outside we seemed like your typical Filipino family but no one would have ever been able to guess the underlying issues of what we were about to face. You see, my parents both suffer from mental illnesses because of their traumatized childhoods. My mother had bi-polar disease, which is caused by an imbalance in the brain. This causes her from being the calmest, happiest person in the world to without any reason suddenly become extremely aggressive and dangerously violent. My father suffered from psychosis, which meant that he occasionally would hear voices that made him want to hurt himself. I was about 13 when the violence started occurring. Being so young and naive, I had no clue that both these illnesses needed strong medication to help with the repercussions of the illnesses. As a teenager, being the oldest I was constantly beaten and bruised for no apparent reason. At the age of 15, both my parents became severely depressed and tried to commit suicide in front of me before my very eyes. I remember having to wrestle with my father for the knife while he tried to stab himself while keeping an eye out on my mother who was also trying hang herself. I remember not sleeping or eating for days because I had to stay up and “babysit” my parents. During this time I was also sick and had just come out of hospital because of an operation I had to have. It got so hard sometimes. I just wanted to cry.. but I knew I had to be strong.. because if I gave up.. what would happen to them?

One day while my mother was asleep, my father decided to get up and finally have a shower. I had to make sure that there were no sharp objects in the bathroom before I could let him go. As soon as he got into the bathroom, I heard the word “Pictures” being whispered in my ears. I started to think I was starting to go crazy.. but at the same time.. I believed it was a command from God to go do something. Immediately I ran into the cupboards and took out as many photo albums as I could find. Then I ran to my parent’s bedroom and ripped the pictures from the albums and stuck them on the walls. I knew I only had about 5 minutes to do this. I covered the walls, drawers and mirrors with pictures of my family from when we were babies to the present day. After 5 minutes, I heard the bathroom door open.. and steps coming towards the room. My father walked in and looked around. He didn’t even notice me standing exhausted in the middle of the room.. all he could see were the pictures covering the room. He yelled for my mother’s name and she came rushing in the room to see what he could see. Tears started covering their eyes as they both held each other and cried as they pointed to each photo describing the memory of their children that went with them. At that moment they realised what they had done. “We can’t destroy ourselves and ruin a beautiful family like this..” I heard my father say. Hours passed and they were still in the room talking about the photos. Everything seemed to get better after that… until about a month later when the police came knocking on my door asking for my father. Apparently my mother had told her friend what had happened and told her that she was ok now. My mother’s friend on the other hand had freaked out and called the police on my father. My father was then escorted to a mental intuition, which is where he stayed for the next few months. My heart fell every time I went to visit him. It hurt to see my father amongst a bunch of crazy people and be labelled as one of them. I knew he needed medication but he I also knew he wasn’t as crazy as the people who I saw playing with their faeces or rocking back and forth in the corners talking about aliens. He was MY dad! Do you know how HARD it is to watch your own father sit in a mental hospital? what made it worse was when I looked in his eyes.. the drugs that they gave him made it hard for him to even recognise me. It just crushed me. I visited him everyday and tried to stay strong for my siblings. They were only young so they didn’t understand much. All they knew is that they missed him.

That was all about seven years ago. My dad is back living a normal life now. I rarely see him though. I guess he’s still trying to cope with some pain. I know he’ll come back one day. My mother is so much better than before. She’s also so much stronger emotionally. We’re really close now.. so much closer than before. I’ve forgiven her for the past.. I don’t think there’s a point in dwelling on the pain. I’m also 100 times happier now than I was before everything happened because weird as it sounds, that whole obstacle taught me how to appreciate life.

I used to question WHY.. God allowed us to go through that.. but I don’t anymore. Because I realise that it’s because there are other people out there going through similar situations.. and they need to hear this story to understand that despite the impossible circumstances out there, no matter how young or how old you are.. EVERY OBSTACLE CAN BE DEFEATED. I wasn’t gona sit around and let some mental illnesses destroy my family. If I did, my brother, sisters and I would have probably ended up in separate foster homes somewhere. That time was hard, but it taught me courage and hope. I was the most hopeless young teenager there was.. yet God strengthened me in the time of trouble. And if He could strengthen that scrawny little 15 year old.. imagine what he could do for you? Before everything happened I was just another ordinary kid.. complaining about little things in life like “why can’t that boy in my class like me already? Or why can’t I have that dress in that store?” Self centeredness and material things never even made me happy in the end because I realised that my true happiness was found in each of my family members smiles. It was there all along.. and I’m glad I realised that.

Times like this in my life make me realize that happiness is so much more beautiful after surviving the pain, that past hurts can be turned into future strengths and that sometimes you need to go through the bad things to notice the good things that were always in front of you.

I’m encouraging you guys out there to face whatever is in your path. It’s going to be hard but I know you guys can pull yourself together because trust me the happiness IS worth the pain. I haven’t faced every kind of hurt in the world there is to face. But I believe that there is a way to deal with every kind of obstacle there is. I know that if God is going to allow a problem to get in our paths.. he’s already equipped us with tools to get through it. Some of us just haven’t realised that we already have the tools and if we did, we think we’re not strong enough to use them. If you don’t know what you’re doing just ask God for help. I’ve noticed that throughout all the trials in my life, God was always there strengthening me physically and emotionally. And when I say he was there. I don’t mean I think he was there… I mean it was almost like he was waving things in front of my face while saying “Hey Krishelle, I’m right here! You’ve got this! I’ve already made a way for you to get through it.. you just gotta stand strong for a little bit longer.” ….and you know what? He’s always kept his promises. So whatever you guys are going through. Don’t give up man.. you got this. =)

Krishelle Miaco

http://areyouserious-ohshiet.tumblr.com

VERY inspiring :’)