24/02/2022
DOMINICAN.
This place holds a special place in my heart. It was the first place I stayed in when I decided to live alone after graduating from university. I chose that place because it was close to the company I worked at. So there I was, a single mom, a fresh graduate, an ESL teacher who worked long hours every day without any breaks. I have really happy memories from that place. My neighbors were my friends and everyone there was nice. I was able to work, go to the gym, take my daughter out to play, and make good money. I felt like a strong independent woman until one day, a friend introduced me to his colleague who eventually became my boyfriend.
We dated and I introduced him to my daughter and my family. I met his mom and his siblings too. He visited me a lot in my apartment, most of the time I would ask him to spend the night there. Everything was good for the first few months and I thought to myself “hey, baka siya na nga”. Eventually his mom asked me to move in their house with them. She made me feel so welcomed and wanted that I gave up my apartment (one I love the most), my job (home-based wala sila net---I know b*b*), and independence to go live with them.
Long story short I moved in with them and didn’t take long for me to realize she didn’t really want me to be there. She just didn’t want to lose her son to me. It’s hurtful how people can be good to you but speak ill things behind your back. That’s exactly what she did. One thing lead to another, I felt lost, I didn’t have a job, I felt betrayed, I felt used, I felt like garbage. I tried my best to pick myself up and look for another job. My friends never checked up on me, I felt so alone. My boyfriend never even tried to understand why I was upset. No one tried to understand me. This pushed me to have the thought of actually killing myself. And I did, funny story let’s save it for another time. When I was in the hospital, I cried day and night while he was out was his friends, having the time of his life.
Anyways, after that I felt like trash and struggled a lot. I had to see a psychiatrist and attend therapy sessions with psychologist. I stayed at home with my family and it was hard for me to recover because I had a lot of things I didn’t understand and things I thought I wanted. One thing I remember from the therapy sessions is when she told me that I need to start with having my one safe place- a room perhaps. One I didn’t have (it was a family house I slept at the living room because there was no room available for me). I went back to work shortly after being discharged from the hospital. Not long after that, the pandemic began. More things happened that made me realize that I have to live alone, because I had to fix myself. I needed solitude. So I did, I left despite them not wanting me to (kasi nga baka magpakamatay daw ako uli). But I insisted to go.
I first stayed at Pinsao, the people there were very nice. The landlord was about my age and he was really nice and accommodating. I had to leave after three months when my friend invited me to rent a room in their house. I was really grateful for her because she’s one of the best friends I have from college. They took good care of me when I stayed there and treated me like a family member. I ate meals with them along with my daughter. I really liked staying there and my daughter did too. I was able to go on short walks with her and work. Things were going well until there came a day when a relative asked me to move in with her in Dominican. She’s about the same age as I am and talked a few times. From what I knew, she was pretty and nice so I thought to myself it would be good if I could stay with a relative, maybe that way my family would trust me more with my daughter. So, as difficult as it was I left my friend’s house to move in with my relative. And as I mentioned earlier, Dominican is a place filled with good memories with me so I was excited to go back.
I moved in, things were great in the first few weeks. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months I started the feel uncomfortable. I forgot to say that I got back with my ex (the same momma’s boy I talked about) and he would come visit me and my daughter there from time to time. It was my daughter’s birthday and my relative/housemate told me I should have a party for her at our new house and told me I should invite my friend (her ex-boyfriend) to come. I said I’ll try to ask him to come over. So everything was prepared for the party and my friends came over. And I noticed my housemate acting up, she came up to me again and again to call her ex-boyfriend to come but he didn’t. She was upset about that and it made me realize that the party wasn’t really for my daughter, she just wanted to use that as a reason for her ex-boyfriend to come over. Needless to say, I never had any friends over again. She made me feel like I was a mere tenant and nothing more than that. But still, I stayed because I had nowhere else to go. She kept saying I should ask her ex-boyfriend to come over for some coffee so I could talk some sense into him for breaking up with her. That right there, was her only purpose of asking me to live with her.
She was nice, at first. And I really did try to make myself believe that she was nice, as I was grateful that she invited me to come over. She’d share a drink with me and we’d tell stories for hours. In my mind, we were bonding, I trusted her with stories I never even told anyone else. I shared my story, my trauma, pretty much all the things that I’ve been through. It was good, really, for a minute I thought she really understood what I was going through. There came I time, when I realized my relationship with that man wasn’t really working anymore so when he asked to break up with me (for the third time) I just accepted and walked away, vowed to never get back with him again. I cried my heart out that night, not because I love him, but because I let myself down again. The morning after that I decided to start being nicer to myself. I tried so hard to accept my mistakes and started healthier habits like sleeping early and waking up early. I paid the bills on time, I worked harder (one full time and a part time company), I started working out again, and I spent more time with my family.
Things were then again, going well but I then I was pushing myself really hard. It’s difficult to work on yourself and be a good mom at the same time. The relative I lived with would always give unnecessary remarks about my clothes, hair, face, everything about me. Basically, she told me I was ugly and was embarrassed to tell people we were related. Not gonna lie my self-confidence wasn’t always high and hearing those words almost every day didn’t help in improving it. She would always say hurtful things like how I was a sugar mommy to my ex-boyfriend and such. She would come home and tell me how she talked about me and my daughter with her family and how much they laughed at us. She would always tell me what I should be feeding my daughter and that she said she eats too much, called her fat and made fun of her nose too. I let all of that go thinking that maybe that’s just how she talks. It hurt to hear my daughter say, “Mommy, I don’t want to eat too much rice anymore because I’m taba”. I tolerated all the things she said about me and my daughter, because she said we were merely tenants and she can send us away if she wants to. I was really angry and even though I didn’t mean to, I projected my daughter onto my daughter. I would get so mad, and my housemate heard that and told all of our relatives how bad a mom I was.
She always told me about the downstairs neighbor complaining about our noise and I always wondered what noise they were talking about and why can’t they just come up and tell it straight to my face?. I hear noises all the time, I would wake up to the neighbors drinking, the dogs barking, the door banging downstairs, I heard all of that but I didn’t complain. I do ask the neighbors to keep their noise down when they’re drinking only when my daughter is around. She didn’t consider how I tried to deal with things on my own instead of asking other people to. She would always choose to keep her façade even if it costs ruining other people’s reputation. She has a habit of complaining about things that don’t even concern her, and it was getting too tiring for me because she did it all the time. She would talk bad about her own siblings, own parents, own cousins, so as expected that’s how she talked about me when I wasn’t around too. I chose to speak up when she pulled the last straw of spreading malicious rumors about my aunt that might ruin her. I just couldn’t bear with the thought of her trashing the name of the people who are close to me anymore. I wanted to call her out for her s**t but I was worried I’d be too mean with my words.
Then it hit me, she did exactly the same thing as my ex-boyfriend’s mom. The betrayal. The disrespect. The lies. She reminded me of all the trauma. She opened up wounds I have been trying to heal. It was my fault for letting her. She never apologized to me and didn’t own up for how she treated me. I told her I’ll be leaving and I tried so hard to find a place to move to. She discarded me like trash when she realized she can’t use me to pull the man he wanted. She called me desperate when in fact I was already moving on with my life. She projected all the pain she felt towards me and now plays victim to the situation she made. I told her what she did to me was far worse than anything I have been through in my life. I have no regrets for standing up for myself this time. Years of letting my self go and making terrible decisions are far gone and I choose to move forward. I will let life take care of all the people who hurt me and no longer be available for people who ruin the things I work hard to achieve.
This has been so difficult to write because I had a lot of things I wanted to say. I’ll save some for other stories. Stay away from people who manipulate and use you. Stay away from narcissists. People can only take advantage of you if you let them. Let's make the most of the circumstances we are given. They say you'll keep meeting the the same kind of person until you learn your lesson. And hey, I learned mine. Yun lang, if you made it here I'd like to thank you for reading.
