Author: Lauren Dado

Reality Check: I Am Unhappy Because I’m Making Myself Unhappy

Lauren Dado Leave a comment

I am not a happy person. I’ve been in this weird funk for the better part of a year, and when my mood swings low, I become quite the Negative Nancy. I get unbearably cranky and find fault in everything, including myself. My moodiness has gotten worse, and my tendency to lash out at others when I’m down is starting to affect my relationships. I’m completely unable to recognize the good things in my life, never mind enjoy them.

And then I had one of those “Aha!” moments where reality gives you a nice, hard slap on the face and tells you to get your shit together. Chinie’s article on sabotaging your own success has been making the rounds on my social media feeds, and in a moment of procrastination I clicked it to see what the fuss was all about. Boy, did that ever change my life.

get your shit together

The article talks about how we’re often our own worst critic, viewing life through a warped lens that keeps us from being happy. This part wasn’t quite new to me; years ago, I saw a psychiatrist who said that my depression was was due to “untrue” thoughts from distorted patterns thinking. Follow these patterns often enough, and it practically becomes a lifestyle choice of never-ending disappointment and unhappiness. He didn’t get too specific about what kinds of distorted thinking I do though, because my therapy sessions didn’t have as much impact as what I was about to read next.

What followed was the illustrated 10 types of distorted thinking, as written by Dr. David Burns in his book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Reading about each thinking pattern was like a punch in the gut, because I saw myself in every single one of them.

Allow me to share the ones that hit me the hardest, illustrated by Hannah Horvath gifs (at my worst, I think I’m as insufferable as she is):

All-or-nothing thinking

all or nothing thinking

Everything is black or white, good or evil, victory or defeat. If something isn’t perfect, then it’s no good. If you aren’t perfect, you’re a failure.

I’ve always believed in doing what you love for a living, and never settling for anything less. After quitting my first job, I had this vision of myself as a free-spirited writer and academic, traveling the globe, coming and going as I please, refusing to be shackled down by the chains of capitalism for all the money in the world.

Six years later and I have become the exact opposite of who I wanted to be: a proper grown-up with a 9-to-5 desk job, bills to pay, a mortgage, and neither the time nor brain cells to write anything more intelligent than the occasional blog post. Anxiety coupled by low self-esteem made me too afraid to pursue The Dream and for that, I believed that I was an absolute failure.

Disqualifying the positive

disqualifying the positive

When something good happens, you ignore it, pass it off as a fluke or something that doesn’t count, or turn it into something negative (e.g., something to feel guilty or unworthy about).

I’ve always had a hard time accepting compliments and appreciating the good things I have in life; the former because I find myself unworthy of them, and the latter because I don’t feel like I ever did anything to deserve anything good.

When I lived at home and had to catch a very early service van to work, I would save time in the morning by putting on my makeup at the office. I once got careless one morning and didn’t think to close my bag and zip up my makeup kit. When I got out of the van, the entire contents of my makeup kit fell out hit the sidewalk, shattering my pressed powder into unusable bits.

More than the loss of my pressed powder, I was extremely horrified at the thought of going through an entire day completely barefaced. I ranted about this to Marco, who responded with, “But I think you look beautiful without makeup.” Most girls would have found this really sweet, but not me. I completely flipped out, because how dare he think that I look beautiful when it is not true!

Jumping to conclusions

jumping to conclusions

Like some sort of doomsday fortune teller, you automatically assume negative reactions or outcomes, even when there’s no evidence to support your conclusion.

Decorating my condo should have been a fun and exciting experience, but I was an anxious wreck the entire time. I was constantly second-guessing my choices, convinced that the furniture would be too big, or the paint colors would look wrong, etc.

Should statements

should statements

You insist on a set of “rules” that you and everyone else should follow based on your own version of reality. When you don’t adhere to these rules, you feel guilty, and when others don’t adhere to them, you feel hurt or resentful.

I don’t have a specific list of rules per se, but I sometimes hold my boyfriend, friends, and myself to ridiculous and arbitrary standards. Like, if you’re late then you obviously don’t give a crap about me or my incredibly packed schedule. Or, if you loved me then you would learn how to drive, so I’m not the only one driving all the freaking time. Or, if you’re always with your boyfriend then you are clearly becoming a “we”, and I don’t know if I can be friends with a “we”.

So, who wants to hang out?

Mental filtering

mental filtering

When presented with both positive and negative things, you filter out all the positive and focus only on the negative.

This is why “positive thoughts” and “counting my blessings” doesn’t help me climb out of my woe-is-me rabbit hole. I’ve tried to feel better by writing down stuff to be thankful for, only for me to end up fixating on the negative or worry about the ways I will probably fuck the good things up.

Emotional reasoning

emotional reasoning

You think your negative emotions and feelings reflect reality, assuming that just because you feel something, then it must be true. You then base your decisions on these negative emotions instead of on actual facts.

This is me like, all the time, but especially when I reach a low point. My day sucks, therefore my life sucks, and everything and everyone in it.

Jesus Christ. No wonder I’m so miserable.

The good news is that combating these distorted thoughts is as simple as giving yourself a gentle dose of perspective. All you need to do is catch yourself making these thoughts, and turn them into something positive or actionable.

With this framework, it was pretty easy for me to resolve the failure-by-career-choice issue. Digital marketing may not have been what I originally wanted for myself, but all things considered, it’s a damn good Plan B. My job pays well, is 100% drama-free, and puts me in a position to improve my technical knowledge of social media, email marketing, and content management. Sure, this means hustling to Makati and spending 9 hours at a desk while my peers live more glamorous lives as PR practitioners, bloggers, and not-regular-office-people. But if I take this seriously enough, I could have a very lucrative career by the time I hit my 30s.

A for my dreams of being a writer, I suppose this blog will have to do for now. Marco gave me some really great advice on how to be happy with not-your-dream without it being settling:

Be satisfied with what good you’ve achieved, because it really isn’t all-or-nothing. You may not have the dream, but you have aspects of it down pat, and that’s good for now. The “not settling” part is to motivate you to keep chasing the dream while still happy with what good you’ve got. Differentiate between the “now” and the “what should be”.

Next on my list of things to fix is the damage I might have caused with “should statements”. I am kind of a bad friend (distorted thought: labeling and mislabeling) but seeing as I haven’t been completely disowned by those I think I’ve wronged, I should be fine.

So, which of these distorted ways of thinking are you guilty of? What do you do or tell yourself to correct your thoughts?

I Am Not A “We”: Am I Just Half A Couple to My Friends Now?

Lauren Dado Leave a comment

I used to feel sad for couples who compartmentalize their social lives by keeping their partners away from their friends. To me, a healthy relationship is one that includes lots and lots of shared experiences with friends, both pre-relationship buds and the mutual friends you make throughout the years. Marco genuinely enjoys the company of my friends, and it was surprisingly easy for me to talk to his Magic: the Gathering buddies despite my refusal to invest in the game. As a couple, we befriended a large, informal gaming group and spent many a weekend geeking out on board games, MMORPGs, and video games with them. Having tons of mutual friends enriches a relationship! How can anyone not want to be part of their significant other’s social circles?

But after four years of happy togetherness with our varied social groups, my identity is starting to feel inextricably tied to my boyfriend’s. I would guesstimate that less than 2% of the people in my friends and acquaintances lists have spent time with me only. To the rest, it’s unthinkable that I socialize with them on my own. Maybe making aspects of my social life Lauren-only is not such a bad idea after all.

This line of thinking began with an observation: whenever I fly solo to meet our friends, “Where’s Marco?” becomes the standard post-beso greeting. It’s hardly ever a “How are you?” or a “What’s up?” Almost always, it’s an inquiry as to where my “other half” is.

To this, I usually shrug and I say, “At home, asleep?” But in my head, I’m letting out an exasperated sigh and quelling an neurotic mini-rant. “I really don’t know. He could be anywhere in the world doing god knows what. We actually trust each so much that we don’t send blow-by-blow reports of what we’re doing, where we are, and who we’re with when we’re not together. Why are you asking? Last I checked, we’re in a relationship, not conjoined to the hip sharing vital organs. Is it so weird to see me out by myself? Do you not like being around me sans Marco? Am I just one half of a couple to you?”


Don’t you want to be friends with just me?

I’m sure that anyone who uses the where’s-Marco-as-greeting probably means nothing by it. As my friend Rica pointed out, they’re likely asking out of sheer curiosity. She also added that we’ve built common friends as a couple, which makes it natural to inquire about the one person that connects them to me, when that person isn’t around. While this explanation applies to the informal gaming circles we’ve joined, it doesn’t explain why even the Hohobags waste no time asking about Marco’s whereabouts when I show up alone.

I guess this is what really bothers me, the where’s-Marco-as-greeting coming from my pre-relationship friends. I expect them to be happy to see me, but when the initial greeting is followed up by a “Where’s Marco?” it’s like, when did I stop being Lauren and start being the Marco-Lauren entity? Is it so unthinkable for me to want to interact with you sans boyfriend, or for Marco to have other things to do than be with me? I’m glad my friends get along fabulously with Marco, but sometimes I just want to be a girl with my girls and talk to them about things I don’t feel comfortable discussing around the menfolk. Why is it so unusual for me to show up without Marco that they have to wonder where he is?

There’s a reason why I’m quite adamant about establishing a social identity outside my relationship. Years after I broke up with my college ex, I learned that our mutual friends – the ones who didn’t hate me for leaving him, anyway – saw me as part of a “we” than as Lauren. I hung out with them nearly everyday but I didn’t realize then that most of the conversation was directed to him rather than me, and that I didn’t feel comfortable talking to others with him always there.

My ex was incredibly manipulative, and had total control over what I could wear and what friends I should have. One of the first things he did was make me end friendships because he thought they were too Christian or too slutty. He would also pick fights when I would get “too noisy” after a glass of wine, and for making statements that seemed harmless to me but was apparently offensive to him. So after all that, I guess I must have been too afraid to try to reach out and make friends with him around, because I might have said something inappropriate that would piss him off, which would start a fight where I end up crying and feeling shitty and sorry for being myself and saying whatever it was that offended him. Needless to say, it was not a healthy relationship, and this shit still kind of haunts me nearly ten years later.


Hello, pogi.

Obviously Marco is nothing like this guy at all. He incredibly understanding and supportive, gives me tons of space when I need it, and has never tried to change me or force me to see things his way. (He is also 1000000000x more good-looking.) But I never, ever want to be seen by anyone as a “we” again. So every time a greeting is followed up by a “Where’s Marco?”, it kind of awakens old traumas. I get a knot in my stomach and I wonder if I’m disappearing into the Marco-Lauren Happy Couple Entity, and if my friends will ever recognize me as Lauren again.

I love my boyfriend with every under-toned muscle of my being, but I am not a “we”. I am Lauren and he is Marco and sometimes we like to do things and see people without the other.

Is this a normal thing to feel or am I overreacting? Do you feel the need to establish an identity outside of your relationship?

5 Realities Your Broker Won’t Tell You About Buying a Condo

Lauren Dado Leave a comment

I’m a few days away from moving into the shoebox I bought from Robinsons Land four years ago, and the months leading up to this moment has been a crazy whirlwind of decorating and sticker shock. While I’m mostly excited about having my very own place, the whole ordeal wasn’t exactly the dream-come-true brokers and advertisements have led me to believe. In fact, I had some serious doubts that nearly led me to call off the sale.


Still excited about having a purple bedroom though!

When thought about where my frustrations came from, I realized that it was because I knew very little about the realities of buying a condo. You’d think that my real estate broker would have given me a heads up these things. Isn’t his job to help me make sense of all this stuff? But I soon learned that brokers and developers do next to nothing to educate their buyers about what they’re getting themselves into.

Here are the five things your real estate broker won’t tell you when they give you their sweet sales talk, based on my experiences:

You can’t see your unit until you have fully paid.

Your condo unit is completely off-limits to you until you pay the developer the full amount for the place. If you’re getting a bank loan to pay off your balance, a Letter of Guarantee isn’t enough. You have to pay the full amount. No exceptions. Not even if you were one of the first people to buy a unit from the building. Not even if all you want to do is look at the place and measure out its dimensions so you know what size of furniture to buy.

I found this a little ridiculous, and I never did get an explanation for why you can’t look at the property you’ve been paying for years. My broker was at least nice enough to take me to my building and show me a similar unit.

Oh, you have a bank loan? You can’t see your unit yet, and we won’t give you an exact date when you can.

My bank loan got approved and signed on February 13, but I didn’t get to see my condo until April 12 – and this was only after my mom sweet-talked someone from the marketing department to help me out. Who knows how much longer it would have taken if I had no connections to Robinsons Land?

Apparently, this is how it works: your bank doesn’t release the loan money to the developer until they receive the signed bank guaranty, Deed of Undertaking, Notarized CTS and Final Statement of Account from the latter. These papers require signatures from various offices and departments (I don’t really know which). I guess it takes nearly two months for papers to move from desk to desk?

To make a long story short – Robinsons promised and failed to return the papers to the bank on two different dates – March 14 and March 22. I started getting really pissed off when March 23 came and the bank still had nothing from RObinsons Land. You can imagine how frustrating it was to be jerked around like this and kept in the dark as to when I could finally see my damn condo.

After some drama with an extremely rude real estate broker on Twitter, a strongly-worded email to the marketing department, and the help of my mom, Robinsons finally gave their paperwork to the bank, who then released the loan on March 27.

According to the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), buyers have a right to know when your unit’s turnover date is (turnover, meaning the date you can visit the unit and get the keys turned over to you from the developer). So if your developer is being vague as hell about when you can visit your unit, don’t be afraid to complain to the HLURB.

I’m not sure if the same foot-dragging and lousy service happened to people who paid for their balance in cash. Any experiences?

You need to pay a crapload of miscellaneous fees.

I got the sticker shock of my life when I discovered that I had to pay P158,216.20 in miscellaneous fees on top of the balance I owed Robinsons. What the actual shit.

I demanded a breakdown of the fees and this is what they’re for:

Reimbursement of real estate tax – P9,423.00
Transfer tax – P74,952.26
Miscellaneous fees * – P61,967.96
Association dues (6 months) – P11,872.98

While you can use the housing loan to pay for the miscellaneous fees, it’s still an unpleasant and unavoidable reality that I wish my broker warned me about at the beginning.

* Thanks to my non-existent organizing skills, I lost the document that had a detailed breakdown of the miscellaneous fees portion. But I remember that this included stuff like the electricity meter from Meralco, a whopping P25,000.

There are going to be rules. Lots of rules.

Even though I live with my parents, I’m used to coming and going as I please, inviting over as many friends as I want, and bringing in large boxes without filling paperwork. So I was pretty bummed when I got a 20-page document with the building rules, and even more bummed by its contents. The freedoms I thought I would enjoy were wrecked by pages and pages of rules and penalties.

I get that living in a high-rise building with 400 or so other people will require some rules to maintain peace, order, and security. And I get that I too will benefit from these rules in the long run. But I dunno – I don’t deal well with rules and authority figures. I don’t like it when people tell me what I can and can’t do. I wish I had known that living in a condo might feel like living in a police state. It would have probably made me think twice about buying.

I’m not going to provide you with after-sales service. You’re on your own, kid.

Real estate brokers are incredibly friendly and helpful during the first steps of the buying process. They answer all your questions dutifully and act as if they’ll stay by your side until you get the keys to your unit. I’m sure that there are brokers who follow through with great after-sales service. But mine certainly didn’t. While I was wrestling with Robinsons about my turnover date, my broker was nowhere to be found. Requests to help me follow up with their turnover department resulted in an indifferent “Ok”, only for me to never hear from him again. It was so frustrating.

I get that maybe brokers aren’t obligated to take care of their clients when the purchase is done. But the fact remains that they represent your developer and are pretty much your lifeline to them. They really should provide a modicum of after-sales service, or point you to someone who can assist you in these matters. I’ve talked to a few people who purchased condos and save for one who helped expedite the turnover, the others had brokers who couldn’t be bothered to return texts or calls.

Let’s not even go into how one of Robinsons’ sales managers tactlessly pointed out my weight gain. Twice.

I’m not saying that buying a condo was entirely a negative experience. In fact, I was impressed by the building’s seamless construction, and pleasantly surprised when I saw that the actual unit has a much nicer kitchen than the model unit. But I disliked being kept in the dark about these tiny yet significant details. Oh well. I hope my experiences gave you some insight about the realities of buying a condo. I certainly wish someone told me these things before I even made my first payment.

Playing with the Erotic Tarot of Manara

Lauren Dado Leave a comment

Like many a teenage outcast, I held a casual fascination for the occult. I devoured all the books I could find by the Spirit Questors, kept crystals in my uniform skirt, and, back when Power Books hadn’t been stripped off its personality, longed to own the Original Rider Waite Tarot prominently displayed in their New Age section. I thought it would be cool to read tarot, not only because it was such a subversive thing to do at my conservative Catholic high school. I felt that learning to divine the future or the self would give a measure of social power missing in my life.

I read somewhere that tarot cards had to be given as a gift for it to work properly, so I begged my parents to buy me the deck. They were a tad conservative then and said no, adding that they didn’t want me corrupted by such un-Christian toys. Meh. No one else in my life was cool enough to get me tarot cards, and I didn’t have the discipline to save my allowance and buy it myself. Eventually, my interest in tarot and the occult in general went away on its own and I moved on to pursue less esoteric avenues towards social acceptance.

A decade later, I found myself at the receiving end of an interesting tarot reading. Marco and I celebrated our fourth anniversary right when our friend Pat arrived from the States, offering free passage for online purchases in her suitcase. We’re not very big on rewarding ourselves for staying together, but I grabbed this opportunity to give him the Erotic Tarot of Manara. This 78-card deck is beautifully illustrated by Milo Manara, an Italian artist known for his sensual rendering of the female form and tasteful interpretation of sexual acts. While Marco has never really shown an interest in tarot reading, he is quite the Manara fan and I thought this would make a more interesting present than a hardbound compilation of his work. He did quite enjoy my present, and busted out the cards to give me a reading the first chance he got.

As he shuffled the deck, Marco (who majored in psychology) told me something I didn’t know: Carl Jung studied the tarot quite a bit and interpreted the major aracana using his core concepts. Despite my initial fascination with the tarot as an occult object and divination tool, I’d rather treat it as a way to read someone’s personality and psychological state. It feels a lot less nebulous and more grounded that way, plus it prevents you from messing with mystical forces you don’t understand.

The Erotic Tarot of Manara comes with a little booklet that provides the basic meanings behind each card, as well as two readings you can do – a love reading and a 12-card astrological reading. I picked the latter, which involves arranging 12 cards in a circle to divine various aspects of your personality and current situation.

It is interesting to note that most people buy the erotic tarot of Manara for the artwork rather than its faithfulness to the tarot’s astrological symbols. I didn’t realize the deck’s supposed inaccuracies until I revisited the product page and noticed the 3-star reviews. It might have been because he knows me very well, but Marco’s reading hit me dead on, particularly when it came to divining myself and my work. He was able to tie all the elements together and conjure a coherent picture of where I am now.

Some highlights from the reading, using Marco’s words:

House 1: Personality
The Stars
Symbolic of dance, beauty, enthusiasm, and enchantment. Your personality is driven by your desire to be enchanted with something, to find enthusiasm in beauty and art. Creativity innervates you; to be without it would make you cold and detached.

House 3: Mental Inclination
2 of Fire
Symbolic of uncertainty, lack of stimuli or positive outlook despite present possibilities, frustration, and the need to evolve and fight in an authoritative way. Given that Fire cards are indicative of your passions, desires, and creativity, your current thoughts tend to lean towards frustration with a situation that hinders your spark. You’re bored and unsure of what will come next, which bogs you down so much so that you have trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In order to counter this, you will need to find a path that feeds your inner creativity.

House 4: Mood
King of Air
Symbolic of power, order, decision ,agitation, impatience, and determination. Air is indicative of the sphere of the mind, governing what is rational. Tying your mood to previous cards, it would appear that your frustration with the hindrance to your creative spark has rendered you impatient; it’s gone on for too long and you’re getting testy. Although your outlook isn’t exactly positive, there’s something in you that provides a drive to get out of this situation. Doing so, you believe, will bring you greater strength, direction, and order in your life.

House 6: Health
4 of Air
Symbolic of meditation, reflection, the need to develop harmoniously, and being unreachable. Since this is once again an Air card, this relates to your mental health – and possibility how it affects your physical health as well. You desire a sense of harmony in your mind: a state free of conflicts, in which everything meshes together as it should. To create this harmony, you feel the need to meditate upon your problems. This sense of “retreatiyo”, however, may make you difficult to reach if taken to the extremes. There is a risk of shutting yourself away in your thoughts, cutting off those around you. For you, the solitude is necessary – without it, your well-being will be in jeopardy.

House 7: Society
The Sun
Symbolic of desire, freedom, direction, arrogance, and self-expression. You desire the freedom to express yourself, an act you believe will help you make your mark in society. Whatever this achievement you seek may be, it must be something uniquely you. This may be connected with your need for creative stimulation. Taken to an extreme, this may be perceived as arrogance on your part, but to you, it is the only way you’ll feel like you’ve fleshed out your role in this world.

House 8: The End
Justice
Symbolic of sobriety, fairness, creativity, and joyfulness. The end of this particular chapter of your life will bring about the creativity you seek, resulting in the calming of your tumultuous thoughts and a state of happiness. In terms of fairness, this reward at the end of your journey will likely feel like something you deserve; whatever it is, you will feel like it’s only right that you’ve earned it.

House 9: Spiritual Tendencies
Knave of Earth
Symbolic of the student, curiosity, the desire to learn, and the beginning of winter. Since Earth is the suit related to the physical world, associations with this card tend to be grounded. Winter is symbolic of an end, which means that something spiritual in your life is coming to an end. (My jaw dropped at this point – see my recent defection from the Catholic church.) However, this is not the blunt slamming of a door – your inherent desire to learn means that you’re seeking to learn the alternative to what’s being left behind. You choose to be educated about your sense of spirituality, whatever it may be.

House 10: Work
Knight of Fire
Symbolic of travelling, departure, adventure, optimism, and ambition. You may be leaving an unsatisfactory work environment for something more stimulating or exciting. Your sense of ambition refuses to let yourself stay stuck, and so you will eventually depart in search of adventure – or in the case of your job, fulfillment. Again, because this is a Fire card, this may be tied to the other cards that mention your sense of creativity, which in turn fuels your ambitions.

House 11: Hope
5 of Water
Symbolic of fear, avoidance of unpleasant events, struggle, and reassurance. Water is the suit of daydreams and emotions, and in terms of your hope, this card could mean that there is a great fear holding you back. As the art of the card suggests, it may feel like you are drowning in your current situation, diminishing your positive outlook. However, the art also suggests that you’ll manage to stay afloat with the reassurance of those around you.

House 12: Difficulties
Ace of Earth
Symbolic of success, perfection, and productive and imaginative states of consciousness. The biggest hindrance in your current situation may be a sense of perfectionism – if everything isn’t exactly as you wish it to be, you are not a success. This attitude may have a negative effect on your ability to perform according to your desires; that is, in a productive and imaginative manner. Tying this to your Personality card, this suggests a lack of belief in your creative abilities – because what you do isn’t perfect, you’re not good enough. This may also be tied to your Hope card, suggesting that this perfectionism is connected to the fear you experience. Overcoming this may very well be the key to realizing your ambitions.

TLDR: I’m a creative person currently experiencing high dissatisfaction at a non-creative job, which contributes to my lack of confidence, diminished hope, and disharmony in my mind. The good news is that I will soon leave my job (how the fuck did the tarot know that?), likely for something that allows me to express myself and make my name in the world. Aside from fear, the other thing keeping me from happiness or achieving my dreams is my perfectionist tendencies. I’ll never be happy until I achieve my imagined perfect life and perfect self. Yeah, that about sums it up.

I’d Like to Leave the Catholic Church, Please

Lauren Dado Leave a comment

Dear Catholic Church,

I am writing to let you know that as of today, I have decided to defect from the Catholic Church and renounce Catholicism entirely. I know that short of excommunication, there’s actually no way to formally leave the Catholic church, but humor me. After 27 years, it’s time I start getting serious about my spirituality and come clean about what I really believe in – or don’t believe in.

Like most Filipinos, I was baptized a Roman Catholic long before I could speak, and was raised by its doctrines, customs, and mythology through my family and private education. I don’t blame my parents at all for baptizing me Catholic. It’s just what people in the Philippines do to give their kids a moral compass, social acceptance, and a safety net from Limbo in case we die in childhood. School actually had more to do with raising me Catholic. Aside from the occasional Sunday mass, a few bedtime prayers, and some gruesome books on the lives of the saints, religion didn’t figure much into my family life.

Still, I don’t think my parents will be too thrilled to discover my defection from the Church, and I hope I’m not disappointing them terribly by formally rejecting the religion of my birth. The truth is that I have never really taken Catholicism very seriously, not even as a child. I mean, I had my first communion illegally at six years old because I wanted to know what the wafer tasted like.

The only time I remember being a “good” Catholic was when I was 11 and read the book of Revelations for the first time. I took the entire thing literally and was gripped by a very strong and irrational fear of enduring these horrors as punishment for being a bad Catholic. I was also aware that I wasn’t worthy of God’s Kingdom – not because I was being humble or whatever, but because religion was a thing I did, thoughtlessly and with little sincerity. The time to repent was nigh! For the next couple of weeks, I attended mass as often as twice a week, and prayed the rosary every night because I read somewhere that the Virgin Mary saved good little girls who behaved well. Then I cried myself to sleep because deep down I knew that I was just doing all of this in order to save my own sorry ass, and maybe that’s not enough to win you passage to heaven.

I am telling you these to illustrate the first reason for my defection: the only things that kept me in the Church was fear and guilt. Catholicism and all its rituals and doctrines was not something I could identify with, no matter how hard I tried. But I proclaimed my love for Jesus God in public anyway, not only to avoid Hell in the afterlife, but to avoid the Hell of Social Rejection right here on Earth.

Seventh grade and high school was spent at a small, very religious all-girls school run by Augustinian Recollect nuns. There I learned that people who don’t know how to say the rosary are a social anomaly to be made fun of, because what kind of horrible, hell-bound person doesn’t know what all those beads are for? The school’s brand of Christian Living Education involved show-offy religious ceremonies under the sun, strict body policing in the name of simplicity and modesty, and lengthy retreats designed to make you feel lower than a worm for committing very normal, very human “sins” and treating Jesus like some sort of prayer dumpster that you only pay attention to when you need something. There were no intelligent discussions about Catholicism in here, only “believe in what I say” lectures and threats of eternal damnation for not believing enough. The distance between me and the Church grew rapidly in the years I spent at this school. Ironically, this was also the point in time where I probably said the most prayers.

My reasons for leaving the Church are more personal than political, but I would be remiss if I didn’t address how the lack of separation between Church and State continued drive me away from Catholicism. Where do I begin? Their continued efforts to delay the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law and demonize its supporters had a lot to do with it. The whole reproductive rights debate made it clear that the Church is more interested in maintaining their influence and power over Filipinos than improving the quality of our lives. It feels wrong to be part of a Church that doesn’t care about preventing maternal deaths, reducing the spread of AIDS, and making effective birth control methods available to families who otherwise can’t afford them.

The heart of the matter is that the Philippines has weak political institutions and a wealthy Church that’s only too eager to exploit these weaknesses to maintain their influence and political power in this country. I can’t speak for others, but to me, staying Catholic means that I’m okay with all these celibate old men telling us who to vote for, what kind of people should get married, and that it’s fine for elephants to die so their tusks can be fashioned into valuable religious paraphernalia.

I suppose now is a good time to bring up my thoughts on God’s existence. Am I an atheist, you ask? Is this why I’m leaving the Church? In college I thought I was, but I think I’m more agnostic than anything. I’m not 100% convinced that there is no God, but I haven’t seen any real proof that he’s out there either. God or no, I’m going to live my life as though he weren’t there.

I don’t want to debate about whether or not God exists, because that’s not what this is about. I am leaving the Church because I no longer believe in any of its doctrines, teachings, and rituals, nor do I much respect it as an institution. I want to figure out my own spirituality without old fogeys in the Vatican and the CBCP telling me what to do, think, and believe in. I am leaving the Church because they have kept the Philppines in the Dark Ages long enough and I’m tired of pretending to support them for the sake of social acceptance. I want to be a good person, not out of fear of the afterlife, but because I want to make a positive difference and be one less asshole here on Earth. I don’t know where I’m going to go after this, or what philosophies will make up my new moral compass, but I won’t be turning to organized religion for guidance anymore.

This isn’t exactly goodbye, though. You may still occasionally see me in Church, standing up and sitting down as required at weddings, Christmas mass, and funerals. I will be attending these ceremonies not because I want to, but because I choose my battles. Sometimes it’s less exhausting to participate in religious rituals than to expect others to adjust to your unpopular beliefs.

I draw the line at having a Catholic wedding, though. If I ever get married, it will not be officiated by some celibate dude who is denied the very sacrament he is performing, and my wedding guests will have to deal with it.

Sincerely,
Lauren Dado, apostate

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