The New Century Epidemic - Review Series

Hello World and Hello people! It's morning and it's brand new day! The sun is out! The light's on us and there's no reason why sadness should haunt any of us.
Today I will talk about depression, y'all! In a responsible, realist and personal way. An illness that has been making quite a presence in Hollywood lately.
If you have been paying to the news, a lot of topics such as suicide, airplanes crashings and wars have been trending, a lot. I have decided to focus on the first as it is the one that is mostly connected with what I study and the one I have dwelled on the most throughout my life.
What is depression? Depression is a psychiatric disorder that is defined by extensive periods of experiencing sadness, desperation, helplessness, hopelessness and worthlessness. It affects your sleep, your appetite, your ability to concentrate, your mood that is always very sad or very irritable and your thoughts and that are increasingly more negative.
It is a mind illness, an illness of the mid. It is not something you can spot on people from the outside. You have to be in contact with the person to recognise the symptoms. Clinical depression requires a lot more of specification but I am certain that no one here is interested in reading all that clinical jazz. So I am just going straight to the point here.

Depression is a sedative state of mind. Your body is hostage of your mind that is darker that anyone could picture. Your motivation is nule and sometimes so is your desire to live which causes acts such as suicide.
Talking about causes, does any of you know what causes depression? That is one good question. Depression being a mind illness has no clear cause. Despite researchers having comproved the depression is partially inherited, it is mostly an illness that steams from the environment. The life choices we make, the relationships we've had, the problems we're facing and our own capability of coping with all this.
All psychological illnesses are little pyramids They draw back from life issues and family history and they slowly and increasingly add up with negative experiences and negative outcomes till the individual visualises death as more desirable than living.

My personal experience with depression is long and heartfelt. I have always had low self-esteem, high self-doubt, shame and lonliness feelings throughout my life. My adult life just started and I have been learning to deal with these feelings a lot better than I did in my teenage years. I've lived a comparisons life, always seeing better than I had and always secretely wishing for things to turn out better.
I've had several secret panic attacks that I don't think I've ever told anyone because I was afraid that sharing such would make of me another weak person who can't deal with her own issues. I was afraid of a lot of things. Mostly screwing up everything for everyone. I was always afraid that my presence would only make things worse for everyone else. I was always afraid that I would end up even more disappointed than I already was with myself. I was always afraid that I could never recover from losing people I most tremendously love. I was always afraid I could never be seen as desirable to anyone ever. Not in a physical, intellicatual nor emotional way. I was always afraid of so many things and so many of those at the same time.
And deep down my deepest fear was that I could never be enough and to be honest, that still haunts me. Everyday I try to remind myself that I can be good enough and that I have been more than enough at times even. It is a process and you have to get yourself in a stage in which you can see good things about yourself.

I think with depression, our body tends to let go more than our mouths can speak. We think we are invisible and others would never notice that sometimes is happening to us but the truth is that we aren't and others do, at least those who care.
Whenever I am secretly panicking, sometimes even secretly to myself (I am not even consciously aware that I am panicking) my body starts trembling. It is mostly visible in my hands but sometimes even my lips, my cheeks, my eyebrows are trembling. It is insane and it makes me feel so desperate.
This is such a personal topic to me and it is so very hard to talk about it but it is necessary because the epidemic is out there and people are feeling it.
From celebrities that have spent their lifetime making others laugh such as Robin Wiliams to your next door neighbour that you barely see leaving the house.
We are living in a world which constantly remind us that we are weak beyond all the power of richer, stronger, more beautiful, more charming, more everything people and if do let ourselves believe that, then we're screwed up and sometimes we're screwed up forever and life will always suck.
That's why we can't. Life IS worth living. There are people who love YOU. I guarantee you. There's so much better coming up for you. Just allow it, invite it to your house, to your life. Let that sun light shine through you. Sounds cliche but I am being the most honest I've ever been.
You need to get yourself out there and as much as you're afraid, and as much as you're scared and as much as you feel alone, give life the opportunity to show you better.
Be around people, get professional help, talk it through with a close friend. Just don't keep it to yourself. I will eat you alive, if you let it in. And that would break my heart as it did learning about the death of Robin Williams.
To end, I just want to let everyone know and beware of depression and its symptoms and its causes and its effects. And to those suffering from it, it does get better, I assure you.

Love always,

Tommy

PS. For more information about depression you can check Help Guide (the link to the website is below). I think it is such a well written, easy reading and self explanatory article that will answer most of your questions.

HELP GUIDE


"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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Life Update

Hello everyone! Hope you enjoyed the new "review series" I am starting here on MK. The very first review I wrote was for Lucy. Go check it out if you haven't yet.
This will be a quick life update. I am still in Lisbon, home with my family and no I am not moving back home. I know it's been three months already so people may be wondering if I am coming back but no, I have just been home busy and not busy at the same time, enjoying family's company and friends whenever they feel like seeing me. I am now 9 days away from going back to England and my chilled and stressed student life in Huddersfield and that is both nerve racking and exciting.
This summer has been one of the craziest summers of my life. No, I haven't done anything outstanding or crazy but my parents have. They got back together after perhaps 15 years apart and they are even talking about marriage (I suppose at their age people don't really date much, marriage has to be the ultimate goal, so they're kind of just skipping boring steps when they know each other so well).
At first I didn't know how to deal with this, I am going to be honest. It was too much to deal with. It was just out of this world for me. Unreal.
What the F are they doing? I asked to myself and out loud so they could actually come with reasonable answers to me but all they've managed to say was that it was nonsense to be apart.
Mum's happy so I am too, for her. I love my dad, he's been the best dad any daughter could've dreamed of for the past four or five years. Our relationship has walked so many miles and we are in a stage when it feels comfortable being near each other. I remembered having a horrible fight with my dad when I was in high school about my mum's about pregnancy of me that just broke my heart. And I couldn't stand being in silence. I had to talk to him and made him aware of how much knowing that hurt me. Anyway we have moved past that and now we're in a happy place.
But my point here was that dad's making mum happy and as long as he's doing, I am happy for them. The moment he stops, I'll be the first to take mum out of this but I hope I won't have to do it.
So we've been having lots of family time and it was fun in the beginning but I am starting to get sick of those - seriously! It is mostly because my family's changed. My sister, my one year older sister is married and lives here with her husband and his daughter, my adorkable niece. This has brought so many changes, I don't think she even realises it but it has. They have their own personal life and family goals and I am not part of that.
I feel as if because mum and dad are a couple now and my sister is married and they already have a child of their own, one of my brother's away and the other one has a life of his own life as well, I an extra in my own family. Like I don't fit here anymore sometimes.
Also some other things that have happened but I don't feel comfortable to share them with anyone now. It's one of those things that I know that if I say it out loud is forever told and I cannot take it back. It would also hurt a lot of people's feelings and I couldn't bear to do that to anyone I honestly care about.
Regards Uni, I've got my dissertation coming up for this final year. So nerve racking and I haven't had the opportunity to do real research yet due to lack of time. Hopefully I'll have some today. Uni is literally a few away from starting and I feel this year is a new chapter in my life as last year was. I honestly hope it goes well. I will try to work 100% and be the best student I've ever been. I really need to feel proud of myself at the end of this year or all of this was for nothing so I will try to be the best I can. I am also planning to pass parties and stuff like that. Last year was fun and all but that wasn't me. That was me experiencing and it was awesome. Did a lot of things that helped me to shape to the person I am today who isn't nor better or worse than I was better but more aware of herself as an individual. When you grow up with such low self esteem and confidence, your awareness of yourself and your influence over others tends to be blinded by your inability to accept yourself as who you truly are -flawed yet unique.

So this post wasn't as short as intented but it comprises well how I feel. I hope you are enjoying your Summer and getting mentally ready for another year of work,

Good luck and love always,
Tommy

PS. I've got more posts coming up about my friend's visit to my hometown, the VMAs, the tv series I can't simply live without and my stand-by love life.

"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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First Review - Lucy (film) 2014

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having wonderful holidays and are as excited as I am to get back to work and the real life of waking up at 7am everyday.
As you all noticed, telling you about my life has maybe gone out of style here on MK. I sincerely got bored of doing that and I realised that I needed a new subject for MK. Obviously I will still tell you every now and then about my unlucky love life and how unfortunate I've been with the life choices I've made. But I have decided that I will bet on my interests from now on.
That being said, Mk will now do reviews of the books I've most recently finished, the most played songs on my spotify playlist as well as the ones hitting the UK, USA and Portugal charts, the latest fashion trends and pretty much every cultural fact that comes to my attention as being fundamental to today's society, I will make my opinion visible to you all.
The first topic on this review season of MK will be Lucy.
If you were an innocent child and an action film enthusiast as I was when you first watched the trailer for Lucy, you probably were dying in electrifying excitment to see the real thing.
So, my best friend Dave and I went on the journey of popping up at our local cinema to watch Lucy, starring the beautiful Scarlett Johansson and the God voice of Morgan Freeman.
When the film first started I instantly felt something was off about this film. The production didn't seem at its best at least nothing I would expect for a film produced by universal pictures. I can even say that that beginning which featured our pre-humans figures and animals in a very National Geographic Channel way, might have even lowered my expectations. However I had seen the trailer several times which ensured me that all the action that tended to pump me up was yet to come.
As the film progressed, it became more obvious that for a film like Lucy people are better off restraining themselves to simply watching the trailer at the comfort of their homes than paying for a ticket of a sincerely poorly executed film.
Not even the presence of the magnificient Morgan Freeman saved the confusing train course of this film from hitting rock bottom. It just got worse. More obvious, less interesting and more and more faulted.
I am a believer that if you want to criticise, you better be very specific about it and say how could have gone better. So I'll try to do a very constructive critique of Lucy now.

Let's start with the film concept. As you may have understood from the trailer (click below to watch if if you haven't yet), it is about the human brain and and the usage we make of such a powerful force that it is.
Several psychoogical and neurological theories have addressed this subject before, stating that despite the fact that all areas of the human brain are used (not at the same time, they are activated depending on the task at hand), humans are yet to use the full brain's potential. According to the same, only a small portion, about 10% of the brain potential it is used. Even creatures as dolphins (that we must agreee are freaking adorable) are apparently more developed than we are. It is believed that they use about 20% of their brains potential which makes them one of the smartest creatures in the planet with the most sophisticated communication system that has ever existed on earth that allows them to communicate miles away from each others.

So, as you can see, it is quite an interesting subject however it's not something new and neither is the approach the film made to the subject. A new approach based on recent research might've been refreshing but the one they applied has been in literature for ages. For me, that was perhaps the biggest flaw in this film production.
Another drawback perhaps was Scarlett performance. She is perhaps one of the sexiest and most beautiful women on earth. I would die to look like her. She's perfect and she also has one of those cheeky cute personalities. But my general opinion is that she is quite average as an actress. I never liked any particular film she's been at for the exception of Avengers in which she didn't have that many lines and she portrayed a superhero so that kind of made her look awesome regardless. She probably could do more drama and I am not saying this in a judgmental way. The drama she's done so far has been fairly good (I'm referring to the Prestige for instance - such an insightful film) and perhaps she should stuck to that. Thrillers and action films aren't really her thing. For me as a viewer and arts enthusiast, it feels weird to watching her. You can feel how unnatural it sounds from her mouth. Her moves are slightly awkward as if she was trying too hard to feel and just kind of overdid all of her lines. She could also give a try to comedy, like a real try. She's very beautiful and she probably would fit there just fine. However if her intentions are to be one of the greatest actresses of all times, I would say stuck with drama and work on it!
Concerning Morgan Freeman, I don't have much to say. He's been God so I don't think any film he does now, can top that up. Just kidding, he was as wonderful as always. But again, it was not the right film for him. His value as one of the greatest actors of all times has never and wasn't in question. and he just did as well as always. The film didn't make him any justice though.

So, yes, dear netheads, this is my review of Lucy. A film with a lot of potential that could've gone a lot better than it did.

Talk to you soon, I've got lots of life updates coming up and few other reviews,
Love always,

Tommy

Lucy Trailer 2014


PS. Some people have been criticising this film over the fact of the misconception about the 10% of usage of the brain when humans in fact use 100%. I am not addressing to that here because I don't think that was what was intended to be transmitted. It is not about the usage but the potential and how much more humans can do if they use it up to its potential. So, yeh, I just wanted to make that clear.

"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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Living on the edge of life.

I don't know. I think I just expected life to get easier as I grew up. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Life is meant to get more and more complex as you progress into it. Everyone knows that but me. You guys know me. I am the fairytale girl who denies them. I am the love song girl who will call them pathetic. I am the singing girl who will claim she can't sing (and that is in part true!). In summary I am the denying girl. The one who would rather look on a different direction in order not to see happens beyond my eyes so I can continue living my life as it has never happends. Sounds terrible I know, but it is the truth. I always had the illusion that things would get better if I just imagined a world, a better place to be in.

I've always lived two lives. The double life standard people tend to mention it is real but not in the sense most of us thinks. I live the life in which I am constantly unsatisfied. Always craving not for more but for better. Sometimes for myself, most of the time for the ones I love the most. In which being myself is never enough and I can never do enough to please others. And the life which all ends well. The life at the distance of a good night's sleep or a long walk by myself that allows me to immensely daydream. Where superwoman tommy arrives in town with enough attitude in the pockets to solve all the mysteries and dramas and ready to kick some butts.

The balance between them, something I've always dreamed of, insanely, I am yet to attain.
All I was able to recognise was that to live in reality is too painful. To dream of reality is too lunatic.

Sometimes all I wish I was able to do is to reset this whole thing. Right from scratch. Make it work better, feel better. Create a reality I can deal with. A reality in which my problems won't take me to extremes. In which besides all, I am always on the steering wheel of my life and nothing nor no one will make crash.

Life is not easy bloggers. I've always knew that but now I am just feeling it more and more.  To live everyday knowing that you are camping each day closer the edge, it's risky and so sincerely brave. And those who can do it, not to the cameras and much less to the social media but to the privacy of their lives are the fortunate ones. The fortunate ones who created their own luck. Who battled everyday for a better outcome, for a longer distance to the edge. And to those my sincere admiration. You make me believe that I can do it. And I will battle for it. My time will come.

Love always,
Tommy


"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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I am a broken toy.

Hey everyone! As I am writing this post, I am contending myself for shedding any tears because I am not as weak as I think I am. Bad things happen and I just have learn to deal with them.
There are several reasons why my heart is shrinking in pain at the moment. One of them being that I cannot stand the amount of effort and work my parents are putting into my future. It is astonishing and unfair because myself being a grown up woman who is capable of making my own decisions to certain things in life, should also be capable to support myself, financially and take all this weight off my parents' shoulders. I feel that I have to find a strategy (parts of me just wants to keep ignoring reality but it is no longer possible, I need to face things as they are! problems won't disappear because I decided to look in a different direction) to make it all possible, if not now, someday. The idea of someday is something so difficult for me to put up with. I've always loved to be ahead of my time. Going to school at 5, going to university with 17 and the possibility of past forwarding another year or maybe years is just plain hell for me. However, this is a personal issue of mine. My parents don't have to put up with my whims. I don't know how bloggers, I seriously have no idea but I will not allow my parents to stop their lives in other for me to live mine, when I have so many years ahead of me. Furthermore, this is supposed to be my time of struggle and my time for fighting for my dreams. Whatever they are, whatever they will be. I should not be counting on people. I have to myself out there. I have to sell better the product that I've become. I have to find people who will believe in my dreams as much as I do.

Another factor that is, oh, just breaking my heart into really small pieces that are not regenerating themselves any longer is a long past subject. I am one of those people that just loses years of her life obsessed with a certain person and I just have so much trouble getting over them. It's like an addiction. It consumes me deeply and fiercely. And regardless how many times I will hit rock bottom and swear never to talk to them again because I could not deal being hurt this much anymore. Regardless how many times I shout inside and out "I Quit! This is not for me", the first moment they will say, I miss you, I will just crawl back to them. Despite knowing backwards all the drawbacks and terrible consequences of the addiction, I will still try to ignore them for the sake of the quick moment of happiness, I am having. I know every bit of the pain now if I decide to quit will be worth it in the end but I cannot go through it.
Sometimes I wonder what will it be needed for me to simply shut the door, lock it and lose the key. What else will be needed?
It's not his fault. I know it's not. At least I feel it's not. And maybe that's the problem. I cannot hate him because I have nothing to blame him. Other people have told me I have plenty to blame him for but I cannot see it. I don't think he's guilty. I think I am guilty because I allowed myself to believe in this weird fantasy. It wasn't weird at first. It was simply and I made it complicated to myself and to him. And then we both got lost in it and we couldn't no longer find each other. That's the version of events I want to believe him.
Thereafter if he decides to move on, who am I to blame him? I would very likely do the same if I got into this weird relationship with a overly dramatic individual who is just not right for me. I would ditch all of that person's nonsense. Find a new person and try and be happy.
I understand him. I understand why I am not right to anyone right now. Not even to myself. I have so many little and big issues that I need to work through. The truth is, I am a broken toy and I have no idea how to fix myself.

All I know is that it hurts and all I know is that I cannot share this weight with no one else and that kind of sucks. God, please help me.

Love always,

Tommy

PS. And whoever reads this and thinks to themselves I am a big drama queen, I do not care. This is my blog and these are my feelings. I need to place them somewhere besides myself because they are destroying me. So if reading this, does not make you happy, please go watch silly cat videos on youtube and do not try and make me more depressed. Bye.

"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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written in the stars

I've been wanting to write for a while. Just to clear my mind. A lot of possible topics for my posts passed through my mind but I always get caught up between something to do in the house or outside and when I finally have the time to write and contemplate, either I don't want it anymore or the inspiration is gone.
Well, this won't be an inspirational posts. It's just that I've been struggling with a few aspects of my life and I have been trying to open up with my friends but the feeling I get is that they are either too busy in their own lives that holding them back from doing whatever they have in hands is awful or that I would repeat myself and well, honestly no one really wants to listen to someone repeating themselves.
I am not a characteristic capricorn (I think part of me began to believe in star signs). I am not that hard-worker. I am not that committed. I am not that ambitious. I am not that success driven. I don't even think there is even a category for someone as myself. But this is not all bad. It means that my story isn't told somewhere in the stars. My destiny isn't step up. As I am writing to you right now, I am writing my own story.

Love always,
Tommy


"Façam o Favor de Ser Felizes" - Raul Solnado

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