NOT A FRAUD: JONAH MOWRY'S WHAT'S GOING ON VIDEO

Despite all the millions of support gay teen Jonah Mowry got from around the world, he was constantly inundated with some hate slurs and doubts about the authenticity of his youtube video, "What's Going On". Well, ABC News shed some light a few hours ago to end all the doubts in the world.

In my first blog about the 14 years old, the video link you see there is dated August 10, 2011 which means it has been 4 months ago... a month before young Jonah's school is about to start. The emotions, the thoughts relayed in the video... were and are real still real. Jonah felt he needed to get things off his chest that's why he made that video as he was scared to go back to school and encounter the same harassment and bullying that he went through year per year. Those years of bullying made him strong because being strong is the only choice he has left.

To end the controversy, Peggy Sue Mowry, Jonah Mowry's own mom shed some light to ABC News. The hairdresser from Forest Lake, California said, "First and foremost, I am proud of the responses we've gotten from people. I'm disappointed that people would question whether it's true." Mrs. Mowry said her son has been "uplifted by the outpouring of support". Read ABC News for further details.


Jonah Mowry is now happy and doing just fine. He has received tons of support from famous celebrities, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and people around the world like you and me. Let us leave the kid alone and instead, be thankful that he had enough courage to speak up his mind, heart and soul.

Unknowingly that he did something great to the world, Jonah Mowry's video did us all the favor... his courage and brave act will serve as an inspiration to the many children affected by bullying because of their early real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

Teen bullying as ABC News reported, has reached epidemic proportions causing several young children so much anguish that they have killed themselves. In 2010, Phoebe Prince, a 15 year old Irish immigrant was found dead in her South Hadley, Massachusett home after suffering from incessant Facebook taunts and in early 2011, Jamey Rodemeyer a 14 years old from Buffalo, N.Y., took his own life after being bullied online with gay slurs for over more than a year. 

Jonah Mowry's inspiring brave act youtube video and all the other videos by those who showed support (including an inspiring one from Jonathon Grant) which we have all seen will perhaps help end teen bullying and will help others like him out there with similar emotional distress cope up with the alarming social problem. 

Jonah Mowry taught us that suicide is not an option... being strong is.

Source: ABC News 

WHAT'S GOING ON: JONAH MOWRY's CRY FOR HELP

I thank Jonah Mowry for sharing his feelings to the world via a very emotional video. Global concerns, love, prayers and support are all pouring out for him for he sent us all a very strong message.

Jonah is a teenage student suffering from emotional distress after years of homophobic bullying. Life hasn't been easy for him. This is his story...  

It moves you right? It broke my heart to see him introducing himself via index cards telling us what he went through. Jonah is alive and told us his story... gut-wrenching, leaving him into tears and most of us, as well.

His story is inspirational... reaching out to those who have suffered similar situations in life.  The index cards containing the many times he confessed of having suicide as an option unveiled a really strong message in the end...

 "I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE, BECAUSE I AM STRONGER THAN THAT. I HAVE A MILLION REASONS TO BE HERE".

I sent Jonah a message of love and support all the way from the Philippines. He taught me a whole lot of things.. even as an adult, I sometimes struggle for sanity... we all do when it comes to rough times.

Sometimes it is not easy indeed to feel like we're the only ones in the world who's struggling, who's frustrated or unsatisfied but that feeling is all but a lie. Someone is bound to find us and help make things better if we just hold on because we all need a little help sometimes to remind us it's not always gonna be bad. 

Jonah is an admirable young teenager... despite his emotional distress, he managed tell us that... we never know how strong we really are until being strong is the only choice we have in the world. 

Soundtrack on Jonah Mowry's emotional video is "Breathe Me" by Sia which is appropriate for his cry for help. Lyrics here. Thank you, Jonah!

LIFE IN SILENCE

Eight months ago on this very same day of the month (February 20, 2011), I sat on a bench with a Filipina woman who was all quiet at the beginning... staring at the garden view in front of us.  

I remember she had that very sad, blank look in her eyes as she held on a crumpled piece of paper while hugging her dark blue bag. After awhile, I hear her sobbing... then she cried hard. Rocking back and forth, tears continuously flowed down her face as she just stared out blankly... I could again feel her pain...  maybe someone died back home... maybe someone is dying... maybe she is dying... The paper obviously indicated a horrible news to her. I wanted to talk to her... to console her... I felt she needed it yet, I also felt she needed to be alone.

It took awhile for her to stop crying... there were moments she took out her mobile phone several times... attempted to dial but then she would stop. I felt that she wanted to talk to somebody dear to her but held back. It was then I see that she was gathering her strength. 

She was oblivious of any other people around her. Amazingly, no one ever bothered her. She took out a cigarette from her bag and lit it. After a few puffs, she unfolded neatly the crumpled paper... lit her lighter and burned the paper as she again, cried softly. The remnants of the burnt paper fell on the ground as the last part of it continued to burn till she stepped on it.

She sat there mostly crying... clutching her heart and then she would stopped crying... rocking back and forth she would resume to sobbing... then stopped sobbing. For perhaps after 2 hours, she finally stood up... stretched her body in full... breathed the air... picked up her bag and walked away.

Re-visiting today... I sit on this bench... took out my laptop to compose this. I can clearly remember how it was that day. It was a haunting memory... one that lingered in my mind for a long time as I have felt her pain... her burden.

I have to shut this down in a bit as I am an hour away from my appointment and I just caught a splinter... I have to remove it. As I look at the splinter while tapping my fingers on the keyboard, I remember that sad woman... a tear fell from my own eyes... my splinter is nothing in comparison to the splinter she carried in her heart back then.  Realizing that, she taught me a big lesson in life... that we shouldn't dwell on the past or worry about the future for too long no matter how painful nor hard life may be. She taught me in silence that right now is life... we have to face it and live it.

The haunting scene eight months ago at this very day... February 20, 2011... I sat on this bench and I saw a chance at life.

LOCKED UP ON EMOTIONAL PRISONS

There are times we yearn for more intimacy in our lives yet, we aren't really certain how to get what we want that sometimes, just when we get to be close to getting what we desire, we build walls.



I had a good discussion about this with my cousin last night about his being vulnerable in the past and building walls. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is dangerous as being one implies we might get hurt. No one wants to get hurt or to hurt another.

What is intimacy? It's a step towards a possible relationship because a relationship without intimacy is not a relationship. It's what you call "friendship".

With this, we talked about who builds walls more... the men or women. My cousin built walls and I built my own walls too. However, for me, it's the men. As children, girls wail about physical pain and they're allowed to do so while the boys brought up to think it is not manly to show the pain. This caused little boys not talking about their feelings. They grow into men with an emotional vocabulary less developed than that of the women.

Men in general often have trouble naming exactly what they feel and often more vague in describing emotions. I remember an ex-boyfriend who would often be anxious when the whole topic of emotions are being brought up while I was more comfortable talking about almost anything else!

Some men talk about feelings as if they live in fortresses with walls as high as The Great Wall of China! A few were allowed to walk in but these are the ones closest to them. Although they felt safe within the confinements they built, they feel as if there is essentially no one with whom they can truly be themselves... which is really sad. Some men i know including my cousin overcame and break down their own walls because they realized it gets too be too lonely.

So many of us confuse thoughts and feelings. Feelings are words, not explanations. We all live in a time when depression is rampant in our time. Depression isn't always feeling sad. Depression is at times, just feeling numb or very little thus; we build walls which is not good.



Defenses though aren't bad. Without these, we would be vulnerable and some experiences can be very painful. If our shield is always up, we should always think not just with our thoughts but feel our feelings. When we yearn for intimacy, we need to acknowledge our feelings. When something happens, we take a deep look on it for we never know if what we are feeling is actually more than one feeling.

I keep my defenses up all the time but there are instances that I lower them to find out what could actually be because I don't want that one day, I'll forever wonder what could have been, what should have been and what might have been with a particular person or situation. After all, everything is a risk and pain... we just gotta let it ride out or we wouldn't feel human at all!



Life is just way too short to worry about so many things!

Thanks to Vincent Garrucho for my own photos :))

FAIRY TALES

Once upon a time... happier ever after.

The stories we were told and we tell are the stuff of dreams. Dreams we used to dream of as kids.



As an adult reading this, do fairy tales do come true? For the lucky ones, fairy tales told to us when we were young, happened.

However, what's with the most of us? What happened to our dreams?



Isn't it that the epiphany for most of us is that in reality, life is much stormier? That the reality is much murkier and much scarier?



Life's pains... we all just have to ride it out before we chase our dreams. There are no easy solutions... no easy answers. We just have to breath deep and wait for it to subside.

Reality... is indeed much stormier, much murkier and much scarier that we actually thought or think of.

I have had such a happy solid childhood. I miss Pinky and HH Lero... my first friends and I can't help but wonder... how life treated them. Hope one day, we get to talk about this... One day perhaps...

Thank you Jomi Garrucho for allowing me to post your wonderful photos here :))

SCARS

People have scars. We all have scars... scars in all sorts of unexpected places.



Scars are like secret road maps of our personal pasts and histories. They are the very diagrams of all our old wounds. Although our wounds heal in time, still, they leave nothing behind but a scar. Some wounds don't but with some wounds, we carry them with us everywhere... and although the cut's long gone, the pain still lingers.



What's worse... new wounds which are so horribly painful or old wounds that should have healed years ago but never did?

Maybe our old wounds teach us something. Old wounds remind us where we've been and what we've overcome. They teach us lessons about what to avoid in the future.



There are just some things in life that we just have to learn over and over and over again.



There are some people though, who believes that without history, our lives amount to nothing...that at some point, we all have to choose - do we fall back on what we know or do we step forward to something new? It's really hard not to be haunted by our past... by our scars. History is what shapes us... our history is what shapes us... what guides us. Our history resurfaces time and time again and we are left to no choice but to remember that sometimes, the most important history is the history we’re making today.



Photography by: Jomi Garrucho
Thank you, Jomi for letting me post your collection here. :))

ON SECRETS AND FANTASIES

We humans tend to forget how good it feels when we finally are able to set secrets free. Whether it be good or bad, and whether we like it or not, at least they're out in the open.



When our secrets are out in the open, we don't have to hide behind them anymore. The problem with all secrets is... even when we think we are in control, we are not.



When do we learn that fantasy is made to be simple...that the pleasure is good and twice as much pleasure is better? When do we learn that pain is bad, and no pain is better? Reality is entirely different indeed. The reality is that... pain exists to constantly remind us that there's only so much pleasure we can take.



Maybe this is just fine and we just need to deal with it. Deal that maybe, some of our fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.

Photography by: Vincent Garrucho
Model: Jodge Ledesma
Thank you, Vince... for my photo collection!!! :))

On Women's Pain And Suffering From Sex Video Scandals

This was written by me on Monday, May 25, 2009 at 7:24am and released on Facebook. I wasn't blogging back then but I'm putting it here on my blog spot because it is worth posting.



I have never experienced the suffering women on sex video scandals undergo every day and every hour. I don't know that kind of inner violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who have been deprived of their basic human rights, needs of privacy and dignity... This is not part of my personal ordeal but i feel their pain.

I also feel I am a victim of violence against women every single time I learn of women suffering. In every single case that i learn of, my natural and civil rights as a woman have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my nieces, my future daughter (if i be blessed with one), would reach their 18th birthday and be taken away from their mothers and me to be the game tool of sick narcissists.

Living in the world I live in, in the country I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer sex video women victims any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to change anything at all. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on... to have families and children eventually and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions some people are putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain...that we are all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer so much more.

I cannot completely understand sex video women victims or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation... such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of women has been sort of suffocated far too long in this world we live in. The cry of women is not heard because women are ridiculed, laughed at and humiliated. This I know and sadly, it is very little. However, it is enough for me to remember that these women are my sisters and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them in any way that I can.

Here's My Message to Men:
Please lend a hand in some way to help end the suffering of so many women all over the world. There are so many things men can do to stop the emotional pain and violence.

It could happen one day to your little girl, your sister, your niece, your aunt, your mother.We are no puppets. Please help make the world safer for the women you love. Act now. Thank you.


Author's note: The image is my personal property.