My love affair with coffee — a drink that hurts as much as it heals

There’s this tweet by @aubreybell that makes me feel so shamefully seen. It goes: “Oh boy, ever spill a little bit of your coffee and realize the thread you are hanging on by is actually quite thin?”

It might seem like an exaggeration to some, but I know how caffeine masks my daily anxieties with its bittersweet taste and temporary calm. These days, I turn to my daily cup of coffee to help me appreciate times of stillness and solitude.

Looking back, you can say my love for the drink wasn’t truly there right away. I survived my college years without drinking too much coffee—but having been able to try its different types in all its different barista blends, I have truly come to appreciate its existence. 

My cravings (and the dependence that slowly came after) started during the funemployment era, the short break between graduation and adulting that gave me a lot of extra time to hang out at cafes with my friends. I also learned to indulge myself to a cup whenever I wanted to spend some time alone.

Which brings us to now: The point where I’ve become caffeine dependent yet still in denial about it.

We’re now living at a time when everything doesn’t feel real anymore and it’s getting more and more difficult to find anything to be positive about. My anxieties began to race and multiply over the course of these unprecedented and uncertain times. It came to a point where my friends told me to stop drinking coffee altogether as this may increase my already heightened anxiety attacks.

Of course, I rejected their goodwilled suggestion right away. I then came up with a compromise: Lessen my daily coffee intake to only one cup a day—and it worked! It helped me calm down for a few days until I realized I started losing my concentration and motivation for my afternoon tasks. Why? I couldn’t stop thinking about how I missed my afternoon coffee, and how great it would be to stir some up and chug it down… EVERY. SECOND. I. GET.

My mind and body were so used to my usual caffeine schedule: One in the morning to jumpstart my system and kick all the gears in place; and a second one come the afternoon to help me power through the rest of the day.

Unfortunately not having my caffeine fix just added to my anxiety.

I still tried to keep my cool and my one-cup-of-coffee discipline lasted for a week. I adjusted and felt better over time. But I had to go back to my second-coffee habits just so I could avoid having headaches.

I didn’t realize early on that this was a symptom of caffeine withdrawal, because I didn’t know just how dependent I’ve become to caffeine. It was a part of my daily routine, an acquired taste and habit over the years—seems normal enough, right? Not until I started missing my usual 8 AM fix, and my body’s automatic reaction to it was nausea and unbearable headaches.

There are some days when I’d run out of coffee, thinking it’ll be fine and I can survive another day without it. It’s on those days that my heavy reliance on coffee really reveals itself—I feel unwell, my head throbs in pain, and I don’t feel like my usual self. It’s on these days that I learn to acknowledge the dependent relationship I’ve developed with coffee.

Coffee is a drink that hurts and heals.

I’ve accepted that too much of anything isn’t healthy, and it’s never good news when you can’t function right because of a cultivated (coffee) dependence. Coffee hurts when you can’t be fully yourself without it and its absence brings you a string of headaches.

But I’m also the type to focus on the positive. Coffee heals because it helps me stay sane. It takes me back to fond memories with my friends—it’s usually got me thinking how these times would be more fun if I wasn’t going through it alone.

It used to be my motivation to go to work too! I’d always tell myself: “It’s okay. When you get to the HQ, you can have iced coffee and enjoy breakfast with your friends before work starts.” You can say my love for coffee connects to the love I have for the relationships I cherish and take care of.

My friends and I always turned to it as a good excuse (and added motivation) to meet up whenever we wanted to catch up on life. I guess when you’re out on a coffee date with friends, it’s all about having a good time and you create wonderful moments together.

But since that’s discouraged for now, I’ve learned to be okay enjoying coffee by myself seven days a week. Just dissociating with the world for a few moments, and somehow trying to stay hopeful with every sip. I’ve noticed that when you’re alone with coffee, you have no choice but to sit in silence and let your mind wander. You allow yourself a few minutes to dream wide awake.

In my experience, those moments can take another turn and allow you more time to think about how easily things can go wrong. But when the caffeine takes effect, you can always snap yourself back to reality and find more reasons to look forward to your days. When the anxieties persist and you feel like you’ve been having a bad day… think again—maybe you just weren’t able to get your coffee on time.

I’m still learning more about my dependent relationship with coffee and I’m trying to work on getting it into a healthier form, one drink at a time.

✺ Photos by Sof Saldana
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SOF SALDAÑA IS AN ETERNAL FANGIRL FOR A BETTER TOMORROW. SHE LOVES TO RECEIVE LETTERS OVER GIFTS, OBVIOUSLY PREFERS COFFEE THAN ANY OTHER DRINK, AND SHE ENJOYS TAKING PHOTOS WITH HER FILM CAM. SOF IS 1/2 OF TWO GIRLS UNDER THE SUN—A BLOG ON SELF CARE SHE CURRENTLY RUNS WITH HER BEST FRIEND, NOELLE. READ ABOUT HER MANILA COFFEE PICKS HERE.

Curious and creative: Maya Nilsen on striving for versatility

We were throwing around all sorts of random ideas the last time I was in a room with Maya Nilsen. We agreed on everything about the digital content we wanted to make—it had to feature interesting personalities, feel less filtered, be more practical, and could use a whole lot more of diversity.

Fast-forward to a few months later, Maya had these same ideas put into practice as she moved back to Stockholm. Her newest stomping grounds? Women-led sustainable fashion brand DANG STHLM.

There was a time when Maya’s Instagram bio read “idk what I am.” It doesn’t anymore. While she wants to try a whole list of different things, she’s gotten some sense of clarity after she began to embrace the versatility required of the creative world. Currently Maya acts as a social media-savvy multimedia producer, aspiring stylist and digital content creator.

Her drive and curiosity have been set into a higher gear these days. This visual storyteller has made fashion as her primary medium of expression and she’s looking into expanding it beyond her personal style.

We recently gave Maya a ring to tell her how much we love her “Back To Life” styling series and catch up on her creative pursuits:

How’s Stockholm?

It’s good. We don’t have that much restrictions compared to Manila. People still go out to eat and go to bars. Personally, I don’t. I’m meeting the same group of people these days and we usually just end up hanging out at a friend’s place.

What’s the best thing about being based there?

I could still live my normal life and work. Here, I get to go to the office. When I leave, work ends there. I really didn’t enjoy the work from home situation at all. 

Your work space and rest space are the same so it’s hard to set the boundaries. It’s hard to differentiate the two situations and I get why a lot of people get super overwhelmed. Everything’s also done online, making it harder to collaborate.

What have you been up to lately?

I’ve been doing a lot of shoots and other stuff for DANG STHLM. My official title there is Social Media Manager but what I do really goes beyond that. We’re only three people in the whole company and it’s been fun to work with my friends while trying out new things in the process.

Usually when you’re in a big company, there’s a lot of specialties and people are often assigned to fulfill a specific job. I like that DANG as a brand isn’t as established yet so I get to help in forming its image and direction. I help guide the way and feel like I have more responsibility. I like it this way because I get to learn more too.

What kind of brand do you want to help it become?

I think it’s really important for the brand to be relatable in all ways possible. Our styles are mostly genderless. Whenever we choose models, diversity is fundamental too—everyone has to feel included.

We’re trying our best to make everyone feel accommodated, like people can feel free to message us about anything. Whether it’s asking about the available sizes, to helping you out with styling. We can literally be like the friends you turn to to help you choose the best outfit for the day.

I also feel like a lot of brands are into doing high fashion editorial shoots—always clean and scared to go outside of what their image is. I like that we can experiment with a lot of different stuff and see what our followers and customers like from there.

DANG really does feel like a welcoming online community, like we’re all friends by association. How’s it like working with your best friends?

Honestly, everything feels surreal! Besides the three of us, a lot of our friends are in the creative business and we just love working together because that’s when we get the best ideas. It’s been fun how we’re all trying and helping out to make this thing take off. Plus it’s always nice to be part of a community-focused small business.

Among all the things you do at DANG STHLM, which one do you enjoy doing the most?

I love doing the shoots! Building the concept, looking for the right models, creating the sets, and of course, being able to style the pieces. All of that is really fun. I don’t think it’s something I’ve done a lot of before and I feel like I’m learning a lot on the technical side of things—the different types of lighting and its settings, post-processing photos, and all that. 

I’ve learned a lot of photoshop lately too and I really want to get better at what I’m doing now. I want to be able to take shoots and edit its pictures without feeling inadequate, that I lack the knowledge. I want to feel more confident in the work that I do.

Speaking of shoots, can you tell us more about the portraits you produced for our Self Study series?

It has that business-ready working girl vibe. I was wearing a button down, white jeans, and I just brushed my hair back. I asked my friend Julia to take my photos and it didn’t even take 10 minutes. I wanted it to be an “in the moment” thing and I liked that it showcases my everyday environment.

I didn’t want to overthink it. It’s just me at the office. I wanted it to be really chill, laidback and just feel like me—something I would usually post online, giving an update on what I’m comfortable wearing that day.

Can you tell us more about that book you’re holding in your photos?

It’s called “Living On The Water.” That book is actually my parents’ old coffee table book. I remember when we were moving to Sweden, my parents gave my brother and I one box each to fill with whatever we wanted to bring.

I snatched that book and that was 15 years ago. What I would do then is I would fold the corners of the houses I would like to buy when I became rich. I always look through it even now cause I like those living-by-the-water beach houses. It’s always been my dream to have one in the Philippines so I always keep this book with me.

The Philippines is also home to me. I like the island lifestyle there and it’s something I want to bring with me my whole life. This book is one my sentimental things. It reminds me that this is something I’ve always wanted even when I was a kid, so it’s lived in my shelves since.

I know you’re not very comfortable with being labeled as an influencer, but for someone with a huge following, what’s your take on “online authenticity” that seems to be a buzzword these days?

With online stuff you can be 100 percent be yourself, but you don’t have to show 100 percent of yourself. There’s stuff that I keep private but I believe people can still get 100 percent of who I really am with the content I put out there on social media. I never want people to feel like they don’t know me—they should be able to look at my page and kind of like get how I really am in real life.

Let’s get serious for a bit. What do you want to be known as?

I just want people to see me as a creative person who does whatever she wants. I’ve never had my mind set on one specific job and I always push myself to try a bunch of different stuff. Just trying to learn from a little bit of everything is my way of growing and becoming more perceptive of the creativity of the world.

What’s one thing that will take time for people to discover about you?

That I’m very friends- and family-oriented. In Stockholm, it’s not like in the Philippines where families are always together. People tend to live their separate lives over here. 

Growing up in the Philippines, I was accustomed to families being together—they always eat together, come up with all sorts of gatherings to be together, and all that. I think that’s something I brought with me. I make sure we always have dinners together, and that every creative process I have and go through, my friends are involved. 

I always bring my projects and ideas up to my friends just so they can give me their input—it’s something that I really value. Their opinions are what matter the most to me compared to other people. Even when I’m working with brands and collabs, I really trust the intuition of my friends. Everything I do, I always have them on the back of my mind.

I stayed in the Philippines for a year and I just missed my friends from Stockholm that have always served as my creative support. I’ve known them for like a decade. I’ve had the same set of friends and we grew up together. They always make me feel I can do whatever I want.

What is it that do you want to do next, or want to do more of?

I’d like to get into more styling jobs. Styling other people for brands, music videos, editorials. I would love to do more of that since I’ve started assisting a bit. I’m super excited and I would love to learn more about it and I feel assisting is a great way to get me started on it—just to get into the business and see how everyone else gets it done.

My friend Paul Edwards (who’s a photographer and creative director), he’s doing this really big campaign for a Swedish brand and he asked me to help out. It’s gonna come out later this year!

I want to style and work with more music artists. I would love to work with some Filipino musicians and it’s always been my dream to style and conceptualize an image for a music video! Maybe next year when it’s safe to come back.

What keeps you inspired to keep trying new things?

I feel like it’s the curiosity that pushes me to do different things, and not being afraid of being bad at it. I really won’t know unless I try it. I also have this drive to be creatively independent—I feel like I have a lot of ideas but I can’t do it by myself just cause I don’t know the technicalities. I’m learning to become as versatile as I can be so I can be more confident in whatever it is I plan to do next.

Right now I’m just happy that I get to exercise these creative urges that I have. In the end it’s just gonna teach you more about how everything works.

✺ Photos courtesy of Maya Nilsen
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SELF STUDY IS SUBTEXT’S OWN SPIN ON PERSONALITY PROFILES WHERE OUR FRIENDS TAKE A STEP BACK AND ASK THEMSELVES WHAT DEFINES THEM AT THE MOMENT. IT’S AN INVITATION TO A SELF EVALUATION OF WHERE THEY ARE AND WHERE THEY PLAN TO BE HEADED. IT ALSO FEATURES SELF-PRODUCED PORTRAITS THAT SHOW EACH INDIVIDUAL’S PERSONALITY AND EYE FOR CREATIVITY.

The thing about being ‘perfect’

Is it wrong to be a perfectionist? That’s basically me asking myself after I spent about an hour trying to write the perfect headline for this essay.

I’ve been called a perfectionist plenty of times. Often as a joke made by my family and peers. It never really bothered me growing up, since I never saw it as a problem—what’s wrong with striving for excellence and wanting to do things well, right?

I actually saw it as something commendable, because it’s what made me become the passionate go-getter that I am today.

Looking back, I just always saw people who thought differently as “not up to standards” or plain “lazy.” But over the past two years, I realized that’s not necessarily the case—I mean, who gets to decide what the right standards are for our own lives anyway?

I’ve always considered myself as someone who’s very passionate by nature—may it be about work, social issues, my close relationships, and my hobbies.

I think it started when I was around 9 years old when I took interest in dancing. I did ballet, jazz, hip hop, cheer dancing, and a bit of folk dance from my early childhood up to my teens—and those who may have known me back then would remember that I took dance pretty seriously. I even dreamt of becoming a professional dancer for a time (Spoiler alert: It didn’t happen).

So how did it exactly turn me into a perfectionist? For those who may not know, there are plenty of elements about dance that have to do with precision; such as timing the movements with the right beat of the music, hitting the correct form of each step, making sure to be in sync with your co-dancers, standing on the right mark of your blocking… you get the picture.

All of these aspects I somehow carried with me outside of the dance floor, which up until recently, I saw as a good thing considering that it pushed me to always do my best and “leave everything on the dance floor” aka leaving nothing to feel regretful about.

What I didn’t realize was its effect on me, this process and mindset became an unhealthy development of perfectionism.

People often confuse perfectionism as something to do with “wanting to be perfect” or “needing to do something perfectly” all the time, but it actually goes deeper than that.

According to the Centre for Clinical Interventions’ module on Perfectionism, this is defined by three key areas:

1. The relentless drive for extremely high standards (for yourself and/or others);

2. Judging your self-worth based largely on your ability to strive for and achieve such unrelenting standards, and;

3. Experiencing negative consequences of setting such demanding standards, yet continuing to go for them despite the huge cost.

Now, to be fair, there are ways that perfectionism can be helpful to a person, but for us to completely understand being one, we also have to recognize that there are unhealthy and negative aspects to it as well.

I’ve personally experienced all three mentioned up there in various points in my life. However, I only realized now at the age of 26 that something needed to change. What triggered it was several experiences that made me see how my perfectionist behaviors were already hurting the people closest to me. 

At that point, I became frustrated because I thought that I was just being misunderstood—as a perfectionist, you never go into a situation with the intention of antagonizing people. In fact, you push yourself and others to do better because you want things to be the best they can be. 

But with that in mind, you have to ask yourself, is pushing yourself and those around you to achieve your self-imposed and extremely high standards worth it? Is it worth the pressure, the effort, the exhaustion, and the emotional roller-coaster that you go through in the process?

A friend of mine actually gave me good advice about a year ago that I still think about to this day. She told me: “Don’t be too hard on yourself when you don’t meet your own standards.”

This was probably one of the best reminders I got from anyone.

I realized that in order for me to let go of some of my perfectionist behaviors, I needed to forgive myself for feeling guilty whenever I missed the mark, and to stop finding someone or something to blame whenever things don’t go according to plan.

I’m grateful to have a great group of people behind me who showed me how to be more understanding and kinder to myself—which in turn, taught me how to be kinder and less judgmental of others.

To this day, I still consider myself a perfectionist, but now I wear that label with a bit more care, as I continue working on myself to become a kinder person, one day at a time.


✺ Words by Alex Castillo, art by Geli Luna inspired by Orla Gartland’s single “Overthinking”
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ALEX CASTILLO IS A TWENTY-SOMETHING PROFESSIONAL STORYTELLER, CURRENTLY PRACTICING AS A STRATEGIC COMMUNICATOR IN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND ADVERTISING. SHE’S ALSO AN ENFP, A KDRAMA ADVOCATE, A LOVER OF ALL THINGS DISNEY, AND A HUGE FAN OF PIZZA AND SUSHI. WANT MORE OF HER REAL TALK? FOLLOW HER ON @IM_ALEXCASTILLO.