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In revealing video, TJ Manotoc opens up about 'surviving depression'

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Miguel Dumaual, ABS-CBN News

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2018/life/01/17/tj-manotoc-011718.jpg?ext=.jpg"/><figcaption>ABS-CBN journalist and news anchor TJ Manotoc.<em> ABS-CBN</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>MANILA – A TV personality for some 17 years now, Kapamilya journalist and news anchor TJ Manotoc is hoping to use his sphere of influence to break the social stigma surrounding depression, a condition he has revealed he had battled and survived as a teenager.</p><p>In a tell-all video titled “You Will Be Alright”, Manotoc chronicled this phase of his life which he now looks back on as a “blessing” that gave him a higher purpose -- that of being a “blessing to others.”</p><p>Manotoc was in second year high school in Ateneo de Manila University when “he did nothing but school, shut everything off, didn’t watch TV, and didn’t spend time with my friends.” This, he narrated in the video, was a conscious turnaround from the preceding year when he was “irresponsible,” and was urged by his mother to “shape up” so he can graduate.</p><p>While Manotoc did become a good student, “the amount of pressure and stress I put on myself that built up I think the first two weeks of school, it just hit me like that.”</p><p>“All of a sudden, I had trouble sleeping. The first real night of insomnia was such a nightmare,” he said, describing the sinking feeling of seeing the sun rise without having had a wink of sleep. “That’s when it really hit me. I didn’t know what it was, but apparently I was going through an anxiety attack.”</p><div><strong>&#x27;PERFECT STORM&#x27;</strong></div><p>These were the early signs of a major depressive disorder, his doctors had told him and his mother, beauty queen Aurora Pijuan, at the time. </p><p>Manotoc, in the video, recalled the possible triggers of his condition as a “perfect storm.” He was told it was the combination of yearning for a father figure – his parents separated when he was three – a physiological imbalance that he had inherited, and the pressure he put on himself to be an academic achiever.</p><div><script src="https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v2.5" async="" type="text/javascript"></script></div><div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/1501198789999091/videos/1504498679669102/" data-width="auto"> </div><p>“There’s a difference of experiencing clinical depression and just being sad because certain events in your life made you sad,” Manotoc said. “It’s just like, ‘Why am I sad? Why can’t I choose to be happy at this moment? Why can’t anything make me laugh? There’s nothing really bothering me, there’s nothing really [that’s] a problem.’ But you’re just so, so empty inside that you can’t figure it out. It’s just so different.”</p><p>Manotoc endured a few more anxiety attacks for the remainder of high school, but his condition took a worse turn on his first year in college. This time, the trigger was a “big mug of beer, with a shot of Johnnie Walker” he had had during a reunion party with his high school friends.</p><p>“When I got home, I just started to speed, and my mind was racing. Just to fast-forward the process, I didn’t sleep for three days straight. This is different from other attacks,” he said.</p><p>What was later determined as chemical imbalance due to excessive alcohol consumption had Manotoc feeling “paranoid.” In his locked room, he paced back and forth carrying the Bible. Using spray paint, he drew several crosses on the walls to “feel protected” – a sight that alarmed his mother. It wasn’t long until Manotoc’s mother returned with a doctor and nurses who would bring him to a psychiatric ward. There, he was medicated to help him calm down.</p><p>“I felt like I was drowning in the bed. I felt like I was dying,” he recalled.</p><div><strong>PARADIGM SHIFT</strong></div><p>To focus on his recovery, Manotoc was pulled out of school. His mother sought several options to address his depression, from crystal healing, meditation, acupuncture, to natural supplements. They preferred to do away with anti-depressants.</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2018/life/01/17/tj-2.jpg?ext=.jpg"/><figcaption>A scene from &#x27;You Will Be Alright&#x27; depicting TJ Manotoc&#x27;s battle with depression. <em>Screengrab/Facebook</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>The most effective means of “healing,” Manotoc said, were the seminars and workshops that “really helped me think positive.”</p><p>“It was a paradigm shift that I said, ‘This is it, that’s the last. I’m going to be strong-willed, I’m going to have a strong mindset, and be focused, and be positive, and not be a pessimist anymore,’” he said.</p><p>Manotoc contrasted depression to physical ailments, which could be readily addressed by tried-and-tested procedures or medicines. Mental health, on the other hand, also entails willingness and determination to get better.</p><p>“When you go through anxiety attacks, when you go through this realm of psychological issues and physiological imbalance, it’s up to you really. You have to help yourself. And since that day, when I said, ‘No more,’ it never happened again,’” he narrated.</p><p>During the video’s launch Monday at PaperWork in Quezon City, Manotoc personally spoke at length about the role his mother, and fellow survivor of depression, Max Ricketts, played in his journey to recovery.</p><p>Manotoc said the mere presence and hugs of his mother reassured and calmed him, referring to her as a source of strength. He met Ricketts thrice, but he described the encounters as profound.</p><p>“He called himself a walking vegetable,” Manotoc told ABS-CBN News. “He’s such an amazing man, that I saw myself surviving like him. He went through much worse than I did, and now he’s okay, he’s alright, he’s alive… Tumatak sa akin ‘yun, e.”</p><div><strong>&#x27;BLESSING TO OTHERS&#x27;</strong></div><p>With the video “You Will Be Alright,” which also serves to launch Manotoc’s advocacy group of the same name, he aims to “be a Max to thousands of people” through social media.</p><div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2018/life/01/17/tj-3.jpg?ext=.jpg"/><figcaption>A scene from &#x27;You Will Be Alright&#x27; depicting TJ Manotoc&#x27;s battle with depression. <em>Screengrab/Facebook</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>“Some people might find the video too much, I don’t care, but I know that there will be one, two, three, or four kids that I can reach out to in the darkest times of the night, they might see the video, and that could give them hope, and give them the first step to find somebody, something that could help them. I’m not going to solve problems, but what I want to do is plant seeds of hope, because they’re seeing someone who made it through,” he said.</p><p>At the launch of “You Will Be Alright,” Manotoc had experts in a roundtable discussion on a range of topics related to depression, from parents’ role in their children’s mental health, portrayal of suicide in popular media, to different ways of recovery. These, Manotoc envisions, will be put in video form in the advocacy group’s channel, along with other personal accounts of those who went through depression, or lost a loved one to it.</p><p>“The more we talk about it, the more matatanggal ‘yung stigma, e. One day it will be normal, and it’s okay to say it,” he said, adding his group also aims to tour schools and encourage an annual mental health awareness week.</p><p>If he had his way, Manotoc said he wouldn’t change anything from his past – not even his phase of depression 27 years ago. </p><p>“All that pain, it contributed to who I am today,” he said. “Like now, I wouldn’t be in the position to help people if I didn’t go through that pain… They told me it was a blessing, and there would be a bigger way to be a blessing to others.”</p><p>“I’m telling you now: there’s a way out,” Manotoc said in the closing of his video. “That’s why I’m coming out and telling you my story. I’m hoping that I give you hope. You can tell yourself, ‘Look at him, he made it.’ That’s the message I want to tell you now. You’ll make it through… Understand and accept that this is happening for a reason, and never, ever, ever give up, and you will be alright.”</p><div><em>To those who are in emotional crisis and in need of immediate assistance, please contact the 24/7 HopeLine at:<br/>(02) 804-HOPE (4673)<br/>0917 558 HOPE (4673)</em></div>

<p>A TV personality for some 17 years now, Kapamilya journalist and news anchor TJ Manotoc is hoping to use his sphere of influence to break the social stigma surrounding depression, a condition he has revealed he had battled and survived as a teenager.</p>

A TV personality for some 17 years now, Kapamilya journalist and news anchor TJ Manotoc is hoping to use his sphere of influence to break the social stigma surrounding depression, a condition he has revealed he had battled and survived as a teenager.

In revealing video, TJ Manotoc opens up about 'surviving depression'

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In revealing video, TJ Manotoc opens up about 'surviving depression'

Miguel Dumaual,

ABS-CBN News

Published January 17, 2018 06:29 PM PHT

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Updated January 17, 2018 07:56 PM PHT

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TJ Manotoc

depression

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