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Joseph Ubalde’s Suicide Confession

Seph was one of the “Top 10 Cutest TV Newsmen: 2012 Edition” of Spot.ph. His charming toothpaste-ad smile was a giveaway. Unfortunately, it's not entirely real. He was supposed to be a happy and successful guy, but why was it not it enough?

Joseph Ubalde’s life—perfect?

Joseph Ubalde studied in Germany. He was a senior news producer at GMA News TV, TV5’s weatherman, and content manager with two journalism awards. He was also a columnist for Manila Times, Mega Magazine editor, and senior lecturer at U.P.

On April 1, 2019, his lifeless body was found submerged in the bathtub at a five-star hotel in BGC. It was premeditated and he wanted everyone to know his story.

He explained it all in a lengthy video blog on his ‘Digital Nomad’ page. The scheduled post was published four days after he committed suicide. He was 33 years old.

What Joseph wanted everyone to know

Ubalde had been suffering from sadness and anxiety since grade school. In 2016, he underwent psychiatric help after months of sleepless nights. Joseph was at the height of his career at that time.

He said in the original video, “…Deep inside, when you’re all by yourself when you’re all alone, that’s when the facade crumbles, and that’s when you have to grapple with your monsters and demons.”

Two years earlier, Nadine Lustre’s brother also committed suicide. Isaiah Lustre said in his post, “There is emptiness… I need someone to lean on.”

His reason for depression was clear

I had no one to assure or validate me that everything will be okay. I wish I had more friends who I can call at midnight… That I think is important: Friends who would genuinely check up on you, who would really ask you how you are and who are really invested in your wellness. If I had friends like that, I think I would not have kept all my problems to myself and feel alone.”

→ Looking for a support group?

im depressed help me
Data show a shocking spike among young people committing suicide—despite privileged lives. Most of them faced loneliness, despite having families who love them. Kung ikaw ay depressed, hindi pa huli ang lahat.

The reason why we get depressed

Seph Ubalde sought professional help, but it was not enough. The truth is, we all get depressed because we have a constant enemy who is after our destruction. He is a thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Even Pastors get depressed; some committed suicide.

→ The root cause of depression.

Satan targets Christians as his trophies

Just because you have Jesus as your Lord and savior, a Christian, or someone active in church does not mean depression won’t crawl on you. Recently, two US mega-Pastors Andrew Stoecklein and Jarrid Wilson killed themselves.

Destroying those who bear God’s image

Satan hunts among the hurting. He tells them it’s hopeless. The devil seeks to devour (1 Peter 5:8). He wants to sift God’s workers like wheat (Luke 22:31–32). Clearly, he is bent on destroying those who bear the image of God, doing it each day.

Job and Corrie sets the ultimate example

Job faced the ultimate tragedy, losing his family and wealth. His choice to trust God kept Job alive and well! (Job 13). However, not everyone is like him. In the same way, not everyone experienced the same things he did.

Corrie Ten Boom wanted to die. They starved to death and lived like rats in flea-infested barracks during the war. Can you imagine if you were in her shoes? Yet she chose to look up, be thankful, and trusted Jesus.

Colossians 2:10
“… and in Christ, you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

Life is a choice: Look up and refuse the lie!

Is your problem greater than someone who is blind, quadriplegic, or Jessa Catle, born without arms and legs? The truth is, we often fail to see how blessed we are—we focus on our little tragedies, instead of thankfulness. We believe Satan’s lies.

We often fail to see how blessed we are. We believe satan’s lies.

Nehemiah 8:10
Do not grieve. The joy of the Lord is your strength!

1 Thessalonians 5:18
“… give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

→ How to pray like Jesus and get answers.

facebook post ubalde
Joseph Ubalde’s last Facebook cover – A view from Batanes lighthouse. It was perhaps his inspiration as he ended his 33-minute video with a smile, “See you on the other side.”

RESOURCES:
Free counseling network in the Philippines.
Need help in overcoming depression and addiction?
How to overcome depression according to scriptures.

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9 COMMENTS

  1. There is so much assumption here. One thing this article dangerously assume is that depression is a faith issue only and not a real physical and mental disease. 35 percent of pastors in the US suffers from depression, many has taken suicide.. It is now starting to happen here in the Philippines. So if you got sick do you lack faith? If you have a heart disease will people say you lack faith? Why the stigma that depression is a matter of faith? The article is too short to really express what depression is. It is mishandled despite the understandably good intention and correct cure. One can have the correct med but if the procedure was not done right it can cause more harm than help.

    • Gp, what the writer is pointing out is the existence and involvement of an ENEMY who attacks the mind. It’s even mentioned in the writing that pastors also go through depression. Nobody is immune.

      What we all need to understand here is that we are being pulled away from our responsibility to our own selves to think rationally. To keep choosing and pushing to live a normal life. To be good stewards of our own bodies. It’s become easier to simply succumb to victim mentality. Why? Because most of us have been overprotected. We were raised to live a life of ease and comfort. We were raised to believe that we deserve comfort and convenience. And so the moment we experience difficulty and challenges, we act entitled as though none of us deserve hardship. Have you heard of anyone who live in the slums taken their own life? There were those others who chose to kill their own selves with no similar sorrowful past whose life was what others envy. Why did they do that?

      In the case of Seph, he was abused and bullied growing up. I get that. But how many people alive today experienced the same? He masked all his hurts and resentments. Perhaps, he bottled in much anger and bitterness. Those are toxins that eat people alive! If he remained carrying those pains of the past until his last trying to make sense as to why was he handed a life different from how he wished he had, it means he never let go of that episode and never forgiven his abusers and that was what acted like cancer in his system. Rotten his reason and judgment.

      Events in our lives happen and none of us were asked whether we wanted to experience them or not. We do with what we’re handed. That’s how life is. If anyone suffers from some past and it keeps destroying them in the present, it’s a choice. How come those survivors of the world war who were physically, mentally, and sexually abused and tortured managed to keep on living until they’re old? Managed to live normally eventually? Trauma was there. Surely, they had faced terrifying nights as though their perpetrators are still present. But, they chose to live as they should.

      And there are many voiceless victims of abuse everywhere behind pleasant and seemingly happy faces. What differs those who didn’t allow themselves get defeated by depression is their will to fight. The resistance to demand for a comfortable life. They face every horrible memories without drama but just with all honesty that they are frightened, angry, and bitter. They let go. They didn’t demand that they be given the attention, understanding, love, and care they much needed. Because that would only add to the negative feeling when not received as how they wish to receive what. Think about it. You do try to be sensitive to people, don’t you? If people are hiding behind masks, they in fact already closed their doors behind people who could’ve given them what they wanted to get. To ask others to be sensitive to what we might be going through behind a facade is too much. People have their own lives and problems to deal with. To make others responsible for our own suffering while we hide behind a mask is to be entitled. Why won’t we all just brave it and say it out loud what we think we need?

      You know something bad may have happened to us, but it does not have to affect our tomorrows. It is a choice. It is our responsibility to ourselves to get back on track. It is not anybody else’s.

      I say this because I was able to escape the lies of the enemy myself. I was myself depressed. I suffered for years trying to live normally while nobody knew what I was suffering from. I hid behind a character nobody could guess I was already bruised, limp, hopeless. Thoughts of taking antidepressant and even of just dying were all over my head. Every day was a torture. During that time it’s as though nothing good was happening to me when there were. More and more lies were injected in my mind blinding me to things I should be thankful and grateful for. I almost believed all the lies. Until I decided to seek help. Not from psychiatrists, but from the Lord. I read the Bible. I sought Him daily in my suffering. And you know, to tell you frankly, it didn’t seem like working at first. Thoughts remained there. Like warts re-appearing here and there. But, I held on. And God led me through the way out of it. He replaced every lie with the Truth.

      All my suffering was never because of what was done to me. Not because of the pain inflicted to me by another, but by my own. It was more convenient for me to just assign blame to who hurt me when certain behavior and feelings of deep loneliness show up. I didn’t want to be responsible to myself in moving on. Deep down, there was this yearning for justice. Nobody has any right to blame me for my acts because I was bleeding. And it was because of another person who was not anymore present in my life. My suffering was because I refused to forgive. So the enemy took that as his foothold against me.

      What solution Jesus Christ gave us is FORGIVENESS. Because He knows the damage it can cause us if we don’t. It doesn’t harm anyone else more than it does us. The root of all depression is being too self-absorbed. “I need people to understand me.” “I need to feel that I matter to them.” A depressed person often withdraws from their crowd and then be alone with their own company, then would accuse others of not caring. That is so wrong. I know and I say this because I was there. I was self-absorbed because I was suffering. And that’s what brought me deeper into depression. Such a toxic cycle.

      The writer isn’t dismissing anything and putting a faith-based solution alone. He is helping in opening our minds to the Truth. We have been entrusted that life we’re given and we are to care for it rather than assigning responsibility to another all because we’re so tired and hurt.

      • Thank you Jeremy, that helps me a lot.. I’m also suffering depression right now and it’s been so long and I don’t know what to do. I know that It’s myself whom is my enemy, I’m always blaming others because they are not there for me , but I know in my mind that they were there to help me when I open up to them.. I just don’t know why my mind keep telling me to keep this sadness with me, I want to be freed but I have so many thoughts in my mind and It just doesn’t go away… I missed my God.. I missed Him so much…I don’t want to feel this way

    • I have never been furious about this blog post. Have you come this low? Capitalizing your net traffic by abusing and misusing the dead for views?

      So, with this lame post, does it mean that if you have an illness, then God is away from you?

      I demand an answer because when my mother died, she was faithful to God and even went out of her way to continue her ministry in the middle of chemotherapy. Yet, she’s dead.

      Is there any difference between Joseph and my mother? They were both ill.

      True enough this blog is nothing but a place for the “enlightened” and the saved souls. Pretty quick to judge. It disgusts me to my core.

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