Depression in the paradise
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. (John Milton, Paradise Lost)
The mind is creating its own story sometimes. It's the human mind which creates the life of each of us, the world around us or better how we see it. It's this mind creating our reality or what we want, believe in, what we think, what we say, what and why we do something. This mind is unexplainable and it can create fear or hope. Laziness or action. Motivation and action creativity or boredom. This mind is a muscle we can try to train.
I have no idea how it happened and why I made some decisions, why I said some words, why I wrote something, why I refused some offers, why I couldn't see the beauty of the world anymore, why I couldn't see hope and why I wanted to die instead of living!
Wanaka in New Zealand is probably one of the most beautiful places. New Zealand is probably one of the easiest, friendliest and adventurous countries to be in and I got probably one of the easiest jobs to work, so I should have been more than happy. I wasn't. I was laughing on the outside and crying on the inside. Why am I writing this down? First of all for me to remind me in the future that I've been through it and don't want to do it again and secondly for you to show the hope and that life can always change and learn from the past. We have to go through dark times sometime to see the light. Everyone can suffer in every situation without you even knowing it - Talking, and support and Love is always important for everyone in hard times but therefore we have to meet and to speak. Therefore we have to smile and to hug. Therefore, we have to share and we have to laugh. Therefore, we have to be humans.
Some Words/A Song to Say Goodbye
FB post of 15th, January, 2020: When I explored the darkest part and the darkest adventure of my life.
"Depression and suicide thoughts are unfortunately at the moment my life and basically any moment hurts and I'm pretty scared of myself and hate myself more than everything but almost anything you can find recommend to talk about your depression, accept it and let people know and I don't want to be one of the people who just dissapeared and people are wondering why did he do that to his family and friends and I really don't want to seem like a drama queen it's basically just one of the last tries to reach out for help and create awareness - even so I know I'm the only one who is responsible for myself and can help to get out of there but it always helps to talk and in my better moments I did.
Depression is not living in the moment but regretting the past and fear for the future.
Depression is not to appreciate what you have but regret what you don't have or haven't done.
Depression is living but don't be alive.
Depression is if the happiness and achievements of your friends don't make you feeling happy for them but sad for yourself.
Depression is if it just takes all your energy to be.
Depression is like a devil inside you waiting for your weak moments to destroy and kill you and make everything senseless.
Most of you have met me as a happy and active person I liked to be with ideas and plans. I have had this idea and plans for NZ as well but was never able to even start this plan. I know that I'm one of few privileged persons in this world. I have enough money, food, a shelter, a family and friends. I got everything and in clear moments I appreciate it and in other moments I'm just already dead. I know I'm not alone and depression is a huge problem - It doesn't help!
Right now I'm in Wanaka, NZ one of the most beautiful parts of the world with happiness and activities around me and all possibilities I could ask for but instead of enjoying it, it's a heavy burden on my shoulders to do something and be like others. I quit a fantastic job as a Camping ambassador, I just had to drive around and talk to friendly people. A dream job in a dream place destroyed by illusional thoughts and depression to just get out of a situation in my head, I created in fantasies.
It was basically the last trigger point to lose the trust in myself - how could any rational person could do it and to be honest it feels like a first easy suicide. In a weak moment I destroyed my happiness and plans for enjoying NZ and I have no explanation why I did it. I understand people jumping in front of a train, driving in another car, saying or doing any other stupid thing - it's not to hurt someone but to finish your pain - without knowing how or why.
This is a brilliant song and video which describes my situation and I listen to it right now all the time. The time when your inner child, dreams, plans and enthusiasm die and you need someone to help you!
I'm asking for this help full of frustration that I'm not able to help myself anymore. Please talk to me. It helps me and I know everyone has some problems in this world and as long as I'm talking my mind is focused on that. Talking and communication helps and makes us humans.
If my depression wins at one of my dark moments please remember me as the happy and hopefully sometimes a bit crazy person I have been in a few good times of my life.
Written in one of my clearest and most active moments of the last days.
I also know FB is FB and this is more like a private and intime problem and some of you who don't know me good enough will make it to a drama and cry and for attention but that's basically what is a suicide too, so that's the better option.
Thanks for all the time, friendship and fun I have had with my friends and I hope to talk. I'm just not always strong enough to reach out to you.
My slogan was ones
"Be happy - It's more fun :)"!
and I had some great fun in this life. It doesn't count anymore!
A song to say Godbye (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bxXjQL3cY)
*Thank you everyone! Feel better and have friends around. Sorry for not answering everyone!"
My mistakes during my depression:
I was focused on what friends and other people do and what I didn't do and even further what the news said, celebrities are doing and what I will never be able to do, so I didn't do anything from the beginning. That's the safest thing, but it's stupid.
“Don’t compare your life to others, There is no comparison between the sun and the moon, they just shine when it’s their time.”
I had too many friends and was just going from friend or friend group to friend to join them in their life and their adventure instead of living my own life and making my own plans. I didn't have any routine and no purpose in what I'm doing. I wasn't even sure why I did what I did. I was hanging in the time between past and future but not in the now. My job gave me money but no deeper purpose. I didn't do sports and was eating unhealthy.
It took a lot to bring me back to life, when all my thoughts only circle around how I can end my life, without hurting myself or my family or friends too much. The smallest piece of love for me, my family, my friends, nature, life, adventures and the unknown kept me alive and prisoned in this world. It was just horrible, my thoughts were just around all my mistakes and failures, my dark future and death. All day long. I was lucky to have...
A family I could always talk to.
Friends all over the world and around me who supported me, however they could.
Beautiful Nature around me to do anything I wanted to do.
Enough Money to buy what I needed.
"Love kept me prisoned in a world of invisible pain!"
My friends organized an appointment with the doctor and brought me there. My friends called the police, when I was so down, that they were too worried about me. My friends got me out of bed with a cup of tea in the morning. My friends organized something for the day. My friends and family called me every day trying to organize a flight back home or wherever for me, when I couldn't decide it myself. My friends gave me time to recover.
It took a lot of support, help, pils, trust and time and baby step adventure before I found the trust in myself again and was able to live again.
"Sometimes you have to pull out the weeds to see the flowers."
"Only if we walk in the darkest darkness we are able to see the brightest stars."
TRUST THE DARKNESS NOW
If you are lost.
If nothing makes sense anymore.
If all your reference points
have collapsed.
If the old life is crumbling now.
If the mind is foggy, tired, busy.
If the organism is exhausted
and longs to rest.
Celebrate.
Trust.
This is a rite of passage,
not an error.
You are healing
in your own original way.
Contact the ground now.
Breathe. In, out.
Make room for the visitors:
The sorrow, doubt, fear, anger.
An ancient emptiness -
They just want to be felt.
They just want to pass through.
You are a vessel, not a separate self.
You are a sky, not the passing weather.
An old life is falling away.
A new life is being born.
Others may not understand.
But trust anyway.
Celebrate.
Contact the ground.
- Jeff Foster
"Darkness cannot drive out of darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that (Martin Luther King)
You don't know it yet, but we're the lucky ones! (Lance Armstrong)
As closer as we have been to death, we can be grateful and celebrate life!
We have to die at least ones to be truly alive!
Happiness is the counterpart of depression - 7 Paths to Happiness
1. Having a goal/plan
2. Believe in yourself/be yourself
3. Eat healthy
4. Moving
5. Don't compare yourself with others or your better self
When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in.
That's what this storm is all about. (Haruki Murakami)
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." (Ernest Hemingway)
This time is uncertain. This time is hard for a lot of people. We have to wait to trust. Like I learned during my depression, this is unfortunately not the healthiest way for human health. To be honest, I don't think it's the healthiest and the best way. It's not a conspiracy theory if I say what I feel and I'm not criticizing any governmental decisions. How could I? I'm in New Zealand, my family is in Germany and a lot of my friends are in Canada and I got most of the media from the U.S., which government can I criticize and why should I? I know too little about that stuff. I wouldn't change it anyways. But I personally have to admit that I like the Swedish approach of accepting the virus as something what it is and keep living normal as I would choose. I don't like rules and I can't know all of them anyways. ("I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me." (Into the wild)). I believe in freedom and the smartness of people. It would be normal for me if someone doesn't want to stay 2 m next to me, because he is scared and doesn't want to give me a hug, that's ok if it's his/her decision. If we don't go to old and sick people to save them that's also a decision. I just don't know why it has to be a rule and people are just not smart enough to care about themselves anymore. That's all. Having a rule to stay inside with 25 others instead of not doing sports outdoors and camping alone, while I sometimes feel more at home in nature, I just can't understand. To open Mc Donald's and Subway with unhealthy food instead of small local distributors. I don't understand. To pay by card where everyone touches the same touchpad instead of cash. I don't understand.
Feeling alone in fear and inside waiting instead of going through tough times with friends, hope, a plan, sporty outside feels just weird for me.
It feels a little bit like the world is in a depression for me, right now. Uncertain and don’t know where to go.
We all: People, states and countries are focusing on the mistakes of others. Blaming the mistakes of other countries, the death or infection numbers instead of focusing on their own problems and trying to learn and support each other seems not right. Pointing a finger at Trump, saying America and Trump defeated a virus called after a Mexican beer coming from China is not helping anyone, it's heartless. It's not a president, a country struggling. There are real people struggling and dying and hopeless. I know that if we don't know these people in person it's just an abstract mass but it's still never good to make fun about mistakes instead of trying to help. Also, in the end we don't know if one country is really doing better than another, we just focus always on the virus death and infection rates. Death by depression/suicide are unknown. Economic crises of people etc. are unfortunately often not pictured and it's hard to find data at the moment but the death by depression, hunger or an unhealthy lifestyle caused statistically still more deaths than this virus and that's just a fact. And, we can't say, yes but only because our government has reacted that fast and well. We don't know. The future and why something worked or not is still unknown and will always be.
Friends posting old travel pictures all the time and talking about future plans like flying somewhere without knowing how the economy will change. It's uncertain. Even as a society we only have the now.
Video conferences with friends, without a hug or seeing each other in person and having adventures together are not as good as real life. I realized that friends meet up way more often for viral, alcohol parties. Hanging more and longer in front of the screen and sometimes watching old soccer games from 10 years ago. Becoming less reliable, because they have no structure in their days and no plans for the day. Just living/losing one more meaningless day after another. Carpe diem? It feels sad for me.
Here, in the hostel are friends who see it as an achievement to go for a walk during the day, waking up at 2 pm and going to bed late.
There is a beautiful German book and film called: "Dieses bescheuerte Herz - This fucking heart". It's about a young boy, who only lives on 20% of his heart capacity and could die every single moment. His highlight is to go to the supermarket. Living on 20% of heart capacity is not fun. Luckily, he meets a friend who helps him to realize his dreams and live to the fullest without fear, but most of us have no reason to live on 20%. We still do sometimes and actually we also can die every single moment. There is almost no difference.
I do not blame them for sleeping so long. It's just a sign that they are not sleeping well because they're worried about a job, travel plans, their family and if you're worried it's hard to concentrate and focus. Less exercise and more unhealthy food. Positive is that a lot of friends are really more grateful if they've done something and appreciate the beauty of nature more, if they're looking up from their screens.
I can't help myself but for me, it feels like our world is in a huge depression and it depends on all of us how we get out of there. Suicide or as a better society. It's definitely a time for a change of our living style on this planet. I can just say that my depression helped being outside in nature, meeting friends and hugging them and helping and sharing and love and trust and work on brighter future plans. I see just no disadvantage if the world and all humans would do the same.
Maybe the problems of the world are not the crazy and mentally confused people but the normal one. The question is if we want to go back to normal. What was normal before and was it good/better?
Craziness
A crazy time
A crazy world
Crazy People
Crazy Rules
Our time. In this world. We are these people. We make these rules.
"The depth of the ocean, The expanse of the universe, depression, a virus , death. We/Humans fear the unknown the unexplainable. The things we cannot see, hear, smell or even explain and talk about. These are the last and biggest adventures where we have to learn to feel to love and to trust!"
A Simple Way: Crisis as a chance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwLAvfBCzw)
Book: Out of the woods - A Journey through Depression and Anxiety, Brent Williams
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