#restlessmind

Not even a full day has gone by and I am here again, writing. I could be proud but I also know myself, and me being here again - just a few hours after writing my first real personal blog entry - that's nothing special. On the contrary, it is exactly how things tend to go whenever I decide to start something new: First, I am overly excited, trying to perfectly live up to my personal fantasy of how things should be. Then, just shortly after, the 'new thing' starts to feel like an obligation, like work, like it's depriving me of the little power I have left. And when I begin to feel tired and exhausted, I suddenly start to see - or rather imagine - the flaws of the 'new thing' and simply stop doing it. And all of this happens while I am perfectly aware of what is going on. But oh well.. my self control is as absent as the father who went to buy cigarettes.

But writing online has its perks. Here, I cannot be annoyed by my ever-changing, chaotic handwriting. Here, I can correct mistakes without leaving an ugly mark on paper. And here, I don't have a book that damningly glares at me with empty pages that ask to be filled. So maybe this will work. Or maybe not.

Well, let's focus.

Today has been (and still is) a typical day in my life as a depressed little sh*t. A day which my few remaining brain cells creatively named a day of nothing. A 'day of nothing' (surpisingly) translates to: I did nothing. Nothing that could contribute to my personal well-being or growth, and nothing that could contribute to people around me (at work, friends, whatsoever..). And even though I have a somewhat solid excuse for being so inactive, I have been successfully maintaining my longstanding traditon of being mad at myself nonetheless. But since I am trying to break the wheel (as the Mother of Dragons would say), I'll try to see the bigger picture: I am home on doctor's orders because I am sick. And I actually really needed a break from the everyday life stress, so my immune system kinda did me a favour by breaking down. And most importantly, I would not have been able to do much today anyway because I am extremly exhausted. Or rather - I would not have been able to do things according to my personal standards. And that would have frustrated me even more.

I haven’t been active here for a long time, and I’ve also never been the “telling my own truth” type but I really need a way to unravel my thoughts - so I guess times really do change, and I’ll now try to use this as a medium to speak (or write) my own mind whenever I feel the urge to put my feelings into words.

So a quick warning to the ~3 people that (for whatever reason) decided to follow this page: It’ll get a lot more personal over here, and you obviously don’t have to bear with me on this weird journey of self reflection.

I don’t even know why I feel the need to explain - but well.. I haven’t really known anything for a long time. I am not even sure I have felt anything but besides myself for the last decade. Depression has been holding my hand for quite some time. And thanks to that, I do no longer know who I am.

I am well aware that the journey of “knowing who own is” does not have a final destination but I feel like the tiniest piece of knowledge would help me rediscover how I am supposed to be. How I once was, and maybe even how I will be. I really wish there was a manual on how to live your life to the fullest, on how to truely live up to your potential. I simply wish I knew how to live. And to feel. To overcome the numbness and grey clouds that have been a constant companion in the last years.

So as a personal reminder, I’ll start by trying to write down all the things I still seem to know or feel.

Every day, I wonder why my body is still working. And every day, I wonder why my mind never stops working. I call it the “mental restless leg syndrom”. I am constantly tired but can barely sleep because my head keeps spinning, my mind keeps racing, my thoughts never calm down. I am a perfectionist who is so afraid of failure that I postpone every task to the last minute, and then I tell myself that I was unable to deliver my best because of the little time I had left. I know I could do better, I know I am neither stupid nor lazy. I know I am simply scared like sh*t. But I have no self-control when I am afraid, and this strategy has been the easiest way out for a while now. And it’s not the only way I fool myself. Actually, I am getting quite professional at that.

The other thing I know I am pretty solid at is keeping up appearances. When I was a child, I was bullied quite harshly but no-one knew because I kept it to myself. When my best friend had to switch schools, I told no-one how sad I was and kept up the fassade of normality. When I left to spend some time abroad and returned home half a year later, it didn’t feel like home anymore because I felt like I did no longer fit the boxes people put me in. But I did not tell anyone how hard it was to readjust to my role and to rebuild friendships. When my father got cancer, I left my job in another country, moved back in with my parents, and cared for him for two years. I did not show how much it took me to change directions and press hold on my personal plans because it felt selfish to communicate my feelings and dreams when he was fighting to survive. Two years ago, I held his hand and told him that it was okay to let go just seconds before he died. It took me months to admit how much this moment still haunts me, how much it still hurts me that I was the one to tell him that it is okay to leave us. It was not okay. It is not okay.

All this sounds like I had and might still have family issues. But truth is .. family is the only thing that holds me together. I grew up in the most loving home a person could wish for. My parents provided me and my incredibly awesome sister with everything and more - but most importantly with time and love. But while my sister has always been an open book, and my parents were a great team that (at all times) acted loving and respectful during the ups and downs of life, I kept to myself. And since I was quite successful at everything I did and never had any obvious struggles with school, friends, or whatsoever, no-one saw the need to ask how I was holding up, how I was feeling. I took a wrong turn back then, and it seems like I headed straight into a directionsless place of no return. A place with no door out. And a place with no door to let people in.

But the one “good” thing my father’s sickness has brought with it was the momentary realisation that you cannot tackle all the obstacles of life on your own. After his death, I was so incredibly overwhelmed. I was an overflooding well of emotions. And I was no longer used to feeling. To feeling so deeply and inevitably. To feel anything but numb. So I called out for help and to my big surprise, people came running. It showed me how many people really wanted to be let in, to be close to me, to really know me. And that scared me like hell. For a while, I was able to keep up with all the new emotions - positive and negative. But then it got too much. And I shut down again. Closed myself up again. Fixed the walls of my personal place of no directions, the place I got so familiar with over the last decade that it felt like a safe place to hide in.

And it is safe, that’s for sure. But it is also lonely. And it does not allow oneself to grow. It drowns feelings, grows numbness, and it diminishes the many colours of life. It makes your life grey. Not the vibrant grey of the sky right before a thunderstorm but a dull grey that seems to devour the whole you, leaving you with no other colours to paint your life with. And I really want to see all those colours again. So I will write. Because just writing down these few lines has brought me to tears oh so many times. And that is a good thing as it means I felt something. And right now, I don’t care whether it is sadness or happiness. I just want to remember how to feel.

That’s it for today.