the deepest (it could get)

 

Warning: content includes obsessive thoughts, depression and sexual content.

okay so here goes nothing...

 

 I think, that the path to my mental state/illness back then is way more complex than what I remember going through.

Here are some roads i remember going down tonight:

-          As a child, being positive or having a positive outlook towards things was my mantra

-          This mantra backlashed on me, when i moved back to Germany in 2004 at the age of 12, turning 13 years old. (This does something to me, whilst writing down.)

-          It backlashed because I had no other way of being. I didnt know how to cope any other way than to say ‚its ok‘, ‚it will be ok‘. But it was just a mantra. Nothing more. It didnt really affect my inner well-being. The ‚it‘ in ‚it will be ok‘ was undefined and it kinda only projected onto the outer world. The outer world was fine indeed (in the first years of being bach in Germany in 2004)

-          And things werent ok. I was dealing with a lot of weird psychological stuff in the actual move from Vietnam to Germany, such as a feeling, that i was seeing my world/surroundings through a teleskope or like a kind of a tunnel, even though nothing was wrong with my eyesight. It was just a feeling. I was also going through seperating from my friends and them leaving me before i left them (they went on vacation and i was one of  the last to leave to germany after everyone had already left), which made me feel like I was being left behind and no one really felt sad about me actually leaving.

-          In Germany: I started getting mad at myself for saying this mantra again and again and still sometimes cheering myself on, to see things positive, because thats what people do, right? I didnt know how to cope with myself. Sometimes i would think about it and try to break free from the mantra and try to be sad. But it felt so weird. Like as if telling me to be sad felt like wanting to switch on a button or such. And it felt so weird, so unnatural. I could not identify what was going on with me. My being rational, telling myself to feel sad or what i really felt, could not really help me. I didnt know a way out.

-          It was like a nightmare a lot of years. I didnt know: was I sad, hurt mad, angry. What was I. I was definetely confused af. And this state was intense and scary. I kinda lost my identity too because i couldnt sort it out in my inner self. And my outer self had perfected the art of being so called ‚happy‘. I didnt know what to do.

-          The crumbling of my outer mask after the exchange with Laura the french girl when i was 15 years, was the first time i felt somewbat more to being myself.

-          After the exchange, I had no energy in showing others that mask of being happy (having had to move and adjust to new people a g a i n when i was in France was draining me of my energy).  I could not. How glad I was on one side, but on the other side, I started developing social anxieties. They were never diagnosed. But sometimes i stayed home form school just not to have to face people seeing me sad and me not being able to smile back at anyone.

-          It was really hard on me not being able to face people and show them who they'd want to see. A shiny smile. I was really glad on one side, but, as said, on the other side, I got more and more afraid of being someone people could not cope with.

-          Another road I went down: obsessive thoughts  (Zwangsgedanken).

-          It felt like things went on a long long time just having no consequences at all. I mean like the ‚playing being fine but not really being it, trying to make playing into really becoming but this strategy not getting me anywhere to close to being fine‘ kept going like for 1.5 years or so.

-         I kinda developed thoughts on having sexual acts between me and my father. And it hurt me so. it was like the worst thing in my life. Because he was my childhood hero, and then I felt the person i needed the most in the time i was having this depression, and that I loved the most, i kinda had to keep a far from me because my mind was telling me, that i loved him too much or like in a wrong way. And I didn't know if it was true. If i really did love him too much or wanted to get physical with him. This didnt only happen about him but also about other people I held close that were so precious in the time of depression and so valuable for becoming okay, like my reiki-mentor. I also had the obsessive thought to tell the people I was having these thoughts over, that I was having these thoughts about them. The thoughts had nothing to do with pleasure, it had more to do with like some kind of way of drawing a line or like daring me to cross the drawn lines. Somehow. Remember me saying there were never any consequences in my thoughts? This felt like a devilish part of me was playing with the consequences of my thoughts, words and actions.

-          I remember one part that set me free to this: 1. Me telling my Reiki-Mentor, that I was having these thoughts. I was scared of how she would react. I don't exactly recall what I said to her but something like that I was having these thoughts about her or something. I dont know if she actually got that it was obsessive thoughts (Zwangsgedanken), but she did the most healing thing. She held out her arms and just held me with me and my dirty thoughts. thats what i thought they were: dirty, filthy, scary. But when she took me in her arms, I realised that I was still a person who could be loved despite these thoughts.

-          Also telling my then therapist, my first one, helped me a lot. She told me what they were: obsessive thoughts (Zwangsgedanken).

-          And at last, what really was like free falling, was just letting myself dive into the fantasies. And they just vanished. Head on. Just by taking away my fear of them, saying ‚ok thoughts, bring it on‘. I could face my thoughts. I could jump in. Dive into them, without them really being visualised or really thought all the way. Sometimes, yeah, i was visualise like things that i never wanted to, but the more time passed by, the more i allowed the thoughts to be, the less they became, the less they occured. Until there weren’t any anymore.

-          That were some of the scariest roads I've been down in my head in my life.

 

A lot of thanks go out to the people who meant well for me, especially like people, who probably dont even know, that they did as much at the time (17 yrs til 19yrs)

Felix and Philip G. and fam

Sorry for the mess i left with your family. You helped me out so much. You showed me who I could still be. You showed me how I could be: loving to others, shiny to others and real at the same time real to others. (nototakyest or something)

 

Diana S

You stuck by my side and kept me in the group of people in high school to keep praciticing smiling again after it was enough of frowning-time (i remember the musical was an awful pain but it helped me out so much again).

 

my family and gisela

the most support I got of you was just your being there. Sometimes i wish you guys were different in some ways. But how lucky am i to have such supportive family members around me, no matter what happened or what thoughts i was having.

 

My Reiki-Mentor and Reiki

To givng my soul a break from all the downsides of depression.

 

 

People need different things a different stages of their lives

Like the smile. At one point: awful, at another: essential to be relearned for my further well being and social life.

 

Thank you.

ps. please be kind. please ask my if you feel awkward about this blog the next time seeing me and ask me about it in person. i think that would be great :)