The grim reaper on my shoulder. My story from depression to self-awareness (trigger warning!)
life·@endorphoenix·
0.000 HBDThe grim reaper on my shoulder. My story from depression to self-awareness (trigger warning!)
**About 12 years ago...** There's that weight that keeps pulling me down. That keeps me from moving forward. As in quicksand, I seem to sink lower and lower, the more I try to escape. The sun is rising, but for me it remains dark. Countless people around me, but I'm still alone. Caught in an invisible cage. Imprisoned, unaware of whom. A weary smile graces my face, the last glimmer of hope for a better life. Maybe it's just the fear of honestly telling my fellow human beings how I am doing. I have depressions. My days are unbearably long-winded and worse than the nightmares I had the nights before. I'm scarred. Scarred of the tasks that I have to fulfill. Scarred of the pressure I'm exposed to in this meritocracy. Scarred of my own abysses. While everyone laughs, I try not to cry. While they go out, I'm sitting at home trying to hold on and not lose courage. As they function and live their lives, I begin to doubt the meaning of my own. Every missed call, every message, every day's task lies like a coat of lead on me and paralyzes me. Like a rabbit in front of the snake I stand in front of the mirror. Hot tears draw fine lines on my cold skin. I look into my eyes, but I can not see myself. My heart beats, but I do not feel alive. I want to be happy like my classmates, but it seems like a privilege that I do not seem to deserve. Is being happy luxury? Did fate simply forget me? Every thought hurts. Life hurts.  The darkness hugs me a little tighter every day. There's a grim reaper on my shoulder who whispers to me and tells me about the wonderful peace. I start to believe him. My light is getting weaker, like a bonfire slowly extinguishing. The darkness scares people around me. Who knows what you can find in the shades? This can not continue like that. If I can not shine by myself, then I'll be artificially made to do so. Pills instead of breakfast, chemistry instead of feelings, dullness instead of clarity. The spiral turns downwards. The pharmaceutical industry puts a veil over my feelings. They are not gone, they are just not visible, tactile. I feel like I'm denying myself. It makes me sick. Like a zombie, I walk the streets. The pills take me any ups and downs. I feel so empty and dead. Shouldn't these pills help me laugh again? I am getting further and further away from laughing. Like a computer on standby, which is not quite shut down, but also not really working. Instead of being exposed to my mood swings at school, I am sitting at my desk like taxidermied, barely understanding what the teacher is saying. Instead of letting out my grief and bitter crying at noon, I lie in bed and sleep, because my chemical firewall suppresses everything that rages in me. Instead of going to bed with a smile in the evening, I wonder if I always have to swallow pills to endure all this. Can that be the meaning of life? The big, wonderful solution? The shoe box with the artificial luck under my bed seems to me like a life lie. They have never made me happy, just made me feel no more and feel less alive than before. One last time I look in, wrestle with the demons in my head and throw everything in the trash bin. Radical. That's not me!!! **About 6 years ago...** I fled. From my home, from all the memories and feelings, from myself. I live in Berlin now. No one is frightened by my darkness, because I'm only one of many. And if I do not shine, I do not scare anyone, but just go under. Like a tiny broken light bulb on a huge string of lights that nobody notices.  The last few years have been like a sea trip during a storm without knowing the harbour. Lost in the waves, fighting not to sink and yet do not know why. The grim reaper on my shoulder has become my faithful friend and companion. At least one who sticks to me. His whispering becomes louder and soon he speaks to me unceasingly. Maybe he's right. Maybe I am something of a failed experiment of God that is better served when it returns to the source. Like a wrong order in an online shop, which you simply return if it does not match with what you had in mind. Inwardly I say goodbye to the world, mourn for the last time about the hope that I had apparently put on the wrong horse - and frighten! WHAT DO I DO HERE ?! **About 5 years ago...** I've got to get out of here! The grim reaper, who seemed like a good friend, shows his true face when I want to say goodbye to him. His cold hands only tighten around me. I'm afraid. My darkness has nurtured him for so long that he has grown tall and strong by my side. The demons in my head have accepted him as their leader. I feel like a warrior, all alone on a battlefield. I can not do it without help! With trembling hands, I dial the number of the Suicide Assistance of Berlin and ask in tears for someone to help me find my light and fight the darkness that haunts me, like in a horror movie. I am lucky and with my last strength I drive to the first stage of my new life. Soon it is clear: Berlin is wonderful, but yet it eats me up, like a hungry monster. I need a reboot. My boyfriend, who lives near the metropolis, and I dare again the jump into the cold water and I go in search of my harbour. We move to a village in Southern Germany. There it is again, my hope. Whether I put on the right horse this time? I'm relieved to finally be able to leave everything behind. What a feeling! The first shared apartment with my great love! I look at the key in my hand and regain my courage. Until five days later, my world is shaken and tears everything down, like an earthquake. I'm being abused, briefly escaping a rape . There they are again, the demons and their king the grim reaper. I have probably put on the wrong horse again when I moved here. I feel trapped as if I am in a déjà vu and with trembling hands dial the number of “Kompass” (engl. “compass”), an institution for victims of sexual abuse. I tell the answering machine my story and try not to cry. Will that ever end? It does not take long before my phone rings. An angel in the body of a woman gives me courage, invites me to say farewell to the demons and take the crown off the grim reaper. The plan works, I start to shine again. In the fight with the demons, I fully realize how strong they have become over the years. It hurts terribly and yet I am getting better, with every demon I consciously perceive and let go. And suddenly I learn the most important lesson in my life so far: These beings are not really demons, but teachers who try to help me to grow. To succeed, one is confronted with all his darkness and pain to overcome it. And we are so scared of all that, that we start to think they want us to do something bad. My angel illuminates them with all her light and I recognize the true face of the demons: my own! They are all part of me, not to be fought but to accept and heal. I cry a lot and yet I laugh more and more. I am successfully completing my final exam of my education, marrying my soul mate and soon, besides my weight which has increased to 112 Kilograms, soon nothing reminds of my struggle and all the suffering. I am infinitely grateful. And one thing I know: Now I'm ready to put on the right horse and find my true harbour. Inside myself! But I also need to find it on the outside, because I can not stay here. The man who broke my wings lives in the same village and I encounter him and my pain almost daily. My angel likes the idea of moving on. To really make a restart now, with a new mindset. My husband, who has not let me fight alone for a second, takes me by the hand and together we search for our harbour. The storm settles and for the first time land is in sight: The wonderfully rough coast of the Baltic Sea!  **About 2,5 years ago...** Together we open a new chapter in the book of life. The story turns out well. All the lessons my angel taught me unfold in me and start to blossom like delicate roses. I found him, the harbor. Literally. As I look at the port of Rostock, the coastal wind plays with my hair and blows away all the past. Let me go, start over. I cry with joy and relief. And for the first time in a long time, the sun rises for me in the morning. An energy awakens in me that I did not know before. I made friends with my demons. They are now a part of me. I do not fight them anymore, I listen to them. I'm not afraid of them anymore, I'm thankful they help me to grow. I am not depressed, I have wounds that want to heal. I'm not a broken bulb in a string of lights, I'm a sun.  **Today...** No chemical firewall anymore, I want to feel! Pain, sadness, love, joy, fear, anger, happiness. I realize that life is a boat trip that can not work without waves and wind. Where you sometimes lose sight of the harbor and have to dare to explore new shores. Only then the map can be extended. I meditate a lot, do a lot of soulwork, get in touch with myself and listen to my intuition instead of fleeing from me. I feel instead of fighting. I grow, instead of withering. The only thing I needed was a compass and an angel to find my way and my light. A compass tattoo adorns my back and reminds me every day that I am the captain of my life and decide where to go.  I changed my course radically. Instead of chemistry, there is a lot of nature and fresh air. Instead of junk food and frustration eating, there is quality food and awareness. Instead of "Why always me?" there is "I will work to become the best version of myself and free myself!". Instead of making my life heavy with 112 Kilograms, I experience more and more lightness and danced, danced, danced, with happiness, until I could let go of 34 Kilograms of my past. Instead of self-doubt and fear of the pressure of the world of work, there is now a new phase of life: Self-employment! I'm a roly-poly doll, my therapist once told me. I smile and realize that it is true. My sun is getting brighter and brighter and encourages more and more people to shine as well. No matter how many times I fall, I will always get back on my feet one time more! If you know the darkness, you appreciate the light from all of your heart! I feel this light in every fiber of my being and now know what it is worth living for. I arrived. Within myself, in my personal harbour. Sometimes a storm comes up and the waves push me back and forth, but I have a compass and I know where my home is. It is not in a doctor's office or pharmacy. It lies in my gentle fighter heart. And that beats wilder and more alive everyday. The bonfire is inflamed and leads me home again and again, into my inner middle. Just like the lighthouse here in Rostock. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and smile. Welcome life! 