a short story about finding peace (part 1)
This story has been 2 years in the making. Why? Because it's hard, because what will people think, because no-one cares, because what if my family reads it and it will just make them sad, because what if people will be mean and it will just make me sad…
So then maybe I should wait for some international day of something to at least have a pretext? Or maybe let's not talk about it at all because it's so embarrassing, because people won't believe, disregard, shame me...
A short story about finding peace - well, not that short (I lied) but at least its introduction for now. This not-so-short story is about depression. My depression, my experience with it and my thoughts on it. I know this is a very trendy subject to talk about at the moment and to be honest, for the first time in my life I am quite happy to be part of a trend. Did you know that Poland is second in Europe when it comes to teenage suicides? Well, I didn't know and it freaked me out.
But even though the topic is hot, talking about it still causes a lot of discomfort. How is it possible that the topic is so trendy and so many people suffer from it, yet it still remains disregarded, unknown, mysterious even? I would really wish for it to change.
So let's change that.
My first therapist told me that our unspoken goal in life is to build a house. Not in a literal meaning of it, but the one inside of us. Ever since we are born we’re gathering bricks of experiences so when we reach adulthood, each one of us has a stable foundation built within ourselves to support us in our living. It happens however, that some experiences we collect on the way are addle or broken and fracture the construction – this is when we feel unstable or in danger of collapsing.
It was the time when I just moved to Paris. Just got my diploma in Poland, moved to another country, moved in with my boyfriend after 2 years of a long-distance relationship and was just about to start a new school there - all of which sound picture-perfect but would usually pose an emotional struggle and a great deal of pressure by themselves. Imagine the combo?
What is more, this time coincided with the terrorist attack in Paris leaving 130 people dead and hundreds wounded - an attack from which I found myself only 500 meters away and avoided being in exactly the place by mere chance. Needles to say, it fucked me over. For months, even a year after, I would wake up in fear at night every time a plane would fly over our neighbourhood, I would walk down the street spotting the fastest escape and hideaway every few meters, to be ready just in case. To this day, I feel endangered and on a verge of a panic attack every time someone screams in public.
Going through depression, anxiety and returning panic attacks might have been the biggest lesson I have learnt by now. A lesson about myself, relationships with other people and life in general. And it's not like my whole life before that was a bed of roses (but these bricks are another story). The truth is that after this 1 year I felt like I had aged at least 10. It exhausted me completely but I must admit, left me stronger than ever.
I find it essential to share the story and speak up about it, seeing that depression is becoming a modern epidemic with over 300 million people suffering from it all over the world. Even more so, since the biggest struggle I had was feeling... misunderstood.
