My Depression & Mindfulness

My depression diagnose happened in 2006. I was working as a youth leader in a small clubhouse where the children and teenagers could gather under a safe space to play, hang out, read, study and make new friends.

I can't remember much of the time. It's like there's this fog in the way that does not dissolve.

Only thing I remember is that I cried a lot.

I quit my job 2007, I figured I was not fitting to the place or the job type as I kept thinking about the children after hours and was concerned of them who I knew had no caring homes.

My fiancé was working at the time and I tried to hold the fort so to speak at home. Tidy up, wash laundry and dishes, care for the cats and you know... Breathe.

That was the hard part, to feel that I was breathing and I was alive. Why? Because what I felt was absolutely nothing. It was like I was just a skin, left with nothing else. Dried out old skin that just was stuck in one place and time.

The therapy I got was not supportive and they dropped me from their list very fast.

I had gained weight along the years I went to study and couldn't drop any. Most people who are depressed lose weight, but not me. I was as heavy girl as I had been since the second year of college. My fiancé wanted to have children and my weight was part of the struggle why we couldn't conceive easily.

It was 2008 when the pregnancy test finally showed 2 lines which meant I was pregnant. I was at the time finished a course and ready to work in retail. I had figured that I should change my profession completely so I had been in training for the past 6 months before I graduated and finished ~ Just in time for the pregnancy.

I only carried the child for three months before I miscarried. My fiancé took it the hardest, I was stuck in a hospital for a week and he was all alone with this at home. When I got home all I remember is that he had found another job, from his hometown. He was going home.

We did not split our stuff. He did not pack his stuff. He took some clothes and moved back to his mum and dad's apartment. We did not speak of it. He just... Left.

Before the year had ended he had gotten another girl pregnant. It was one night thing he said, just one night. We broke up, I packed up his things and started to look for smaller apartment for myself. I did not need over 60m² apartment just for me and the two cats. I needed smaller and cheaper. Way cheaper.

Spring 2009, I had a new home and I had gotten a job at the new mall that happened to open in the town I lived in. I was working now in a retail store for a big clothing chain. Things started to go ok for me.

That is until I started playing this very well known mmorpg game, World of Warcraft. I sunk hours to hours into this game and I made connections across the world with all sorts of people. South Africa, Great Britain, Sweden, Netherlands ~ You name it!

I could make a whole blog post about this time of my life, but let's crunch it a little shall we? I am trying to talk about my mental health here after all and not my affairs.

So I met Michael. Online first, we hit off and eventually he came over for a visit. First for a week. Then for two. His visits started to last for month/s.

He was a tall, lean and handsome on his own way. I wouldn't look at him twice now, he would be too clean and too... obnoxious the way he looks at you. He was dark and he had dark brown eyes. But most of all he was a narcistic person and I lost myself into him and that "relationship".

He was great at acting to be the victim, made me believe I was doing wrong while in fact I was the one who was trying to do the right. He decided what I wore, what colors I liked, what music I listened and what I ate. he lived my life for me.

I always end up in this fog when I am not feeling well. I can't see color. I can't taste. I don't feel a thing. And the waking up moment was when I was staring down from my 5th floor apartment balcony pondering to myself "Would it hurt if I jumped?". I didn't jump, but it woke me up from this strange trance I had been in.

Only a week before he had informed me that he would be going to California... Or maybe it was Florida for a holiday, to meet a friend. A friend who I had not heard of in the time we had been together. When I was inquiring about this friend he got defensive and angry. I learnt that it was a girl, someone he had met online while hanging on some chatroom while visiting his parents.

You might wonder why do I remember this part? That is because I knew his father pretty well, we spoke and he told me that Michael was literally holed into that room. Doing nothing. What he was meant to do while visiting home was to see cousins, godparents, grandma and so on. You know the family that he had missed so much while he was staying with me in Finland.

If you're sensing a sarcasm there, you're correct. I was fuming and I told him what I thought of this new revelation.

So what happened was that he left to Florida or California. Maybe both, who knows really.

And I filed for divorce.

Sometimes all it takes is this one big thing to make you realize to open your own god damn eyes to see what is really going on. No matter how many of my friends vanished. No matter how hard the ones who had stayed said about it... But I was finally done. And I needed therapy for real that time.

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I signed up for therapy briefly after the divorce as I recognized the old signs of my depression. And shortly after the therapy started my father passed away.

He had battled prostate cancer for ten years at the time when he caught pneumonia and it took him to hospital eventually to a end of life care unit. He went fast, within a week I think and due my work schedule I had not had time to go and see him. You might judge me on this, but I am planning a blog post about me, my father and our non-existing relationship for the future.

I am the eldest and the whole funeral planning and other things surrounding a death were dropped on me. I was fighting with my youngest sister, I was fighting with dad's girlfriend and the pastor. I was closing bank accounts, phone contracts, ending his apartment's lease... You name it. But what I did not have time for was for my own care.

So I took steps back with my depression and ended up in the world of warcraft again. Early 2013, Mists of Pandaria expansion. Michael tried to hold on to me via the online tentacles, I met new people, I rolled on a new server a completely new character and I met someone.

I was not looking for anyone, I wasn't ready to love or have a crush of any kind.

But he showed up, and he was caring, understanding, had just gone through something similar himself and... I was a goner.

I felt wanted.

I felt loved.

I felt cared.

I felt warm.

I felt... that I could heal and find myself.

It took us months before either of us was brave enough to even suggest visiting one another. We had kept things under wraps well and shook the whole guild when we changed our relationship status to dating.

I went to therapy and tried to wrap myself around my depression, failing to touch the feelings under that thick skin, layer of memories that were never handled and the habits of just letting things to get forgotten.

It was not until 2018 that I did a breakthrough with my therapy. The hospital forced a new therapist on me as they felt there was no progress done so spring 2017 I started my journey with the new therapist who had experience with psychotherapy. Which was exactly what I needed, but couldn't afford to go for due being unemployed since 2015.

2018 I learnt that I have something called dissociation disorder.

On a Mayo clinic website they say, and I quote; "Dissociative disorders are mental disorders that involve experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions and identity. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy and cause problems with functioning in everyday life."

And that was the breakthrough. When I managed to finally show a true feeling, which I disconnected with on the same moment it happened she figured it out! I had my last appointment in spring 2020 and been off from therapy ever since, with a "let me in" card in my sleeve in case I take too many steps backward again.

In my depression I never considered suicide. I did not consider hurting myself. I never stepped through that veil, but I know so many do and I urge you to find help. Because you do matter. Every little or small thing in this world matters.

I remember it was nearly spring time, still snow on the ground when I walked home from grocery store and I looked up in the sky. Snow was falling slowly down to the ground and it looked like glitter. It was so beautiful, the sunshine hit them so it was like tiny rainbows all over the sky.

I remember in the rainy days that I stood on the balcony and just inhaled it in. The smell of the rain.

I remember the birds, them singing, the warmth of the summer.

I remember the billion different orange, brown and yellow colors of the autumn when I watched the leaves fall from the trees branches above me.

I remember how I started to listen to music I, myself enjoyed.

I remember pulling out a sweater that I loved because of how warm it was, comfort instead of the looks.

I remember I stopped wearing heels, I was never a heel kind of girl anyway. I love sneakers.

I remember I started writing. I wrote the story that I had in my mind since I been 17 years old, but with Michael I thought it was silly and I was only wasting my time. Now? It is after all my time I am wasting, by my own choice and I enjoy the time wasted to create this whole new world in my mind.

I remember just breathing in and out. Drinking coffee and smelling it. Soaking in the early morning sun. It was like I was born again.

My therapist introduced mindfulness to me. It sounded like a yoga or meditation to me, maybe a combination. And I had always considered them intriguing activities however never approached either.

Then my therapist played me this one video from YouTube, it is 5 minutes long and it opened a whole new world to me.

The channel itself is mostly about meal prepping, vegan / vegetarian foods, and such but they do have a playlist called "meditation". from the 5 minutes long to 15 minutes.

The life being hectic as it is and you probably are just as scheduled as I am in your life, that 5 minutes is not hard to fit in. I usually do it in the silence of the evening, but you can break the day with this one before a meeting or a phone call, to calm down and find your center.

"The thing about meditation is;

You become more and more you."

Surely meditation is not for everyone and that is ok. We're all different after all!

What is important is that you find something that you can do to dismember yourself from the hurry, the rush and get to know yourself again. Make sure you are doing things you enjoy, that benefit you and not only someone around you.

It is after all, Your life. The only one that was given to you.

Me and my husband have been together for 8 years. 7 Married. And I can honestly finally say that I am happy.

And yes, of course I have my bad days. I wouldn't be a human if I didn't!

I still feel disconnected with my feelings, my memories are hazy and I can't figure out what happened on what date. The birthdays and anniversaries are written down in a calendar.

The first initial way for me to react to something is cry. Cry is real and even though it is usually considered sad for me it is also rage, it is laughter and it is relief. And I am ok with that.

Find a way to be ok.

Sometimes, that is all that we all need.

"You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way."

-Ash