There and back again

Life is a one way journey without any stops or breaks. If things break while on this trip, it would have to be fixed while moving. Most of us have not encountered big health issues in life, or we were so young that we don’t remember. For me my biggest memories of big events were my grandmother dying, my mum having a fall hurting her heel, and being away for a while and my son being born a bit early and spending his first 3 weeks in hospital.  It’s not before now, in the middle of my journey that this picture perfect illusion of life is starting to crack. And the cracks get bigger and bigger. I have so far lost my grandparents, which all were at their end station. I lost little Even, who was born at the same time as Markus, and spent time side by side in the hospital, his journey never started. I have lost 3 people from my social group Kathrine, Ingo and Barbro. Their trip got derailed by cancer, way too early, and all three left 2 and 3 kids with one parent. This was heart wrenchin...

Peace within is a powerful message. It is like a seed that must be nurtured and cared for, to grow and reach outwards. Without the right environment it will wilter, not grow at all or grow in an unwanted direction. Your seed is you in a nutshell. And when you take care of yourself you will have flowers on your branches and fruit from that. Liveliness around you and you will contribute to your surroundings. It is easy to think that there is something wrong with this seed, that it is the wrong seed, not good enough or after it started to grow and didn’t grow the way you wanted it to. And this is where we have to accept our seed, our selves, and take care of it as best we can. Learn from what care works best, get tips from someone that knows how to grow and learn from our mistakes. Inspiration taken from: Lao-tsu's Peace Prayer If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities. If there i...

Most people would have heard the saying, to drown your sorrows, and that means with alcohol. Depression and alcohol are in a dark relationship, and they both feed on their own tale. It is a cycle that needs self compassion to be broken. To give yourself self compassion you need to somehow give yourself freedom to do so, and this freedom can be hard to come by. You will often feel trapped by external forces in your life, like friends, family, neighbours or even the person behind the till. This force feels like lead, heavy weights, pulling you down ignited by their looks or words of disapproval. The words or looks of disapproval might be real or not, but if you are in the depths of your struggle, you will make them feel real either way. I have lately found support and compassion through my partner and “This Naked Mind”, which has given me courage to question my beliefs, and managed to give myself compassion instead of punishment after drinking, or while drinking. These changes have to co...

Repeat and go. I kept my life on track by keeping busy from one thing to the next. It was always something that had to be accomplished in my life, education, jobs, property, renovation, engagement, house, sailboat, car, motorbike, marriage, kids, job, paying off mortgage and the list went on. And the idea was “If I can just!”, then things would be better. I didn’t really know that I was struggling with low moods, working hard on things removed the focus on the problem, and that’s what I did. I quit my dream job, on the spot, from a low mood episode, and still I couldn’t put two and two together. And trust me when I am saying it was hard to explain in the next job application that I had just left, without a good reason. It was around this time when I started to question my moods. And I remember one of my first searches for bi-polar. It was when we were getting ready to move to Australia, that my depression took hold. I remember sitting at work forcing me to do the coding, to stop myself...

When you drink to be with your best friend, who is shaming you, blaming you, numbing you and robbing your memories, you have descended deep into self pity and a distorted view of the world. And the only thing that seems to help is to pour your next glass of poison down your throat. You are so wrong and so defeated that you want to hide. You want to make the day disappear, the thinking to stop, your friends to go away. You want to be alone. Your guilt, your shame and your hours of clearish thoughts haunts you. You remember things that shouldn’t have happened, things you shouldn't have said or things you didn’t do. You can hear the mumbling words from someone you thought would care, or the clearer words from someone that wants you to suffer. Using words like drunk, alcoholic or mentally ill. Maybe a shake of a head in disapproval, a sad look of pity or a degrading call to the police so they can strap you to a bed overnight. We are many, and the fight is real. So many stories of losse...