Stay strong. It’s worth it.
Depression. Burnout. Anxiety attacks. Mania.
From my own experience, I know how impossible it can seem for those affected to somehow dig themselves out of the dark hole of mental illness. The constant confrontation with fellow human beings seemingly brimming with success and self-confidence doesn’t make it any easier — the golden LinkedIn button can sometimes seem like sheer mockery: literally “up here” and “down there”.
Lifting yourself out of a crisis and crawling up the enormous mountain towering in front of you is possible. It takes time. It takes a lot of strength, nerves, patience, time, energy, openness and often also money. Money, by the way, that is not necessarily available to people who are not able to participate “ in a normal way” in professional life because of a mental illness.
Those who suffer silently or while undergoing treatment, in a job or without one, I would love to help. To share my experiences with them, which I have had to gather over the last 27 years. To invest some of my regained energy in throwing out lifebuoys.
Sharing some hope — but how?
Most of the time I can’t think of much more than sharing my own story of mental instability and the resulting failure towards myself, towards society, towards its (apparent and real) expectations. To talk about what it was like, back then, in the darkness — and how I managed to get back into the light.
Full-blown mental illness is not a harmless sniffle of the soul that you put up with for a few days until it goes away on its own. That is called a mood. Mental illnesses are fierce enemies that prey on their host, whom they sometimes seem to know better than the host knows itself.
On the internet, on Social Media, especially on business networks like LinkedIn and XING or platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok, it often seems as if the whole world were made up of glossy professionals, inspired creators and beaming winners.
Which of course is bullshit.
These lucky ones do exist, but they are the great exception — and they too almost certainly doubt and suffer from themselves at times, and probably not even too little. Success can also make you lonely.
Excellence does not protect against despair.
As a self-employed entrepreneur and now a stable sufferer, I can dare to speak up on this sensitive subject and say: yes, I have had it and still have it and always will have it, and anyone who can’t handle it should talk to me about it, ask me questions, learn something or back off and best of all shut up.
I hope that these posts here help someone. Encourage them. Give hope that stability can be achieved.
If they don’t help, all this is self-centred scribbling. But if even one person takes solace from these personal stories, it’s worth annoying everyone else on this network. Thanks for being patient.
#TalkAbouIt
