Sorry I haven’t been active on this blog lately. 11 December was the last time I wrote a page of this diary. Lots has happened in between, at the time I am writing (13 April 2020) it has been my 4th week in isolation due to Coronavirus (CoVid 19), a pandemic that has hit the whole world. Had I been in the state I was last time I wrote on this blog, I would not have been able to resist 4 weeks (and counting) at home by myself. Luckily, or shall I say, thanks to the drastic actions taken in November, I am managing.

I need to joggle my memory back 3-4 months, and remember what happened between the day I was desperate, depressed, crying and without energy, to now. It feels I am a totally different person. It doesn’t only feel, it is. Today I am what I used to be before depression started growing in me. And that didn’t take 2-3 months, but years. Ok, so what happened that makes me feel good today?

Many factors. Personal, professional, physical, therapeutical. After about 4-5 weeks of taking Fluoxetin my spirit started to feel serene again. My psychiatrist (the congolese jolly bubbly man) told me it would take 2 weeks before it has an effect. Another psychiatrist (who replaced him for a while) told me it takes rather 4-6 weeks. I thought “can’t they agree on one version already?”. It turns out that the 4 to 6-week-interval was correct. I don’t feel any side effect (nausea, lack of appetite, insomnia), only a sense of peace and detachment from my issues. Is it more serotonin or dopamine being injected into my brain by way of my stomach? Whatever hormone it is, or chemical rebalance, I haven’t felt this good in years, and I have noticed and appreciated the whole process of taking my life back into my hands.

What also happened in these past months is a change at work. My CEO and my head of department had noticed a negative change in me, the depressive state I was in, and have been very understanding and supportive (God bless former start up PMEs around the world!). They both know I love international travels, and they noticed a clear change in my moods from end of July until December 2019; so they proposed I take on more international clients. 20-30% for now, as the bulk of our business is still in CH. But that decision took me to Slovenia and then to Israel. In Israel I worked for 5 days, and took 8 days off. It was fantastic: new country, new people, great colleagues, and exploring the country on my free time like I hadn’t done in a long long time. Holidays just like I love them: with no planning, just take the car south from Tel Aviv and then back north, east and west; keep driving, stop whenever there’s something great to see or do. Great as in bathing in the Dead Sea, seeing Ben Gurion’s kibbutz, swim in the ocean, bathe in a rafted river, and drive on a 4×4 through the Golan Heights. I felt alive again. And what amazing food. And people.

Every psychiatric process has to be accompanied by a psychological one. Without psychological therapy that helps you figure out “you”, medicine remains only a palliatif. My psychologist has been helpful to me. Initially I thought he wasn’t the greatest practitioner on earth, but he told me a couple of things that made me reflect. The biggest one for me is when he said that I have a certain fascination for dissatisfaction. Une fascination pour l’insatisfaction, as he said in French. He is right. Another one is that I look at the big picture and the higher goal, without giving time to the small steps that help me achieve that goal, hence I quickly get overwhelmed and impatient (oh, patience, what I virtue I know nothing of!), and I am unsatisfied by what I consider non-achievement.

Sport and yoga have been very helpful. As soon as my motivation to get up from bed raised, I could feel the energy and mental strive to move and do what I love: sport. I remember that when I joined the fitness club in September, I was going there crying, thinking “look at how you have ended up, you who love outdoor activities, freedom and fresh air”; fitness was for me another failure to add to the long list I had been piling up over the last months. But 3-4 months in, I now appreciate the indoor activity, as it keeps me trained, and I will be able to better hike, swim, climb, kitesurf etc thanks to this. Yoga is also very very good. It is a philosophy of life, its not sport, and its not only meditation, its a way for me to discipline my mind through my body and breath. I’ll talk about meditation in another post. That is a biggy for me.

Another thing that happened during these past months is Covid. You’ll wonder how Covid can possibly have a positive influence in my life. Well, I am still amidst the turmoil that this invisible virus has created in our modern world, and I am forced to stay at home and to be with myself. But what a timing for my own personal situation. I am getting to appreciate and love me again. In big part thanks to the medical help, but more and more thanks to the actions I am taking in order to replace the chemical wellbeing with my innate joy for life. And it’s working.