Month: January 2022

Was Nelson Mandela ever depressed?

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Staying the course is definitely difficult, whatever course you set out to follow, but it’s doable. It “just” requires assiduity, diligence, even when I don’t see the end of this course.

I have set my course in a time where depression can creep in easily: in winter time. That is my strategy: set a course, and stick to it. Not only it is winter in the Northern hemisphere, but my function in the company has a lot of question marks, and I am living in a country where the past 6 years have been a roller coaster of depression and search for stability. Mix all that, and my anti-depression efforts can easily get down the drain in one nanosecond.

My personal course is: stick to this job (=don’t leave right away, just because i am not satisfied at the moment), apply for Swiss citizenship (it will take 2 years) so I can stay in this country (that was the idea 6 years ago = seek stability), complete the private pilot license and see where it leads you, regularly work on the podcast (publish one episode per week). This is my recipe to stay the course and counteract my depression.

That’s the thing: it is soooo easy to relapse, to look behind you and see everything that doesn’t work, for me it is so easy to look at the half empty glass. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the strongest, I feel I need 2 to bring myself down, and 8 to counteract with good and positive thoughts. That’s why I say it is hard. But doable, with effort and discipline. I am counting on the fact that, with time, the effort will become less and less difficult, and that the discipline will make my exercise for happiness not feel like an exercise anymore, but a normal way of life.

Looking back I miss the age when I was happy by default, and it required no effort. I think that the years where depression started to creep in were between end 20s and end 30s. Now I am in my 40s and I am consciously arming myself to conquer the happy place that was so natural back then. Funny to think that unconsciously I let my mind play with depressive feelings over the course of 10 or more years, and that now it will take at least as long, if not a lifetime, to chase those feelings and clean my spirit from sad thoughts.

The difficult part in this process for me, is to motivate myself to stay the course during times when I don’t see the point, or the end of the tunnel. It is hard to motivate myself when I wonder whether the effort is worth it. But then I think I am not the only one, and if others can do it, I can. Think of Nelson Mandela, who stayed in prison for almost 3 decades. He kept fighting and survived the cold winters of Robben Island year after year, not knowing whether he was ever going to be set free. But after 27 years he got out. And at the end of his life, his life started again.

That’s how I see myself. The end will be the best part of my life. Cause I will have earned it, and will be consciously happy and glad of what I have done in my life.

Booklet from my health insurance

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Today in the mail I received a booklet from my health insurance entitled “Guide – Depression”. I didn’t have to do much research to figure out that Switzerland has the world’s second highest count of suicides – great! Before us is a country that lives 6 months in darkness. Wow, that must be soooo hard! Tough people, the Nordics. Those who don’t commit suicide I bet they live forever.

Enough with suicide, which is not the topic of this diary. One thing I know for sure is that, despite the lowest, saddest moments I have had in my life, I could never take my life, cause life is too beautiful, and kind of the one precious thing we have. Depression, I admit, makes you think about death a lot, often as sort of a liberation from the unbearable sadness that devastates our souls while depressed. But we know what life is, we don’t know what death is. As my grandma used to say “chi lascia la strada vecchia per la nuova, sa quello che lascia ma non sa quello che trova” (the one who leaves the old road for the new one, he knows what he leaves, but ignores what he is going toward). I don’t know, I just find that this planet is so amazing, and there’s so much to see, so many people to meet, whereas eternity is what, eternal? That sounds boring to me already. So, I tell myself “get your sh*t together and enjoy this world”.

My insurance must know that I am not the only one who tends to be depressed in winter. They must have printed thousands of those booklets. Thousands of potential depressive? In 2020, more than 265 million people were depressed around the world. Proportionally, the African countries are the most affected. I would have not guessed that. I always think of the Africans as of someone dancing, happy, like this guy Mufasa!

It seems that depression is a disease because something changes in our brain, specifically in the way the neurons transfer information. Hence it become a disease. I always considered depression as something we could and should solve with our own efforts, not with medicine. That was true until 2019, when I could no longer get out of bed. Terrible feeling, I don’t wish it to anybody. It’s worse than pain I think, because you are completely unable to control your mind, although you ARE your mind. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like pain, on the contrary, there is some excruciating pain that I don’t even want to imagine. The best is to have no pain and no depression, all right!

Jim Carrey, John Lennon, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Van Gogh and many other artists were suffering from depression. Incredible that art and depression can go so hand in hand. The good news is: they were not alone in their struggle.

Anyway, all that to say: I found that the health insurance did a good thing by publishing this booklet. It helps take off the stigma from depression. I was in denial for many years. I still wish that I didn’t have to take medicaments, but I tell myself that I’d rather have a fine, serene winter with the help of Fluoxetin than feeling helpless and unmotivated without it. God bless medicaments. I am working on getting mind-stronger with the help of Dr. G, my psychologist. That is actually the biggest weapon to gain strength and avoid relapse once healed.

My biggest fear, after 2 years of medical treatment, is what will happen once I walk on my own again, without the Fluoxetin crutches. Dr. G. says I am doing well, and I am practising with positive thoughts, exercises and putting my eggs in different baskets. It is a daily work, and winter makes it harder, but I am doing well, and today was sunny and I felt especially well. I worked, swam and recorded a podcast episode.

Stay the Course. It will pay off. One day.

Very hard to stay the course

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Day Two of my resolution, and it’s already a challenge. Damn…

I have the will power of an ant… or maybe ants have a ridiculously big will power despite their size…. insomma, I am having trouble staying the course. As always I look at the big picture, and I see there is road work everywhere: my job, my pilot training, my podcast, my swiss naturalisation, my physical well being. Oh yes, cause when it rains it pours, I bring in all of my weapons to feel worse than I am. Piling up elements that give me a good reason to be self pitying. Great!

No, I won’t give in. Now I am going to concentrate on the good things that happened. Since yesterday, what did I do? I worked, albeit very slowly, but I made an effort to advance with emails and leads. Then I took a break to go to the swimming pool with the intention of swimming 2km; they didn’t let me in because I didn’t have the third vaccine shot; but the good thing is that, instead of feeling defeated, I went back home, changed wardrobe and went straight to the gym for an hour. I’ll do the same today. Friday is my third shot, so the pool isn’t a long wait.

What else did I do to be proud of? Oh yes, I logged in to my bank account to order a credit card; this may sound like a no brainer, but I have been procrastinating this for some time. First I checked Paypal as a method of payment (for my podcast) and when it didn’t work I blocked the process for a couple of weeks. This adds to the other things that don’t work right now. See how easy it is to get demotivated? Man… But I know the trick of my mind, and by writing this here, I am committing to take steps, from the credit card to the vacuum cleaner (my apartment looks like my soul) and the naturalisation quiz… I need to calibrate my mind to take one step at a time, to be ok with seeing imperfection in the big picture, I need to figure out a way to give value to every little move I make towards perfectioning the big picture.

Ok, so today I didn’t order a credit card, but I logged in and realised that logging in won’t help, I have to make a call to the bank. The ideal big picture is a picture with a nice credit card ready for my podcast, but to get there I need to make all the steps that are required to obtain the card. Today I took the step of logging in. It doesn’t show in the big picture, but once I get my credit card, the big picture will be more complete.

What else is missing in the big picture? Motivation at work. I will send more emails and will advance every day, even if I am moving at very slow pace right now. I want to use this slow time to advance with the other things are are part of the big picture. Like the swiss naturalisation test. So after this diary I will read some more swiss history, and get closer to my 19 jan goal (the written test). If they ask me about William Tell I know the answer :-).

What else is in the big picture? the pilot license, called PPL (private pilot license), which worries me because there is a lot to learn and I feel my head will explode. However, I am a smart person, and should be able to make it. Plus I love flying, being in the air, and skydiving. So piloting should come easy…. ok, since the naturalisation test is on 19 jan and the pilot classes start on 31 jan, I will not worry about the latter yet.

I feel a bit better than before. Jotting it all down helps.

When the damn winter ends, this will be good too.

Stay the course

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Resolution of the year 2022: stay the course. Even if the mind plays you tricks. Mine does.

The year 2021 has ended with uncertainty with regards to my work evolution. I spent the last months working hard, and dedicating lots of time to my job, as I was finally enjoying the aviation aspect of my sales role. But the product I am selling is not in the roadmap of our R&D department, hence it is unclear whether the company will properly invest in aviation, or not. And this will determine whether I can continue or not with my present job.

As I would normally do, my mind starts telling me “get away from this situation”, everything starts rapidly to look like a disaster, negative thoughts start overcoming the positive ones, and when I look at the big picture, I get overwhelmed, thinking I will never get there. There where? not sure, but there.

But! Two years of psychotherapy have taught me that I tend to be attracted by dissatisfaction, and especially in winter, the short days, the cold weather, the darkness, and Switzerland make me miss what I had before, my love, my life in the Caribbean; I miss other people’s lives, thinking I could be a kitesurf teacher and spend half of the year in Bresil like some people I know, or I could be a video journalist and travel the world etc etc… but this time I have munitions against my own thoughts. Even though it is still super hard to counteract my own negative thoughts, I have decided that I will stay the course.

And the course is: do the Swiss naturalisation process and complete the pilot license. Two years. I must do it, it’s about my own sanity. So, at the same time as doing naturalisation and license, I will continue my work of business development in aviation, and will continue believing in it. I will gain more know-how, instead of losing the competitive advantage I gained in the past 15 months, and I will be patient until something comes up from these actions.

Patience is not my forte. To stay the course is to be patient, and not look at or envy other lives. I had a good year 2021, for work and social life, I travelled a lot too, despite Covid and all, I want to remember this and not take it for granted. I want to put all the positive elements on the right side of the scale, to counterbalance the negative that necessarily comes to my mind.

So, resolution 2022: stay the course, don’t panic about things not being perfect. It’s ok if the big picture isn’t perfect.