Category: happiness

I am staying the course

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Wow, I haven’t written since January. This is not because I haven’t thought of depression, but probably because I have been in a state of non depression but not happy either. Super boring winter, very bad weather which by itself puts me in a bad mood. Work changes, and other things not changing fast enough at work. Feeling like I am missing out on opportunities, but at the same time I don’t want to rush things, such as finding another job, because you know what you are leaving but you don’t know what you are getting into.

I feel I need some guidance. I started seeing a psychologist, but after 5-6 sessions he was not the right fit for me. I need someone who can come up with conclusions, suggestions, actions to take. Give me good advice. It is not easy to find a good therapist. Plus I was looking online…even harder.

So, things have been OK, not super, not sad. I am glad I haven’t fallen into depression. I know spring is coming and the long days of sunshine await me. I want to think strategically about my future moves. I just turned 50, and I want to use the energy I still have to do great things. Not wait until retirement, when your energy level decreases and then you are too old to travel around and do adventurous stuff.

But it’s also difficult to find someone to travel with. I would love to find a new love of my life, for my second stage of life, someone who brings me surprise, fascination, discovery, peace of mind. Someone intelligent and achieved, who isn’t reinventing himself at 50, someone with financial stability, who isn’t worried about spending a weekend abroad due to budgetary restrictions. Someone with no strings attaached. Veeeery difficult to find.

But hey, I am healthy, I have a job, which is mostly ok, sometimes great, often angering, I have a sex friend who has upgraded to sex friend plus plus, but not boyfriend, I live in a beautiful safe country, people look at me and think I have come so far. The grass is always greener at the neighbor’s, but my grass is pretty green too. I need to remind myself to see the positive sides, and not succumb to the negative temptations. It’s easy to self pity, it’s harder to see the good in everything. Harder for me, at least.

I want this feeling of unachievement to leave my mind. And most of all I want to feel the motivation and the drive to keep going, do stuff, clean the bathroom, find a new job, interview new people for my podcast, call up customers for work, book the next flight for the holidays, be presentable to dinners, put some make up on, feel the sense in what I do, even when it feels so boringly routine.

The duration of happiness

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I have been meaning to write for quite some time. I even took notes to not forget what I want to say.

The main thought I have been having is this: I need to find a new psychotherapist. I have set this as a goal for early 2023, because I find that I must not lower the guard while I am feeling good and happy and positive.

Second thought is: how long does happiness last, and why do I fear that happiness is doomed to last less long than sadness. It is all in the head, and the heart, so we decide how long we want it to last. Having been depressed in my recent years, even if at various degrees (mainly mild, then hard for 2 full years), I am wary of betting on the longevity of happiness.

Another thought in the last weeks has been this: I have caught myself being aggressive and overreacting when things are done to me wrongly, or let’s say when I feel someone is doing something wrong to me. If I want to imagine this visually, I feel skyscrapers of happiness and skyscrapers of anger and sadness. Plus, this sadness takes me away from the outside world: when I am angry, I don’t want to see anyone, I close myself in my room and watch a movie to calm down. I recognise some patterns of when I was depressed. Red alarm, red alarm! Hence, the thought number one: I must find a psychotherapist asap.

With the psychotherapist I used to externalise my own thoughts to another human being, who would listen, digest, and throw back some thoughts, comments, notes at me that would help me carry on and fight the depression. Without this confrontation of thoughts, I am missing an important pedagogical aspect of my fight against depression. I feel as if depression had left me a goodbye “gift”, a poisonous one at that: anger and verbal aggression against anyone or anything that threatens my so long fought after well being.

It has happened that I have burst in tears in the past 8 weeks – I don’t know, maybe 3-4 times, it was tears of rage, when I have been feeling attacked when someone expresses their opinion. It is sooo annoying that this is my immediate, unfiltered reaction. Last episode was this very week: I have worked at an aviation expo that was very good but also very tiring (4 hours sleep per night), with big emotions (excitement of deals to come, negotiations well handled, a keynote speech given to a professional male-only audience); then comes this company townhall about reorganisation, and it is announced that my boss will change job, but I am not in his organisational chart yet. I got so furious, I started crying while listening to the Teams meeting, and I felt injustice, no appreciation of my work, and even greater injustice for the salary level I have been enduring for the past 4 years, while waiting for my company to adapt my salary. Year after year, I have been doing really well, I have been enjoying my work a lot, I am exploring this new amazing industry, I am showing unprecedented results, but I am not paid as much as my male colleagues, and this drives me insane. Not only because of the injustice in itself, but because I feel I haven’t played all my cards well, so I blame myself even more, in this story.

Cutting a long story short, I find myself extremely vulnerable to jumps of moods, I feel I need to find a psychotherapist right now, possibly in English and online, and I need to find a way to spread happiness throughout a long period of time. When I am happy I am thinking: why and how long still will I be happy for, as if the default version of my life should be worry, sadness and stress. invece no! Also, I must be careful about my state of happiness. Now it’s easy cause all baskets are full. What will happen when/if some are emptied by life?

PS: Alain de Botton gave a speech on depression and the difference with sadness. I find it enlightening.

Scrap notes

its not all about me, its not that if someone gives me a weird look, its because i did something wrong. its probably them who are not certain about something. same thing with me.

I havent felt like doing sport the whole week. thats an alarm sign for me. plus I am about to get my period. that must be it. i am in a bad mood, last 24h its been like that

2023 Anti-Depression Resolutions

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Welcome 2023! In italy 23 is a great number, all Italians know it when they play Tombola (Bingo). 23 is the lucky number. So let’s make 2023 our lucky number.

And yet luck doesn’t have much to do with happiness. Yes, it can help big time, but I say I want to make my own happiness, by keeping in track with all the work I have done in the past 3 years. Work that goes towards one goal: ending depression.

I have written down my projects for 2023. They are short to long term projects, I keep the page open on my desk, and remind myself of doing something every day towards those goals. There are 13 lines in the list at the moment. Projects range from keeping good fitness level to finishing my pilot licence, renting out my car, find public funding for my podcast, move to my new home, get the Swiss citizenship, find a kitehouse. Some projects are big and will require more than a year, some are easy, some are imminent.

People around me ask me how I can do so many things… first I don’t have kids, second I am not depressed anymore, and that’s awesome! Spirit is high, I have plenty of energy, I am being careful of what I eat, I weigh my mental efforts, and when I feel I get too overwhelmed, I stop doing what is negatively taking energy from me, and I do something I like, such as sport, walk, watch a video. I reward myself instead of penalising myself with some stupid thought (“you can’t do this assignment, you idiot”).

Being back in Switzerland after the Xmas break isn’t easy, I admit. I need to stay focused on what is important, so that I don’t get distressed by the lousy weather, or the lack of friends on any given day. I consciously make an effort to be vigilant about my moves. Because I know how hard it is to be depressed, and how difficult and long it is to come out of it. So, being vigilant and making extra positive steps is paramount to my wellbeing. That is why I have started a new project, called kitehouse. I want to find a great spot in Europe where I can buy a place I can call my kitehouse. A windy spot where I can kitesurf. My own place. A place where I can go often when I am older and retired. I never thought of investing. It’s a good time to do so.

Whatever project I choose will have to be useful to my wellbeing and mental stability. I miss love, and feel I need someone to feel fulfilled, but I know that fulfillment must come from within me, as it did when I was younger. Hence I make projects. as many as I want to handle, but not too many, to not overwhelm me. By the way, love is NOT one of the 13 projects. After trying Tinder and Bumble for a couple of months I decided to not waste more time, and not look for love, but let it happen in due time. Meanwhile, I concentrate on my own projects and wellbeing.

One of the resolutions is to find a new therapist who can assist me this year. I had an issue with the cabinet where my psychoanalyst was practising from. Mostly invoicing errors, extra charges, etc. I decided to look for a new therapist, someone who can follow me online. It’s one of the 13 projects of this year. I sometimes feel that I don’t need a therapist anymore, but I am not convinced that this is a good time to let go of this strong ammunition. What if something drastic happens in my life that catches me unprepared?

A great resolution I have from this year is “remote work in a warm place in winter”. I asked my company HR last month if I could work for three months elsewhere next winter, somewhere warm. They’ll think about it. I don’t know how much this project is depending on me, but I will think of something to make it happen. Switzerland is great, but between November and April it sucks! Except for skiing :-).

Let’s see how January goes. I am hopeful.

R.I.P depression (2019-2022)

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Probably this is the last post for this year. Dear diary, life has been better. I have been good. This year I have learnt to not judge me, to be gentle to myself, to give myself good rewards for to the small achievements during the day. I have stopped the psychiatric medications on 25 June 2022. It was a long process, because I did it very slowly, from February to June, taking less and less pills per week. Depression was officially diagnosed in 2019, and officially ended in 2022.

For once, the death of something is a happy moment! Happy I have been off medication since June, without any sense of depression whatsoever. So good! When I was deep in my sadness, I thought I would never see this day, I thought “how can I walk without my Fluoxetin crutches?”. And then it happens. You do it, it works, and you know it. But: it is not the end of a pain like when you take out an infectious tooth! The pain doesn’t go away from one day to another, and it does require your full effort. It’s a lifelong endeavor, and I am aware of it. If I weren’t, I would be in great danger today: danger of falling into depression again one day. No no no, I know better now, and I know me better. I know my limits, the moments where I can be weak, those moments where I need to work on my happiness.

Being depressed is like coming out of the Matrix: you realise what many people don’t know, you realise how life really is. It’s a blessing in a way, although a very painful blessing. But when you come out of depression, you don’t look at life the same way. I don’t. I don’t take the happy moments for granted anymore. Today I find myself smiling at things or events that in other years I would have dismissed as obvious, given, granted. Oh no, now everything is a great thing, and when I feel a bit blue for any reason (bad day at work, no sport in a while, no boyfriend, or no travel in sight) I shift my internal gaze to something that is working in my life at that very moment. And there are always good things in life, I just need to open my eyes.

A dead depression is not dead forever. Like a Zombie, it can come back to life. This is the tricky part that must keep us vigilant. This is why I will keep seeing a psychotherapist (maybe once every 4-5 weeks) and why I will keep writing this diary. It keeps me focused, it reminds me of how I was feeling 3 years ago, even 2 years ago, even one year ago… It’s been a long process, and I didn’t think it would take so long. I had a minor case of depression, one that required 20mg a day of antidepressant. But I have a friend (my ex boss actually) who is still on 100mg a day or more, and he can’t get over it. He is still in a bad shape, despite his intelligence, nice family and everything. So we must be careful. dead is not dead; like the herpes virus, a depression stays with us and will resurge when we are weak. It is dormant like a Volcano, we must be vigilant. I will.

I wish to all depressed people to heal very soon and to have a blessed Christmas and New Year!

More soon,

Laura

1 day on, 2 days off Fluoxetine – first week

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I did about one week of major reduction of Fluoxetine intake: 1 day on, 2 days off. Today I felt a bit down. I don’t want to be paranoiac, but it’s a fact: every time I feel down now I relate it to the fluoxetine, or lack thereof.

Like my best friend rightfully reminded me the other day, I need to remember that everyone gets moments up and down. I can feel less motivated because of the circumstances.

Good news: my mood hasn’t worsened during the day. I feel ok tonight. I did the evening flight course, went to the gym after work, kept myself busy. The lesson was interesting. Tonight I sense that I could go another full day without fluoxetine… but I will stick to the rule. For now it is 1 day on and 2 days off. once I feel stable and confident, I will start 1 day on and 3 days off. Right now I am happy if my moods stay stable after 2 days without medicine. It’s a real success. I don’t underestimate it. The body is getting used to receiving less chemicals. It will take the time that it will take. I don’t want to rush this mega step.

Step by step.

Enjoy!

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I hadn’t visited my psychologist in a while. I notice, after two years of this “psycho-routine”, that I go when I am down, and I don’t go when I am up. I mean, I don’t want to spend money or take extra time from my busy schedule when I am feeling good. But that is the point: unlike other organs in the body, I am learning that when the head aches inside, it is not such a matter of a day or a month to heal, and it won’t heal with tablets only, it will heal with work, loads of work that I must put into it. And I am learning that I need to be constant with the psychotherapy, and do it when I feel good and when I feel low.

It was actually good to see Dr. G. again. I don’t particularly like him, he is very Swiss in the “detached” kind of way. Plus he is a psychoanalist, and I don’t particularly fancy that practice, cause they often boil it down to the mom-related issues. There’s dads too. And loads of other elements that shape our identity. Plus, it is a loooooong therapy, it takes years, and looking at my budget, I feel I could use that money for more fun things, such as financing my podcast.

I realise though that this reasoning it to my own detriment. I am earning enough money to do both, and I live frugally anyway, so money should not be a problem. Away with this. So what’s the problem? Che ne so. Or, yes I know, I am learning to figure out, identify my problems. The source of them, how to catch myself getting into the wrong habit, and how to remedy that situation. It is such an invigorating process. I am doing it now that it is summer, the days are long and warm, sunshine has finally appeared at my doorstep, after many spring weeks of weird climate-change slash climate non change storm and snow in the month of May and June. Bring it on: Covid, weather unpredictability, solar eclipse, sunset sunshine, rainshowes and wind. I take it all, because I am happy at the moment, I am content, satisfied, proud of myself, on many fronts, and it’s all due to my own doing. I pet my own back and tell myself: brava L., you are achieving the potential in you, the famous or infamous potential everybody tells me about. Oh, you got so much potential, you are beautiful and smart, you can conquer the world… etc. Well, it gave me pure rage when I heard it during my low times, because I KNOW I am beautiful and smart, but somehow, this isn’t taking me anywhere… wasn’t. And I couldn’t see the path, I wanted everything and now, hic and nunc, and it doesn’t work that way. not for me. I have learnt that I need to be patient, and things will come in due time. I have to put effort on what I do, things don’t just fall from the sky, I make them fall in the right place, through my actions, my intelligent, my luck, my destiny, ma chaos, my fate, my doing, my education, my encounters, my new and old friends, my family, the good and the bad of everything.

We are yin and yang, I am coming to grips with my internal strength, I am learning to protect myself from others regards, I am learning, and it will probably take my whole life. But the beauty of life is the process, not the end.

Dr. G. was happy to hear my story, me learning, me doing exercise to not fall into traps, to learn to avoid OCDs, to go through them when I stumble into them, to prepare happiness when winter comes, when the days are shorter and gloomier, when I won’t feel like getting out of bed… I will be ready then. I will not allow myself to go lower than what I can handle. I will be ready. “Enjoy!” he said.

Enjoy this state of mind. Enjoy !

Love in the time of depression

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The movie was about cholera. I am talking about love and depression. Is it wise to look for love when you are still fighting depression?

My psychologist tells me that I need to forget about my ex, and look ahead, not behind. He is probably right, but for the past 4.5 years I have been holding on the thought of W., as the love of my life, hoping that one day he will agree to talk, and to listen what I have to say; also tell me all the things I didn’t allow him to tell me in my face, cause …. yes cause I left him via email. Terrible I know, but that’s how it went. He never forgave me, and he is over me now, I am pretty sure, although a big part of me still organises her life in view of a reconciliation.

Only love can help me chase away my ex love. I think. I miss love in my life, I am not used to live on my own; it sucks really. Plus I live in a very asocial country, among people that are used to very reserved lives. So I am on my own. It’s important for me to be good with myself, so that I can find the right person. Everybody will tell you that. If I am not happy, I will find unhappy people, or people who I content myself with, for lack of better option. It sounds mean, but it’s what happens. We project our state of mind to others,like a boomerang : watch what you are projecting, cause it will ricochet back to you with same intensity. I had that twice in the last 5 years. The first is the wrong guy for whom I left the right guy (W., the love of my life); the second one I met after I broke up with the wrong guy, and he was a bipolar depressive young man who I had fallen in love with, unable to rationally see how bad of an influence he had on me. Luckily after two years of yoyo, it ended. Like we say in Italian: “meglio soli che male accompagnati”: better alone than with bad company.

But it’s not fun to always be on your own, and I really suffer this. I don’t believe in apps, like Tinder, Bumble, etc. But I got to such a desperate point that I joined a couple of those. It’s funny, there’s one called “adopt a guy”, and you have a shopping basket, just like at Amazon, where you check out the guys you pick. What a consumerism… But funny enough I have interacted with some of these people and one caught my attention. I invited him to dinner at my place, without any commitment; no restaurants to go to, and in Switzerland people are very safe, also on Tinder… plus he does kiteboarding, which for me isa guarantee that he is a good guy. at least not a psychopath (then again, you never know). so, he came to my place and we had a nice dinner; we chatted for about 3 h and then I was hoping he would leave. I guess he understood that, and he said goodbye, hug and kiss on the cheek. Afterwards he writes me that he felt the agreable wish to kiss me and take me in his arms. This warmed up my heart; I don’t find him my type really, but the thought of being desired and thought odf made me feel good. Now I wait for his messages, and it feels good. I don’t know what will happen, but I am going to see him again.

I am very cautious though, because I don’t want to fall in love, and then have another case of non reciprocal love, or the fear that sex is bad, or that I won’t like him, or that I will like him more than I should. Most of all, the fear that I am seeking happiness in someone else, outside of myself. Is it bad? Is it wrong?

Back to drugs

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Third day of Fluoxetin, 10mg. Dr N. said ok. I am surprised he gave me the answer via phone, through his assistant. Usually he requests an appointment (300 chf please).

I decided not to be stubborn this time, and to take the medicine immediately, as I am starting feeling that depressive emotion again. I am familiar with the symptoms: when I start thinking of going away from Switzerland, when I want to go to Canada and find W. and when I want to change job, that’s the alarm bell for me. Last year this time I was in a terrible mood, this winter I want to be better, be good, be great. Despite the fall, despite the challenges at work, despite not having W. in my life.

I feel disappointed that I am back to square one, but I have decided not to feel sorry or ashamed for taking Fluoxetin again. Like my friend says: “be happy that you have found something that works for you”; she is right; this medicament is helping me, and I will take it. Possibly for a short while, during winter maybe, until the sun shines again and Corona ends.

After 4.5 years I am still thinking about W.. Will it ever end? I tell myself that I will forget him when I find a new love. Good luck here in Switzerland, where it’s so hard to make friends, let alone find love. I don’t go out enough (and now with covid even less), I should get into more social circles. I need to find a way to meet people from the IMD, or similar international schools; people who come here to do masters degrees, people my age, that come from all over the world, one I can fall in love with.

But W. is my special love, the one with the big L, the one I would like to grow old with… well if he ever decides to speak to me again. For now I have no chance. I emailed him.. nothing; I sent him a message on FB, he blocked me; I reached out on LinkedIn, he makes himself invisible to me; I even delivered a letter to him via an acquaintance of mine who so kindly went to Banff to give it to him in person, and he received it, saying he was going to read it. But I never heard from him. This was last year. Now what should I do? I tried forgetting him and get over him. it’s been almost 5 years. No chance. He was my steady star, we completed each other, now I feel empty.

But: when I was with him I had already signs of depressions. I was crying a lot, I was dissatisfied about my own professional battles, things were hard also when he was around, loving me and caring about me. So I wonder: even if I saw him tomorrow, would his love make me happy? Would I make him happy? Or do I still need to search inside me a while longer to find happiness? That’s what I am thinking right now. I need to get back to my feet for good, before I can find someone (or him) again. I can’t rely on someone else to be happy.

If I were with someone, I would feel less lonely.

Does depression get under your skin?

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There we go. Not even two months since I stopped taking the antidepressants and I am finding myself crying on the couch since yesterday. Is this thing ever going to go away? I meditate and all, but it’s come back. And the looming lockdown ain’t gonna help. Che palle. Shit! Merde!!

If you ask me, it seems as though this disease, that we should be able to control in our mind, is very strong, and is looking for a host, like a virus; it requires I don’t know what, to eradicate it. You know that virus that you get when you have herpes (like on the side of your lips): that virus stays in your body forever, silent mostly, and then it comes up when your immune system is low and stress goes high. I feel depression is the same. I hope not, but damn, I thought I had progressed in the past year, and here it comes again. Do I have to live with it all my life? Why has it entered in the first place?

I have so much to do for work, and I cannot concentrate. I have an important call with an international client, and I am afraid of the results. It could turn into a tough conversation, and I don’t want to deal with it, it scares me. No it doesn’t scare me, it stresses me. I am worried that I may make mistakes, I am worried of what the CEO thinks of me. I feel as though I had had a burnout and I have a hard time getting back on my feet.

Burnout: we never even knew this word 10 years ago. And now all I hear around me is burning out, risk of burnout, stress at work, stress in life, tension, expectations, challenges, etc. I had a simpler life before, I had my man beside me, I was younger, life was easier. And now I feel stuck again. While a few months ago life was good again. I had closed an important deal, I had found new friends, I have spent two beautiful weeks at the sea, I have bought a SUP for the lake and a wetsuit for swimming in winter. And now I am back to square one? No way.

I feel like a child who cries when he cannot have what he wants. Work is difficult right now? I cry. I miss W. so much? I cry. My sister in law doesnt want to talk to me? I cry. Now, is this me being spoilt and unable to cope, or is it a disease where I see all black? Cause I wasn’t like that in the past. Or maybe I was and I just had to wait and see? No, I remember when life was easy, during my studies, in Rome, living with my parents and traveling to study languages. Now, 20 odd years later, I feel my life is an echec. But in truth it’s not, I just perceive it as such. If only I could find a balance in me. Happiness is inside, not outside. I shouldn’t care if a client isn’t happy with me. who cares. but I am, to a point that I stress and depress.

I have written to Dr. N. and asked if I can resume Fluoxetin. 10mg. Let’s see what he says.

The North Wind

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A month and a half ago I halved the intake of Fluoxetin, otherwise known as Prozac. From 20mg to 10mg every morning. So far so good. A couple of changes occurred, but I cannot tell if its psychological suggestion or chemical adjustment in my body. I want to understand this better, and discern between self induced effects, placebo effects and real medical effects. No matter what happens in my body, I am still happy and satisfied about what I am doing. Work is going well, very well indeed, I have closed a major deal for the company, and in a new field, aviation, which I like much more than automotive. I am very proud of how I handled this deal and the negotiations since January. It all went pretty smoothly and quickly. 6 months of talks for a very good outcome. I gave myself a good pack on my back. And so did my CEO and the whole company. We popped two bottles of good champagne at work, and F. made a speech announcing I had made the biggest deal in the company’s history. What a good satisfaction. And if I think that only 7 months ago I wanted to quit.

One thing I am learning about this anti-depression process: to cultivate patience, and to fight my perfectionism. More things I am learning, which I will write as I go.

Patience is a big deal for me. And acceptance of a certain routine. I realised that over the last 14 of my relationship with W., and even before, basically since I left Italy to go and live in Germany in 1998, I have not been in one place or one job for more than 2-3 years. Events in life, jobs made redundant, W. entering my life (he is still the love of my life, although we are no longer together), new passions being born, the quest for film making, the eagerness of seeing the world, the choice we had to change our lives when we saw fit and how we pleased, made me wonder around the globe, traveling across oceans to beautiful places, living in the turquoise beaches of the Caribbean, moving to South Africa to pursue a film career, going to Canada to work at the Olympics, going back to Italy for a short while (3 years) setting up a company I didnt want to create, getting angry at life in Rome, leaving again, etc etc. I realised I have not been in one place for more than 2-3 years in the last 20 years. Whereas my childhood and my youth have been very regular, filled with routine. And my youth was very happy. I realise now that Alain de Botton is right when he says that in love we seek to reproduce the familiarity of what we are used to in our childhood. I recommend one of his speeches at Zeitgeist. Where I am getting at is that, also in life, not only in love, we seek balance based on what is familiar to us since the beginning. Now, I still need to understand why I was so attracted to a life without rules, and I still am, but why this has over 20 years damaged my self esteem, my happiness, and my relationship to the greatest man for me. Everytime I didn’t like what I was doing, I (I should say, we) would pack up and leave. I am like Juliette Binoche in Chocolat: I leave from village to village at the blow of the north wind.

Once I returned to Switzerland, helas without W., it was 20 years after I left my home in Rome, the home of routine, familiar habits, and the love of my family. I wondered in this world for 20 years, 14 of which with the love of my life, and now that I am back in CH, my life has been shaken from the core. I had to stop, in a very harsh and hard way, and depression has been the climax of this journey. There’s more to say, but I need to get up and go to my next meeting. Life is full of surprises, definitely worth living every bit of it, even the suffering parts. I am growing through this process. I am learning to be patient. I will find my answer, but not yet today.