At least I learned something
On Friday night a few weeks ago me and three friends went out for dinner and drinks. I hadn’t seen Elias for around 8 months maybe so we got talking about pretty much everything, and we ended up on my depression and after a while of trying to explain the darkness that had gradually taken over my life for a long time and then came crushing over me in July. Then I started crying and I was overwhelmed with all these emotion, and it wasn’t that I was sad because I still was feeling depressed, it just felt right to tell them what I’ve gone through and cry in that moment, with my closest friends, in a bar, surrounded by strangers.
So 2015 was a rough year, packed in with a few really good moments, but all in all it was probably the toughest one to date. I usually set goals for myself every year and I remember saying that I wanted to go on more adventures and make a film. Both of which I managed to do. But i’m not sure that I fully appreciated all the awesome things I did during 2015, because I was depressed but at the same time I was unaware of it.
I remember sitting in the car on our way to the first adventure, Dalarna, talking about how I was feeling with my friend Erik and at that point I definitely knew something was wrong but I had no idea how to fix it, because I didn’t know what needed to be fixed. I figured that doing trips like this one would make me happy and energized, which it did, but only for a short while. As soon as the adventure was over, the anxiety, self-doubt, self-hatred, sadness and all the other feelings came rushing back and my cure for that was to work more, make sure that I was to busy to think of all the things that made everyday dark.
Then summer came, and I had planned to weeks of epic adventures, one hike in Lappland and one road trip to Norway. To weeks that made everything go away, I felt free, happy, vital and I saw a glimpse of a person that had ben long lost, a person that had dreams, ambition and wanted more out of life then what he currently got out from it.
But as soon as I landed from these two weeks it went dark and the darkness was complete. I lost interest in everything that I had loved, I came up with all different reasons not to hang out with friends and family, I made sure that as soon that work was over I went straight home and hid in my apartment from the world. I wanted nothing to do with it.
I stumbled upon this video with Andrew Solomon that really resonated with me. The way he described his own depression and that made me realize that I needed to find help.
It took me 12 weeks to finish the treatment and acquire the tools I needed to be able to help myself get better.
I realized that I wasn’t that far of believing that more adventure would heal me, I just didn’t understand at that moment in early 2015 that I needed I few more tools. But being out in nature and experiencing the world has tought me more about myself then anything else has so far in my life.
Then something even better happened at our little table in the middle of the bar, surrounded by strangers, everyone started opening up about things that had been or is hard for them, and all we did was listen too each others very honest and vulnerable state. And it felt really awesome. There was no judgement and no need to hide or create a perfect image, we were all being our perfect selfs.
My goals for 2016 are as follows:
- Find out my potential
- Take more risk
- Do more
- Make at least one longer film
- Climb Kilimanjaro + Kebnekaise
- Exercise more & harder & everyday
- Eat better & cook more
- Smile more
- Meet new people
- One youtube per week
- Get our more
- Be the best version of yourself
Let’s find out what 2016 holds.
Social Links
Previous post: https://medium.com/@imradicult/the-next-step-19ee0e9c4959#.u344kn9wq
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imradicult/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Spookie20
Twitter: https://twitter.com/radicultcom
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karlsson.eric
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/radicult
