About Me — Kacper
Hi! I’m Kacper, a 23-year-old biochemistry student from Poland. My greatest passion is science, discovering new things, exploring the world around me, and also studying myself. This need for exploration, experience, and understanding has been with me since early childhood. I grew up in a small town with a happy family. As I mentioned earlier, I used to be a very curious kid who always had to know everything and ask about everything. My mind was always flooded with thoughts, which sometimes were hard to control. This certainly brought me many benefits. I didn’t have trouble learning new skills like writing or reading. However, as I grew older, my mind became much more complicated, and it was difficult to manage. It took many years before I realized that something strange was happening in my mind. I think my story is primarily about a person who went to war with his own mind and won, finding harmony and balance in life on his own. A lot of things happened to me, but even more happened inside of me. And that’s one of the things that makes this story unique. Let’s start from the beginning…
Early childhood
Up until about the age of 12, I didn’t have many problems in my life. You could say it was almost perfect. A loving family, and a group of school friends, I really lacked nothing. I was rather a well-behaved and calm child, not necessarily quiet or shy. Nevertheless, I tended to avoid conflicts and had an optimistic disposition. Maybe sometimes it annoyed me that I overthought things that weren’t really important, and some thoughts would come back like a boomerang, making it hard to get rid of them. But even so, I didn’t see an enemy within myself.
Battling chaos within
Everything slowly began to change as I started growing up. It’s a well-known fact that every young person going through adolescence experiences greater or lesser chaos in their mind. It’s normal. Everything changes — the body, personality, way of thinking. It was no different for me. I started experiencing many different emotions that I hadn’t felt before, and it wasn’t easy to control them. You could say that within one year, I went from being a calm boy to an impulsive, proud, and not always pleasant troublemaker at school. A similarly significant change occurred in my mind — I began to catch myself more and more often not having any control over what, when, and how long I was thinking about something.
The Disconnect from Reality
The next 3–4 years of my life were truly a process of slowly disconnecting from reality. With each passing year, I lived more in my head than in the events of my life. It started to become really burdensome because I was slowly losing the ability to enjoy life. During family gatherings, with friends, or on any kind of outing, I wasn’t paying attention to what was happening; I was stuck in my head, overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts that forced me to constantly analyze things that were ultimately unimportant. It was then, I think for the first time, that I felt what I called “missing out on life.” Doesn’t it sound a bit absurd? A 13–15-year-old feels like he’s missing out on his own life when it hasn’t even really begun and taken off. That was my paradox. Everything in my life was perfect. But I couldn’t really enjoy any of these things because I was constantly immersed in my thoughts. It was also when the fear of those thoughts and the fear of myself emerged. I began to see my mind as an enemy. There were also better days when my thinking was much clearer. Then, even the smallest thing made me happy. So, what I learned from a young age was that true joy doesn’t come from external things but from within. Everything in your life can be perfect, and yet you can still be unhappy. Similarly, everything in your life can be bad, and yet you can still find joy in it. It all depends on how your mind works.
A Beacon of Hope
At this age, I also discovered one of my greatest passions, which continues to this day, and that is going to the gym. I was fascinated by bodybuilding at a young age. I was incredibly excited about how the human body could change and sculpt under the influence of exercise. People like Arnold Schwarzenegger impressed me. It started with simple push-ups in my room, then I bought dumbbells, and at the age of 16, I joined a gym. It was something that definitely helped me deal with my unruly mind. Thanks to exercise, I could release emotions and clear myself of unwanted thoughts. But then I went to high school, and despite beautiful memories from that time, it was also a period of great challenges.
Struggles with Socialization and Identity
After turning 16, my circle of friends began to change very dynamically, and it wasn’t always appropriate. The growing desire to fit in with others, as well as an increasing conflict with my own mind, started to make me slowly lose myself again. I essentially went from being a lively boy to a frightened and helpless one within a year. You could say that I went from one extreme to another. I couldn’t cope with socializing because I couldn’t control my mind. The process of derealization and depersonalization progressed. It became increasingly difficult to find common ground with people, going to school became harder, and I became more introverted. I no longer had any control not only over what I thought but also over what I said and did. All of this slowly began to lead me into depression, exacerbated by the fact that more and more people were leaving my life. Just before I turned 18, I finally decided to go for a consultation with a psychologist. Diagnosis? OCD. It didn’t surprise me very much because I had read something about it before. Therapy and medication helped for a while. Life started to get back on track, and I regained joy. Unwanted thoughts still existed in my head, and unfortunately, I still saw them as something foreign and hostile, which made it difficult for me to fully accept myself.
The Depths of Despair
With the onset of the pandemic, I turned 19. At the same time the pandemic began, a difficult period came into my private life, which probably led to a relapse of the disease and resulted in an even greater aversion to myself. During this time, I also started studying and moved to another city. The next two years of my life were mainly based on the idea of hedonism, losing myself in all sorts of entertainment. I completely forgot who I was. I abandoned most of the dreams and goals I set for myself as a teenager. Only the direction of my studies provided a glimmer of hope for change. I deeply rootedly believed that if I understood the biochemical and physiological mechanisms that govern how the human body functions, I might be able to get my life in order. After all, most of the problems in it stemmed from how my body and mind functioned. And I wasn’t disappointed.
The Great Comeback
Around the time I turned 21, something suddenly changed in me. I felt like I was stuck on a road to nowhere and had enough. Little did I know then that it would be the beginning of my transformation and the beginning of the best two years of my life. Changing my appearance and style of dress was the first step. I stopped wearing clothes and hairstyles that I didn’t really want to wear. Over the past few years, I’ve built my sense of worth by trying to look in an unconventional way, but I’ve had enough of it. I knew I had to turn back and regain my life. I felt that somewhere inside me, the old me was waking up, and he was angry that I had wasted so much time. I returned to the gym, to my former passion. You could say I had to start almost from scratch, but it didn’t discourage me. I also began to study myself and meditate, trying to analyze my thought patterns and habits. I no longer paid attention to the content of my thoughts but asked myself why I was thinking about it. What was the reason behind it? What am I afraid of? I became more spiritual, and combining that with knowledge and biological insight, I slowly began to bring my mind into order. However, one of the biggest breakthroughs was discovering my next great passion, which became boxing. It taught me discipline and self-control. I began to notice that as my body became stronger, so did my mind. I began to perceive boxing training as a reward for myself. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that I had spent so many years thinking aimlessly instead of acting, and I regretted the progress I could have made. Even in the worst weather on the worst day, being completely exhausted, I ran to that training. I felt that I had to prove something to myself — that I had changed and that things would be different now. In this way, I returned to reality and began to live with what was around me, not just what was happening in my head.
A Return to Reality
In 2022 and 2023, I was strong, and I had a conviction that in 2024, I would be happy because of it. And so it happened. The year 2024 arrived, and I am truly grateful for how my life looks now. I still have a loving family and faithful friends. I indulge in passions I love, train, and work in the laboratory and most importantly, I can control my mind, emotions, and behavior at a level I once couldn’t even imagine However, I felt that the knowledge and insights that had come into my consciousness over the years of contemplation needed some outlet. I felt I could share this with someone. So, I started looking for a place where I could tell about my experiences and thoughts to someone. That’s how I came across Medium. I always felt drawn to writing, but I never took it seriously. However, now I decided it was worth a try. There is still so much to do and to improve after all and this endless path of self-improvement is the most exciting thing in life, So, in the end, nothing was in vain. These years taught me a lot — including the most important lesson: Understand and master yourself, and you will master everything external, and nothing will stop you. The world isn’t good or bad. It’s just how you perceive it. You are the one who gives value to many things because they can be beautiful in your eyes. Now I may be able to help people who also struggle with such problems and perhaps inspire someone. After all, I am an example that from the deepest bottom, you can emerge victorious on your own. Yes, I am 23, but I started living 2 years ago. And I wish this to all of You — to be able to live the way you want.
