Oh hello and welcome back! To the first blog post at least partially written, but the second one posted, in WordPress.
Transitioning to this new format was very weird for me. But, good weird? A new beginning for my untitled blog!
You’ll noticed that captions are below the pictures now, like they have been on every blog except mine since the dawn of the format. Yes, i am indeed being brutally forced to catch up to the rest of the world, but i guess that’s a small price to pay for seeing my photos all nice and unpixelated for a change!
And besides the front blog page missing preview photos, i do like the whole look so much better.
Basically i am very happy with the result and i’m glad i finally set aside the time to make a website.
And without doing too much own-horn tootin’, i think it looks pretty good!
But if you’re a long time reader, please feel free to let me know what you think of this whole migration business in the comments, i would love to hear what it looks like from your end. Or just say hi, that’s nice too!

So this is the post that had the potential to easily turn into an end of the year recap post, since i started writing it towards the end of the year, and i was spending an awful lot of time reflecting anyway. And we know i tend to rant.
But to be honest, i’m not sure if i’ll be able to weave it all together into something readable. The past couple of moths have been so fucking transformative for me that i find it hard to share just one observation or one thing that i look at differently now. So bear with me as i try to unpack everything that’s been going on in my life and by life i mostly mean my brain, since in reality i’ve been hermitting pretty hard and mostly just leaving the house for work.
See, in the past months i’ve been living in a state that’s apparently, as i found out recently, known as the dark night of the soul. Spooky. But don’t worry, it’s not nearly as depressing as it sounds, not for me anyway.
In fact i’m probably happier than i’ve been in years, but this state i live in, it’s heavy and it’s a lot of work.
How i ended up in this long, dark period of transformation and isolation is obviously a long story, but to give you a short version, that will probably end up long as fuck anyway, it starts like this: last year around this time, i wasn’t doing good.

I spent a large part of the year 2019, the first half anyway, severely depressed and unable to help myself. Every day i was in survival mode, just… existing, was a struggle. I couldn’t find joy in anything, and some time in the early summer, i think i hit bottom.
I didn’t really notice at the time, that this was what was happening, and maybe you don’t always notice, but i definitely had some sort of breakdown.

I can’t remember exactly when, but it happened after i’d gone to see the doctor to get my regular, responsible adult, post-relationship-std-check up, and while i was there, i asked the doctor to give me a prescription for Alprazolam, something that was a nearly impossible achievement when i first moved here. German doctors are oddly opposed to actual medicine and would prescribe you herbal tea for a broken bone if they could get away with it, but by the time i came in for my second prescription, over a year after the first one, i guess it became clear to the doctors at the clinic, that if a pack could last me that long, i probably wasn’t a hardcore xanny abuser. So after that, it became increasingly easy to get a new prescription.
But on this day i was seeing a new doctor, so i wasn’t surprised when she asked what i needed it for. I explained my history with anxiety disorder, and how i don’t have regular panic attacks anymore, but how having prescription medication that i know can take care of a panic attack, if one should ever occur, can actually prevent me from having one.
I often refer to it as a safety net, and i did on this day too, and she appeared to understand, but she still asked, to me seemingly out of nowhere, but for her it was probably a natural follow up question, if i was depressed.
Taken aback, i must have paused for a second, but not to consider the question. I knew the answer was yes, so i kind of flatly answered, “yes”.
She looked at her screen, i assume at a list of obligatory questions to ask a patient in this particular situation, appeared to translate the first question into English in her head, and after a sort pause asked me, “do you feel any hope?”
I could feel a lump forming my throat. I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that particular question before and i felt incredibly vulnerable in that moment. The question was so simple and so direct. It cut through everything.
I swallowed and answered, truthfully, “no.”
I walked out of the clinic confirmed std free and with my usual prescription in my bag, and this time a new one.
One for seeing a therapist.

I didn’t, though. I was so far gone that tasks that would perhaps be simple by themselves, had piled up and become mountains that i had to climb, mountains that towered in front of me in the form of letters i didn’t know how to read, bills i didn’t understand the origin of, and that somehow never came alone, official numbers to be called, jobs that needed quitting, others that needed skills i didn’t yet have, and of course work to be done.
Always feeling like i was starting from scratch, working four jobs but somehow not having having money or insurance, and always feeling like i couldn’t ever quite come up for air. The last thing i had the energy for was the complicated process of finding a therapist.
At this time, it seemed like every little task i managed to tackle was replaced by five new ones, and it felt like the universe was merciless in its insistence on never giving me a fucking break. I felt chronically sorry for myself, and resentful of whatever unidentifiable moment that had led me to be where i was.
Alone, in Berlin, without anyone to help ease the burden of… life.

Then a couple of seemingly unrelated things happened, that set change in motion. Maybe. I think they did? But since this thing that i’m calling a breakdown was so subtle even to me, it’s pure speculation, but i will mention them anyway.

First.
I talked to a follower on instagram, a kind person i barely knew, who saw me struggling (yeah it was that obvious) and offered to help.
Apparently i had cheered her up on a dark day in her life, when we met in real life at the cafe where i worked as a server, and she decided to reach out and repay the kindness, and the offer alone, someone doing something actively for me, instead of putting it on me to reach out for help when i felt like i could barely breathe… i think the compassion of that offer changed something. Maybe i wanted to make her feel like her effort to help hadn’t been for nothing? She gave me some good advice on how to get started dealing with what, to my depressed ass, felt like the millions of insurmountable obstacles in my life.
I started writing out the tasks in groups, in order of importance and stress level. I cut them out and taped them onto my kitchen door, and slowly dealt with them.
Or at first, just looked at them. They were up there for a long time, though, an awful mix of dealing with taxes, calling insurance companies, writing difficult emails, paired with what seemed like pretty easy personal tasks that had grown into monsters by being put off for too long. It wasn’t a particularly fun collection to look at, and i had vivid flashbacks to another to-do list from the not so distant past, that hung on a wall in a previous home and included fun sentences like “file for divorce”, “get a job” and “find a place to live”.
And i guess, like back then, just by having it all out there, it slowly became less of a tabu, something that couldn’t jump out from the shadows and hurt me, something that was right there in the kitchen, every day, greeting me, waiting to be dealt with.

Second.
I started working out. Of course i had never really stopped, i was working out pretty regularly like i have been for the past five or six years, but around this time, the workout portal i’ve been using to do my at home workouts, launched a 100 day workout challenge. That’s 100 consecutive days, by the way, and i took the challenge, thinking i would maybe get to day ten before i quit, and figuring i could at least use the extra dopamine.
At the time it felt as if i had just started a new workout challenge, not unlike others i’d done in the past, no big deal.
But what i had really done was unknowingly take the advice of a psychologist on instagram that i think i was only vaguely familiar with at the time, but whose self healing program i would end up purchasing and following.
The advice? Keeping a small daily promise to yourself. Every day. As small as needed, even if it’s just writing one thing you’re grateful for, or having an extra glass of water in the morning, the important thing was to do it, and by keeping these promises, to build trust in yourself. This was mine, and since it required working out every morning for 100 days, it wasn’t even a particularly small one.
I began my healing on that first day without even knowing it, and it didn’t take long before i started to feel the fog lift.
But along with that, came the pull to dig deeper, to find out why i had been so unhappy, so desperate, and how to ensure that i didn’t slip that deep into depression again, and so i began studying every post made by the before mentioned psychologist, and before i really knew it, i had embarked on a journey to heal and reparent myself.

Third.
Around the same time as starting the workout regime, i met someone.
And due to having already started my self healing journey, i showed up different than i have before.
Able to instinctively not exaggerate the qualities in myself that i know men respond to, as i admittingly have many times before in order to be liked and wanted, i sort of just showed up as me. Or, as close to the real me as i’ve ever presented to a potential romantic partner, especially one that seemed so perfect for me, and it was liberating.
Looking back on that first talk, that first date, i was nowhere near where i am today in terms of feeling comfortable in my authenticity, but i was honest and he was too, and the connection, although in retrospect a trauma bond, was raw and instant, and it wasn’t long before we fell in love.
You already know we broke up, because i wrote a whole blog post about how sad i was about the breakup, and i was. That first month was pretty rough. And i don’t feel the need to share details about the breakup, although i’m sometimes surprised at how comfortable people who don’t even know me that well are asking for them. And the grief stage, i’ve shared that already.
So this is really about me, after. And the after for me is different this time, because i was, and am, so deep into my self healing process, that the things i’ve been learning, the tools i have now, helped me, not to “get over” the relationship, but to become a person who’s able to look at experiences and relationships with new eyes, and use feelings of grief, sadness and misunderstandings, as gifts to help me grow.
In the past there has been times where i’ve vilified former loves in order to make sense of what happened, or to move on more quickly. And thinking badly of someone, or the whole experience, certainly does appear to make you move on quicker, but it’s a temporary fix, an easy way out, because the resentment, even the resentment you felt towards life in general for taking away something precious, eats away at you.
So instead of turning to old friends like resentment or anger, i shifted the focus to what i learned while being in this relationship. What i learned from being happy, and being myself with someone, from being treated well by a partner, from being able to set boundaries for the first time in my life, and from being able to share myself and my dreams with another person without adding a filter, and the fear of being too much. And from letting him go.
I learned from the relationship and the breakup, and i recognize that the fact that i’m doing well, learning to be alone but not lonely, not crying every night, and most importantly, learning to really love the shit out of myself, doesn’t in any way diminish what Jamal meant to me. Quite the contrary.
I’m in no rush to forget him, i still have plenty of days when i miss him and i mourn the future i dreamed of having with him, and i’m not trying to retroactively turn him into a bad person to make it easier for myself to get over him. I’d rather focus on how magical the short time we had together was for me, and how lucky i was to experience having such a considerate and loving partner. A partner who for a brief period in time brought previously unimaginable happiness into my life.

It wasn’t perfect, and i’m not putting the relationship on a pedestal.
In unpacking it and looking at it in the rearview mirror, you see the flaws too, the times your boundaries were crossed, or the times you wish you’d been more patient. Patience is recurring topic in my journal, a daily one, almost. And boundaries are really a brand new concept in my life, it’s not that surprising i don’t know how to set them yet.
Looking back, i can see now that this short but intense relationship was partially lived out in the shadow of someone else’s recent hurt, and to be honest, in retrospect, that wasn’t what either of us wanted.
I know that i at least had wanted to start off pure, with a love we were both ready for and free to pursue, with no external obstacles, just two compatible humans, moving forward at a pace that felt right to them.
Instead, again in retrospect, of course, it felt as if we were trying to build a life together at a pace that was too fast for the both of us, trying to outrun his past and the hurtful energies that lurked in the shadows.
And although nobody did anything wrong, or caused anyone else intentional pain, feelings did get hurt, and as much as i resented them at the time for getting in the way of my perfect love story, they had every right to be there.
Those hurt feelings were as valid as our happy feelings were.
And acknowledging that helped me immensely, as did knowing that in the end, those energies, all that hurt, and the things that were said, it wasn’t about me. It was never really about me. The way people feel about you, is oftentimes really how they feel about themselves. The horrible things they say or think about you? Well, there’s a pretty good chance that’s what they’re terrified of seeing in themselves.
In the not so distant past, i used lie awake overthinking interactions and perceptions, wondering how to never be misunderstood, how to be seen, how to be liked.
Everyone liking me and understanding my good intentions was so important.
The image of The Good Person had to remain intact.
It’s still important to me, i’m not above or beyond this by any means, i just finally see what i’m doing when my ego overstates my importance in other people’s lives.

All i can do now is take these lessons and carry them with me as i continue on my path, and hope that our time together was as beautiful and fun and valuable to him as it was to me, and that he felt seen, not in spite of what he thought was his flaws, but because of them, in the same way he made me feel truly loved and seen for the real, flawed me, and not the me-like mask of protection i’d previously been presenting to the world.
I will probably never know, just as he’ll probably never know the joy i felt while creating the painting you see posted below. The joy that comes from freely expressing a love that didn’t go away, but instead got redirected, to the self, to the world, and channeling all that love and those positive memories into a preferred medium.

In this whole process of grieving and moving on, i finally felt, not just knew objectively, but truly felt, that getting over someone in the form of trying to suppress love in an attempt to live up to society’s ideas of how, and when, to acceptably get over someone or something, has brought me nothing but pain in the past.
Going even further back, i see that getting over Ben much too quickly sent me right into the arms of an unhealthy rebound.
And even further than that, but somehow still present, getting over Patrick, who regular readers will remember as my Great Love and someone who made as many appearances on this blog after we broke up, as he did during the time we were together, as quick as was expected of me, actually resulted in an extreme prolonging of the grieving process. We’re talking almost two years of pain and longing, always either living in the hurt of the moment i found out he’d cheated on me, or living in the future we never got to have. Never really in the present, and always feeling like a victim of the actions of others. I saw myself, and felt like others saw me, as someone who was always moving towards some state of deserved happiness, that was tragically taken away at the finish line, and all they can do is watch as it dissipates, powerless to do anything, but accept the heartfelt pity of spectators, who all seem to have what they crave.
Now, i feel like i’m finally able to replace and let go of that narrative.
By learning and healing, but also by realizing that i’m not broken, there’s nothing wrong with me just because my past relationships didn’t work out. I’m capable of being happy by myself, and i cherish my alone time, while simultaneously looking forward to falling in love again, which i somehow have little doubt will happen.
It’s not linear, the healing and the reparenting. I hear that a lot, and it’s true.
It’s also messy. In healing there is no neat checklist where you can say “ok, well at least i’ve dealt with that part, i am fixed in that aspect”. There’s just more buried trauma and more mess and shame and guilt and sadness, but in it, there is hope and laughter and fucking epiphanies like i never saw when i was in therapy. I journal it out every single morning, and sometimes several times a day, if something real comes up.
Like the day i was hit by the harsh realization that i wasn’t powerless, but i had inadvertently gotten accustomed to giving away my power, by refusing to take responsibility for my life. It turns out, when you wait around for someone to come along and fix you, things are done to you. Things just happen to you, and everything is out of your control.
What a scary concept. No wonder i used to be anxious all the time.
So that’s something i’m learning too, to take responsibility, not just for my own healing, but for my own bullshit, too.
For the things i did and didn’t do, the needs and boundaries, and even the love, i failed to communicate, that led to relationships ending. The passive aggressive behavior and fear of confrontation that put strains on friendships.
As hard as it is to accept those negative parts of ourselves, that’s what i’m doing now, and embracing those shadow sides, writing them down and really digging into their origin, is actually still a hell of a lot more pleasant than believing that some divine force of bad luck is dead set on fucking things up for me, as i subconsciously believed in the past, while i repeated pattern after pattern, in relationship after relationship, reenacting the past with new players, but using the same script.

The pictures are all from when i started writing this post, so i’ll have to write a new one soon, with fresher content.
You wouldn’t think that much could have happened between now and then, but then you obviously didn’t see how i spent my New Years!
More about that in the next post, probably.
And while i would love to talk even more about self healing, the truth is, maybe i’m a little too in it, and too new to it, to also try to write about it.
But the comments are open, and if you think reprogramming your brain into being a better and happier place to live sounds like a good idea, let me know. I’ll never tell you, like people told me when i was at my lowest, that your suffering is supposed to teach you some kind of lesson, or that it will make you stronger. It could be true, sometimes it is, but it’s not what you need to hear. But i’m always happy to share what i’ve found works for me.
(Text continues below pictures now… at least in this post, let’s see!)

I’m still always looking for signs, looking for guidance, looking for confirmation or purpose.
I see these signs in nature, in the form of a great blue heron quietly walking alongside me by the canal when it should be taking off shrieking, or in the form of a Eurasian sparrowhawk, right here in the city, landing on a balcony right in front of me as i asked for a sign, taking its time to pose for photos and shake its wings, for no one else but itself and for me.
I see them in certain numbers, numbers that have become almost magical to me, that i’ve been seeing for decades, that signal great change.
I see them in brief but increasingly deeper connections with other humans, that would not have been possible if not for me taking off a mask with the label “i don’t belong”.
I see them in the horoscopes i read in the morning while i’m drinking my coffee, and what i’m hearing the loudest from every source, from what i call the universe for lack of a better term, what it’s practically been yelling at me every day for months, is to stay on the the path. That i’m exactly where i’m supposed to be. And that it’s vital for me to share, even when it feels bad and my lifelong fear of being judged is yelling at me from within, every bit as loud as the universe. To keep sharing so that maybe the next person struggling, with depression, with anxiety, with a broken heart, with being labeled too sensitive, or with that all to familiar feeling of not being good enough, will want to open up and be vulnerable too, so that someone sees their heart and vulnerability, and the ripple effects will mean that one day none of us will feel broken. None of us will feel like we don’t belong.
We belong.