The more I experience and learn about depression and anxiety, I have understood one major aspect: People make a difference.
There have been long years that I covered up my anxiety and suppressed it successfully while at the same time never really being able to connect with people in an authentic way or even being able to remember events and people.
In the last years I have worked through a lot of stuff from my past and eventually the point came, when I got back to the old me, that I had covered up and never really healed, the Me that suffered greatly from anxiety attacks.
Now I got to the next point: I bought a book about Fear by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. And while a lot of content was repetitive and not so new to me, there was one strong reminder in that book: Seek yourself a sangha, a group of people that are near to your heart and that support you. People that you can come to and say: "Dear ones, I suffer." and that will reply: "I am here for you." (and of course it's also true the other way round)
Once more I understood how important it is to have a sangha.
Depression again is a form of suppressing feelings and thoughts. It occurs when we don't live up to our true selves. And something else: I know that if you are depressed, it can feel very tough and hard at times. But actually depression is something very selfish and egoistic. It means you are stuck inside of your head losing the sense for your outer world and the suffering and pain that happens there. You are focused on your suffering so much that you don't feel other people anymore.
So it's all interconnected. We need other people to support us and we need to support others.
Yesterday something very shocking happened. A human that had only touched my life in a very gentle way has ended his life.
And now there are so many questions that I ask myself but have noone to ask. Why did this human being do that? And what, if we all would have been a little more present, a little more open and welcoming and inviting?
So please take this as an invitation for us all to let our light shine, do good and be there for one another.
