I was shy and I wanted other people to like me. When someone asked what my favorite singer was I tried to figure out what kind of singers they like so that I could name the same ones. It helped me to get really good at intuition but I never got a close connection with others because my insecurities made me a fake person and others can feel when someone isn’t genuine about who they are. I cared too much about what others might think about me so I could never be myself. Years later I found out that people like you a lot more and respect you when you say your opinion even if it is the complete opposite of what they like. Then they also start to trust you easier. But at that time I didn’t know that and it also lead to me becoming an observer of life instead of an participant. I started to overthink the meaning of my existence. I thought about all the problems mankind has to face and how we are responsible for all the bad in the world and that we need to change the bad in people to improve the world to the better. Educating and making a majority of the worlds population to some perfect people seemed such an impossible task to me that my negative thoughts started to dominate my thinking and I became depressed. I didn’t know who I was or why I was on this planet. I felt doomed together with the rest of the world but I didn’t care. I felt very disconnected. With every year that passed I became even less social because of the increasing lack of experience. Every time I hang out with “friends” I felt afraid that they might ask me a personal question.
I never had a girlfriend or real friends. I isolated myself because of that. My depression became worse. I didn’t want to study anymore because there was no future job I was passionate about and the lack of motivation affected my grades. I was still a good student so people didn’t really notice much. Maybe they thought “oh he has only a B. Maybe he got some friends and a social life.” But I didn’t. I was just sitting in my room shuffling a deck of cards the whole time in my free time while having dark thoughts about myself and the world. I lost my feelings; happiness and sadness. The only feeling I was left with was a void inside of myself which couldn’t seem to fill with any activity that used to make me happy. Sometimes I thought I became selfless because there was nothing I wanted but it was simply because I didn’t care if I was alive or dead. My dreams vanished at night.
One day I wondered how it was possible to lose all your emotions and if it was possible to reverse that process. I could remember times where I was happy especially with my parents and my sister when I was younger. I wondered what caused all those things and if it could happen to anyone. Other people just seemed to be ignorant. I thought that ignorance was a bliss and the secret of happiness. If people were constantly aware of all those bad things it would be impossible for them to be happy, right? So these were the questions I thought about and I chose to make an experiment with myself. I had nothing better to do anyway and I was always a person who liked science. My view about my future wasn’t very pleasant. I knew that if I was to continue this lifestyle I’ll end up committing suicide or might become a drug addict without any future. So I decided to find out if I can go back to normal or maybe even better than normal. I was feeling happiness before in my life, so it should be possible to go back to it, right? That was the hope I based my experiment on. I also thought that I might be able to help others if I should succeed with this. This lead to me to be motivated enough and I started to read a lot and watched YouTube videos about those topics. After a short amount of time I ended up feeling hopeless and depressed again. The void seemed too strong and I gave up many times, but the same idea always pulled me out of my hole again. I wanted to have my dreams back at night. I wanted to be happy again. I wanted to show people that it is possible.
If you want to die you aren’t afraid of death anymore. When you realize that all your other fears vanish too so I kept going again. I did things I was afraid of like rock climbing and it felt good to overcome some old fears. Finding happiness in yourself is very difficult. Especially when you are feeling depressed. It needs a lot of effort and time but becoming depressed was a process too. Think about it. It took a long time. A lot stress an anxiety and bad things happening to you to become so deeply depressed. It will also take the same effort to go back. Now I didn’t change anything about my external setting. Yes i did a couple of things I was afraid of but I still didn’t really have a social life with friends etc. I mainly changed my mindset, the way I think and perceive life and I’m happy and content with myself and my life now even thought I didn’t change anything external. It shows that your happiness doesn’t have to be bound to anything external. You can find the strength in yourself and only in yourself. Now I’m still an observer of life but I’m a happy one. One that knows that happiness can be found internal. And one that chooses to start to live. My emotions and dreams are completely back to normal. Maybe even better than that because I’m in control now. Experiment successful.