This record that you'll read next was supposed to be a long expression of my feelings, and part of my ongoing therapy, a record where I open the book and describe the bad moments that I've gone through in the last 2 years. But I wasn't planning on sharing this now but while writing another chronicle regarding my psychic diagnosis I started telling the story since the beginning of this "situation" and I was already a few paragraphs long. So I used the Separate & Clarify technique and since this is the last day of Star Wars Week (the 10th still counts) here it goes:
No so long time ago, in a galaxy not far away...
Inspired by Star Wars, I had to begin in a similar way. Moving on: there was once a guy that every now and then would get in a depressive state, many times upon returning from visiting Portugal, his home country, a sort of post-holidays depression but not because they were over but because visiting the home country and returning to The Netherlands was always a realisation that his life was now a different one and the life he left behind in Portugal also stayed in the past, it would never be the same again. Sometimes he also got depressed with more personal situations, since as later proven (we'll get there) he has the habit of running a complete scenario, or a simulation, in his mind and quickly reach to a final conclusion (not always the correct one, but still a probable end) and when that conclusion is a negative one, that brings him down. Ot course that guy is me and a social worker (also trained in psychology) that helps us with our son Sebastião once told me that I'm too smart for my own good.
What was unique in 2019, when compared to the other "regular" depressions, was that with my close friend Daniel's death I lost the one person whom I talked about everything and anything and I was never able to find a proper substitute for the role he had in my life, so I started keeping more stuff inside. A motorcycle accident, a trip to Portugal and not being able to do anything right (work was going bad, and at home with Sebastião I was making it worse) together with my own conditioning traits resulted in that the typical and expected post-holidays depression was way worse than normal. My characteristic of running the entire simulation till the end and calculate the outcome only lead me to conclude at the time that there was no solution and when you don't see a solution for a series of issues and we're feeling like a piece of shit, one idea starts pinging in your head, continuously, drop by drop, every minute, until it fills up the bucket: suicide.
That was the main problem I faced during 2019, from September till October, until I was able to recover from it on my own, by turning things around but in reality never truly recovering, just thinking I did and burying the bad things and dark thoughts deep inside.
It was for that reason that I mentioned in March (in the blog in portuguese) that I needed to go and see the doctor. And after the advice from a ex-colleague that during some weeks acted as my Daniel surrogate, I had my first counseling session with a therapist (not really a psychologist) that occurred during the beginning of the pandemic and were thus done over the phone, but they were helpful still. I agreed with the therapist that I would write about what had happened to and what I felt but only today I wrote about the worst part of it.
But the main issue what that, what I just wrote wasn't the worst. Later I realised that the worst was yet to come...
The Depression Strikes Back
In May, more specifically on May the Fourth, Star Wars Day, I started a new job. The pandemic was still raging on, we were still trying to find the appropriate help for Sebastião (and for us), we were actually in a fight with the health entities that were claiming his condition was something that Carolina totally disagreed with but I, in my role as a troubleshooter, was willing to try since it was a probable cause and it is worth checking it at least to rule it out. The first 2 months at the new job went well but after the problems returned: at home it seemed we were again in a situation with no solution in sight, the pandemic was interfering with everything else and the lack of some conditions (the daily commute routine, not being able to observe the coworkers on the day-to-day and getting to know how the team works, the merging of the family and professional space and time since we were all at home) brought the depression back. Much like 9 months earlier, I lost it but I was now at home all the time so I began to not even do the bare minimum in regards to my job. The thoughts of ending my life so that the worries could stop and at the same time saving the family from myself (because I became convinced I was a major part of the whole problem) were constantly lurking my mind. And then another thought appeared: to run away to somewhere far away and never return. It was constantly one thing or the other, But nothing happened because we were all together at home all the time and I couldn't see a way to achieve any of those options with success and a minimal impact to the family.
But one day I held a big kitchen knife against my breast, wondering how much harder I needed to push to stick it between the ribs...
It's almost unbelievable how one person that has "everything" can become so lost...
I went into sick leave, and that helped to some extent has it removed one weight from my shoulders, but when I tried to come back I didn't feel I was capable to. The team had grew, I didn't feel any connection with them, everything seemed so hard and difficult. As I later said to several people, whatever the situation, I was like a donkey staring into a palace (this is a typical Portuguese expression that I cannot find at the moment the English equivalent), I didn't even know where to start. As you'll see when I publish the other chronicle on this subject, me being lost like this when doing something that always came easily and effortlessly (work) made me go into panic mode. In my typical way of going striaght to the final outcome, I only concluded that I would not keep this job (was on a 1 year contract) and then I wouldn't have the capabilities to find another; so without a solution in sight I found a workaround to make my life easier: I pretended everything was fine and ignored all the rest
Important to note here that the company doctor had provided a psychologist to help me during my sick leave but she received the company's report with their point of view, or understanding, of what my issues were (even though I was the one to describe them) and in a combination of her being Dutch and frankly not being very good at her job, after some sessions I was feeling worse. I'll discuss this in more detail later but the feeling I got from her "help" was that I was actually a sociopath so adding to my feeling of being a complete useless I got this new thought that all my personal and emotional connections were fake, not real, so I became even more desperate.
The Help Awakens
The peak of my state, that I named the Fucked State in this other text, was reached when my manager and the HR person, worried about me and the fact I was unreachable, contacted Carolina that at this time thought I was recovering, since I spent hours at the computer supposedly working.
Meanwhile I had started seeing a new portuguese psychologist, that was already helping us with Sebastião but I only had the first session so I hadn't yet come clean and let it all out with her, on how bad I really was (but I can say that was the plan, I'm being honest). The call to Carolina precipitated everything but at the same time it took a HUGE weight out of my shoulders, the weight of all the lying I was carrying with me and not knowing how to escape the web of lies. They did it for me and now it was time to face the problem head on.
So my help first came for helping us with the kids, since during all this time we were again stuck at home, since the school had reopened at one time but closed again. So my second psychologist, I., helped me immensely in understanding the state I was in but also insisting in things that I thought were just superficial stuff but with time I was able to realise their importance. Even though I don't agree with all I. says or suggests I will always be grateful to her for allowing me to get to know myself and giving me tools to face and fight back the burnout and the depression that weren't mild at all.
After a lot of rest and making an effort, the energy returned, I noticed that the force awakens, that energy and force that were always a personal characteristic and all of the sudden things didn't no longer seemed to be a problem anymore. January was still a month of transition but since February I am the usual Bruno BaKano, like before. Actually I'm a better version now, still with some caution because I. also explained me that many of the people that suffer a depressive burnout like me usually need 1 to 2 years to recover, and even though I consider I spent too long in sick leave, I was able to recover to a fairly good level in a couple of months and without the help of medication, even though I thought at one point that I wouldn't be able to get better with drugs...
Return of The BaKano
And this chapter is only to close this "adventure". Now that I have disclosed a lot of the more personal stuff, although not as much as I thought I would and maybe one day I might reopen the book and my mind to the craziness that existed, and still exists, in here, we can move one to what I had planned to write about in the last couple of nights (but won't publish right now because it is very late): So what's my diagnosis or condition/disorder anyway?
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