Even as a child, I began to notice how "magic goes away".
I was a terrible drag.
I was clumsy. I had a very bad stretch. I slouched harder than the others.
At night, I slept with my teeth clenched tight.
I wasn't thinking straight. I couldn't read books. Couldn't read long texts. From year to year, I was getting worse at school.
My classmates thought I was weird: so stupid I was.
By the end of my studies, I suspect my teachers were just feeling sorry for me. I got my B-grade, but only because of them.
I felt very bad . There is a concept of a comfort zone. So: I don't have it at all: I've always felt uncomfortable..
Sitting in class, I constantly shook my leg and yawned.
I often liked to lie down. When I came home from school, I went to bed. My mother would ask me, " Why are you lying down?" And I was just so tired... " Tired of what? You didn't do anything..."
Eventually I came to the attention of psychiatrists. They diagnosed me with depression. I didn't believe it: "Depression can't be so bad..."
Over time, my state of health worsened further: I felt heavy and sick, and at some point it simply became unbearable.
By age, this corresponded to about 19 years. By that time, I had somehow entered high school, and it just became too hard for me to sit through the whole lesson(!).
But my health continued to deteriorate further. At some point — I just started to suffer.
I could not tell what hurt. You could only get rid of it by falling asleep.
When I spent most of my time in bed, all I could think about was how to "forget myself".
I was prescribed some kind of antidepressant, but it didn't work. Then they picked up another one for me. It eased my suffering, but it didn't make me healthy. I was just as slow to think; it was almost as hard for me. It was just bearable now.
I transferred to another high school – an easier one, and had a hard time studying there.
One day I went to a dermatologist. I complained to him about dandruff, and he drew attention to the oily skin of my face (indeed, my forehead and nose just glistened).
He asked me a question about how intensively I have to study now. I didn't understand him and asked him again:
"You mean am I really stressed?" Yes, very tense...
- why?
"I just don't know...
- You don't have to be tense: you don't need to be... You don't need to be tense, you need to be relaxed...
I was just taken aback by this... Really: I had always been tense...
I've always been like this for as long as I can remember. I was born this way, and I thought it was the way it should be. I couldn't think this should be any different.
When I learned that I didn't need to be tense, I immediately put my heart out of my mouth. The need for antidepressants has also disappeared. I stopped taking them, and I never felt as bad since then as I had used to.