It is not a drug commercial presentation

I have been taking medication for depression since I was 20. Because of some unlucky genes and being caught up in problems I couldn’t handle, life was never easy for me. Medication, at least, keeps you at a level of sanity where you can survive.

But genes are not something you can control with a few pills in the morning. Seasonal depression is like love! after every treatment you think, “Yes, I’ve learned it, I can handle it from now on,” but then you fall into it again and don’t even realize where it comes from this time. You’re defenseless, you get used to it, and after a while you forget how life feels without sadness. It becomes the only mood you know, and any other unfamiliar feeling becomes uncomfortable or even frightening.

The difference between a professional and an amateur is that, at some point, the professional realizes they need to book a doctor’s appointment.

Before I came to Germany, I went to my doctor while I was in the middle of a treatment. He said, “Well, you already know how to reduce your dose, ”proof that I’m a professional“ just take your medication with you, take care, and go.”

During the first two years of migration, you’re so busy dealing with a new life, homesickness, and the struggle to survive that you almost have to be lucky to be “just depressed.” Even when you feel sad, you remind yourself why you’re here. Being away from your old problems and observing them from a distance is easier than being stuck in them, sick and overwhelmed. In a way, you gave up, you simply had no power left.

But Berlin is perfect ground for seasonal depression. It won’t let you escape. It offers endless gray, dark days, cold, damp, and colorless. It even disguises depression with a strange kind of beauty. And even a “professional” can get lost in it and not even think about going to a doctor. Because even for a professional, asking for help is hard, especially when social anxiety is also there.

And you know what makes it even harder? Adding ADHD to the mix. Lack of attention to detail, distorted sense of time, no concentration, a toxic loop of expectations, failure, and self-hate. That’s the real challenge.

It feels like walking along the edge of a deep, dark hole, constantly slipping. It’s so overwhelming that you almost prefer facing depression and anxiety rather than dealing with ADHD at the same time.

I think you know what I’m going to say: it was worth it. I started to see some color in the gray. I’m honestly proud of that.

But this is not a drug commercial.