For all my life I have felt great comfort being with my family and I was given the freedom to explore and develop my own interests. It was through this freedom and these interests that I found ways to express myself outside of my stammer (e.g. as I was growing up school work became my means to express my mind). In particular, Science gave me a way to understand the confusing world around me. Importantly it gave me answers to where I had come from and who I am. Also, Shakespeare, in his astonishing use of language to verbalise the inner emotions of his characters, taught me that words and voices could contain the ideas of the mind. Maybe, just maybe this applied to me; the gap between the mountains perhaps wasn’t that great.
Then after I completed my Masters course I had a nervous breakdown. It simply emptied me out; like a water balloon thrown against a wall, I burst and leaked depression everywhere. It took me two years to patch the balloon together and only after this time did I dare to fill it with emotion again. I learnt to never fill it to bursting again.
In many ways going through a breakdown teaches you the depth of your determination and fortitude; choosing to move through the howling storm of depression and finally to emerge from the other side wipes the blackboard clean but still with the former words faintly visible. The depression is still there but it is less intense; you can write over the faint words with new understanding while always referring to what you have been through.
Please read part 1 and 3...
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