reflecting on these past few months🫀🧠

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If I had known how this comeback thing would turn out and that it led my to another stay in psychiatry I had probably decided differently. But as always in life, it‘s always easier to look back and criticize our decision. It was my own decision and I wanted it so badly. Maybe too much? I had a lot of help from the people and therapists in my corner and yes, they warned me and yes, they told me how it could turn out in the worst case… but they supported me because they knew it‘s what I wanted. The support system around me was better than ever. I found an amazing new coach, kept working with my wonderful psychologist and psychiatrist and got a lot of support from my new team. Also training was going super well. I had finally started to fuel properly, listen to my body and damn that made me able to ride my bike such a lot without turning sick and too tired. Or at least I didn‘t realize it? Because the depression was still present. But most days I just kinda ignored it and accepted that some days a week I was mentally so empty that I had to go to sleep super early because sleeping was the only thing I was still able to do next to training.

The closer the racing season came, the bigger the worries became… once again. Why am I not able to push the watts I used to? Why am I not losing weight? Why am I not super excited to race? Why do I worry so much about racing? Why do I worry so much about life and my future? While these are thoughts we probably all know, in my mind they started to take over and spiral again. I lost the joy for racing and later on again for everything in life. This time I realized it much earlier and decided to stop racing and also training. Although that gave me a lot of freedom I still fell back into that big black hole I wanted to avoid so much. I lost hope because how should things ever become better if this fucking illness has come back every year for eight years? What should I do with life when I don’t feel sense or meaning in anything?

Eventhough my psychiatrist and I really wanted to avoid a big relapse within one year, we both agreed on going to an impatient psychiatry again. And once again it was one of the best decisions I‘ve taken so far!

Looking back it was definitely not wrong to try racing my bike again (because in that moment it was the decision that felt best) but I should have taken way more time to get back. I should haven taken more time to just enjoy different things in life instead of already wanting to do everything around training perfectly again. And that‘s what I try now. Just enjoy life, one day at a time, knowing that I will find my way while not having figured out everything yet (feels super scary some days…) but I‘m happy. Happy to be alive, happy to have made it this far!🌞

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