Tag: Depression

Turning 44 – How The Hell Did I Make It This Far?

On By Karl GessleinIn Depression, Lifestyle and Health, Love, Self-ImprovementLeave a comment

As I laid in bed meditating this morning in the arms of my beautiful partner staring out into the surreal snow covered landscape I was left with this incredible feeling of gratitude.

How did I get here, how could my life possibly be so good?

Was it luck, hard work, did the universe finally reward me for decades of suffering? It’s really hard to tell.

karl
I’ve decided to take a different path than my father before me. I’ve decided to do what I love to do and nothing else. It has paid off big time in quality of life.

I consider myself a depression survivor. In many ways it’s kind of like being a survivor of something more like cancer, but for people who struggle with depression most of American’s attitude is ‘just get over it’. Not only is this incredibly unfair, it’s also unrealistic to judge others harshly for a condition that they really have little or no control over. I read a statistic online that said 50% of Americans will struggle with mental illness at some point during their life. If so many people suffer from it then why is there so little support and compassion for it?

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How Transcendental Meditation Can Ease A Troubled Mind (aka How I Kept $2500 In My Pockets)

On By Karl GessleinIn Depression, Lifestyle and Health, Love, Self-Improvement7 Comments

When I first met Thilde Jensen she encouraged me to try TM to help with my obsession and depressive nature. We have been together for 2 years now and committed to each other last summer. Meditation has become a daily habit for both of us, one that I hope we will carry with us to the end of our days. This is not a sales pitch for TM, honestly I feel like it’s a total scam, I am promoting the medical benefits of any meditation not just a single ‘brand’. Although Thilde and I have settled quite comfortably into doing TM, there are a lot of different styles of meditation each with their benefits and drawbacks. This is a story of my personal path.

enlighhtenment-maharishi

The TM style of meditation has been around since 1955 and seems to have changed very little throughout the years. The biggest change to the movement has been the price of the training. It has gone from being free to several thousand dollars for private instruction. So then the question becomes, why should I pay $2,500 for something that I can teach myself for free?

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How Megadosing On Vitamin B3/Niacin Saved My Life

On By Karl GessleinIn Depression, Lifestyle and Health, Self-Improvement29 Comments

It’s time for people to stop being afraid of being stigmatized and start having a real conversation about mental illness. This article is the first step for me.

hatteras

To say that the last year of my life has been the most challenging year ever would be a drastic understatement. There was 3 months where every single day I wanted to end my life. I constantly fantasized about suicide, I would have done anything to ease the pain. It started like most tragic stories start, with a girl.

Her name was Elise and I was madly in love with her. The courtship lasted a year and it was the most intense set of experiences I’ve had in my life. We were like two reactive chemicals, when we were together something unpredictable would always happen. The energy was insane in every way, and there was no boundaries, nothing was off-limits. Like most passionate romances, after a year it came to an equally spectacular ending. For a month after we separated I was elated, then I unwisely spent time with her again and the turmoil began. Half of me knew I could never have anything remotely functional with this woman, the other half was completely convinced that I could somehow make it work. I became a man at war with myself.

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