... or to put it less horribly, I have been to some other places beyond the recent quest to Australia, New Zealand, and Various Places Invaded by the French. I think calling yourself "well travelled" is a colossal deference to pig-headedness and I'm also acutely aware that I've been to substantially fewer countries than a lot of trust-fund teens named "Allegra" or "Euripides": whose entire lives are a string of Instagram poses and post-champagne and cocaine blackouts. But whatever. Here's three places (in no particular order) that I've been to that might be worth your time—for very different reasons—if you're really stuck for ideas and can't go back to Thailand because of that one incident with a condom full of heroin. Turkey: Turunç
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For better or worse I'm nearly at the end of my stint living in this 'ere Antipode, and I thought I'd collect some of the ways trying to blend in with these kiwi-types has wrecked me and my ability to live anywhere ever again. Which... I guess is a good thing? Note this isn't one of those "Things you'll learn living...". Your experiences may differ OK? What, were you expecting me to predict your own personal development in this country? Get a grip man. 1. My vocabulary is ruinedUntil October 2016 I had spent my life referring to these items as "flip flops".
Now class, simmer down, it's time for something a little more serious.
Within reason. I offer the following as just a few things one might consider when travelling with depression (or, broadly, other mental illnesses). As usual, I'm not remotely an expert in this beyond my own experiences, but hopefully nothing in here is contentious enough that I'll be pelted with rotten fruit for being a charlatan. As anyone who stalks me on Facebook knows I've only recently had my flat connected to the internet and subsequently become a genuine member of society again instead of some kind of hermit-luddite hybrid that lives in a ditch and screams at cars.
So for my triumphant comeback post I thought I'd change things up, and grace you with some timely (and thoughtful) political commentary and an exhaustive description of my favourite brands of milk. ... Or I'll just churn out some disjointed paragraphs on things that don't warrant a whole post. The fact that I've barely had a chance to start this is to be taken as a positive sign. Travelling continually for over a month isn't something I've ever attempted before but (as any sufferers can well attest) having a busy schedule is a moderately sure-fire way of preventing the melancholies from setting in. One absolutely guaranteed way to ensure they do hit hard is to take a stopover on your flight out in Hong Kong at the height of the season known in the local tongue as "Smog". Turns out there's nothing better than walking around a crowded, dirty, malodorous, ugly city for several hours to make you run through the whole gamut of self-doubting questions or criticisms you worry about when first planning a six month trip. Things like "Why did I do this?", "Maybe I should cancel this whole thing", "Am I going to be this down the entire time?" et al. Thankfully the first 48 hours haven't been representative of the rest of the trip, on average, and so such feelings have generally abated.
So What HAVE You Been Feeling? Eesh... that's... a knotty question. Honestly I'd either expected to feel consistently better or consistently more depressed than back home but the reality is much less catchy. Overall my mood tracker looks like a sort of jagged rock vista with no consistency and some worrying spikes of sadness, most notably around the Train of Misery®. |
Author28 year old computer scientist/physicist with major depressive disorder, a need to write, and a deep-rooted mistrust of beetroot. Categories
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