So. Here I am. I am Plume. That’s what you can call me anyway.

I have been writing for years in Diaryland and Livejournal. But since this is sort of a “new beginning” I figured maybe I should recap my life so far.

Is there such a thing as an “old beginning” by the way?

I was born on March the 15th 1978. Which makes me… very old. I don’t look old. I don’t act old. I am young beyond my years. But maturing finally, I hope.

My childhood was fairly uneventful. I was a shy kid. Grew into a shy teenager. Grew more and more shy. I’m not going to tell you my whole life story now. That would take too long. I’ll save that for my future autobiography: “A Plume That Changed The World”. But suffice it to say that I got left behind socially. I became very withdrawn and repressed. I never had a girlfriend. Barely talked to girls. Not many friends after school hours. Didn’t go to many parties. A geeky nerd with glasses and good grades and little else. I completed public school with flying colours mostly. I got the highest possible grade in my French oral exam.

The future was wide open. But my social problems increased. I dropped out of the gymnasium (= High School) after one year. I hung around in my bedroom until I turned 18. Then I did a few different things. Courses, journalist+writing classes. I worked at the small Danish publishing house Hovedland for quite a while. As an intern. The wouldn’t/couldn’t hire me properly. Eventually I had to stop there.

My problems increased. It got harder and harder to leave my room. Just going outside was a challenge. I had no friends, no acquaintances I was alone. Abandoned. I tried to kill myself. Slashed my wrists one early morning in January 1999. Wanted to bleed to death. But it didn’t work. I survived. With scars and even greater emotional damage. I felt like a zombie. Like I was supposed to have died but my corpse walked on. I was just waiting for death to catch up. I never told anyone about the suicide attempt. Hid my wrists from sight.

Time went on. I was sent to a psychologist but the conclusion was that I wasn’t ready to open up and talk about my problems. I was sent to the Phobia school where I finally got a name for what was wrong with me. I had social phobia. It’s like arachnophobia only I’m not scared of spiders, I’m scared of people. Basically.

The Phobia School helped me gain insight. I learned about what was happening to me. But it didn’t cure me. I wasn’t really ready for the treatment. I kept shutting myself in. It’s all a bit of a haze now. Years of isolation. Eventually the social services pulled me back into the jobmarket. They sent me on an “activation course”. Reintegrating people into society. I didn’t think I had a chance to get back into society. I didn’t think I had a chance of getting a job. But towards the end of the course a lucky thing happened. One of the counsellors remembered Tousgaardsladen. It’s a comunity center sort of place. An old barn. I was placed there. Worked with lots of different things. Washing the floors, cleaning, tending to the grounds outside. I was originally supposed to work in the computer room, but that didn’t last too long. But that was okay. I liked it there. There was no pressure. A slow pace. A relaxed attitude. I was there for around a year. I slowly got used to leaving the house every day. Going to work. Being around people. I started feeling safe. Opening up. Talking to others.

While all this was going on I also discovered the internet. When my family bought a new computer I finally got online. The internet brought the chance to meet people without the problems of the phobia. I met Skye. She complimented my poetry. We started talking. She loved me. I was scared and amazed when she told me. I never thought I would be loved. I never thought anyone could love me. It took me a long time to accept it. To deal with it. And to allow myself to have feelings back. But the feelings came. We were in love. We met. She came to Denmark. I went to the Netherlands. Going to the Netherlands was probably a very big step in my life. That I was able to do that one my own. And to spend a week with a girl.

Things started improving. When I stopped at Tousgårdsladen I started at the Reva center. Revalidation. My time at the barn had showed that I was getting closer to being able to getting a normal job. The Reva center is a place where people are tested. To find out what they’re capable of, to get help with finding a job and a future. I started working out in their gym. Talking to their therapist. Getting more and more used to the daily routine of working.

I got better. I got stronger. I was still troubled by the phobia though. And depression. My mood swung like swings in a storm. I was sort of learning to live with being sad. But it was still progress.

In January 2005 I went back to the Netherlands to see Skye. Our 4th meeting. That’s not a lot when you’re in love. Things were hard. I wasn’t good at being in a relationship. I couldn’t give Skye what she needed. My own problems were too big in my head. I kept her waiting. Years she had waited. It was too long, too much. We broke up on the first day of our vacation together. It was very hard to deal with. When I got home I was very depressed for a while. Many suicidal thoughts. Good thing I’m afraid of pain and dying. A little healthy human instinct I still have at least.

But then things took a turn for the better. Before I left to see Skye I had started getting medication. “Happy pills”. Against depression. And anxiety. I had also started working at Kulturgyngen. The medication started kicking in. And I started getting comfortable at work. And I started proper therapy at the Clinic for Anxiety and Personality Disorders. Progress. I also started going more regularly to a playground in my neighbourhood. Spending time with the animals there. Goats and sheeps and horses. I started finding happiness. Feeling more and more progress. I felt good.

I feel good. This is where I’m at now. At the time of writing. There is almost no depression left. There is still social phobia but I’m working actively to fight it. And it is definitely improving. Work is going well. The animals make me incredibly happy. I’m starting to look for my own place to live, so I can finally move out.

I have hope for a good future. I am no longer walking bones. I am a person. I believe that I will be okay.

I will be okay.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 24th, 2005 at 15:56 and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.