Germany's international football keeper took his life on Tuesday. In a press conference on Wednesday his wife and his therapist revealed that he'd been suffering from depression for several years. Now the media all over the country exploded with coverage of his case and also depression in general.


Everyone keeps asking how no one besides his family could have noticed. People keep saying how "normal" and down to earth he'd always seemed. Those two things alone (and they are not the only ones I could talk about) show how much is wrong with the perception of depression.
I really, really hope that at least some of the people following the coverage will start to realize that people suffering from depression are not necessarily lonely weirdos, they are not necessarily people who are not successful, and they most certainly don't have to be what you'd consider weak.
On the contrary, a lot of people suffering from depression have unrealistic expectations of themselves and a hard time coming to terms with imperfection. They might be the ones who work the hardest and usually get what they work for, they might have no rationally understandable "reason" to be depressed. They are just normal people, you might have to take a very close look to even suspect something could be wrong.
And for a lot of them, having people realize how bad they feel is the most horrible thing imaginable. Seeing how many of them are afraid of failing more than anything else, letting people know or even letting others help them is not acceptable. Admitting to yourself that you can't win against those feelings is bad enough, admitting it to others is harder still.
Whenever I broke down, it was always alone. And most times I was torn between extreme fear that anyone would find me, and desperately wanting someone to come and help me without having to ask for it. My Mom got petty good at noticing at some point, though it made me feel horrible every single time for pulling her into that mess with me.

Answers to more questions from a while back. First 5 are by pot_of_coffee, the other 5 by mmailliw.

( 1) If your life was a movie, what genre would it be? )

I need a pause button for my life, seriously. Everything is going so fast. When the heck did it become November? Where did all of October go? The list of things I need to do gets longer every day, and it seems that the more I get done the more keeps getting added to the list.

Remember how I was all excited about probably graduating half a year earlier than I thought before? That turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought it would be. I assumed I could do two of my three diploma exams after this semester, and then the last one plus my thesis the semester afterwards, so during spring/summer 2010. Except it doesn't work that way. Our system instead demands that I do one exam this winter, and then both the other two and my thesis the semester after that. :/
I can still do it, but instead of working my butt off during winter I'll have to do it during the summer months. There are so many things I'd rather do during summer. LOL
My alternative is doing one exam this winter, the other two next summer, and then take an additional 6 months for the thesis. But now that I've started to dream of finishing a year from now, that would be like dangling a present in front of my nose and then taking it away. My brother and I have talked about traveling together if we both finish studying next summer/fall, I just want to get done with this all, and I'd love to graduate with most of my friends from uni instead of later.
So I guess I will still attempt to go with the two-semester option, and just accept that my next summer will be tiresome and full of math instead of running around outdoors.

Happy Birthday, Kat!!!

I miss you like crazy, and I hope you're having the greatest time with Jacque and Jamie right now :D

Thanks for all your nice comments on my last post! I'm feeling a lot better by now. Kidney pains are gone, as is the fever and most of the other symptoms. I still need to pee too often, but I can live with that XD


One of my old highschool friends emailed me today. We were pretty close through most of our time at school, but we grew apart afterwards. Well, actually we started growing apart during our last two years at school when he got jealous of my good results since he put a lot of effort into schoolwork and I didn't. And lately we just didn't have a lot in common anymore. I started university, he did on the job training at BMW, my image of myself and the world around me fell apart while he continued to be rather full of himself. In conclusion, we just didn't really understand where the other one came from and thus we drifted apart.
Now he finished his training, and decided to start studying. English, econ, and... mathematics. Math is only his minor, but as the dutiful friend I am I still warned him it wouldn't be like anything he expected.
Well he still decided to go through with it, but today, after a whole week of studying he already sent me an email asking for help with his first set of exercises.
He was so convinced he'd be better at it than I was (like he always was about everything), and even though it probably makes me a horrible person, I can't pretend not to be pleased that he apparently isn't.

If I'm not around much for the next couple of days it's due to an infection I have. I need to pee every half hour or so, and I've been having pain in my kidneys since Tuesday. So now I'm on antibiotics and the doctor said I'll feel considerably better within three days. Fun times.

Mindy, I'll try to be there for question approving at some point, probably tomorrow night. Drop me a line if you need me earlier than that?

The Good: Umm, today after talking to one of my friends from uni about our schedules for the new term starting on Monday, I sort of realized that I could graduate half a year earlier than I had planned so far. For quite some time now the plan was to graduate in spring 2011, after 11 semesters of studying. But after this semester (the ninth) I'll be pretty much done with all the classes I need to take except for two, so there's really no point hanging around an additional 6 months, is it?

The Bad: That means, however, that I have to get working on exam preparations for 2/3 of my diploma final exams basically yesterday, since the first one would have to be in February/March and the second one in April. (Then one more semester for those two classes, my thesis, and in the end my third and final exam.)
Tbh the prospect of having not only one, but two of those exams in not even 6 months scares me a bit. I've changed so much since I started studying in 2005, it's hard to grasp it might be over in just about a year.

The Ugly: Not related to the above since it happened before I even found out, I had quite a bit of a meltdown today. To keep it short, anxiety and doubt were hitting home big time, and it got a bit too much to handle :/ I've felt it coming for a while, but it was still not a pleasant thing. It was my first really bad day since May, though, so I'm holding up pretty well. Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of my first therapy session. Weird, it feels both way longer ago than that and like it was just yesterday.
Talked to my Mom on the phone some time ago, and I'm a lot calmer now. Yay, I guess.

Oh hey, look, it's another entry without a week inbetween :D I'm so proud XD
Since it's a completely random mix of things, have bullet points!

• I have a new layout! It's pretty. Though I have issues with big-ish pictures on my friends page breaking the layout :/ Use cuts, people!



• They say it is possibly going to snow here this week! WTF, DO NOT WANT! It's barely October, we had nice almost summer weather just last week. Snow, argh.



• I submitted an application at HiH to be stamped as a character. The results are hilarious, almost ridiculous even. I got votes for 15 (!) different characters, including completely random offputting ones I do not see at all. Lavender? Parvati? Harry?? I... don't think so.
  
  What do you guys think? What HP character is most similar to me? Who do I remind you of?
  
  Poll #1470102 Stamping
  Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 5

  What HP character do I remind you of the most?



• Has anyone ever watched the show Burn Notice? It started airing in Germany a few weeks ago and so far I'm enjoying it, so I'm thinking about downloading and watching at my own pace and in English.