Mania and depression. Day and night. Light and shadow. For a long time I fought against one of the poles. I believed one was my enemy. I believed I had to choose. Today I know better. Freedom comes first. It is the first thing we receive — from God, from life, from what carries us. With it I decide every day how I live with both poles. One choice: to lose oneself in one pole. To identify with it. To take it for the whole truth. To fight against the other. ...
A blog by an Austrian fool who crosses boundaries in every sense — in thinking, in writing, in faith. Nothing is too set in stone to be reconsidered. I have been programming publicly for over 24 years. Parts of that work can be found online at @jochumdev and @r3j0. I am a Highly Sensitive Person — once, especially as a child and young adult, a curse; today a gift. I worked in social services in IT — in various roles, over many years. Since 2011 I have also been a client (Bipolar 1 and non-substance addiction). What I have experienced on both sides shapes how I think and write. ...
“My doctor says I have the most extreme version of psychiatric diagnoses.” That’s how I put it. Bipolar Type 1, with psychoses. I say it at the bar, over coffee, on a walk. Openly. Directly. For years. What happens next is almost always the same: people start talking. “My brother has that too.” “My aunt was in the clinic for years.” “In our family, no one talks about that.” Sometimes they want to unload. Sometimes they want to understand. Often both. ...