Introduction

 Greetings from Finland! :)

I have been thinking a lot about my life, especially my past. 

So, I decided to start this new blog about my life so far, especially about my childhood and teenage years, the ups and downs, the happy and the sad... Everything, in fact, that I feel like I want and need to write about. 

I have over 25-30 journals filled already at home and the same amount of started ones. :D 

I will not be transcribing them or anything, they are very private. This will be the more easy version, with all the things that are most personal not included. Sorry if you came here for some personal stuff! LOL. It will be more of a deep dive into some areas of my life namely: The way I was bullied in school and my mini mission and the first time I had to stay at the hospital. (Eight months, when I was 17).

The older I get (I am going to be 43 in May 2023), the more I reflect on the past. I asked my therapist if that is a good thing and I can't remember her exact answer but I think some reflecting is not bad. That is just my personal opinion. If I can understand my past and learn from it and as a bonus maybe teach others too something about life, that would be good.

Today I watched "Awakenings" with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. It is one of my favorite movies ever! Today I cried for most of the time watching it. It is about a hospital with patients with catatonia. They have not been "awake" for years, decades in fact. Then one doctor wants to help them with a new kind of medicine and it manages to wake them up. (For a while, like a few weeks or so.) Their symtoms are very close to Parkinson's disease. That's where my life comes into play. I was 8 months in the mental hospital called Pitkäniemi here in Finland, in the city of Nokia, near Tampere where I have lived most of my life. It was my first time there. I was 17 years old and had just come home from my mini mission in Jyväskylä where I served as a missionary for two weeks. I had only been able to get 4 hours of sleep each night there. I got an acute psychosis while on my mission. 

They gave me a medicine called klorpromazin. It is an anti psychotic (old-time) medicine. It gave me severe extra pyramidic symtoms that made me stiff. My muscles all were really stiff for a long time. I could not walk properly, dress myself or even eat. The shrink at the hospital though I was faking so he said to get over it... The church ward all prayed and fasted for me and the very next day (a Monday of course) the doctor decided to try a medicine to help with the stiffness: AKINETON. It removed my symtoms really fast and the doctor had to swallow his words... The stiffness was a lot like Parkinson's so that is where the connection with the movie comes in :)

Only like maybe this week, I have started thinking about the other missionaries I worked with. They must have been kinda different or something for not notcing anything.... I feel bad that they did not really tried to help me. They did not know me maybe and maybe they knew nothing about mental illness. Anyway, when I came back I was very ill. Nowadays many missionaries I meet want to become doctors, many things are better now than in 1997...

I went back to my school, tried to continue my studies but it did not work out. I ended up in the hospital on the 18th of August 1997. I stayed there until maybe it was the 21st of April 1998, if I remember correctly... EIGHT MONTHS. As a teenager, away from my parents in a hospital, alone. I have only later understood how horrible that must have been for my parents and I know it was tough for me. I am also an only child. I was bullied from the first day of school until I became ill. THEN my bullies regretted their actions! HAHHAHA! Then they tried being remorseful or whatever but a true apology has only happened twice and it was after the year 2000. The year I graduated. Sure, I was ill and without school for eight months but that did not mean I was stupid! I went back to school, finished with good grades and graduated, one year later than my "mean class".

One girl who bullied me apologized to me sometime in 2018?!? It took her over 20 years to get the guts. I understand, it is hard to say "sorry" but it is also hard to forgive. It is a teeny bit easier to forgive if the person is sorry or at least says they are sorry... Of course I am not saying the teachers were not to blame. In fact: everyone is to blame, both teachers and students.  And my genes, my predisposition to get ill. I just realised it could not have been a lot worse than it got for me back in 1997 except of course if I had gotten so ill I would have irrevocably done myself somet perilous harm, which I am happy to say I did not do and I am still alive and kicking :) But it could have been maybe a little less horrible. If I would not have been bullied, if I had not gone on a mini mission, if if if... :( Yet, I do not regret the mini mission. I am actually grateful to know now how it is to have been bullied, it has taught me a lot. 

Everything that I have been through has helped me in some way, even the bad things.

This was a little part of my history. More later! :)