Hi everyone... its been a while indeed, I'm sorry for that but I have had a little adventure, in reality I'm still on this adventure.

This adventure hasn't taken me places, it follows me wherever I go, and this adventure hasn't taken me outside of Australia or outside of Melbourne for that matter, no its a different kinda of adventure.

The name of this adventure is called depression and turns out I have it, pretty goddamn badly.

I understand this blog was meant to be really happy and advice giving and really inspirational (look, it probably wasn't any of these but let me dream)... and now its just been a bit hard to be like that, and that is the reason why I haven't written and I apologise for that but so far into this quite scary adventure I have learnt a few things and I would like to share them with you.

Before when I didn't have depression, I aimed to feel happy all the time, only now have realised that is completely unachievable, no one can be happy all the time and that is simply because the world is an imperfect place and bad things happen in it, so it's impossible to not be unhappy sometimes. I used to think that just feeling 'okay' was bad, like feeling nothing, but now I see it as a break from emotion and a rest from feeling things and I love feeling just 'okay'. So if I am to part some of my philosophical wisdom upon you it would be to feel good about just feeling okay, if anything be happy that you just feel okay because being happy all the time isn't realistic and will only make you sad if you aren't happy.

Another thing I learnt is the power of a good hug. Honestly right now hugs are my best friend, simply because I feel so exposed all the time, but when I get a good hug from someone I feel a little bit better. This is because when you hug someone or someone you love hugs you it releases a hormone called oxytocin, it makes you feel better because it lets your brain release a chemical called dopamine which plays a pretty important part in how we perceive pleasure. Oxytocin does more than make us feel good. It lowers level of stress hormones in the body, reduces blood pressure, improves mood, increases tolerance for pain and can even speed up how fast wounds heal. So hugs are good for you, get lots of them.

One last thing I'll tell you that I learnt is that its important not to tell everyone about yourself. Don't be so open with people and I know everyone tells you to be an open book but there are somethings that you shouldn't share to people. The only reason its good to be an open book sometimes is to gain people's trust but that means that they find out things about you that they can use against you. And lets face it, people are assholes, they get mad or annoyed and will either use what you have told them against you or just stop talking to you in general. Both of which have happened to me, and they both suck. So keep personal stuff to yourself until you completely trust a person. If they stay, they are a true friend of yours, keep them as your friend.

Yeah so I think that's it so far, its been a bit crazy at the moment so I don't know when my next post will be and it won't be as long as this for sure.

If you read all of this I congratulate you, you are honestly an amazing and very talented person haha.

This post is dedicated to anyone who is having a hard time or suffering from any kind of depression, you're in my heart and in many others hearts right now and we are all thinking of you, please don't give up.

Yours Sincerely,
The Realist.