About Perspective (and my 3D Portfolio! :)

Greetings, fellow internet traveler! The digital roads of our interconnected networks have been difficult, to say the least; but I'm happy to be here composing one more tile on this path.

Do any close people to you have depression, or do you?

That was the question my Uber driver asked me a few days ago. I had a coupon for 40% off on an Uber Black ride, so that was my choice, since I needed to use my notebook mid-trip to finish off some projects. I never change the "Do you like chatting?" settings since I indeed don't mind talking, but I also don't mind the silence. I entered the car and asked if it was okay to use my computer, and no problems. He was really nice and sounded truthful after answering my question, but I felt like he was uneasy with something.

I opened my computer, started to finish off the 3D model I was creating, when the "Battery Low" warning flashed; oh, well. And in that exact moment, when I was about to start my anxious routine of self-blaming when something unexpected happens, that he asked me the question above.

Do any close people to you have depression, or do you?

The seconds that followed the question seemed to slow down. In my head, questions came "Why would he ask that? Is this some sort of scam?"

Yes, I do was my answer.

And, to my surprise, he asked me for help. His girlfriend has been dealing with mental health issues for some years, but it's gotten worse these past few days. He needed to talk to someone that had gone through it, because he didn't know what to do to help.

I've been forced to deal with my mental health for a little over 9 years now. I've written a bit about it here, but my Anxiety that caused my first serious depressive episode. In a way, depression and anxiety are the two opposite pathological extremes in our psyche; anxiety arises when our thinking mind overexcites itself, and depression takes over when it's underexcited, in an oversimplification, obviously. The thing is, I do have some experience in living with my mental health equilibrium dancing from extreme to extreme.

I won't share more about her story or what I said specifically to their case, but I feel like I could register some of those ideas here, not only to try and help other people that may need to read it, but also so that I can come back to it when I needed.

First off, it's gonna take time. Every process in this Universe we live in takes time to happen. So, we need to exercise our patience and resilience. We need to believe that we can get better, that mental health disorders are treatable and Human, that we can and deserve to be helped.

That brings me to the second point: we deserve to be helped. Not only by others, but specially by You, yourself. There's only one person that's having the entire experience of living as you, every single moment; so You need to be your ally. We tend to overjudge ourselves. It's almost common knowledge that we're harsher on ourselves than on others. However, it's not only about knowing, we need to act, even if it's only on our thinking processes.

There was a time where I couldn't find energy to leave my bed to take a shower. It feels good to write this here, because I remember how terribly ashamed I was at the time. But, even if you judged me a bit on it, it's part of life. Each one of us is going through a different battle, with its own particular characteristics, and it takes time. We need to cherish every little victory as another step forward.

Breathe. Deeply inhale through your nose, and slowly exhale trough your mouth. I had the terrible experience of going through panic attacks, which are extreme anxiety attacks, and I can easily state that breathing saved me at those moments. When I mentioned it, the driver asked "And what could you do to make it pass?", wait. I just needed to keep breathing, try to remember that it is going to end, and wait. Minutes that felt like hours, the sense of time and logic completely disrupted. But it always ended.

Finally, it's all normal; and I chose this word in the sense that, just like any person can end up having a flu, anyone can also end up in a state of depression. It's human. We need to be gentle with ourselves, with our own. And this is a message not only for our relationship with ourselves, but with others too. We don't need to love every single other being; but we also don't need to make them suffer.

And yeah, I can definitely admit that taking care of these two beings has been life-changing

I ended up not being able to work during my Uber, and it was probably one of the best things that could've happened in that trip. Life's funny, because when I got there, I had a response for a different project that I didn't even have much hope of doing anymore.

It's been a couple difficult weeks to be a freelancer, but that's the way things are. I discovered that I can better manage my anxiety working my own hours, and developing my skills by myself. It's not been easy, but it's definitely been a great achievement for me.

Having said all that, I finally got around to making a behance page that I can call mine, with some of my 3D modeling and Digital Fabrication projects. If you have needs for a professional in 3D modeling, I've been working on the CAD Software Rhinoceros for nine more than 11 years already, and I also do have experience with Digital Fabrication processes. Maybe we can even make an arrangement to pay in STEEM :)

My Portfolio

Finally, I just wanted to explicit that 5% of this post's rewards are set to @thoth.test, an incredible initiative by @remlaps that I'm happy to be supporting! You can learn more about #lifetime-rewards for Steemit authors here.

Also, 25% of this post's rewards are set to @null, in order to burn a fraction of the STEEM printed to help fight inflation in our network! #burnsteem25

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Thank you for reading until this point! I hope this second semester of 2025 turns out to be full of positive and growing experiences to us all, and that maybe you make another person smile today :)