Episode 11:
I know it all to well how just being in a certain place can reduce your anxiety. It was Helsinki for me. I am from Moscow, and before coming to Helsinki I never even realized how much "background stress" I was experiencing just by being there, until I came to Helsinki for 3 days vacation.
It did not occur to me right when we landed, no, but I started feeling it when we sat in the taxi to our hotel. It felt like weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and if some hole appeared in me. It can be that it was also effect of medication, that I was taking at the time, that helping me recover from burnout (and helping with bipolar, too, although I did not know about it yet), but later when I moved here... It was the same.
I still feel much lighter compared to my time in Moscow. And I even feel lighter than how I felt in 2021, when I just moved in. Again there is medication, which does help a lot with controlling bipolar disorder, but I think it just helps me... Heal, I guess.
I am not an outdoorsy person, really, I do prefer sitting at home, and it took me awhile to realize, that part of the reason was the anxiety, that I felt when I go outside. That anxiety is not gone, especially since I still cannot speak Finnish (just a few phrases and some random words), so there is anxiety from that (like fear of someone not understanding me, or me not understanding them), but it feels so... Distant. Small.
Last week I went out with a friend, and I went through some streets where I've never been before, and on those streets I felt calmer than on familiar streets back in Moscow. If that kind of calmness is not a reason enough to stay somewhere, I do not what is.
