The Return of Hope: A Personal Story of Overcoming Stress and Depression

By Helle Eriksen

A personal story of fighting stress and depression. Author Helle Eriksen tells an honest story of fighting two major health problems of modern time. She tells you how she got her life back after a long and chaotic period in life, which resulted in a major depression. Her aim is to make the reader feel less lonely and start talking and writing about stress and depression. This book is recommended to everybody who struggle with stress and depression and their families. Read it and be inspired to a better and more authentic life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helle Eriksen
• Release date: May 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9788799538706

Helle Eriksen

Mother of twins, soon-to-be wife, runner, writer. Learn more at www.humanlifepublishing.com

Book preview

The Return of Hope

A Personal Story of Overcoming Stress and Depression

By Helle Eriksen

Published by Human Life Publishing at Smashwords

Copyrigt 2012 Helle Eriksen

Learn more about Helle Eriksen and Human Life Publishing at www.humanlifepublishing.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to any other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you´re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

List of contents

Introduction – Why did I write this book?

Chapter 1: Find your values

Chapter 2: Learn to live in the moment

Chapter 3: Silence after the storm

Chapter 4: My life today

Introduction - Why did I write this book?

On April 4, 2005, at 13.22, I received an email at work. There was nothing unusual in the email. It was just another list of things for me to take care of.

What was unusual, however, was my response. For some reason, I suddenly couldn’t handle the content of the email. I started crying, my heart was pounding, and I couldn’t breathe. I completely lost the ability to focus and return to the tasks waiting for me that day. Nothing my colleagues said to me helped. And the worst of it was that I had no clue why this was happening.

I ended up driving home and lying on the couch, and, for the first week of my sick leave, I slept 16 hours a day because of stress, which I was diagnosed with. This was the beginning of a very long process with several sick leaves and new jobs. This was also the time when I began to have something to say about stress and subsequently about depression, as my stress developed into a major depression over time.

A desire to make a difference

This book contains my thoughts from the period during which I recreated my life and moved on with the knowledge that my life would only become healthy when I began to realize that only I could change my stress and work on making my depression go away.

This is my personal story of illness, loss, prejudice, anxiety, and, in the end, a way back to life with everything that entails of major life changes, sudden progress, and a hope at the end of the tunnel. I will tell you about my defeats, disappointments, experiences, and healing process – without any filter or clever shortcuts to happiness.

A book for you who takes stress and depression seriously

My role has been to write the book that I was looking for during my process. A book written by someone who had experienced stress and depression personally. The book I couldn’t find but needed so desperately: The book on how another person had experienced my situation and had moved on.

This book is for you who is feeling stressed or depressed because of stress, and for you who don’t wish to become either. It is also for you whose close one is suffering from stress and depression, and you need input on how to handle the situation. This book is therefore relevant to anyone who wishes to participate actively in making sure that her life and those of the people important to her are lived positively.

If you are suffering from either stress or a depression, it is important that you not only read this book, but that you also make sure that you receive professional treatment – for example from your doctor, a therapist or a psychiatrist or some other professional. I am not a trained expert on stress or depression, and this book is just my personal contribution based on my own experiences. There are already a lot of books and websites which can provide you with information about the biological, psychological, and social backgrounds of stress and depression as well as symptom lists and stress tests.

But my book may be able to fulfill your need to read about how another human being thought and acted in life after suffering from stress and depression, and how she created a new life with hope for a brighter future. My main point is that you as an individual can make choices that will enable you to change the factors causing you stress and depression. It is also possible to become much better at living in the moment, accepting life, and coping with your surroundings when feeling stressed out.

The personal story is important in order to understand and treat illnesses

I wrote my story because the common literature on stress and depression is rarely personal and relevant enough to accommodate a person’s life – this being said and written with all due respect to the