Maarten Van De Velde shared his struggle with depression in an emotive open letter. The act has created a conversation around depression and recovery!
Maarten shared his story hoping it will highlight the struggle and show that it can happen to anyone at any point. He hoped the letter would be received well and it has! Facebook users have been praising him for his courage and sharing their own stories of struggle!
Here is a snippet from his letter.
Dear Facebook friends, I’m not used to sharing long texts on social media, and especially not about myself, and even less about what goes on in my personal more private life.
But for one time I want to make an exception. I did think it through the last couple of weeks. So here we go…
The people that know me quite well know I have been battling with myself for a very long time ending up in some of the darkest places in life also referred to as depression, it hit me the first time very hard at seventeen and hit me even harder three years ago at the age of twenty-nine.
As mentioned earlier. I’m not used to opening up about it on social media, but on the other hand I would feel grateful to reach out and to contribute a very tiny bit on getting a very big taboo out of the world and maybe this message could just for a split second soften the intensity of those extreme racing thoughts generating all those feelings of embarrassment, guilt, failure, weakness, loneliness, anxiety, panic attacks…so many people out there are fighting with every day again.
One and a half years ago, for five months I did not dare to leave my house further than the driveway…
Often the first question people ask when I open up about my depression is “why did you get it…”, well I think it makes as much sense as asking, why did you get the flu last week.
I’m glad to say I got the fire burning again, thanks to my wonderful parents, the extreme support of my brother making time in his busy life to Skype at least twice a week with me over the last three years, my sister-in-law and their three wonderful little daughters, slowly turning into big girls now and since very recently the wonderful lady, I can now call my girlfriend.
Thanks to my wonderful friends at home, you know who you are
😉.
Thanks to so many wonderful and kind people I’ve met on the road to recovery, that became like family.
And especially being surrounded by so much beauty, kindness, creativity, authenticity and the inspiring environment, the waves and so much more to name here in Jbay, the best possible medicine for my soul. I start to get the feeling I’m getting strong on my feet again and I’ve found back the passion for life. However I will never be able to guarantee a 100% it will not happen again. But let’s stay postive!
…Back to the refound passion for life…
I’ve always had a little ‘little desire to inspire’ to share some of the simple beauty that’s there to see every day again in nature, in people, in creativity and especially, living all of my life at the seaside, in my connection with the seas and the oceans.
That’s why I’m so grateful my dad allowed me to take his camera with me to Jbay three years ago and I started playing around with it and discovered an ‘under-explored’ passion for photography and a vehicle to share a little impression of that beauty that’s out there, which makes my heart make a little jump of joy when I’m able to (dis)-cover it.
Now since I showed one of my biggest photography idols, and a human being that just radiates warmth and kindness Ted Grambeau a shot of that otter with the fish and he said there might be some potential in it. I found the courage to carefully dare to dream a big step further.
Which is to try to make a (partial) living out of photography and just dreaming even a huge step further to just maybe put some steps towards professional surf photography; Capturing some of the world’s best, and some of the world’s happiest surfers painting the most beautiful lines on some of the world’s most incredible canvasses which show up and disappear in the blink of an eye, also called waves.
And maybe just creating a little memory of that one wave that gave that smile that potentially lasted for a couple of days and even can cause some severe cheek cramps… Yes surfing can be harmful indeed.
by 