Hello Steemit-world!

helle (57)in #introduceyourself • 8 years ago

My name is Helle, and I`ve finally finished my introduction-post. I have been busy with work and starting a food-blog with my sister @camilla. I work full time at a day center for people with different mental disabilities. I've been working there for 2 years now, and I'm still amazed by how much I learn from the beautiful people I work with. Maybe I will write more about that in a different post.

Where I grew up

I'm from Norway, currently living in Oslo. I was born in a city called Narvik, it's in the north of Norway. I`m lucky to have an wonderful sister and an awesome brother. We have a great relationship founded on trust and honesty and they have inspired me in many ways. They are also here on Steem: @camilla and @rarepepe, check out their blogs :)

I was lucky to grow up in a place where I was totally free to explore this little place. There's almost no cars passing by, so the kids can run around freely. Me, my sister, my brother and many other children practically grew up outside. Our mom was studying and staying at home, our father building boats next to our house, so we did not go to kindergarten. We were many children playing together and the moms did not want everyone of us inside, so we had to play outside. All the time, even in the cold nordic winter. We just had to dress well, and at lunch-time we ate outside. It was a wonderful time! I loved being outside, exploring the nature, running in the grass, looking at the ocean, climbing trees, rocks and the local school in the sunny midnights.

My love for animals, nature and people

I developed a deep connection to nature, and my parents encouraged this. They took us into the wild, camping, fishing and skiing. I learned early on how to part a fish and how to use a knife. Me and my sister got our first knife as a 4-year old. We used it to carve out sticks and trying to make a willow flute.

My parents also taught me to respect everyone, and take care of both people we know and strangers we met. I always felt the need to help others, and I`ve been trying to help people and animals all my life.

Along the way I forgot to take care of myself, especially when we moved away from this safe haven called Straumsnes and to the opposite side of the country, to the south. For me it felt like a different part of the world. My father got a job as a boat builder, so we packed our things and moved. We left all our friends and family - very sad, but also with a lot of optimism.

A trip to the dark side

When I started school in this new place, I soon realized I was very different from the other children. I was a little naive, shy girl from the north and I did not fit in. Early on I got picked at because of my strange nordic dialect, and I had never experienced this much negative attention. After some time with more mean bullying, I got lost in depression and home-sickness. I started overeating as compensation for all this quite shitty stuff which I was too young to handle. To make it short, we lived three years in the south. We did not have the time of our lives, so we moved back to Narvik.

I started secondary school wanting to be invisible, scared of taking up too much space. This gradually faded away, and in search for attention, love and anything to hold on to, I was an easy target. I got into some bad and abusive relationships, and I had some rough time through my teenage years struggling with the feeling of not being worthy of living. I colored my hair black and listened to dark music.

And up to the light

With support of my amazing family, friends, drawing, writing, hiking in the mountains and some hard mental work, I came back to life as an improved version of myself. Since then I've been diving into spirituality and trying to spread peace and love ♥

I'm not sure what I will be posting on Steemit, and that's what I love about this place. You can do whatever you want, and you don't have to put yourself in a box. I think Steemit will be the future of social media because it connects people in a whole new way. I look forward to see what Steem will become and I'm happy to be part of the future of the internet!