Next steps…

Sun­day 23^rd March 2025

It’s Mon­day mor­ning, 17 March in Stanta Cruz, Sil­veira. My ho­tel is usually empty, most of the Por­tu­guese tou­rists I’ve seen in the last few weeks leave on Sun­days. I love the at­mo­sphere in empty ho­tels, it’s quiet, the staff are re­la­xed and usually more tal­ka­tive than usual. To­day, un­fort­u­na­tely, the day star­ted with heavy thun­der­storms in the mor­ning, but un­til yes­ter­day early evening the whole weekend had re­mained dry and sunny. The sun, as soon as it shi­nes here, is so hot and plea­santly warm­ing. Re­ally just what I wanted.

My in­ner is­sues, which came in so un­ex­pec­tedly last week, are con­stantly with me this week. In ad­di­tion, the wea­ther has re­mained in­cre­di­bly unsta­ble, stormy and dan­ge­rous all week. Hi­king is now al­most im­pos­si­ble. So my plan­ned long-di­stance hike fur­ther north is not only be­ing jeo­par­di­sed by my men­tal state these days.

What should I do?

Ma­king de­cis­i­ons has been much har­der for me these days than I’m used to. The more op­ti­ons there are, the more over­whel­med I am. I usually like to do a lot of re­se­arch, and in the end I usually make a quick de­cis­ion. At the mo­ment, ho­we­ver, ever­y­thing in­side me is so­mehow start­ing to wa­ver. I of­ten in­ter­rupt thoughts in which I want to sum­ma­rise new in­for­ma­tion and make a de­cis­ion, I quickly get a hea­da­che and sim­ply can no lon­ger think cle­arly. I get shaky, have pro­blems ty­ing my shoes or fas­tening buttons.

I ha­ven’t spo­ken to an­yone all day for days. In­s­tead, a young man sud­denly speaks to me to­day du­ring one of my walks on the beach and says that I have such an aura, that he thinks I’m so­me­thing spe­cial and wants to talk to me. Would that be sui­ta­ble for me? ‘To be ho­nest, I don’t want to talk with you, it’s a little bit weird and I feel un­com­for­ta­ble. Sorry.’ With that, I say good­bye to the young man who loo­ked like Je­sus Christ hims­elf. Was that too harsh? Was that stu­pid of me? Alt­hough I’ve ba­si­cally had no one to talk to for days, I thought it was the right de­cis­ion as I’m fee­ling con­fu­sed en­ough mys­elf right now.

My thoughts are spin­ning: Can­cel­ling the hike here and now seems ex­ces­sive, even though I feel very un­well over­all. The ef­fort of or­ga­ni­s­ing my re­turn jour­ney from here, one of these places that seem like places in the void, un­real as in a dream world, over­w­helms me. All the trans­port links lead back to Lis­bon, from where I have wal­ked with con­sidera­ble ef­fort. The thought seems ab­surd to me and I push it aside for days.

Th­rea­tening waves

Today’s hi­king stage from Santa Cruz to Pe­ni­che is can­cel­led for good. It’s thun­de­ring. So I take an Uber the whole way. A fri­endly young wo­man dri­ves me. The jour­ney ta­kes 45 mi­nu­tes, du­ring which I have a con­ver­sa­tion for the first time in a while. It feels good.

A day like a sum­mer holiday

I spend the next two days in Pe­ni­che, a town that looks more like a large fi­shing vil­lage, lo­ca­ted in the pro­vince of Ex­tre­ma­dura. It got its name from sail­ors from An­ci­ent Greece, as it is re­mi­nis­cent of the place ‘Pho­inix’ on Crete. And it is known for its sur­fing wa­ves – but also as the world’s se­cond lar­gest trans­ship­ment centre for sar­di­nes. Pe­ni­che bul­ges out of the main­land like a sphere, and I thought it felt more like an is­land when I set foot on it. To my as­to­nish­ment, I learn that it ac­tually used to be. Al­re­ady in­ha­bi­ted by Ne­an­dert­hals, a na­tu­ral land con­nec­tion for­med bet­ween it and the main­land from the 15^th cen­tury on­wards. My ho­tel is lo­ca­ted on this land con­nec­tion, di­rectly on the sur­fing beach. I’m stay­ing in a very sporty surf ho­tel here and feel a bit of a stran­ger among the surfers.

So I walk around the for­mer is­land, with a fort and castle, an old town wi­t­hout any new buil­dings, which can cer­tainly be very ro­man­tic in sum­mer. I sud­denly find mys­elf in a kind of me­dieval at­mo­sphere. The streets are to­tally empty, the ca­fés clo­sed, a few pubs and a few re­stau­rants are open on these rough days. The quays are cordo­ned off with red and white rib­bons and from a di­stance I can see men­acin­gly high, huge wa­ves shoo­ting over the al­re­ady high walls and ram­parts into the har­bour. It sca­res me. I try to ob­serve the peo­ple I meet, but all I can see are gloomy faces that I’d ra­ther not talk to. At the end of a street, I watch a few ex­tre­mely high, th­rea­tening wa­ves again and around the cor­ner next to me, stan­ding on a small wall, I sud­denly see many Por­tu­guese peo­ple loo­king in the di­rec­tion of the wa­ves, dis­cus­sing loudly and ge­sti­cu­la­ting wildly with their hands. When I speak to a youn­ger one of them about the wa­ves, he tells me briefly and suc­cinctly that this is an unu­sual and so­me­what worry­ing si­tua­tion for them too.

Fee­ling a little uneasy, I quickly leave this part of the is­land. As evening falls, I head straight back to my sports ho­tel. Once there, I’m told that I’d bet­ter not leave the ho­tel, as the go­vern­ment re­com­mends that I don’t leave the buil­dings af­ter 6pm.

The next mor­ning the sun is shi­ning, it’s nor­mal, windy and nice wea­ther. I go on a day hike to the next two bays and back again. I en­joy the blue sky, warm rays of suns­hine, strong wa­ves, fine sand and lots and lots of won­derful sur­fers ri­ding the waves.

Ho­we­ver, on this sunny day un­til the evening, I hear in every café, re­stau­rant and brief con­ver­sa­tion on the beach that this day was the last sunny day for the next two weeks. OMG, I’ve al­re­ady had bad wea­ther for the last two weeks… My un­cer­tainty for the near fu­ture returns.

Ever­y­thing is as it is

That same evening, I have long con­ver­sa­ti­ons with Ger­many, my part­ner and my the­ra­pist. As the hours pass, I al­low mys­elf to think more and more: what if I were to in­ter­rupt this hike, tra­vel to Ger­many and take care of my men­tal he­alth, my in­ner sta­bi­lity first? As soon as I’ve said this sen­tence out loud, I’m cal­mer, it’s all very easy. I make doctor’s ap­point­ments in Co­lo­gne from here, book the next flight to Co­lo­gne-Bonn, a ho­tel for two days in and a bus to Lis­bon for the next day.

Be­ing kind to yourself

I fall as­leep re­la­xed. Alt­hough some of my di­gi­tal com­pa­n­ions write to me or tell me that I should­n’t feel like a fail­ure or that it’s brave to in­ter­rupt the jour­ney, I don’t feel that way at all. I have doubts as to whe­ther I am be­ing un­ders­tood, but no doubts as to whe­ther I am be­ing truthful at this point. Ra­rely in my life have I been so sure that I need help and that I have to take this new path. Of course I don’t want to di­s­ap­point an­yone, but that’s ac­tually why I ori­gi­nally wan­ted to go on this jour­ney: To find a way to me, to fi­gure out what was stop­ping me from be­ing me. Ad­mit­tedly, I did­n’t ex­pect the wave of rea­li­sa­tion to hit so hard and fast. But: ever­y­thing is as it is. I ac­cept the chall­enge. I would like to say to you: I am sorry that my outer jour­ney has been in­ter­rupted for the time be­ing. Ho­we­ver, my in­ner jour­ney is only just beginning.

Lis­bon: Per­sis­tent storm war­nings and their reality

Back in Lis­bon, I ex­pe­ri­ence real storms of the cen­tury for most of the day for two days. Se­ve­ral thousand fire­fight­ing mis­si­ons du­ring the night ac­tually keep me awake for most of the first night. De­spite ever­y­thing, I en­joy the city du­ring the day as it is sim­ply much emp­tier than usual. Equip­ped with a rain ja­cket, good shoes and an um­brella, I walk up and down the hills and sa­vour the at­mo­sphere of a rainy, windy and, un­fort­u­na­tely, so­me­what de­vas­ta­ted Lisbon.

Re­co­g­nis­ing your own needs

One last mor­ning on Fri­day in the break­fast room of my won­derful ho­tel ‘Pi­coas’, with a view of the city in its pas­tel-co­lou­red dres­ses in pink, light green and yel­low. One last ‘Tudo bem, muito obri­gada, até a pró­xima e tudo de bom!’

‘Boar­ding com­ple­ted.’ We are al­re­ady de­par­ting when the plane stops. The Lis­bon city coun­cil pro­hi­bits take-off due to the cur­rent storm si­tua­tion. So we wait again be­cause of the storm. Ever­y­thing stands still for just un­der an hour. The storm in Por­tu­gal stays with me un­til the end. I am in­cre­di­bly gra­teful to it, be­cause only be­cause of it am I here and now, so quickly, af­ter just four weeks, on the di­rect path to myself.

And what about the blog?

And what about us, this blog and my con­tri­bu­ti­ons? The in­ner jour­ney will con­ti­nue and I will con­ti­nue with the to­pic of neu­ro­di­ver­sity and a cor­re­spon­ding dia­gno­stic pro­ce­dure for adults over 50 ye­ars of age. If you like, then stay tu­ned. If you are more in­te­res­ted in the jour­ney along the west co­ast of Eu­rope, then you will have to wait a little lon­ger be­fore I con­ti­nue. I tra­vel­led from the sou­thern­most tip, Cap Vi­cente, to Pe­ni­che, stayed in a to­tal of 19 places and wal­ked just un­der 350 km in the last four weeks. So far, for now, of the ap­prox. 3000 km of the At­lan­tic west co­ast of Eu­rope. My in­ner jour­ney now ta­kes prio­rity. Per­haps I will take up the co­as­tal hike again at some point. For now, ho­we­ver, I hap­pily ar­ri­ved in Wind­eck on Sa­tur­day, in my bel­oved Rhein-Sieg dis­trict with lots of peace and nature.

Please get in touch by email if you have a good tip re­gar­ding dia­gno­stic pro­ce­du­res for neu­ro­di­ver­sity, espe­ci­ally for adults. Re­se­arch in this area has im­pro­ved con­sider­a­bly in re­cent ye­ars, but it is not easy to find the right one for yours­elf. I am gra­teful for any tips.

Once again, I wish you a good start to the week! Stay sta­ble and give yours­elf a big hug!

See you soon,
El­len