Fergal Keane's Journey Through PTSD and the Search for Happiness
In a powerful personal account, Fergal Keane reflects on living with PTSD, depression, and his search for balance in life. What he has discovered along the way is a deeper study of happiness that can apply to those with serious mental health challenges, but also to those simply in need of a lift.
There was a moment, nearly two years ago, when the change inside hit me with force. I was walking with a loved one on the eastern edge of Curragh beach in Ardmore, County Waterford, a place of warm refuge since I was a child. We paused beside a river that flows into Ardmore Bay. I was listening to the different sounds the water made - the swift rush of the river, the surf crashing on the shoreline.
Suddenly there was the sound of air being displaced by dozens of wings. A flock of Brent geese came sweeping over the cliff, riding the wind towards the sky. I felt a lightness inside, and such gratitude that I laughed out loud.
"So, this is how it feels," I thought.
To borrow and turn around the words of the novelist, Milan Kundera, I felt a wonderful "lightness of being".
