12,000 Miles

By Corey Visions

When Corey stepped out of the airport and into the glaring winter sun of Frankfurt, he had just his only three underpants and a pair of holey socks in his luggage. Never had he expected to come back to Germany. Because all he wanted before he set off for Australia was one last wicked holiday to put an end to his depressions afterwards. Once and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corey Visions
• Release date: Nov 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9783982143477

Corey Visions

Corey Visions was born on 31 January 1995 in Wiesbaden. The learned IT-businessman quickly realized that big city bustle and computer technology should not be the center of his life. In October 2017 he went to Australia as a backpacker to turn his life upside down. On his 25th birthday, his first travel novel "19.000 Kilometer (GER)" was published, in which he describes the beautiful but also dangerous life as a depressed traveler. Since then he has made it his goal to help other depressives back on their feet and to make it easier for backpackers in foreign countries to travel. When Corey is taking a break from writing or traveling, he can usually be found at the gym where he pursues his next passion, bodybuilding. He also counts himself as an art philistine and provides regular entertainment on his YouTube channel Toxic Through and Through INT.

Book preview

Frankfurt am Main

Germany

I was sitting in the office when a vibration trembled across my desk. As if numbed by the daily work routine, I read the text on the scratched display of my cell phone.

By the way, I’m pregnant. The baby is due this December.

Sluggishly, my eyes scanned the text a second and third time until I could finally understand the content of this message. Feeling emotionally drained, I tried to stand up and felt nothing but confusion. My foot got tangled up in the cable jungle of my computer, and the office chair I had been sitting in gave a sorrowful squeal when I freed it from my lean 75 kilos. The colleague sitting opposite me grinned gloatingly and slammed his headphones between the monitors with a skilful swing.

What’s up, Corey? He probably expected another sarcastic remark about him, our incompetent users or our even more incompetent bosses.

I’m going to be an uncle soon, I replied as the thoughts flashed through my head. For a short moment the world was fine.

I only get a chance like this once in my life, I thought. That was the signal from the universe I had been waiting for for so long. Also, it was just what I needed, because I could not stand it here for much longer.

Ever since I flew to New Zealand for the first time in December 2016, I knew that Germany wasn’t the country where I would grow old or even raise my own children. New Zealand was the wake-up call I so desperately needed. Because it showed me that life had clearly more to offer than work, third-rated superhero series on Netflix and lazy and hopelessly doped-up nights on a couch. There was more out there than most of us could even imagine. The pictures on TV were real and within reach for anyone who dared to pack up their things and leave. I had seen them with my own eyes. Far away from the narrow streets and alleys of the metropolis of Mainhattan lay beaches of black sand, sunsets that turned the sky into a flawless red, more beautiful than any ruby, and palm trees, that were peacefully bowing in a fresh sea breeze which invited you to relax.

When I was 21 years old, I had met my biological father, half-brother, my grandmother and two half-sisters in New Zealand for the first time. I don’t think it’s necessary to mention that my family situation is a little complicated.

I was born in Wiesbaden and always lived centrally between Frankfurt, Darmstadt and Mainz. My mother, a native German, got to know my biological father at a tattoo convention at the age of 23 years. She always described the encounter something like this: All of a sudden, this tanned, ripped, long-haired surfer from the Gold Coast stood before me. One thing led to another, and then you were on the way. At least that’s the short version. My mom was pregnant and while my father insisted on an abortion, she decided to keep me. My father left the country when it was discovered that he was already married and had two children in Australia. He moved to New Zealand, remarried and had another child.

My paternal grandmother was the first female tattoo artist in Germany from Wiesbaden. She became so successful that she too decided to leave the country. My mom remarried as well when I was still very young. My little brother was born four years after me. So up until a certain age, I had no idea, that I was part of an extended family. In fact, even now I remember very clearly how the conversation was going down: I must have been about eight years old when my parents renovated their house. I wanted to help, but when I was a little squirt, I was so green behind the ears that I was more in the way than I could help. My dad would yell at me, I’d cry and run into my brother’s room, screaming out the words in defiance: You are not my real daddy! Only a few seconds later my mother followed me into the room, looked down at me seriously and said in a lowered voice: That’s right.

Stories about my real father, my half-brothers, half-sisters and my famous grandma, who was a role model for thousands of young women, followed throughout the next 30 minutes.

Looking back, I think eight years might not have been the best age to learn that my previous life had been an illusion. Because even though I was glad I found out about it all so early, as a child I felt unwanted and fell into a deep depression. I didn’t want to hang out with friends anymore, and I didn’t want to go to school. All that I wanted was to kill my time with video games and sleep. Nevertheless, I already understood then that later the whole world would be wide open to me.

Ten years later I inhaled the first breaths of absolute freedom in New Zealand. My biological father had invited me to spend Christmas with him and his family. Already after the first two days at the other end of the world, I realized that New Zealand was just a drop in the ocean. I wanted to see more of the world. I wanted to ride killer waves like the pro surfers did, ride a motorcycle through dense rainforests and travel like never before. No ifs, ands or buts! No worrying about money and no-one forbidding me to do anything,

What a dream...

On the way to the cafeteria, I started developing a plan on how I could leave the country as soon as possible. The good news was that I had already saved some money throughout the last years, because I already saw myself as the new star of the next episode The Emigrants. My plan was to apply for a Work Visa in a few years and hope for a sponsorship. Although I had already considered a work & travel holiday visa, it was never really an option for me. The visa sounded like nothing but a waste of time for me. Living in paradise for a year, just to come back to grey Germany? Yeah, sure. No fucking way.

But for this particular moment, I had to confess that after the message from my sister, the work & travel holiday visa sounded a little more attractive than before.

And that’s how I started planning.

My girlfriend at the time supported me with courage and hope for a fantastic future. On a gloomy, cuddly Sunday morning, she stroked her fingers along my chest and whispered to me our new plan: I’m going to wait here for you, and when you get back, we’ll get married, buy a house and make a baby.

She cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend two days after I had booked the plane tickets to Australia.

Breakups have always been hard for me to accept, because I’ve never had the highest opinion of myself. The separation before this had already been a hard one to digest. It had taken me more than two years to get over the self-hatred and the feeling of emptiness. I was drowning in self-pity and more depression. The only new strength I found was from reading books about Buddhism and keeping a diary, to filter and screen out my thoughts. No doubt my friends made that time more bearable and helped me to work on and through these dark places so that I could better understand my emotions. I became more open but also more vulnerable.

But the current breakup took all my energy away. Never before had I been so hurt. Just a week before, we had talked about starting a family, and now I was sitting alone again in my apartment. My depression took over and determined my everyday life. It had gone so far that I no longer wanted to go to Australia and couldn’t rejoice about the time ahead. Instead, I thought more intensively about killing myself and wrote suicide notes. I gave up my apartment, started selling anything that wasn’t nailed down and told the other band members that I was out.

One year before, another guitarist and I formed the metalcore band Legends May Fall. Our songs were hard and rebellious and with no less than four followers on Instagram it would have only been a short while until we would be discovered by a big label to be on the verge of a breakthrough. To perform in front of thousands of people on the greatest stages in the world, to sign the deepest cleavages after the show - the dream of every musician. Since the founding of the band, every Saturday turned out to be the same: drink beer, band practice, eat kebab and drink more beer. The boys were visibly shocked when I announced the news. Our bass player was silent, because he never talked much, the drummer made a joke about how it would become easy to replace me, and the other guitarist celebrated my determination and also asked me to test the beer down under. Legends May Fall was my baby, the only thing keeping me in the country because without the boys, I had nothing left that made me feel alive.

Despite some criticism, I was somehow proud of myself. Our guitarist was right; very few people had the balls and determination to leave everything behind and just fuck off to the other side of the world. But all the determination couldn’t save me when I was huddled on the floor of my empty apartment. The kitchen was removed, and the dismantled bed lay in individual parts around me as I burst into tears. Everything I had laboriously built up throughout the last years was falling apart within only two months. I felt helpless, left alone and thought about staying home and cancel the plane tickets to save what could be saved.

It took hours to calm down and gain my senses back. I was already too deep in to back out now. To hell with my problems! The breakup, my family situation and all the other stuff! My life was already in ruins anyway and maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it was about time for a fresh start. I needed to prepare myself for a whole new life, so I had to try and focus more on the positive things in it. For example, was I blessed with the greatest friends in the world or what? Our guitarist let me live with him for two weeks, so I didn’t have to sleep on the street. Every evening we had a few bottles of beer and a cozy jam session as my departure drew closer. In spite of my imposed positivity I still couldn’t care less about my wellbeing. I felt numb as if wrapped in cotton wool. My life was as valuable as a fortune cookie. I wanted to go all-in in Australia. Fuck health insurance. I could probably use the money for something else. Fuck security, fuck safety. I didn’t give a flying shit, if I would return alive or in a coffin. I didn’t care. I just wanted to meet my sister’s baby and have one last nice holiday, before I could safely kick the bucket. Somehow Australia would kill me, that was the only thing I was very certain about. I had never owned my own motorbike before, I only took my driver’s license in Germany. So, my plan was already set in stone: I wanted to roam the country solo on a motorcycle; I wanted to overnight in a tent to sleep among snakes and spiders, I wanted to piss off cliffs in the morning and dive with sharks. I was tired of working all day, tired of fake hopes and the German mentality. A country of yes-men and ass-kissers, where the only leisure activities are excessive consumption of monthly salary and smoking weed. I got tired of it. The constant nagging of the Germans was driving me insane. I was done with all that. All I had in mind was to have the time of my life or to die trying.

I spent the last three days before my departure in the empty children’s room of my parents’ house, which I had left three years earlier. I had saved up €13,000 in my savings bank account, which was the equivalent of about $19,000 AUD. I have always had a knack for handling money. That’s why I lived intentionally rather modestly. Every cent was turned over twice, I bought food exclusively from discounters and even there only the cheapest products. My budget for clubs and bars never exceeded €50 and I had given up smoking already a year before to save money.

My car was also in class of its own. I never attached much importance to having a lot of horsepower under the bonnet. For whatever; in traffic jams we were all equally fast anyway. My small, dirty Peugeot 206 was perfectly sufficient to get me from A to B. The exhaust had rusted through shortly after the last technical inspection and now sounded like the one of a sports car. The rear window wiper had broken off at some point due to frost and as for tread depth I’d better not start at all. My grandmother always told me that I saved money in the wrong places, but what would I have gained from having the scratches and dents of my car repaired it was ready for scrap anyway. For me it was a means to an end. Nothing more.

It wasn’t until the day the towing service put my racing nugget on the trailer that I realized how many good memories I had collected with this car and what a favor I had done for it. The engine groaned, while the exhaust made a deafening noise and the front axle made a miserably high squeaking sound. It was the same day that I sold my three guitars. Two of the instruments were gifts from my biological father. Emotional value, nothing else. But I could certainly use the €300 more on my account. Less ballast meant less stress, and it felt unexpectedly good to throw off so much ballast.

My suitcase was only half loaded and my packing list could be written on half a DIN A5 page. Sunglasses, check. Three pairs of underpants, check. International driver’s license, check. Motorcycle helmet, check. Photo of family... Check.

On my last day in Germany, a friend visited me. I called her Hippie, because her urge for boundless freedom was even greater than mine. Shortly after we had met, we started talking about traveling. Her plan was to emigrate to Spain with no more than €370 in her account. She wanted to sell homemade jewelry on the streets and spend the nights in abandoned buildings. Anything to get away from here.

We walked for hours through the nearest forest, discussed, laughed and even got a little closer to each other until we finally dropped into the high grass on a huge green area next to a small pond. It was mid-October and the ground was cold, although the sun was almost summery that day. We held hands and listened to the frogs. Locusts and birds joined in until the ground beneath us warmed up and we both fell asleep. Germany could be beautiful after all if you took the time to look for its beauty.

When we woke up a few hours later in the high grass, the sun was slowly setting. With the last rays of sunshine, the sky turned into a faint purple that disappeared behind approaching rain clouds. We ordered pizza to my old children’s room and smoked a farewell joint together. Actually, I had already stopped smoking weed two years before, as my trips became more and more absurd after three years of continuous smoking. Mostly I sat around for hours without saying a word, thinking about my failed existence and the mistakes from my past. The times, when I laughed tears for hours, were long gone, and what remained was the compulsive attempt to sit out a bad high.

We listened to music until Hippie fell asleep next to me and I lay awake. Tomorrow would finally be the day. Strangely enough, I wasn’t nervous or excited. I only hoped that my plans were as feasible as I had imagined. That I would manage to rise above myself and have a great time. Just make the best of it. That was my last thought before I fell asleep.

The next morning, started in a hurry. Quickly put the toothbrush into the backpack and then off to the bus. Although I didn’t have many possessions with me, I was loaded like a donkey. My motorcycle helmet and jacket hung from my suitcase and my skateboard was attached to my backpack. I was far away from professional skaters, but skating the Gold Coast once was a must-do on my adventure list. At the airport, Hippie and I hardly had time to say goodbye. The check-in had already started, and I still had to go through all the counters. Hippie kissed me: Have fun, I will miss you, she said while holding my hand. That was really the last thing I wanted to hear. Still, I was almost sure that we would meet again in a few years and talk about all the crazy adventures followed by remember when-moments. And although I was really looking forward to that day, it made me sad to leave my friends behind.

Foreword

As you may have noticed, this book will be packed with controversial topics such as suicide, mental illness, drug abuse and the like. There is no such thing as depression! Grow a pair of balls and stop being sad all the time are comments that are often used when dealing with sensitive issues like this. This is largely because we are usually misinformed about mental illness and also because each depression disorder can have different symptoms. So there is no right way to deal with it up front.

Whether you want to hear it or not, many mental illnesses are fatal and even after decades of treatment they can only be corrected partially or in some cases not at all. We all have problems that catch up with us from time to time and can ruin our day. Depression can therefore really affect each and every one of us. An accident, a breakup or a deceased relative, even a change of profession is enough to call one’s own existence into question and be haunted and overwhelmed by sadness. So it is okay to have a bad day. But if it should turn into bad months or even years, I strongly advise you to seek professional help. This also applies to your friends. If you know someone who seems to be overwhelmed with his life and has no joy or energy left, please persuade him to seek help.

It should also be clear to all of us that suicidal behavior, self-mutilation or excessive consumption of drugs such as weed and alcohol are also indications of deep-seated trauma. How you deal with your depression is only up to you, and I will only talk about my own experiences and my fight against depression in the course of this book. If you can learn something from my methods that makes your life more carefree and makes it easier to deal with your disorder, then I have achieved my goal as an author.

In principle, I think it is possible to travel with depression disorder. At least to a certain extent, because your self-control is crucial whether it is a good idea to travel alone or not. It would be of great advantage to know how to silence your mind in case of a bad condition and how to deal with disease-specific symptoms. The purpose of the trip is to find yourself and to come to terms with your past. Furthermore, you should grow beyond your own limits and overcome inner blockades.

For many people with depression disorder it is the case that they do not dare to be alone or to deal with themselves. They are afraid of what is hidden and has been suppressed for years. Every illness is individual. Therefore, you have to find an individual way to deal with it. Just because traveling has helped me to grow as a human being does not mean that it will certainly help you. The key to success is an iron will to face the disease, make peace with yourself and take your depression by the balls to finally make your life worth living again!

Guide-tip #1: Your individual journey

These tips will be spread throughout the book to help you prepare, to answer questions or give general advice. I will also provide internet links at the end of this book that may become outdated over the years. But of course, I will take care to update them regularly.

In my time as a backpacker, I learned a lot about myself, but also about traveling, the country Australia and its peculiarities. There are many guides, YouTube channels, books and documentaries about the fascination of traveling, but many of the things that interested me most I had to scrape together on the internet. Which was more time consuming, than I had originally thought.

I clearly think that everyone has to make their own experiences and that there are no universal answers to questions like Which vehicle is best for me? or Where do I spend the night in Sydney? You have to find all this out for yourself and that only works if you are open to your own individual wishes and desires. Guide-tips therefore refer more to organizational topics such as visas, driving licenses, bank accounts or on how to deal with depression. Also, in the course of this book, I will make questionable and sometimes incomprehensible decisions and even if you are as reckless with your life as I am, you should take precautions and make sure you know exactly which country you are entering.

That’s why I encourage you UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES to risk your life at any point, to travel without insurance, to break the law or just like me to make stupid decisions only to feel more alive for two minutes at the end of the day.

But what I want to encourage you to do is to make your years as a backpacker or traveler better than most other backpackers. Because it is a special and unique time that you should not waste.

In my eyes it is important that you adapt to the country and learn to accept and live out the culture there. If you plan to bring your mentality with you, only hang out with other backpackers from your home country or speak your native language day in and day out, you might want to stay in your home country or consider a trip to your neighborhood, because for this you certainly don’t have to fly halfway around the globe. Instead, use the time in Australia to work on yourself, overcome fears and get to know a unique culture. With this attitude, your plans, priorities and especially your character will change a lot during that time.

Furthermore, my experiences in this book relate only to Australia and no other country. If you want to travel to slums or ghettos in war zones or help children in third-world countries, you will not find any answers here.

Also, I would like to emphasize that I am a white man, and I strongly advise you to take precautions if you are a woman or someone of darker skin color and want to travel alone. I’m not saying Australia is full of rapists and redneck hillbilly killers! On the contrary! Even though there are bad people all over the world, I think that Australian culture is probably one of the safest and most respectful cultures in the world - for people of any origin and gender. But being the snow-white bloke that I am, I didn’t have to worry about falling victim to a gender or race-based crime. So I strongly encourage you to travel with at least one accompanying person or to take alternative security precautions. Just in case. It’s like condoms, better to have one and need one than need one but not have one.

Without wasting any more time - the following story is that of my adventure as a depressive backpacker.

Important note: I am not a doctor, therapist or psychologist.

All names in this book have been changed to protect the people.

I am looking forward to any kind of feedback and reviews!

Enjoy reading!

- Corey

Auckland

New Zealand

In total I was to spend 30 hours and 50 minutes on the plane, with stops in Doha and Melbourne, until I would finally arrive in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. It was a one-way ticket, which I had booked for €1,136 at a travel agency. My heart slowly began to beat faster. All the materialistic things I had left in Germany were my bed, an empty children’s room and some clothes I had to leave behind. I looked dreamily out of the window and right into the starting turbines of the plane. Nervousness could not be avoided from now on. I wasn’t afraid of flying, but not knowing what was ahead of me and the stress of the airport was killing me. My thoughts turned over in my mind. To distract myself, I unpacked my cell phone to use the last minutes of my availability. Impulsively, I wrote a final message to all my friends and family members: Thanks for your support. I will contact you after I have landed.

The morning sun shone into the oval porthole and burned in my face. The plane filled with people, but no one sat down next to me. When the flight attendants announced the start of the plane, I actually still had the entire row of seats to myself. I stretched out my legs on the seats, put on my sunglasses and began to dream about my last trip to New Zealand.

The first thing that came to my mind was the shock I suffered when I met my father for the very first time. Even his wife looked confused as if she had seen a ghost. I was the spitting image of him. My little sister Grace hid behind her mother and peeked out from behind her hip. With only seven years, she seemed to understand even less than me of what was happening at that moment. Before we drove to grandma Moi’s villa, we stopped at a small café for breakfast. I ordered a French toast with bacon and syrup while we made small talk in an unsettled state. Each of us seemed to be overwhelmed by the situation. My father Rai made some attempts to find out more about me, but my fatigue and my sometimes horrible English usually put a damper on his plans. Don’t worry about your English, son, you’ll get the hang of it eventually, Rai said jokingly. Grandma Moi was silent most of the time when she looked at me. It took a while until she opened up a bit. The only one who was blithely babbling, was Grace. She painted in her coloring book and told her new brother what happened at school last week.

Grandma Moi’s villa was on the top of a mountain near Auckland. You could look down on the whole city from the backyard; the forest grew on all sides and her dogs lay lazily on the terrace in the sun. My next shock came when there was a knock on the door and my bigger brother Hugh entered. In fact, we looked almost identical. From our height to our hair color and most importantly our eyes - it was like looking in a mirror. Rai stood beside us stunned: You guys look like younger versions of me! Hugh and I understood each other right away. There was no trace of the language barrier in sight when we began to drink some beers until the sun started to disappear behind the Harbour Bridge. I stared spellbound down at Auckland as the city lights came on one after the other and the Skytower rose in bright colors above a modest number of skyscrapers. Rai stood beside me as we stared silently into the night for a while.

Ten years ago, this part of the city wasn’t there. It is all new, Rai waved his arm from right to left across the city lights to symbolize how small Auckland had been at that time. He let his hands disappear in his pockets and continued in a more serious tone:

You know, it was very hard for your mom and I sometimes. I interrupted him at that point already. After more than 30 hours plane flight and because of all the new surroundings and impressions, such a topic was the last thing I wanted to talk about now. This conversation would come, but all in due time.

The next days were packed with activities. We took a family trip to the city, went to the movies together, ate huge pizzas and spent some time at the beach. Much of what I experienced with Hugh was in the pre-Christmas period, as we shared the same interests and were very similar in character. Hugh had the idea to jump off the Skytower. I had never been bungee jumping before, but I liked the idea of dropping from a height of 630 feet right away. It dawned on me shortly after our arrival at the tower that the Skyjump was close to a tourist trap. At that time the price per jump was $220, not even a classic bungee jump with a rope tied around the legs. Instead, we were so strongly secured that we slowed down during the fall. All in all, it was an unforgettable experience, but the expected thrill and the feeling of playing with death was unfortunately not provided due to overcautiousness. Certainly not everyone thought like I did, namely that activities like this would only be exciting when actual danger was involved. After all, not everyone was as reckless with their lives as I was. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t feel as if you are wrapped in an extra thick safety cushions while jumping from a tower that is almost 655 feet high.

I spent many nights at Hugh’s, where we usually talked in depth about our experiences as children. We smoked weed, drank beer and added the missing pieces of the puzzle to our blurry childhood pictures. Rai had left his family in Australia when Hugh was about ten years old. During this time, he met my mom in Germany and only came back to Australia after a few years. Hugh found out about his half-brother in Germany when said rumor spread in his late teenage years. Talking to him became more and more bizarre - although we had grown up in different parts of the world, we experienced almost the same key moments during our childhoods and teenage years that had steered our lives in a certain direction. Hugh admitted that he had drawn most of his male influence from his mother’s new partners when I noticed that Hugh had a far stranger character than I had. While I had only just begun to get to know myself better and to listen to who I actually was, rather than being someone I would have liked to be, Hugh had made his peace with himself and left anyone behind who stood in the way of his success. He shared his plans for the future with me: his own tattoo studio, a full renovation of his house and even a child with his fiancée was planned. I was impressed by his ambitions and wondered if they were related to our age difference and if at some point it was time for everyone to grow up eventually. Would I ever think more about the future than about living in the here and now? Or was I just looking up to him because we looked so damn much alike, that sometimes it felt like I was looking into the future. I started to spend nights thinking about what my future should hold: building up my own business sounded like way too much work. My own house? A small rented apartment had actually always been enough for me. Wife and kids? Admittedly, I had already thought about mini-Corey’s, but my girlfriend at the time made it clear from the get go that she didn’t want to have children. At least not yet.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Hugh and I drove to the airport to pick up my big sister Ash. Ash was the person with whom it all started. At the age of 16, I created my Facebook account only to get in touch with my extended family. During this time, she was the only family member I knew of with full name, from stories my mom told me. We e-mailed sporadically over the next five years, but never once did we talk on the phone or in Skype. All I had known about her so far was what she had written to me in her emails. Technically, I was only here because of her. She was the one who had forwarded me Rai’s e-mail address so I could contact him.

Hugh and I decided to keep it a secret that I was currently visiting New Zealand. My heart was pounding as she stepped out of the terminal. She only noticed me seconds after she had hugged Hugh to welcome him and immediately burst into tears. Of all the people I had met in New Zealand up to that point I felt the closest to Ash. We understood each other without using big words, had the same character traits and both of us seemed to go through a kind of self-discovery. Her partner Mick, who accompanied he, made a weird first impression.

The Christmas celebration itself was breathtaking. Even though it felt more like a big birthday party to celebrate Christmas in summer, it still radiated the classic atmosphere with an extensively decorated Christmas tree and at least 100 presents underneath, a huge feast with lobsters as big as shoeboxes, homemade cabbage rolls and a family as vast as never before. Everyone came to celebrate, aunts, uncles, friends and even ex-partners I had never heard of. They all came together, laughed, drank champagne and shared stories from their lives. They were amazed when they saw me sitting next to Hugh. Already after a short time we had the nicknames Snowball I (Hugh) and Snowball II (me) - because we were both as pale as snow. Rai