Knowingly having to hurt a close person I will try to get my situation across without going into too much detail. About a year ago I moved with my mother to the other end of the country. For me it was an adventure and a good opportunity to progress in my career. For her it was the realization of a childhood dream. Growing up in the southern part of Germany she always longed for the north and the sea. She thoroughly enjoys her new life.

For me, however, this was the worst year of my entire life. At the beginning I thought I merely had a bad case of homesickness but as the year progressed, I again and again slid into prolonged depressive episodes. I have been treated for depression before and I usually cope quite well with it, but now again, my situation has worsened to such a degree that I am convinced that I only have two possible courses of action: Get back to my hometown at the next opportunity or have my condition deteriorate until I am either hospitalized or until I harm myself.

For the second time since my move to Hamburg, I get back to my hometown on a business trip. Last time I was there, it felt as though I had waken up from a bad dream. Nevertheless, I made the trip back. This time, I am sure that I will be unable to return. On the one hand I am filled with joy at the idea of returning home for good, on the other hand I cannot put into words how bad I feel about having to tell my mother that I am not going to come back to her. I have to emphasize that she is dependend on me in a way that is certainly to be considered out of the ordinary. She has lost a lot in her life which is why she clings so badly to our relationship. I know that the announcement is going to leave her devastated.

I have about five years of buddhist practice and even though I think I have made a lot of progress and I know that I should aim to achieve upekkha, this is too big for me. This adds to the conflicting state, I am in at the moment. It feels as though, as if to add insult to injury, I am not only betraying my mother, but also failing in my endeavor to quite simply be a good person and to live according to the Noble Eightfold Path.

I am not sure what kind of counsel I expect or want to receive in response to this post, but in any case I am heartfelt grateful for everybody who took the time to read through this. (And maybe has a few lines of her or his thoughts to share.) This has gotten longer than I intended it to be but I want to make sure to make my feelings understood as precisely as possible.

By the way: I know that, quite apart from my feelings of spiritual shortcoming, depression constitutes a serious psychiatric condition. I do take medication and I have an appointment with my old Stuttgart-based psychiatrist two days from now. So I have taken care of that side of the coin. I would just like to try to evaluate and get feedback on my situation from a spiritual/Buddhist point of view.

Thank you again!
Have you meditated on the reasons why you feel depressed being away from your hometown?

Is it friends and your social life in your hometown? Or is it some other reason?

If it is the friends and social life that's the problem, then you can try to make new friends. For e.g. why not join your local Buddhist community? For example, you can explore the Buddhistische Gesellschaft Hamburg e.V.. They seem to have a lot of interesting activities like group meditation, sutta studies and dhamma talks.

This way you can solve two problems in one go. It is not always the case that you have to choose either A or B. Sometimes, you can find a third way, C.

Drawing upon the example of the Buddha's life, he found that it did not work if he chose either over-indulgence or over-asceticism. Instead, he paved the middle way to enlightenment. The same theme can also be found in the Sona Sutta with the analogy of the strings of a lute playing music only when it's not too taut or too loose.

So, I suggest that you don't have to choose either your sanity or your mother's extraordinary dependence on you. Instead, you can pave the middle way, by solving multiple problems simultaneously.