Who I am

Mi name is Ignacio Garabedian. Born in Argentina in 1991.

I will tell my full story, because I think it's important for you to see where I come from and what life experiences I've had.

 

Me as a Kid

Growing up, I was fortunate to have loving parents who went to great lengths to provide for my siblings and me. I had a pretty good childhoold.

My family, like many others, had its share of challenges passed down through generations.

Both my parents come from families with a history of anxiety and depression disorders. Despite their best efforts as parents, it was unfortunately unavoidable for these conditions to be passed down to us, as it usually happens.

Since a young age, I have always felt like an outsider. I recall how confidently and effortlessly my friends would express themselves, while for me, nothing came naturally, always feeling ashamed.

Although I struggled with confidence, I always moved in the same sorroundings conformed by my close-knit group of friends from school so I felt comfortable spending time with them and my social disabilities were still unseen.

 

Me after School

The turning point for me came after graduating from school. The pressure to choose a career and chart my life path, compounded by my parents' divorce, sent me into a downward spiral.

I tried to follow two careers but I couldn't. The sorroundings were so uncomfortable for me that it became unbearable, I felt so shy and so insecure in front of all this new people that I just couldn't keep going.

So I dropped out, and I lied about it. I lied to my family, my friends and everyone around me, because I didn't know what else to do, I didn't know how to ask for help or tell my family what I was going through. So I pretended everything was okay and told everyone I was doing fine with my studies. My family couldn't notice it because I lived with my father, who spent all week days abroad working, and the rest of the family lived in another house.

This part of my life can be summed into ditching university and then 2 or 3 years of playing computer games and sports during week days, and going out stupidly drunk with one or two friends on weekends.

 

Me trying to figure out what to do with my life

After my "Gamer" stage I realized it was time to socialize and interact with the outer world.

So I started getting in touch again with some old friends, to hang out with them after some years in the dark, only to realize that I was a looser.

Everyone of them were doing better than I did. They all had careers, jobs, girlfriends and cool stories about their adolescense. Things I didn't have because I was living in my own world, which was lacking all those things.

I had 2 or 3 business ventures during this stage. All of them involved working alone and going forward blindly, without any clear future plan or objective. All of them failed, not because I didn't earn money but because I didn't enjoy any of them.

At this point I was a person with zero self esteem, terrible anxiety and social fobia. All this lead to the inavoidable: Panic Attacks.

 

Me after panic attacks

Probably the worst feeling I ever had.

I also had insomnia, tremblings, lack of energy, lack of motivation, and many more unpleasant feelings every day of my life.

I felt awful, but at the same time I knew that this was happening to me because I wasn't doing anything with my life. No career, no studies, no job, no nothing. I felt literally useless.

I always felt embarrassed or shy when hanging out with other people because I had nothing relevant to say about myself or my life.

After my first panic attack I started reading and learning a lot about anxiety. Until one day I finally decided that it was time for therapy so I wrote to my older sister and one friend to ask them for Psychologist numbers.

This is where my Journey began. I hit rock bottom and I knew the only way was up.

I was getting tired of abusing of alcohol every weekend of my life and feeling like sh#t almost every day.

 

Me after reading and therapies

Living in my own world for some time and then not having anything to do with my life for several years while everyone else was living their lives had one huge advantage for me: It gave me the time to learn everything I needed to become my best version.

I read my first book about Anxiety more than 10 years ago and I never stopped reading ever since. Reading changed my life. And I didn't settle with just Anxiety, I read about everything that could make my life better, every aspect of life that could be improved, I read about it.

Reading gave me confidence, it made me feel there were solutions to my problems. It made me realize there were lots of other people going through the same and that feeling better was possible with the right tools and knowledge.

I had my first therapy session 7 years ago, and although I have stopped from time to time, I still go to therapy regularly.

So I became kind of a Life Coach without knowing it.

 

Me today

Writing all these things about me and exposing myself is not easy. But I learned that the only way of healing ourselves is by acknowledging our feelings and facing them, face our fears with kindness and self-love.

Today I'm happy, with upside downs of course, not that I became the Dalai Lama. But enjoy all my days. I enjoy my life, my job, my training, my family, my friends, my girlfriend, and most importantly, I enjoy my bad days too, because they made me who I am and they still shape me and give new challenges every day.

Because life is that for me, challenging myself, becoming a better and happier self every day.

Today I'm a strong-minded and healthy adult owner of my own life and my company (which name is ZELVA - zelva.com.ar by the way).

 

Welcome to Sana Simul

Disclaimer:

 

I made Sana Simul because I wanted to share with you everything I've done and learned so far, in an easy and simplified way, to help you in your journey to a happier life, so you can get there easier and sooner than me, to make your journey shorter than mine.

I really hope, from the bottom of my heart, to help you being a happier person, in any way possible. That's the main reason I dedicated a lot of my time creating Sana Simul, to help others, to help you, and to heal together (this is what Sana Simul means in Latin), because I'm still healing every day and helping makes me very happy.

And if you embark yourself on this Journey, I wish you the best of Journeys!

 

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