"The Pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered from it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of the pain"
-William Styron
It starts with you
In me
In the night -when no one whisper
I scream
I howl ...
I am crumbling
GOD...
I am ripping apart
Look at me...
And save me if you can
I wish
Someone could look at me
Inside me
At my darkness
And save my soul ...
Ohhh...God...
Save me...
It is like this , always been...ever since I felt it in very depth of my soul, the shattering heart and damaged dreams , those nightmares ...always running , howling ,crying in my dreams, suffocated with this world , it killed me in many ways , in many forms. You must be wondering what I am talking about?? Well , I was in same situation like you are in now but not to worry by the end of this post , you will get to know what I am talking about but-but .my friend before ...just listen to me , just for few minutes , because I want to tell you this , about these monsters who haunted me for years , still! Who ruined so much of my life , leaving me barefoot in cold evening nights but I tried , to fight with these unknown ghosts , I tried to fight so hard , I fought without knowing how or when , without even knowing their names but knowing only their stinking breath whooping on my chest. I was a captive, still I am in many ways ...These monster which exist only in my head, inside the head of so many like me but apparently nonexistent to this world, no one believes us, no one can hear our scream...HELP!!, I shouted...so many times but to come back with bare hands, this world was cruel to me, for many like me ...you know how difficult to survive like this! I had to hide my feelings, hide everything which is killing me because I knew, know ...if I express, there is a world outside, sitting on high stool ready to judge me, US!, ready to tell how coward we are , how vulnerable and weak we are from inside ...but I want to tell you, we are not ...we are survivors of this illness which cannot be cured, we are the ones who are fighting for years even when it is too tough , too hard and exhausting, we are the one who are knocking on doors of psychiatric wards on and on for answers , we are the one walking on these roads of recovery from so long but not getting cured at all and we are the one living with the truth that it will be life long battle to stay afloat, we are the one who are suffering from this intense chronic depression and many things which comes along with it , we are the sufferers of life time of stigma!!!
Wait, wait ...Let me pause for a moment to explain exactly what I mean when I talk about depression. I'm not referring to the normal down periods that everyone goes through once in a while, that can be brought on by a rainy day, a broken heart, the flu or even for no particular reason. We mope around, listen to sad music and feel sorry for ourselves.
These moods go away within a couple of days, and we can enjoy life again.
Clinical depression is much more than that, and is comparable to a down mood as much as a sneeze is comparable to pneumonia. It is an illness that affects a person in many different ways. It can affect appetite, sleep patterns, powers of concentration, and even slow down movement and speech. While the predominant feeling depression brings is often sadness or a blue mood, it can also be a numb, empty feeling, anxiety, hopelessness, loss of self-esteem or self-worth, inability to make decisions or a combination of these. Unlike a passing mood, clinical depression dominates a person's life and brings it to a screeching halt.
It did to me, I was just 13 when it hit me for the first time -as I said everyone blamed me for feeling like this instead of helping me. I was kid back then? What you expect from a 13 year old ...I was as much confused as everyone else, I did not know what is happening to me but I knew, deep down - Always that something changed in me, something given birth inside me, I felt it ...I tell you my friend, I felt it even though it scared the hell out of me. I tried so hard to tell everyone - anyone who is next to me, I cried for no apparent reason, I shivered even in heat, my body racked with sadness and I carried this emptiness wherever I went ...I tried my friend, I tried to tell how it feels, this constant ache- constant grief but I felt short of words and even if I managed to say, everyone thought I am plain silly -what I feeling is really not true ...And
I was left to manage "my twisted emotions" on my own!!
You must be wondering, did I get help? Yes...I did...I did get, it was way too long painful journey of recovery. I am 27 now and it took the doctors a decade to diagnose my illness and more than a decade for me to even get a proper help.
And what u think! What happened with me in between, what happened with my life...my answer is "everything" which I never wished to happen, First when I expressed how I felt , I was asked to be "strong" and "Positive" when being strong and positive is nothing to do with your depression, it's not like one day I woke up and suddenly I was vulnerable and way too weak to face this world , here I noted the misconceptions of mental illness that depression is just a mood that they should be able to control. They believe that a life-threatening illness can be managed by happy talk and an upbeat demeanor. I know what I'm talking about. I tried for years to defeat my (undiagnosed) depression by thinking of reasons I was lucky and telling myself that that cold empty feeling had no cause and therefore didn't have any validity. It's like trying to treat diabetes by skipping dessert. It doesn't work, and it's dangerous to your health but what to do? Where should I go? I could not even stop feeling like that but if I expressed how I felt I was blamed, it is like I am guilty either ways, no matter what you do, you hide your feelings or express it, eventually you are the one to be blamed, I carried this burden for years without knowing how and then came the realization that I really needed the help, what you think did I get one? I was taken to N number of doctors who did nothing but judged me till I broke down, I was injected with N number of anti-depressant till it poisoned my body in every which way possible ( I was even prescribed to take Lithium- which is banned by govt and the result is it affected my kidneys badly)..I was labelled with N number of mental disorders which confused and scared the hell out of me, they put me on medication , put me out of medication, put me back and took me out again , put me in just counselling and then I was forced to deal it on my own even when I needed help and when I went really begging for help, I was literally thrown out of doctors cabin telling they can't help me anymore ...And finally when they( another doctor) diagnosed, I have been told that my illness cannot be cured at all but in fact it will get worse as days passes because my illness got diagnosed after so many years and the possibility of me getting better is very less -...That's what I was told.
Call it a fate or just pure co-incidence -My illness was diagnosed when I was supposed to get married and the doctors asked me to keep quiet about it, they asked me to hide it from my "fianc" - It is as if, you been told you are like this but you can't tell the world outside that you are really like this, you have to hide it girl -otherwise you will gain nothing, you will be rejected forever by this so called world.
For years I banged my head to get answers and when it came - Now , I hated the truth , it was killing me even faster than my sickness because they made me feel -that suffering from depression is worse than having leprosy , they made me ashamed of me , my illness - which I never asked for !
They made me feel guilty and ashamed for things I was not responsible for, may be this made me adamant to tell the truth, take it or leave it- do or die - I was in that stage when my husband really came to meet me, I was advised by many dear ones to not to spill the beans but keep it as a secret but I did not, I could not ...the more, this world made me ashamed of my mental illness I was not , I did not pity myself nor I was ashamed and so the truth came out ...Call me lucky here , I did not expected him to accept me with all my disabilities but he did ( My husband) he accepted me as I am , in coming days he helped me in many ways to cope with my illness ...and what followed is history now , I am on medication( thankfully , this time the doctors took me seriously and prescribed medicine which were effective) and I was assigned to cognitive behavioral therapy where they taught me how to live with this , there I learnt many skills to cope with my illness also they managed to tell me that I am getting better in fact, situation will get better if I continue with medication and therapy for some time.
Why I am telling all this? You must be wondering ...because There were times, the darker times ...where I found no hope at all, no matter how much I tried , All I felt is just hopeless but I survived those times , I often wondered , why so ? what made me stick to this life so hard when all my being was screeching to let go ...I found my answer now, I am finding it now, I am writing this post to tell people like me - or if you know anyone who is suffering from depression, I want to tell that there is hope even when you feel there is not, I suffered for years but I made it, you can too ...I want to tell you people , don't be ashamed of what you are , if god has made you like that then he did it for reason ...Fight for it , fight for you rights and live no matter what because this life is precious ...its worth fighting for !
I am not telling all this because I am perfect today but because I am better than my past ...you can too!
Believe me!
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Cricket
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