Article #58 : Depression Returns

 “Depression is living in a body that fights to survive, with a mind that tries to die”, says one of the quotes on Depression. 

Unlike theoretical and personal experience shared in one of the previous articles, this article narrates a story related to Depression with fictitious characters based on real life events. 

Once upon a time in one of the small towns of India, there was a girl called Ayesha. Ayesha was beautiful, talkative, sensitive and has a loving heart. She used to believe in those fairy tale love stories and always wanted to have similar kind of experiences in her life. 

Just like her thoughts, during her college days, she fell in love, but unfortunately it turned out to be a one-sided affair. Although it was clear from the beginning from both the sides, Ayesha was never disappointed. She used to live in those small moments with the one whom she fell in love with despite of the fact that she was treated as a friend from the other end.  

Days passed by and they became close friends. Now Ayesha had even a friend whom she was already in love with head over heels.  

But suddenly, her friend started ignoring her and Ayesha was asked not to interfere in his personal life anymore. It came as a shock for Ayesha, she was not able to understand anything for a while. From last 2 years, she became so close with her friend that she used to share everything.  

She was shocked, disappointed, tried hard to make things normal, but all her trails went in vain. Never like before, she started crying, her heart started beating faster, each and every moment she had only thought in mind that things would be back to normal. Sometimes, during all this thought process, she used to shiver even in a normal room temperature. Slowly, Steadily, she went into Depression.  

She was not interested in doing anything, she started ignoring her physical health, she had sleepless nights, she felt lonely even though there were people around, it seemed for others that she was ruining herself with her own thoughts.  

It took a long time for her to realize that there was no point in recollecting the things and she had to accept the fact and face the reality. But it was not easy for Ayesha as she never experienced this kind of situation before. She tried hard to divert by involving herself into some activities, but although she used to be busy, all of sudden from nowhere she used to get the same thoughts with tears in her eyes, her heart used to beat fast for no reason indicating that something was wrong, she couldn’t communicate effectively with people like before, her mind used to relate everything with her issue, she couldn’t even enjoy her favorite music, at last the food she used to take as well reminded her of the old memories. Still, she wanted to move on. She understood that taking the first step was not simple, but gradually it would help.  

She prepared a time table for her, a list of interesting things that she could work on throughout the day that include Yoga, watering plants, raising a pet dog, attending dance classes, teaching kids, listening to a soothing music by singing along with the song, organizing donation camps for the needy and so on. it was not easy to follow the schedule initially, in fact, for the first two weeks, her plan turned out to be a disaster because she couldn’t come out of the anxiety to speak within herself as she was always under the assumption that someday her past would come in front of her and she had to speak. But slowly she realized that she wouldn’t have to face her troubled past anytime in future and there was no point in sticking to those thoughts, thus gradually she got used to adhering to her own schedule, she became more confident, disciplined and started learning how to deal with life. 

After 2 years, Ayesha started her own business as a chef and attained heights in it. She became so brave that she started inspiring people with her own story and stressed that people who experienced her situation should remove their self-pity and replace it with self-confidence.  

Just like Ayesha, anyone of us could have experienced or is experiencing depression. In such cases, usually we tend to forget that it is just a phase, a passing cloud and it’s okay to be not okay, may it can be for days, months or years. But just like how a Sun never hesitates to shine brighter even if there’s a huge rainfall on the previous day, we shouldn’t hesitate to bounce back, shouldn’t hesitate to restart our life, shouldn’t hesitate to aim higher and shouldn’t hesitate to reach our goals. Always Remember, whatever happens in life is only to teach us and enable us to become more strong, more confident and more successful. What do you say? Let me know in the comments below.