“I was drowning in a dark pond that kept getting darker with every feet crossed”
Back in the day, like any other young passionate girl I was quite bold with the decisions of my life and never thought of getting into anything intense but then, that’s what we call life, a mystery full of ups and downs.
Background
So, let me take you to a little background of what happened before I got into depression. I was in the third year of my Software Engineering Bachelor’s program when I got a marriage proposal by an uncle for his only son. My parents agreed to the proposal (of course after knowing my consent). Like any other Middle Eastern girl, I was happy about starting my new life soon even though I was just 20 years old at that time but that is considered to be the right age for a girl to get married in our society.
What went wrong?
6 months later we were happily married and there came the time when it all started! As I mentioned above he was the only child of the family. His parents started expecting a baby from us while either of us never thought about it to date because I was already studying. Things started getting worse, his father wanted him to remarry as all he was concerned about was his future descendants – a typical mentality of most of the conservative families living in the subcontinent.
Not just the family but every single person who met us questioned about our sex life. That was horrible! I being an immature girl didn’t know how to give a shut-up call. The bullies kept getting stronger and we faced this together to a point where his father handed me the divorce papers (without his consent) and asked me to sign them. As I refused, he threw me out of the house. That was the point I went into severe depression!!!
Fighting back was never easy!
The worst thing about depression is that you don’t even realize that you are a victim and that was exactly happening with me. I felt empty inside, blank outside, some days I overslept and the other days didn’t even take a nap.
So, it was my mother who pointed out the seriousness of the issue, accepting it was very hard but then, I and mom started battling with it together. Of course, I had to consult a therapist and seek medical help but here’s how a change in lifestyle helped me cope up with it.
Meditation
According to the survey conducted by New York Times, people between the ages of 25-41 were asked to meditate 20 minutes a day for a week and the result showed that it helped in boosting energy level, controlling anxiety, relieving stress and coping with the pain (Wolfe, 2017)
I used to meditate 5 times a day where it was a pure time between me and God, I talked with myself, said prayers and continued thinking about the blessings in my life. This helped me a lot in attracting positive energies and eliminating the negative thoughts from my mind.
I Started Loving Myself
The most important thing for the victims of depression is to know their worth as the sufferers start questioning their existence when in misery. I remember passing a whole week without taking a single bath, you feel the hatred towards one’s self?
I was advised to pay more attention to my health and hygiene. As soon as I realized, depression was the culprit the first thing I did was scheduling an appointment at the Salon where I spent some quality time getting pampered. I used to go for the morning walks, prepare myself some favorite meals of mine, went for movies and tried to do anything and everything that made me happy.
Reading
My mother is a book worm, she has her own small library at home. She advised me to start reading as I was not very fond of it. To be honest, reading kept me engaged in something extra productive and I literally felt that. All those motivational stories and therapeutic tales were somehow bringing me back to life, they were making me realize the beauty of this gift called life.
Fixed Sleep Pattern
Now, this was quite hard as I was not ready to sacrifice my all-day long sleep (the one that was depression’s gift). Later I realized it was because I hated facing people which affected both my career and health. I got into useless fights with my family and friends that I regret to date. Fixing the sleeping patterns is a huge task but it made me relaxed and contented at the end of the day so it was all worth investing efforts.
Related: https://www.offateverything.com/10-tips-to-get-comfortable-sleep/
Healthy Diet
Healthy intake is definitely important in daily life but unfortunately, when you suffer depression, the worst thing you do to yourself is eating junk. According to Scientific American, eating a healthy diet might also help reducing inflammation in the body and even fight heart disease as well as arthritis (Wallis, 2018)
So, another important change in lifestyle that helped me a lot was a healthy intake of nutritious food.
EndNote
My message to everyone reading this piece of content is, that it is absolutely fine to feel sick, low or even depressed. It is nothing to be ashamed of as long as you are strong enough to stand tall and fight back!
Apparently, nothing changed, I haven’t been able to conceive till date despite the fact that both of us are declared perfectly fine by the doctors. Neither did the bullies stop nor the expectations of the society diminished. The only thing that changed is, my way of responding to them and reacting to the situations!
Thanks to my super mom who became an iron wall in front of all the words thrown at me and helped me cope up with this life-threatening disease. If I can, any one of you can.