I took an English course during my Bachelors’ where I had to make a term paper with proper research, logical explanation and narration. Our lecturer gave us the full freedom of choosing the topic of the term paper as the main intention was to teach us to write a paper. I don’t know why but for some reason, I instantly decided to write my paper on depression.
I have never researched about something so intensely before as much as I have researched about this topic. It was like my inner voice was constantly bugging me to know more and more about this topic. I went through all the accessible journals and papers on Google just to have an in depth knowledge about the physical, mental, psychological, anatomical and neurochemical aspects of this disorder.
I don’t want to bore the writing with the different definitions of depression; rather I want to share the most fascinated features of this silent killer. You can be living the most perfect live ever, showered with happiness and care from your family, friends etc. or by achieving your dreams and success in life but you can still be haunted with depression. Depression does not directly come from sadness. When something goes against our will; our natural senses start acting upon it and we exert them by being emotional; either by being sad or by being upset. Being both sad and happy are the two most common outcomes of human beings when they want to express their feelings. But depression is something else. It is a strange feeling which consumes the every good and happy vibe of a soul and turns into dark and hollow.
The continuous feeling of loneliness, worthlessness, exhaustion, inferiority, complexity, irritation, fatigue and anger are the horrible features of it. But the reasons behind these horrible feelings are most of the time unexplainable. You may be in the middle of a gathering, full of your beloved people but you may feel worthless, lonely and neglected and you may not even process why you are feeling such way. You may be doing great in your academics but you may find yourself inferior at times and you may not have the slightest idea why you are feeling so. Confusion will cloud your mind and you will start questioning your existence in the world, your importance to your family and friends, your purpose in life. Just right before your eyes, you will see your dreams and goals being shattered by yourself because of your negligence, exhaustion, tiredness, fatigue and irritation. You will find anyone and everyone a burden. Socializing will become painful for you. You will find yourself to be the conversation listener whereas once you used to be the conversation initiator. You will find yourself in love with the darkness rather than the sun and light of the world; literally. You may find yourself comfortable staying in a dark room, lying down in bed rather than getting up and turning the light on. You may feel irritated to explain yourself to others and start keeping distance from the people with whom once you were very close.
Depression has always fascinated me in a darker way. It converts the bubbliness of an individual into awful quietness. It shatters the dreams and hopes of an individual into pieces. It converts a secure and simple individual to become an insecure, attention seeking and complicated individual. It destroys the normal capability of expressiveness of a person and makes him/her socially morbid. During these times and changes, that individual cannot find any way of getting rid of his/her demons.
I have avoided so many gatherings of my friends because of this magnificent disorder! I felt, lying in bed or sitting down doing nothing was far more comfortable to me than attending gatherings where I would have to communicate. It’s not that I didn’t want to be in touch with my friends. It’s just that the idea of socializing, getting ready to go out and meeting them seemed very exhausting to me. At times, I desperately wanted to be a part of their happiness, pain, achievements yet I used to find comfort in living by myself away from them. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Well, it is weird. But I grew my comfort level with this weirdness. I spent a huge time being like this but somehow, hope found its way and fought with the darkness of my soul as hard as it could. I started opening myself up again to my friends, my lovely school friends. I realized that distance did not ruin my relationship with them after all.
Though my closeness with my friends helped me a lot from getting rid of depression, it didn’t fully help me from getting rid of my awkwardness, exhaustion and insecurities. Once in my life, I was quite the extrovert and confident person, the kind, people want to be associated with. It started changing and I started being afraid of letting people in my life. Many a times I thought about my failed relationship, my constant need of attention from opposite genders and my aggressive need of people liking me and appreciating me, specially the guys. I thought about how pretty I wanted to look, how many guys I wanted to fall for me, how cool I wanted to project myself in front of everyone. All these bottled up inside me and built an anger and hatred towards myself. Countless times I wished to be disappeared. I wished that the next day would be a bright new day where my past and my mistakes won’t haunt me. But I miserably failed. I let all my insecurities, mistakes, dark voices ruin me. I became cold inside. And I started being careless about my beloved ones’ feelings as well. How do you expect a person to have feelings and sentiments for others when she doesn’t have those for herself?
You know, sometimes, depression acts like a soul sucking Dementor and takes away every good from you. And sometimes, you are left with some senses which fight to at least keep some of the good within you. I guess my patience and my inner warrior were responsible in keeping me half sane in this case. I focused a lot in my studies, my career. I wanted to help people in need. I tried being friendly to my juniors. I tried helping them in any way possible. I felt for the underprivileged children of our society. I started helping them as well. These activities made myself feel worthy.
In depression, it is necessary to let your feelings out. It is also necessary to listen to every good thing possible so that the good can defeat your inner demons. I watch video podcasts, standup comedies, discussions, TV series, movies, analysis, conspiracy theories and so many other things on You Tube. I also dance in the most random Bengali or Hindi item songs or head bang listening to a rock song. I also pray. I feel good when I engage myself in these. Reading stories and articles made me interested to write. And for that, I could write about my feelings today. I sing too despite being a terrible singer. But whenever I felt like singing, I used to record and upload it on my social accounts because that would make me happy. I talk to my younger brother a lot. He is the only one who can bring me out of my zoned out crappy mood anytime. He doesn’t try much; he just normally comes up and starts a conversation. He understands me more than I understand myself. Sometimes, when I get tired from battling with my demons, I go to his room and sit beside him. Sometimes we talk, sometimes I just watch him play computer games.
Now I believe; it is the hope, patience and warrior in me which helped me dealing with all of my crazy thoughts. I still don’t like venting out my emotions but I knock my friends or sit down with my parents once in a while just to feel that I am not alone in this. When I am overwhelmed with my feelings, I write. I hate smiling but now I do it to feel strong. I don’t like bullying, making practical jokes and shaming others for fun and I raise my voice against those. I do whatever makes me happy. I was morally in disciplined but I am reversing it day by day just by looking into my parents’ eyes. Whenever I feel like I hate everything and everyone, I try thinking about how much my parents have done for me to have a safe and secure life.
Maybe some will relate to my situation and some will not. But all I am saying is; please try fighting till the end. We all will die one day. Let’s wait for that day to embrace death. That is what I am doing. I am not trying to be happy because then, it would be forceful. I am just trying not to be completely hopeless with myself, that way I will be able to fight; with me, my inner demons and my surroundings.