It has been 3 years since it started and it still remains with me. The only difference is that it felt like an end, a curse, a complete hell in the beginning, but now with the passage of time and a little bit of control, it helps the wisdom to rise.

In 2017, just before the festival of Holi, some thoughts, wrongly taken and exaggerated by me asked for a little bit of space in my mind. The emotions led by the same were overwhelming and I desperately wanted to make them feel right to me. First it was me who played the thoughts in a loop inside my head, trying to analyze, understand and aimed strongly to make it feel right. But then the process itself backfired, taking complete control over my mind.  It was no more me who had the play and pause button in my hand and I was nowhere near my aim of making myself feel right about it. Each and every time I went through those thoughts, it left bruises deep in mind. I was crying with no hope for any solution. I tried to go out into the fresh air and take some breathes of relief, but that didn’t help either. It started with lightheadedness, then dizziness and soon I was in a phase where I would burst into tears just by seeing my cousins or friends. I felt heavy with the load of unanswerable questions, I was crying with a hope of seeking some kind of help, but I didn’t know who could have helped.

Even the festival of colors went in the same way. I remember I went to my cousin’s house that day with a hope that I might feel well, but little did I know that it wasn’t the time. There were bright colors on my face, but the eyes remained dull and swollen. I couldn’t even put up a facade of an awkward smile to match the occasion. But I guess a mere smile wasn’t even in my mind back then. All I wanted was a bit of relief.

It was tough for me to let my eyes drip in front of my parents, but it was harder to control them. But a mother, who knows all the curves of your face, caught the hints and tried to have a chat with me.  As I didn’t come up with any clarity, she started calling my friends to ask them about the things going on with me and somehow she landed up with a little bit of right information. She kept the part which I wanted to remain private to herself and suggested me to practice a healthy lifestyle that includes going early to bed, waking up early in the morning and a little bit of meditation every day. Though she was completely right, but may be not for the situation I was in that moment. But soon my complains of dizziness, confusions, fluidic movements, and chest pain led my father to take me to a friend of him, who was a cardiologist. Well my father knew I had no issues in my heart, perhaps it was important to go for counseling. As the doctor heard me in private, he immediately understood that neither I had vertigo nor any kind of other issues, rather it was anxiety. He prescribed me a medicine for 2 weeks. I, who was desperately waiting for a solution, a ray of hope that could bring me back to the light from the gloomy world that I was stuck in, for him even the prescription felt like a relief.

The medicines did help and I was back into the world of life again. After that when I had all the energy back in me, I thought to invest some of it towards my health. I joined gym to remain active, I started working on my photography and editing skills and I tried to keep myself as busy as possible. It went quiet well and fine for a year, but then the phase relapsed. However, this time it wasn’t any thought that pushed me towards it, rather those were the symptoms about which I was complaining a year before. Dizziness while working out was the first and then a feeling of fluidic movement while walking were my complains. I was worried, anxious and overwhelmed again. As the events occurred again and again, I stopped going to gym and thought to get some rest for some time. But that wasn’t the need I guess and soon as I stayed more within the four walls, my mind got caught by various thoughts again. Thoughts of something bad happening to me or my loved ones. I would try to make myself understand that nothing wrong will happen, no one will harm anyone, but the relief would only arrive after repeating the same for several times. Sometime I would lock myself up in the bathroom and keep repeating the same words to myself, trying to make myself understand and feel that I have understood and it’s all fine. Yet it didn’t end and soon the process became a torture. Lightheadedness, dizziness and hyper alertness became more common, and that’s when I realized that I need to see a doctor before it worsens. Thanks to Sushmita Dii, one of my friend’s sister and a doctor herself, who took me to a psychiatrist. As usual answering the questions raised against the feelings were terrifying, but to the doctor I had to get them. And in the end I was back with a prescription that had medicines listed for a longer period this time.

My mother very well knew that I was taking medicines again, but she wasn’t fine with me taking them every day for 2 months. I said her that I need them but this time, she was right. I realized this the very next day when I completed the course of 2 months, as it showed some withdrawal symptoms like confusions and panicking. But thankfully the experiences from the past helped and by then I knew that it’s me who controls my thoughts and energies which further takes the shape of emotions.

Well it didn’t end there. Till now it comes and goes like a season every year. But now with the experience of both good and bad, I sometimes manage to play with both the phases. I would sometimes mingle them and create a mixed feeling, which actually feels different and lively. I agree that it feels torturous to go through depression and if you have an experience with it, you never wish to go through it again. But the silver lining is that, only such harsh conditions in life push you to know your wrongs and learn the ways of right. And with depression, if you understand, it shows you the true power of your mind and opens up the doorway to a new reality, the true one perhaps, which often lies untouched and unaddressed in the so called race of life and evolution.