Chronicles of Depression Part 3

As I woke up, day after day, right after the birth of my most beautiful daughter the darkness seemed to envelope me. I desperately hoped it wasn’t morning yet but I knew it was! I so desparately wanted to sleep but sleeping in the day was something my husband wasn’t used to see me doing so he kept waking me up.For him it was a nightmare too. Here he was holding his daughter and feeling on top of the world and then on the other hand there was me who constantly looked like a train had run over me! He didn’t have a clue about depression or the fact that something like what I was going through, was even possible!
I looked at my daughter and the only thing I felt was anxiety. Anxiety so strong that it would grip my heart and make me incapable of carrying out day to day chores or work. But there was no choice, I had to get up and get to work. Financially I wasn’t in a position to stay at home. I had bills to pay and a baby to look after.
I wish there was a way that mental illnesses, out of which depression is more common, are more understood. It’s like suddenly out of the blue you’re hit by a thunderbolt and nothing feels the same again. Merely taking a regular work call and fixing an appointment is difficult.
My anxiety was so strong that I was convinced that everything in my life was wrong. Everything. Fortunately I co-own a business and at that time I all I had to do was constantly supervise if things were going ok. I have no idea how I got through the days. Fear paralysed me. All decisions I took at that time were wrong. I had physical symptoms too. I felt strange sensations in my feet and nobody believed me because they thought I was nuts. Finally I consulted a neurologist for the sensations and he said it was stress related neurological disorder. More medicines came my way. I was eating next to nothing. l had my mother staying with me for a few weeks and that made matters worse! She would have long phone conversations with people on the phone right in front of me and say really insensitive stuff about me. That made me cringe and go further into a black hole of misery. Eventually I had to take medication and it worked and I crawled back to normalcy after 4 gruelling months.
I write this today for 3 reasons, I’m doing a workshop with @medhashri and have promised to write one article a day, secondly writing is cathartic in more ways than one and thirdly anyone who suffers from this needs a strong support system. With more and more families being nuclear and relationships with parents sometimes being strained life can get difficult.
To all the youth out there even if you don’t live with your parents a strong and steady relationship with your parents and siblings makes life a better place for you and them as they age. And if you have a guru like Swamiji then you are home..😊

For part 2 go here