depression

I think I am depressed. Again.

mental health

I think I am depressed. Again.

Lately, I have noticed myself to be distanced from my own life. I feel like an outsider looking at my life playing out. I have no interest in anything at all. I am typically someone who enjoys the little things, the little moments, laughs overtly at silly jokes, and loves hard and fast. Of late, I have consistently had no interest in the on-goings around me or even in my own life. Nothing excites me or affects me at all. The only things that get me riled up are social issues and the unfairness of this world. I am so so so very tired.

I just want to be left alone, even by my loved ones. I need them to be there and love me, but I don’t want them around me. I feel like spending my afternoons crying and my nights staring at my ceiling. I feel like a ball of pain, perpetually overwhelmed. Why does it feel like I have an anvil resting on my sternum?

Food has always been a big part of my life. In some of my worst depressive days, I found myself binge eating to soothe my soul. It did not help, but it sure did give me a life-long disease called diabetes and a multitude of other health issues. People do not talk about the side effects of binge eating. It is easy to romanticize eating disorders that do not allow their victim to eat, because we see that weight loss as something beautifully sad, instead of the pain that consumes them.

Nobody wants to see a fat girl, already perceived to be ugly, eating out of sadness. It is much easier to write her off as lazy and greedy, than to admit that most of us suffer from mental illnesses that affect each one of us differently. Please don’t get me wrong. I am in no way belittling eating disorders that result in reduced eating, or skinny-shaming anyone. I understand the struggle that comes with people constantly having an opinion about your body. What gives them the right? However, I must consider the fact that fat -shaming is much more prevalent and often looked at with disgust. I am fine with that too. I no longer particularly care. I just wish I’d known the damage I’d end up doing to my own body. Would I have been able to control it? Maybe. Maybe not. I will never know.

These days, food bores me. I look at it and wonder if I must eat this to survive. None of my favourite foods bring me any joy. In fact, I barely even feel like eating, even when I’m hungry. 2 bites in and I’m done with my meal. If the hunger pangs are gone, must I continue eating? I’ve had a great relationship with food, apart from my binge-eating days, and this sudden aversion to it is hitting me harder than I thought it would.

TV shows and movies bore me, I don’t feel like meeting anyone at all, I don’t feel like painting or sketching. I have no will to move most days. And yet, I must continue to live my life. Who’s going to pay the bills?

I just lie there, one half of my brain screaming at me to move, to get ready for work, to start studying for my exam, to go for a walk, to take my insulin, to clean my room, to call my mom. But the other half? The other half cannot hear. It’s trapped in a hazy cloud of nothingness with no will to pull itself out of there.

I used to suffer from self-harm as well. It’ll be five years clean this coming October. Can I make it that far? The urge has been getting worse. It’s so hard to push it back yet again when it only comes back stronger than before.

It’s been a difficult week. I’ve been through these troughs so many times before, but it’s just been a while for me. And perhaps this trough is a little deeper than I expected.
Some days, I just want to return to my hometown and lie in my mother’s arms. But can I find solace in the arms of someone who doesn’t know this side of me?

It’s hard. It’s harder than most people understand, isn’t it? Those blessed with a mind that isn’t riddled with invisible illnesses that threaten to snuff the lights out, might never understand. And honestly, I’m so very glad that they’re safe from these horrors.

Some horrors you can escape. Some you can fight. But what do you do when the horror is your own brain stuck in a nightmare loop?
Who’s going to save me from my own mind?

Faith

Revival

This isn’t going where you might think it is. This is no story about holding on to faith. It’s about losing it. It’s about what happens when in a moment, you no longer believe in the God you held on to all you life. 

I’ve always believed in the peace of my religion and had faith in my God.  Oh,  I’ve had so much faith. No matter how good or bad things got, I always held on to that. I knew my God wouldn’t leave me hanging out to dry. 

But my father was taken from me, taken from my family and this world. I saw my mother lose everything she ever thought she had. I saw my sister stop believing in the power of love. I saw my entire family crumbling and I couldn’t do anything. I screamed and prayed for my God to do something, to do anything. I prayed to the God my father brought me up to believe in; the God he put all his faith in. And nobody came to help.

What is God if he’s not there when you need him? What is God if not the light that’s supposed to heal you? Where is my light? Where is my God? 

Do you know what happens to someone, who used to carry a symbol of their God everywhere, loses their faith?  It feels like you’re being scattered into a million directions because you have nothing to anchor you. You lose the thing you looked up to, held on to, prayed to and the one thing you believed would be your salvation. 

But how can you believe in something that claims to look over you but does nothing when your life starts falling apart? 

Will you love me then?

Revival

You say you love me now but what when one day the darkness clouds my mind again? What when it darkens my vision? What when my demons attack again? What when I lose my mind with baseless anxiety? What when I need so much assurance that I turn into a task for you? What when my insecurities are no longer endearing but frustrating?

What when one day you come home to find me sitting at the edge of the bed, my head between my hands with tears streaming down my face in the middle of the afternoon? What when you walk into the bathroom to find me scratching my face and pulling my hair? What when I go so quiet you forget I’m even there? What when you wake up in the middle of the night to find me staring at the ceiling, my eyes red and my face stained with haphazard dried tear tracks?

What when you wake up at 4 a.m. to find me out of bed; in the kitchen, using the knives to slice my own skin open? What when you walk into the bathroom to find me in a tub of water with crimson swirls and a blade fallen on the floor? What when you come home one evening and find me sitting at home just the way you left me that morning because I couldn’t motivate myself to move and go about my day? What when I can’t do my share of chores because I’m too tired battling myself? What when you find me sitting alone in a room buried in a book or a TV show completely ignoring reality and not sleeping? What when all I do is cry and blast painful music?

What when you walk into the kitchen to find me in my ugly torn pajamas, stuffing my face with all the food I can find because it’s all I can do to keep the pain at bay? What when I eat so much that I visibly become fatter by the day? What when I’m pigging out whenever you see me? What when all I do is stuff food in my mouth in the most unsightly manner and choke and cry violently simultaneously because I can’t get myself to stop and I can feel my life spinning out of control but can’t find the fire in me to stop it? What when I stop caring about myself at all?

What when I lose my temper and snap at you all the time for your mere existence? What when I get mad at you for trying to help? What when every little thing sets me off? What when I get angry at what seems like the most random thing?  What when I stop talking all together because I have nothing to say and even if I did, it was too much effort? What when one day I suddenly become distant?

What when you ask for a reason but I have none? What when I decide you can’t help? What when I feel like I’m only bringing you down and disappointing you but don’t know what to do about it? What when I breakdown all of a sudden with no reason or explanation? What when one day I flinch at your touch? What when one day I pull away from your embrace? What when you find all my obsessively sad writing?

What when one day you don’t love me anymore because I’m no longer the happy girl you fell for? What when I lose all the passion you loved me for? What when you decide I’m no longer worth the effort? What when one day you decide you’re tired of trying? What when you realize you’re better off? What when my baggage becomes too heavy? What when I decide I can no longer be saved? What if one day I drown and nobody’s there to pull me out? Will you love me then?

Desperate Despair

Revival

Have you ever felt so sad, so desperately lonely that you’ve wanted to throw up?

I lie in bed every night and I’m okay. I’m alright. The part of me that’s crippled will always be there so it doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s that little shadow on my shoulder. But as the night crawls on and the loneliness settles deeper within the crevices of my heart, flowing through my aorta, I feel sick. My stomach churns and my eyes sting. I continue to lie there, letting the emotions race through me. I would have called it a storm if I was new to this. But it’s not; it’s no storm. A storm has no direction. This? This is more like a herd of wild horses racing in one direction. I let it gallop over me.

One moment my stomach is an endless pit and I can’t stop myself from raiding the kitchen for whatever appealing food I can find. I sit and stuff my face with it until I glance at the mirror and my throat narrows, choking me and my chest clenches. I push the food away, clutching my stomach and crying. Why am I crying? Why does it feel so horrible? Who do I feel so ugly? Why do I eat more than I should and then resent myself for it? Should I vomit it out? Do I want to go down that path? I don’t know. I have no answers. I like back down.

My stomach is in knots now. My heart aches and my eyes are swollen. My head throbs and my arms flop on the bed as though I can no longer hold them up. Tears leak over my temples and onto my pillow unchecked but I don’t care. The ceiling is a wonderful object to continue to stare at. The wings of the fan move so confidently and swiftly. They know their purpose.  I think I’ll continue staring at them until dawn.

Everything is turning numb. My gaze is blurring. My mind has long since wandered from the blades of the fan. It’s focusing on a different kind of blade now. I shake my head to make myself forget the thought of it. Sometimes I wonder if the fan would break if I hung from it. And it frightens me.

The loneliness continues to pull me in like quicksand. I reach out; my hand stretching towards the sky as I try to keep my head above the proverbial water. The need for alcohol and cigarettes engulfs me. I don’t let myself take that course. I know I won’t have the energy to fight it off when it gets too much and I’ll spiral into yet another kind of hell. But the want doesn’t disappear. I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind a million light-years away and my torso arches off the bed with the effort to tamp down the need coursing within me. I feel desperate and needy and out of control and yet I feel numb.

I’m not sure what I’m feeling but I know I’m a mess. Someday, I’ll figure it out. Until then, I’ll continue to rub my soul on paper.

Twilight Tempest

Revival

The sky was alight but the sun was yet to rise above us. My sleep broke as my dreams took an unbidden turn. I sat on my bed, rubbing my eyes while longing for sleep to take me again. I could feel the perturbation swirling inside me and wanted nothing more than calm. I lay back down, my head sinking in the pillow. Sleep swept over me as soon as my eyes closed. I woke up a few hours later; the twilight had turned to late morning but the rage continued to course through me. It felt like a storm of a myriad of emotions. The anger was emerging strongest among them all. It was directed at nobody and yet, it was directed at everybody who had the misfortune to be at my side.

It had no reason and so it had no outlet. And as it always goes, you harm either yourself or those you love most. I hadn’t felt such tempestuous emotions in a long time. However, I had long since learnt to rein them in. All I had to do what give my fury a shape in my mind. To a twelve year old me, it looked like a giant cube of violently wriggling flesh covered in blood. My vision of it hasn’t changed in the past near-decade; perhaps because it’s the image that helped me control this storm inside me. It has failed at times but it has seen me through many furores.

I close my eyes and imagine the cube of bloodied flesh lassoed by a thick jute rope. It struggles and strains and pulls and wriggles to get free and my arms ache to hold on to it and pull it back. Please, please let me rein it in. I can’t lose more people to this rage. My eyes remain clenched while my breath heaves as though the struggle is physical. Soon, my breath will even out and my head will throb softly and my anger will be a small whimpering wolf that was forbidden from howling. And I’ll go about my day because this isn’t new to me. Sometimes I wish it was. Sometimes I wish I never knew these things. Sometimes I smack myself out of this self pity. But it’s better out on paper than writhing in my mind.