Tag: depression

Its a process

On By Indu PatikkalIn depression, divorce, Dreams, growing up, Incomplete, learning the hard way, life, life lessons, realizationsLeave a comment

Healing is a process. Healing from everything, from loss, from letting go, from sickness, from trauma. Each one takes its own route and time. In the process you discover new things and you start seeing all the gaping holes in your soul that need careful needlework to sew and close. Each one takes its time. I am in therapy, yes, there is so much shit to process. I am on depression meds, yes, because I don’t know when that devil is going to hit me again. It is like metamorphosis I guess. Inside the cocoon, I am slowly evolving to emerge as a beautiful butterfly. And emerge, I will.

Recently, events of my earlier life unfolded to me, and gave me a perspective about my life, which I had never seen before. The car accident from when I was in 3rd grade, left scars on my left cheek. My father who held race, skin color, beauty in high esteem, ask me to pose for photographs with my right side only. If I don’t smile from ear to ear, there is a manufacturing defect to my smile, its one sided. He would say, don’t give me that side smile. My brother to this day rolls on the floor and laughs when he narrates an incident when I tried to ride a bicycle and went and crashed into a house. I don’t know how to ride a bicycle to this day. Maybe three years ago, he said jokingly whats the point of taking my picture, I look like a cylinder anyways. I remember my mother once saying to a neighbor, ‘so what if she’s dark, she’s elegant’.

I am five feet tall, ‘short’ as per ‘unknown’ standards. I am brown skinned, ‘dark’ as per ‘unknown’ standards. At 5 feet and 120 pounds, I was ‘fat’ as per ‘unknown’ standards. In the eighth grade, my eyesight went poor and I started wearing glasses, ‘soda glasses’ as per ‘unknown’ standards. To add to this, my parents and brother were a lighter shade of brown. So, all my childhood, I blamed myself for not meeting these ‘unknown’ standards. My life was a waste, a curse I told myself looking at the mirror.

So what happens when you go through about twelve years of this cycle (age 5 to 17), these standards get ingrained in you. You blame yourself for your inadequacy without realizing that you are unique. All of this is what makes you, you. You start trying to become someone else. You apply loads of ‘fair and lovely’ cream in the hope that you will become light skinned, like them. You wear heels, to feel taller. You apply make up (this part I couldn’t afford) to look perfect. You transform. You feel forced to build this alternate image of yourself to please the people around you, to feel accepted. In this situation a small compliment, an acknowledgement is like hitting the jackpot. When my teachers chose me to give out the speech on behalf of the 10th grade outgoing students, I was shocked. Why me, I thought instead of thinking, why not me.

We start making adjustments to ourselves, a little here, a little there, to fit in, until we don’t recognize ourselves. We lose our identity. To this chaotic situation, comes a person, your first boyfriend or girlfriend, who is just the escape button your soul needs. You give them infinite chances, so much so that a friend comes and asks you ‘don’t you have any self respect’. In hindsight, it’s funny and he was right. But back then, I was so offended. I was busy moving from one act to another. Then another comes, who promises you the moon. Who claims cannot live without you. Suddenly you have this one person who is making you feel worthy. You jump right into the trap. He sets the stage with all your favorite colors, there’s the moon, there’s the bench by the river you dreamt of. Slowly when he’s understood that you are comfortable, he pulls away the colors one by one. He shows you the beautiful picture now and again, while slowly pulling the rug below your feet. You again pretend, try to be the person who fits his environment. The brother, the mother, the father are all there, so you switch from role to role, losing your self identity completely. Analyzing why they did what they did, the only answer I arrive at is that, they felt responsible to fix this ‘flawed’ being.

Until one day, if you are lucky enough, a friend comes by and points out the horsecrap of a life you have. And then you start the process of rediscovery, of healing, of seeing who you really are. 44 years of my life paying up for ‘I have no fucking clue’. It’s a struggle, everyday, I guess this is how babies learn to roll over, crawl sit up, stand, walk and run. I think I have just rolled over. I need to start crawling, crawling my way back into me, the person I am meant to be.

They say relationships are hard work, yes, even the one with yourself, that’s the hardest one. Everyone faces challenges in different ways. Staying sane through everything and finding your purpose, I guess, is the ultimate goal of life. At the end, maybe everyone does what they think is best, in the process if they poke a few holes in another’s soul, I guess, that’s collateral damage.

This moment

On By Indu PatikkalIn depression, learning the hard way, life, life lessons, Random thoughts, realizations1 Comment

“The way to suffer well and be happy is to stay in touch with what is actually going on; in doing so, you will gain liberating insights into the true nature of suffering and of joy.” No Mind No Lotus – Thich Nhat Hanh

I started reading the book No mind No Lotus at the recommendation of a friend. When I ordered the book I did not notice the words in the center of the front cover. When I opened the amazon package I saw it ‘the art of transforming suffering’. Interesting, was my first thought. I started reading the book and am only a few pages into it. This is a book I want to read slowly, savor the lines, because this is what I need to learn, the art of transforming suffering.

In the few pages I have read, I realize the zen Buddhist teacher wants us to realize how important it is to live in the moment. I am anxious to unfurl the rest of his wisdom in the book. A few weeks ago my mind was clouded, I was stressed, I was depressed. If I was reading something, it flew past me. I could not register a single word. There was a dense fog clouding my mind, with zero visibility. My therapist kept reminding me that I have been here before and the fog has cleared before. I did not, rather could not believe a word she said. It felt like forever. I was living with ghosts from the past in my head. I thought I needed a higher dose of my depression meds. The news of my son’s college admission did little to clear the fog. A few hours of happiness and I was back as an ass with the heavy load.

It is difficult to explain depression, it is not like fracturing a toe that one can see in an x-ray. It is not possible to see the moment, let alone live it. It is like a web of your past, your anxiousness of the future, woven so intricately, that you cannot seem to find the edge. The more you try to get out, the more you are entangled. With a bone fracture, you can get a cast to set it right. With depression, you can get meds, but you alone have to make small changes, take baby steps to come out of it. My baby step as pointed out by my therapist was to make a list of the things clogging my mind. Separate them out as those that I can control and those I cannot. It is an extremely simple thing to do, but put the serenity prayer into action.

Coming out of trauma is not a small ordeal. It takes time, you need to give yourself time. The longer you have been in trauma, the longer the road to rediscovering yourself. It takes effort, sometimes it feels like every ounce of you is at work. It is hard, extremely hard at times, but that small voice inside you somewhere, the superpower hidden beneath the layers, kicks your gut, pushing you, every moment, every day. There are different categorizations of people, but emotionally there are only two. The ones who have been abused and the ones who have not. It is that simple. The world shapes up based on this.

People who have not been abused have a strong sense of self. They know what they want, they know how they will react in a certain situation. Their highs and lows are closer to the normal. They don’t get too excited or too sad instantly because their center of emotional gravity is deep rooted.

The abused are the utterly confused strata of society. They have absolutely no fucking clue, of self worth. You cannot blame them, because their reality has been so masterly altered by the abusers that it’s all a haze. Their level of expectation of happiness is so low that anything small makes them euphoric. If they are lucky they go through years of therapy to find some normalcy. But do they ever become whole again? I wonder.. one’s life is so caught up in looking for red flags that they forget to experience the happiness laid right in front of their eyes. It’s always a question, “Can I trust this?”. It’s atrocious how our souls are battered, by another mere mortal. How someone could think that we are a toy to be pulled and pushed and reshaped the way they choose.

It is very difficult for a person who has not experienced abuse to understand. There is so much to unlearn and rediscover, not something that’s out there in the world, but yourself. A whole lifetime wasted on this unlearning and being able to trust again. I wonder how many years of therapy it will take to be whole again.

I write so much about trauma and abuse and healing and depression, I wonder if people who are reading this are bored. But then I feel the awareness is not there, and it is very sad. In this age and time where information is at our fingertips (overused phrase, I know), millions of people who don’t have the avenue to get out abusive relationships and get access to a good therapist who will help them move forward. Through therapy I have relived the suffering to be able to heal from it. At the other end of this reliving is joy, a release of the pain, my version of it, a person listening to it who has my emotional wellbeing in front and center.

If you are thinking, she is so broken, yes I am. And this is unashamedly, me. Healing is more difficult than the suffering. You are a constant work in progress to calm the waters, settle the waves down to reach that state of serenity where water is one with nature. People will come and throw a stone, because they don’t like anything still. There will be ripples, which will disrupt the stillness, but healing is knowing that the ripples will eventually die and the water will be still again. The stone deep inside cannot be moved, it will lie there and in the end we gather many stones, moving from stillness to ripples and back to stillness again..

Health that no one talks about..

On By Indu PatikkalIn depressionLeave a comment

When you catch a fever or some body part aches, you take a pill to bring down the fever or relieve the pain. If symptoms get worse you see a doctor who prescribes medicines. There is no second thought when you want to share this with others. WIth all the advances we have made as humans, it is extremely unfortunate that mental health is a taboo in 2021. Nobody wants to know if you have emotional symptoms. It is a topic uncomfortable for many to talk about or share. Everyone know how a fever feels, so the listener can relate to your condition. But not everyone knows how depression feels, so it like talking about an alien on Mars, who you’ve heard about, but have your doubts on whether they exist. If you have a doctor appointment, you can tell your co-workers or your supervisor that you have a doctor appointment. Unfortunately, if you have a therapist appointment, you can only say personal appointment. I have not heard anyone say I have a therapist appointment, except my close friends. It is a taboo. I am not sure where the taboo lies, in the mind of the person who has the appointment, or is it a fear of judgement by the listener.

Understanding mental health was difficult prior to the pandemic we are all stuck in, but now, I guess more people are opening up the idea of the existence of mental health. The pandemic has affected everyone; either by infecting the person with the virus or with the fear that one may catch the bug. Many people have been stuck inside their houses finding alternatives to their “normal” way of living, or trying to establish a new normal. This has taken a toll on everyone’s emotional health. My one year old nephew puts his hands across his mouth and shows us what a mask is. It makes me so sad. My children have been indoors since March 2020, not meeting friends, not going to school and it has taken a toll on their mental health. It is an even more cumbersome task of parenting where it is my primary responsibility to ensure they don’t break down; to keep things as lively as possible. Nothing is normal, but creating a sense of normal is so essential to keep everyone sane.

I am tired of reading about the pandemic so I am going to spare you and let’s get back to emotional health or mental health and therapy. Therapy is the art of healing the mind and I cannot stress enough how important it is to ensure one’s mind is healthy. Everything stems from your mind, your happiness, happiness and love that you share with people around you. When the mind is not well, you are sad, making everyone around you sad. You have no enthusiasm to do anything, and just want to lock yourself up in a room. There are other extreme issues which I am not going to talk about. You are on your journey of healing when you realize or someone tells you to see a therapist. Unlike the other physical illness doctor who has tools to check the issue and prescribe medicines, therapy takes time. Nothing happens in one session or even ten sessions. It may take years, but be assured you are on the path of recovery. You have to dive deep into yourself and peel the layers you have unknowingly built around you, one by one. As you expose each layer underneath and talk about your situation, experience, feelings, you are able to reflect on the situation in a different light with the help of the therapist. The blurriness fades and you start to see things clearly.

As my therapist says the answers are within you, you just need to find them. One of the best gifts I have given myself is therapy. Even as I type this I have some part of me thinking everyone is going to know that I am seeing a therapist. But that’s okay; because this is important to me and is for my well-being. And it just means that I am giving as much importance to my mind as my body. I know that not everyone understands the reason or the result of therapy. It is a very personal process, where you chalk out your path but you have someone who will help you to stay afloat and keep the balance.

When a movie star like Deepika Padukone comes out in support of mental health, we read about it and think wonder why she needs it or talk about it. But we almost always miss to acknowledge ourselves or people in our house who are going through depression. It is real for you and me as it is for Deepika Padukone. We all have a mind and we need to protect it for our own sanity. I sincerely hope there comes a day in the near future when we can openly acknowledge that ‘I am fighting depression and taking care of my mind to emerge stronger’ and that people around us don’t judge us, instead listen to us when we need to talk to someone..