Depression…..
A word which is thrown about in today’s age of left leaning liberal millennialism as if it means nothing…..
Does it ?
I was sitting one fine evening looking at the rain pouring down, the drops smudging the dust on the windowsill, looking like tears cascading down the glass pane…..Johny Cash was crooning out Hurt in my ears and I was reading the Color Purple by Alice Walker. I looked up to see the beautiful sight in front of me, and cried. Spontaneous, sudden…..unexpected. I wiped my tears away to prevent someone from knowing what had happened. Seems like a routine situation save doesn’t it ? I thought so too. Till I couldn’t go back to the book. Because my mind kept racing back like the prodigal son it was to what had just happened. Trying to decipher why it had happened. And why I decided to hide it. Looking towards the rain splattered outside….I tried to figure out….Why ?
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real
I was depressed. If I told people I was….They would ask me to ‘suck it up’, ‘grow a pair’ and other such phrases which people throw around without a hint of knowing what the consequences are. I was told to know my life was good and hence I should not feel entitled to depression. I was told I am loved and I had no reason to be hurt…..that I was just a spoilt little brat. I wasn’t. You see, Depression like most things do not go away with entitlement. It is hurt. No, not like a pin prick or a car crash or even like cancer. It is the indescribable feeling of an asphyxiating child being pushed inside an empty grave while all he tries to do is figure out the one last soliloquy he needs to sing to give his life meaning. That didn’t make sense ? Neither does depression. It is the feeling where you feel crushed and helpless, but you do not know why…..
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar’s chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
Next time someone tells you they are depressed, do not ask them to stop whining, do not presume you can help them…do not patronize them. Hug them. Let them know that the day they feel like ripping their face off in agony…..they can run and come to you. Hug you. Cry on your shoulders…..let them know that in a planet of over a billion people, they can turn to one. Trust me, the pain, the agony, the smoldering fire of madness which cannot be rhymed or reasoned with…all they need is the solace of a comforting fellow human. For the warmth of a human heart is the medicine to anything, while the jeers of human wrath is the ever present conservative hand shutting a person down. Let the depression sink in. Let it stay. So do you. I didn’t figure out the reasons for the tears yet….I never needed to. Loving friends and family ensured I finished my book in peace and enjoyed subsequent nights of torrential downpour in all it’s natural beauty. Depression is real. Not a social media whack, not a rich person’s perpetual whines…..It is a issue affecting the human psyche. In today’s fast paced world….We all have been depressed sometime or the other. And a depressed person needs support. Not antagonism. Support. Because depression is real. It is a red flag, an incessant drone at the back of the human mind…..Depression is real.
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way
– Soumyajyoti Bhattacharya
Image Credits : Google Images
