Disclaimer :
I am not a trained professional in Psychology or Mental health. My intention to share my story is merely to raise awareness among people and the stigma attached to it. Please consult a professional if you go through depression, anxiety, or any mental illness.

Nature: A magic pill

Well you must be thinking by coming to some level of acceptance, I must have being brave enough to share it with my family members. But that never happened.

When I reached my home town I felt a bit at ease looking at my family members, but I knew inside me it was not that old me who has arrived mentally. I could sense that huge gap of wavelength & understanding of my emotions & feelings when it came to expressing myself to my family members considering I was new to these feelings myself. Not that I tried , I knew deep down how will they react to it.

Rethinking back ,I thought I was prepared for this turning point in my life, to leave my job & get married, which was a part of the plan already. But only in my dairy, I guess. That acceptance of change never came from my brain & body muscles to come to terms with accepting major changes in life.

I figured out later that I was simply not prepared to leave my glamorous job & get married or start a new life altogether in a new place and atmosphere. My attachment towards my job, my independence, my lifestyle which I was attached to was simply not allowing me to get used to the new life which I had planned.

Days past, I continued suppressing my emotions, crying alone at night. Somehow the hustle of the marriage prep & rituals kept me robotically alive physically. This was also the time, I was finding solace in spirituality, prayers, digging deeper into existential questions, desperately finding the root cause for my condition researching on Google for hours.

It’s every girl’s dream to marry a guy of her dream & live happily ever after. All of this was actually happening to me. Everything in the outside world seemed so perfect and as per my plans except the new ‘abnormal ‘me.

I felt my identity as a piece of flesh or just a body with no normal brains. There will be a time when you feel that physical pain is more bearable than mental pain. And the shock of it snatching away your identity as a person in the outer world or even appearing as a normal person to others , petrified your whole existence.

Within a month I got married with this debilitating condition. I was just following the flow of my life where it was taking me , with no sense of happy feelings. When I desperately wanted to feel them as I knew that if this shit wouldn’t have trapped me ,I would have enjoyed every bit of these magical moments of my life.

Look what stress & depression had done to me. I felt like I was in a invisible cage which only I could see no one else.

Coming to my life partner, my husband I would never think of sharing my feelings with him at that point of time, in spite of knowing that we shared compatible wavelengths between us. Because I was afraid he would start doubting me if I really loved him. With this, I also started feeling guilty inside that I was betraying my love by not expressing my feelings. I absolutely had no guarantee of my mental health , because that time I never knew medicines can even cure this condition .I presumed that I will never be out of this shit ever again on my own.

Taking a step to visit a psychiatric was way too far in the book of my life. I hadn’t been successful to even share my misery to my loved ones , to convince them to take me to a doctor.

So having no other option I decided to carry my journey pretending to be happy me, but I also got determined each day to give my best to get my self back to normal , by reading lot of self-help books , growing spiritually , exercising daily keeping away from all negative news. I will not deny , this really helped me to a great extent.

This doesn’t mean when you desperately need help, you try to heal on yourself. In my case, I didn’t dare to visit a doctor as I dint think my circumstances allowed me or u could say I was hesitant to express myself. At the same Time, they were equally not that bad that they will aggravate my condition further. Thankfully I was with people around me always . Eventhough I couldn’t share anything with them ,I still lived an active & busy life in the outer world. Which I think is very important to help you came out of this rabbit hole gradually.

Two months of our marriage past swiftly, spending hurried time in Pathankot. My husband got an unexpected posting to ‘ Jammu & Kashmir ‘ the so called paradise of India.

While living this hell inside my mind,I thank God to the bottom of my heart , for having my husband posted to this pristinely beautiful location which literally acted like a slow magic pill of nature in my life.

Its an undeniable fact that we all humans are inherently wired to easily get absorbed in the beauty of nature effortlessly. Whenever we feel sick or depressed people often encourage us to go unwind in nature as it kind of feels back to normal when we go out & meet people.

For me this paradise become a cherry on cake, a natural healer sent to me in a form of my answered prayers ,I thought. I felt like a lost & depressed child enchanted by the beauty of nature.

Consequently,I could start to sense a feeling of normalcy in bits & pieces within a few months. Not completely however. During this span of time I also noticed a new pattern of feelings taking over. I had started getting intrusive thoughts of my loved ones being hurt. These feelings often used to induce me to feel depressed , but the intensity was controllable. And I somehow used to find ways to divert my mind.

The silence of nature , the varied landscapes, eye- popping vibrant flowers , a fully flowering almond & cherry blossom , bird friendly surrounding , my first snowfall experience , allowed my mind to sync with my inner self , revealing the strength within.

Sounds like a happy ending to my depression story. Even I thought the same , that somehow this paradise of India helped me great extent to surpassed all those feelings which seemed impossible to me to heal on my own.

But who knew a great storm of volcanic proportion called ‘ Relapse’ was waiting to explode on me post- delivery known as ‘ post- natal depression ‘…………..

To be continued

Note: ( What worked for me not necessary will work for you also. I was just grateful enough that circumstances turned in my favour to help me heal my mind gradually. And even if you manage to escape, remember,depression is a chronic illness, you never know when it comes to haunt you back.)