Mahima Sood
Mahima Sood shares her personal experience of living with depression, how it impacted her life and why it’s important to talk about mental health
Trigger Warning: Depression
This January, I was out with a friend, walking around town and talking about things that are fun to talk about, but you can’t quite recall them in retrospect. We decided to end the day at Zara; there were people all around and the place was buzzing with conversation and laughter. The last thing I remember is waiting for my friend who was trying on clothes before everything went blank.
“My friend rushed me to the ER, where they admitted me suspecting a stroke. 36 hours, morphine, CT scan, and spinal tap later, the neurologist declared me physically healthy, with alarming levels of stress. ‘What are you so worried about?’, he asked, and I had no answer.”
It started with a headache, which gradually intensified until I was unable to talk and started sobbing incessantly. In half an hour my mouth and hands froze. My friend rushed me to the ER, where they admitted me suspecting a stroke. 36 hours, morphine, CT scan, and spinal tap later, the neurologist declared me physically healthy, with alarming levels of stress. “What are you so worried about?”, he asked, and I had no answer.
“Depression has been the single constant in my life.”
Depression has been the single constant in my life. I say this with an acute awareness of the privilege my birth accords me: I come from an upper-caste Hindu family with educated feminist parents who are more liberal with girls than their contemporaries. I have a partner who understands my condition and is supportive, and friends who tolerate my sudden disappearances. My skin color and body type put me in the conventionally good-looking demographic – I point this out because I have people in my extended family being shamed over their complexion and body on a daily basis. Financial security allows me to pursue my passion. What is it that causes me to pause every once in a while and feel inconsolable with a grief that is so familiar, so consistent that it’s akin to breathing?
“My early twenties were a whirlwind of new experiences littered with long spells of denial about my worsening mental health, and my inability to do anything about it. I’ve gained and lost interest in people, jobs, hobbies, and my own well-being. I’ve fallen into a deep sleep after a day full of joy and laughter, only to wake up wishing I didn’t exist.”
Ever since I can remember I’ve had a constant feeling of dejection and sadness eclipse everything else. I have faint recollections of my childhood — blurs of undefined emotions that speed past, with one that stands out — disappointment. I had a happy, normal childhood. Yet, I always felt alienated and undeserving of that happiness. My early twenties were a whirlwind of new experiences littered with long spells of denial about my worsening mental health, and my inability to do anything about it. I’ve gained and lost interest in people, jobs, hobbies, and my own well-being. I’ve fallen into a deep sleep after a day full of joy and laughter, only to wake up wishing I didn’t exist. At least once a day, for the last 20 years, I have thought how wonderful it would be to stop existing, and how that would take away the pain I have brought upon myself and my loved ones.
“Throughout all this, I’ve managed to masquerade this part of me and pretend to be normal. Good grades, jobs, relationships and lifestyle. It felt alien and inappropriate to acknowledge my emotions, let alone allow them to surface.”
Throughout all this, I’ve managed to masquerade this part of me and pretend to be normal. Good grades, jobs, relationships and lifestyle. It felt alien and inappropriate to acknowledge my emotions, let alone allow them to surface. There would be moments when I couldn’t control it of course: normally culminating in bouts of sobbing. I once cried over not liking a T.V. show’s vamp, something I used to watch with my grandma every night. There was this time when I burst into tears during an appraisal meeting with my manager because she didn’t criticise as much as I thought she would. Once, my father sat on a bed that was freshly made, and I burst into tears because I couldn’t smooth over that last crease.
In retrospect, it seems I was trying to make up for that void by focusing on external achievements.
To give you some context, I have always prided myself on having wildly productive days, where I manage to get a week’s worth of work done in less than 24 hours. I am focused, sail through problems, and get great results. I will eat right and work out and read and spend my time well. However, I still feel hopeless. Balance this against six days where I do nothing but stay in bed, and avoid all social confrontations, and viola, that’s an average week in my life. Last weekend, my psychiatrist texted me to ask how I was doing. I replied, “meh. Been really productive though”. It’s almost as if I carry a fool’s hope that high functionality will magically cure me of whatever it is that ails my mind.
“What I learned was that no pill can cure us of the varying degrees of mental turmoil we go through and that each experience is different.”
When I first went on medication almost two years ago, the experience was different than what I imagined it to be. Books and movies had prepared me for a surreal transformation, where all my misery would obliviate with a single pill. However, what I learned was that no pill can cure us of the varying degrees of mental turmoil we go through and that each experience is different. The medication releases doses of Serotonin, the chemical that makes us happy, periodically in our brain. Each drug comes with its set of side-effects, and it’s upon the patient to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. Would you give up on a regular sleep cycle or bowel movement to manage your condition? Recovery is a gradual process where the onus is on the person to take actions that make the condition easy to manage and control outbursts that shatter every illusion of normality.
“I finally have the help I’ve always needed. I have initiated conversations with my family and friends over my condition. I have started medication. I’ve gone on and off both therapy and medication until I found the combination that works best for me.”
I finally have the help I’ve always needed. I have initiated conversations with my family and friends over my condition. I have started medication. I’ve gone on and off both therapy and medication until I found the combination that works best for me. My preconceived notions of mental health, how mentally ill people behave and how the treatment works have been redefined by my own narrative. I’ve begun to view the world with my own kaleidoscope where logic and emotions often amalgamate, but I try to stay calm and manage it the best I can.
If I, with all my privilege and resources, could walk into a store and, for the lack of a better phrase, “lose my shit”, anyone can. Millions around the world suffer from varying severity of mental illnesses. These conditions cannot be quantified into a set of consistent symptoms, but that does not render them even fractionally less severe or less important than physical ailments. We are dealing with a crisis that cannot be generalised based on symptoms, with each person manifesting it differently. Thus, the onus is on us, as a society, to collectively be responsible for the well-being of those around us.
Mahima is a Data Scientist who also runs a writing retreat in the Parvati Valley.
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