“Depression, is a grey cloud, moving, yet not moving..”

“Depression, is a grey cloud, moving, yet not moving..”

I froze for a minute as I saw this week’s theme for Marathon Bloggers. I have grown up hearing this word, and it still continues to stay with me. My mother has been depressed for the past 20 years. My brother, who’s 15, is depressed too. The reason I froze was not because I was scared to write on the theme but because I didn’t know what to write. Each day has been an experience, with its own ups and downs, there’s so much to write, yet there’s nothing.

I grew up not liking my mother because she didn’t do what all other mothers did. I grew up too early. I started taking care of my younger brothers when I was 10, handling the finances of the house when I was 12 and started cooking proper meals by the age of 15. Was it tough, hell yes! I felt cheated, I felt robbed. I remember not being comfortable around friends whose mothers showered affection on them in public.

I was sent to another city to study when I turned 15. Life for once seemed ‘normal’. I only had to visit home twice a year and that was a much better deal than being at home the whole time. At the age of 17, I moved to Delhi to study. Each time my friends spoke of their parents I could only speak about my father. I had no memories of my mother. I was asked a lot times if my mother was my ‘real mother’ because I never spoke of her or if she was alive at all. I almost stopped going home, because the more I was there the more I had to deal with reality.

I am 25 now. It was this year that my youngest brother was suspected of having schizophrenia. He was having violent fits where he would try harming himself and others. It wasn’t the first time this was happening at home, I had seen all this before, I had seen Ma doing it. I felt for Ankur, I wanted to rush back home but I didn’t have the heart to see my baby brother that way. My boss and my friends kept pushing me to go home but I didn’t.

I started having sleepless nights myself but I still kept doing my daily chores like I used to until one fine day when I couldn’t. I went to work, opened my laptop to finish an article but I just couldn’t write a word. I was blank, I was sweating and I was anxious for no apparent reason. I started to withdraw, I suddenly began to hate meeting or speaking to people. I wanted to be in my shell.

Thankfully for me, I have friends who didn’t let me be in my shell and made every effort to pull me out of where I was. I was taken to a doctor who put me on medication. For once I could empathize with my mother more than before.

I eventually took a break from work because I thought I needed to be at home with my family as they struggled to deal with my brother. He’s been on therapy and medication for a while now and is on the road to recovery.

The reason I write this is not because I want to share my story or because I want you to empathize. The reason why I write is because I want us to be more aware and reach out when there’s a need. Because each time one of us suffers there are quite a few who suffer with us.

It’s important to not judge when we see someone fumbling. It’s important that we go forward and lend a hand to the ones in need. Depression is no monster, it’s curable. There’s no shame, no harm in seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist, they are like all other doctors who we go to when in need. Mental health is as important as our physical well being. It’s time we broke our age old beliefs and dogmas for our own well being.