Let's Vent our Feelings (Trigger Warning; Depression, Self-harm, Panic disorders)

 

All attempts to sleep are futile, so I thought I’d start writing again. I know that I write a lot of useless stuff but it’s kind of a coping mechanism. I warned you this blog would be brain vomit. Okay, this post might be a serious one, because it’s time to talk about feelings.

Ugh, feelings, the most hateful topic to discuss. I know, right? But it’s important to know what you feel and why you feel that way whenever you encounter an emotion. I’m a very stoic person, but only on the outside. I smile a lot, but that’s only for show. Usually, I’m zoned out, floating in my own happy (or sad) memories. My mom understands my feelings most of the time and empathizes with me, but sometimes even she gets irritated (hats off to mum for unlimited patience!).

I feel like feelings are directly related to mental health and wellbeing. If you feel one emotion for too long, it can be a problem. Yes, even happiness. Life has ups and downs; it’s only natural to feel happiness for a limited time only. Correct me if I’m wrong, but too many emotions can be hectic.

I used to be a very sensitive kid when I was younger. I rarely cried but I expressed my emotions heavily. Instead of crying when I was sad, I got angry and irritated and snapped at anyone who tried to make me feel better. I wasn’t a rude child, but sometimes even the best people received an earthshaking tantrum from me.

As I grew up, life started going downhill. I rarely spent time with my parents, because my dad got diagnosed with cancer. I was too small to realize that his condition was more serious than it appeared (because the cancer was diagnosed at stage 4) and blamed my mom for neglecting me. Only after my father died did I realize that my mom had not stopped caring for me, she just worried about my dad and was busy with the person she loved. And I failed to understand that at the time, so I grew distant from my parents. My dad still treated me like a princess, but at times he snapped at me for breathing too loud.

I felt like I was a mistake. I wasn’t sure what was the point of struggling to make my life better, because life seemed meaningless. I was in grade 6 at the time, and I used to cry alone at home. My relatives did their best to care for me, but I was ignorant and fought against the people who tried to make me less miserable. In my head, I was the victim. And that was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life.

Playing the victim card is horrendous. You end up blaming other people for the situations you create. Instead of thinking about how to make the problem go away, you concentrate on holding other people responsible for something they didn’t do. And sometimes we don’t even realize that we were playing the victim card until it’s too late.

I was miserable for a long time. In other words (specifically my doctor’s words,) I was depressed. And I’ve met people who say, ‘depression isn’t real, just stay happy!’ EXCUSE YOU, depression is a very real thing. It’s a monster that roars inside your head until you can hear the blood in your ears and the world starts spinning uncontrollably until you feel faint.

The problem was, I couldn’t express my feelings. I stayed quiet at school, only spoke when I was spoken to. Some of my teachers (ahem math teacher at school) picked on me continuously and I replied with an expression that said ‘get over with it’. My house is pretty big, so it’s divided into two houses, ours being the ground floor of the first house, and my aunt and cousins living on the first and second floors of the second house. I used to stay holed up in my living space all along, not even turning the lights on for days. Once my neighbors got worried and knocked on the door till I answered and questioned about the lights that hadn’t been turned on in four days.

I used to get three hours of sleep every night, from 12 am to 3 am, waking up from nightmares and wandering around the house till it was time to go to school. I’m not writing all of this because I want pity, no, I’m writing all this to show how hard I worked to settle my mental health. All of this happened when I was 13-14 years old.

I refused to get help. My dad was in a private suite that had a small broom closet. I used to sleep there after school ended and came back home late at night. Now, let me tell you what depression feels like. Sometimes it feels like an empty hole inside your chest that leaves you wondering how on earth it can be filled up again. Sometimes it feels like an ocean exists inside your stomach, swallowing up your intestines. Sometimes you get too tired to leave the bed, having no energy despite sleeping for 15 hours. Sometimes you go a whole week without showering. Most of the time, your brain is numb, and you can’t even try to climb back up on the happiness spectrum.

The happy memories make you sad. The sad memories make you pity yourself. You feel like your existence is a mistake and the world would be so much better without you wasting precious oxygen.

I’m not here to tell you that it will all get better and you just need to focus on the positive aspects of life. I won’t tell you to cheer up and spend time with loved ones because I know their love feels fake and forced. I understand that the way you feel makes you want to scream but you can’t because you have no feelings left.

But, all of this will pass. If you hold on, let those who know what they’re doing help you, this temporary phase will pass and sometime later, be it a year, or two years, or even 5 (I hope it’s less than a year because feeling all this feels like shit) you will find a small ray of hope, just a tiny speck of hope in your brain. And you must grab on to that speck. Why? Because your mind has turned into a forest. The branches of the trees are so intertwined that light has no chance of entering. But sometime later, eventually, the clouds part and a weak ray of hope will fall onto the leaves. At first, it wouldn’t do much but if it stays there, it will burn through the branches, wilt the leaves and eventually the forest will catch a wildfire and burn down to the ground.

At least that’s what happened to me. During my period of depression, I read books on Wattpad written by depressed teenagers for depressed teenagers. And trust me, it messed up my brain so badly that I antagonized all people around me. Eventually, the forest grew, and my views about others became more and more negative. By 17, I was completely brainwashed.

One day, I realized my mistake. I remember writing in my journal (yes, I’m old school. I keep a journal, deal with it) and suddenly realizing, yaar, what am I doing? I’m just throwing my life away because my feelings are messed up. What if I started over again, forgetting my opinions about anything and everything?

The next day I met my wonderful doctor who treated me (and is still treating me) for clinical depression. I got diagnosed with anxiety and multiple panic disorders. But you know what? I had a small ray of hope. I wanted to get better, I wanted to feel emotions, I wanted to feel happy and sad and not just grey all the time. I missed feelings. I missed pain and joy and sadness and just STOPPED WANTING TO BE EMPTY. So I grabbed onto the ray of hope and didn’t let go.

There were times that I threw stuff against the wall and smashed glasses and stepped on them, even picking them up and squeezing them till I fainted. There were times that I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. I often felt lonely (because remember? The isolation detox for 1.5 years? That happened when I was 17.5) and confused and I missed my friends. But during that time… I think I became my own friend. I talked to myself at night and became conscious of my thoughts. I controlled what I thought, and the moment I thought something useless I deleted it from my brain. I focused on finding joy, which was very hard.

Once I was in the graveyard, visiting my dad. A small butterfly landed on his grave, and that made me so happy that I cried for twenty minutes because I felt something.

I know this post is getting too long but bear with me. It’s hard for me to type it out too, and I know it might be difficult to read. But just think about yourself for a moment. Do you know the emotions that you feel? Can you differentiate them? Can you feel what happens to you when you feel certain emotions? Try to feel, actually feel, the joy, the pain, the sweet, the sour, the bad, the good, and every other adjective that applies to life (because sorry, I’m not a thesaurus, do some thinking yourself).

It’s almost 6:15 am, I started writing this at 5:11am, but let me be honest, it felt really nice to write everything down. I better go before the time for morning prayers ends.

Until next time folks! Remember to take care and brush your teeth twice a day. Adios!