Hi, I am Geetanjali, a graduate student and researcher, currently based in the US. And here’s my story of survival.
Survivor Series: Geetanjali
Growing up, I always knew I was more sensitive than most people around me. And I believed it to be a good thing, to have the ability to feel deeply, to be compassionate. However, having lived a rather sheltered life, I didn’t have that much to feel sad about. I was as happy, ambitious, even confident, as any other person. Of course, not everything was rosy, I shed my share of tears, had my fears, but always, I had also had hope. Back then, any time I faced a setback, I would get disheartened but I never thought of myself as depressed. Until, that is, depression hit me flat in the face and knocked me down so bad, I thought I would never get up again. It was triggered by a heartbreak, just as I started my PhD.
Dealing with depression is the hardest thing I have ever done. It made me question everything about myself: my beliefs, my abilities, my goals for life. It was as if everything I had had suddenly disappeared, leaving me hanging with nothing to hold on to. I didn’t know what to think anymore; I was clueless and lost. I figured I must be doing something wrong, and that’s why my life seems to be falling apart with no hope to turn things around. Over and over in my head, I would try to figure out why I didn’t deserve anything. I could see myself losing control of my life; I felt confused and angry and hurt. Of course, as a direct consequence, my academics also greatly suffered, and that made my life even more difficult.
I was in so much pain, I was desperate to find any means to get out of it. I decided to try every possible thing I could think of, to help myself feel a little bit better. I went into therapy, started taking medication, reached out to my closest friends, tried to learn to meditate, filled endless pages with incoherent, rambling thoughts in the hope of untangling the turmoil in my head. For a long while, nothing seemed to be working. I began to find comfort in the idea of suicide. I thought if I just killed myself, I wouldn’t feel the pain anymore. Everyday things made my life hard. Every memory from the life I had had in the past, happy or sad, was disturbing to me. All music was jarring to my ears, sleeping was scary because I was haunted by nightmares, I was weak and always exhausted but struggled to eat. Getting through each day felt like carrying a big boulder on my back in pursuit of some unreachable destination.
My understanding is that there really isn’t any shortcut out of depression. Everyone has to go through the agony, capitalize on resources they can find, and try to build their strength, both physical and mental, until it becomes more manageable. That is why it is so important to show kindness to everyone, because we don’t know what they are going through, but feeling supported will definitely help them get through whatever it is. I was away from family, and only had a dwindling connection with them. But I had some great friends, who carried me forward when I couldn’t walk on my own anymore and never left my side. The combined effect of all the resources I had at my aid helped me hold on, however miserable I felt.
Survivor Series: Geetanjali
I think what I sought most during my lowest lows was not necessarily a solution to my immediate problems, but some comfort and hope to find the strength to be up on my feet again. Once the fog began to thin out, I took to heart some words that my therapist once said to me: “the opposite of depression is action”. When I was able to build up some physical and mental strength, I tried to make myself a problem-solver. I decided that for every problem, I must find solutions in some sort of “action”, one problem at a time. I couldn’t stop and think, because being a pessimist, I was incapable of thinking anything not depressing. Besides having my friends, other little things that brought me some comfort were: listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks to sleep every night (the Stephen Fry version, not the American one), making/eating desserts, solo travel, reading about history, cuddling a chubby stuffed bunny, looking at cute gifs, watching sitcoms, venting out to friends, trying to rebuild my relationship with my family.
Depression has made me much braver than I had ever felt before. Dealing with my low spells was such a herculean task to me, that I feel any other problem I can figure out. I feel very small and frail when I feel low, but every time my thoughts turn back to how bad I had felt in the past, I start to believe that I must be tough to have lived through that nightmare. It makes me feel a little proud of myself.
— Geetanjali–
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