One Crippling Summer Night
“Life,” I uttered while putting down the only source of information I had, a novel called Knight’s Mistress by C.C Gibbs.
The clock on the purple wall in front of me displayed the time: two o’clock. I loved these silenced nights as everyone else other than me was in a land of peace, like a getaway from reality and all the problems and even troubling thoughts, land of dreams. I was feeling……incomplete, I still remember. Summer nights with no other sound than the slow fan and my heartbeat sinking, I almost hated this moment every night from the past three months, the same routine, the same messed up feelings and my body literally felt drained.
I was in one of the three bedrooms we have in our house, living in an 4 kanal house with a few decent cars was enough for people to label me and my family the privileged ones, but are we? Are we truly the privileged ones, I thought over and over again? I surely had everything I needed, or even more, but do all these materialistic things define my happiness? Such questions were not new to me as I was stuck with such voices in my head, couldn’t tell if they were right or not , the feelings and questions were vivid but the reasons were vague, as if I had all the answers but i was not ready to accept them. While all these questions coming in my mind one after the other, my body was numb and the stream of tears started to flow down my warm cheeks. Due to some past events, and general view of life I came to the conclusion never to trust anyone. It was not only the trust but it was also me being transparent to everyone and on the other hand people just use your insecurities to bring you down.
I was not weak, but the idea of dying and death were not scary at all. I never believed in self-harm, as I thought it was a cowardly thing to do but the idea of death was something which lived in me, or at least it felt that way. A person dies the very moment he/she stops feeling scared of death, when our souls die but, we are living death before the actual medical death.I literally could feel my heart aching. Losing track of time was a normal thing in such situation as I was questioning the mere realities of my existence. My family thought I was going through a silent phase, my friends thought it was just some creepy stuff I had been reading but I knew there was more to it. “There is light at the end of the tunnel you need to take a few steps forward in order to see the light” said my psychiatrist Dr Aden, which I always found Stupid and vain. I was at a war within myself, a war with my own thoughts and a war about the realities which seemed to be a mirage. I was not at peace “having too much information sure is very dangerous” but I was certain the experiences and thoughts I had can’t be deleted, but I always wished to shut the voices in my head with some sort of a button, instant and for all. All these people in my life seemed to be devils wearing veils. The naked soul was accepted nowhere. I felt so stuck and left behind in that moment.
I felt like a troubled soul. My mother thought I should leave my college applications and I should concentrate on my psychological well being. I lost all the friends I thought were going to stay with me forever. I was not the kind of person with a lot of friends but I managed to make a few good friends who with the passage of 3 months only left me behind. They were all so busy in their lives that they had no time in helping me psychological or physically. I was losing my appetite, I stopped socializing, I stopped going out and I even stopped going out of my room. Things were not getting any better for me , but that night, that one summer night made me realise that I need to fix things I messed up, even my thoughts. Although I could feel my world crumbling into pieces, I knew I was the only one who could fix this all. “I have to accept the reality” I told myself. I have to accept I am bipolar and I am going through severe depression which cannot be cured by sleeping pills, but also by self-therapy which, for me, included music, books, dancing and makeup. No one is going to hold my hand and show me the way. People like me have to fight their own battles with their own demons. I guess I was not lucky like all the other people who have someone to pick them up when they fall.
I removed my comforter and placed my warm feet on the cold marble. I took a few steps towards my dressing table which was full of stuff I never used, makeup. I looked at myself for two minutes in the mirror. I could hardly recognize the face I saw there I cleaned the tears still left on my right cheek with the back of my hand and I picked a red lipstick and started colouring my lips. That was the moment I realised makeup was a source of confidence, my magic wand which I resort to.
From that night onwards, I found my never-ending love, a therapy and self-confidence booster magic, my makeup, which gave me an escape from reality without blocking my thoughts. I take it as a therapy and a step forward. We all have something which gives us peace, we need to find it and we need to practice it to keep ourselves sane.
Depression is curable, take it seriously and fight against the taboos.
