Tag: depression

How to School Someone on Depression

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Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day, a widely successful Canadian campaign to spread awareness about mental health and stigma surrounding it.

I started this blog to talk about my mental health issues, but that hasn’t really been happening (Hi, procrastination!) So I’m going to share screenshots of a conversation I recently had with a close friend, who good-naturedly thought I could get over my depression by just “relaxing”.

I used this extremely informative Ted-Ed video for help, which explains differences between “feeling depressed and sad” and “clinical depression”.

Here’s how our conversation went (some words & sentences are in Nepali) :

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Not everyone can write stories or make movies about mental health issues, but what each of us can do is talk to one other person beside us, learn information, share information, change minds, feel accepted, accept others and extend the conversation beyond #BellLetsTalk day into the rest of our lives.

 

 

 

New Year 2072 B.S.

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Happy New Year 2072 B.S. to everyone inside and outside this world of WordPress  ! I’m excited because it is the Nepalese New Year YAYYY.
Which is a little weird because I am not really doing anything to celebrate it. It is just another weekday for people living away from home. But, the weather is gorgeous today, and I finally took out my summer clothes from the back of my closet where they were rotting away so YAYYYY

I never make resolutions on New Year, and don’t do much reflection either but since I feel pretty good today, here are some of the things I did/learnt/discovered etc etc. in the last year-

1. Gifted myself the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series on my birthday and read all five books over the summer. Also binge watched all Game of Thrones episodes. I cannot explain how much I LOVED those books and the series and Tyrion Lannister. There are a very few things that have truly impressed me, and GOT (ASOIAF) turned me into this obsessed person who reads all fan theories and keeps tabs on everything related to Game of Thrones. If Game of Thrones was a person, I would probably be in prison for being a stalker.

2. Joined the Public Issues Advisory Committee at the Canadian Cancer Society. I’ve been a public issues youth advocate for nearly two years now, and am the youngest member advisor at the committee. I got cool opportunities to meet some MPPs, and am looking forward to all future events !

3.  Volunteered at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Hospital for nearly a year (I’m on break now, because exams !). I love everything about that hospital. It taught me to be patient and kind and attentive to kids with disabilities.

I learnt unique ways of communicating with the non-verbal clients, became the air-hockey champion of the basement, watched Frozen a million times, sang Let It Go two million times, went Trick or Treating on Halloween, dressed up as Santa’s elf on Christmas, baked and danced and painted and read and made bracelets and pictures and tons of goody crafts for the kids.

Sometimes I feel like I go there every week, looking forward just to play board games and puzzles since I have NO TIME for them at home/school. It is extremely relaxing and therapeutic for me, until I’m outsmarted by a 5-year old in a wheelchair and then I think, Losing monopoly never felt so good.

4. After struggling for years, I finally got diagnosed with ADHD- combined type, major depressive disorder and anxiety. I immersed myself in research about my disorder and mental health issues, and it has been the most liberating thing in my life. I now understand why I behave the way I do. I love that I’m one of the 15 million with this cognitive disorder and I am so thankful that I moved to a country with resources and am finally getting the right support and help.

5.  I discovered that I love communicating, expressing, public speaking, advocacy and community service more than anything else in this world. My creativity and strengths lie in these areas and I’ve finally stopped being ashamed that I can never understand math or physics or chemistry like some kids I grew up with. I learnt that I’d been wasting my time studying and focusing on things I do not love or comprehend to the least, because culturally I felt they were “the smart choices”.

After I was diagnosed with ADHD, my psychiatrist told me that I should be utilizing my strengths and not beating myself up about things I can’t excel in.

I started reflecting on moments – when my philosophy teacher told me that my paper on suicide was phenomenal and I had a brilliant knack for words and persuasion, when my professional communications prof said that I would make an excellent business leader & she would buy any product I sold because my presentation ideas and public speaking approaches were excellent, when my global health instructor said that my scholarly paper on mental health policy was worth being published, when customers at work told me that my smiling face made their days better, when kids at the hospital hugged me and told me they would miss me when they get discharged, when readers said that they appreciated me writing this blog; all of these made me realize that I should focus on the things I am good at and make a career out of it.

I do not make any resolutions, but I do plan to eat well, spend time outside in the nature, blog, go to my meditation sessions and therapy, focus on the things I am passionate about without overloading myself, be an advocate and a mental health wellness educator and most importantly, remain proud of all the hard work I’ve done and the people I’ve touched.

I hope you all have a beautiful and a healthy year 🙂

The Confused State of an Anxious Mind

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I don’t know where to begin.

Maybe this is not even a poem.

But I want to tell you how anxiety feels.

My heart races at the speed of light.

And my brain slams the break pedal.

Can you feel what happens then?

The laws of physics, inertia, motion, Newton.

All come flashing back in my head.

I never liked physics anyway.

But I cant help it.

My thoughts are racing backwards.

I need to get out of here.

I think I’m gonna die.
I think I’m gonna fail.
I think he’s going to forget me.
I think my mother just had an accident.
She hasn’t called me in an hour.

I ask my brain to stop.

Or maybe it is my brain asking itself to stop.

I don’t know. Im confused.

But my heart.

Oh my heart loves to run.

140 beats per minute.

Running towards the finish line.
Running to save my life.
Running to study for that test.
Running to beg him to stay.
Running towards my mother.

What do you do when two parts of your body move in different directions?

I cannot breathe.

Sometimes I think it is all in my imagination.

At least that is what someone told me.

“Relax, nothing’s happening. Why are you so anxious?”

If everything’s my imagination,

Then why can’t I draw pictures of it?

Why can’t I write a book about it?

Why does my body respond to something that I’m creating?

I take deep breaths.

Sometimes into a brown paper bag.

Sometimes I have panic attacks.

Once in the movies with my friends.

The muscles in my chest tighten and I cannot breathe.

It is embarrassing.

This is why I’ve become a recluse.

I don’t know when anxiety is going to hit me.

I need to be alone.

I don’t know why anxiety hits me.

I just wish it didn’t feel like home.

The Fish that Flew Out of The Tank

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Have you ever felt like a lone fish in a huge fish tank, where all your little fish friends have died and their skeletons float slightly above the rocks every time you try to bring them back to life?

You watch the world outside, the light patterns refracting in every surface that is between you and the infinite space of air. You are just a fish, but you know all too well that lights cause illusions and the world is never as it seems.

Sometimes you want to break out of the tank, but the thick glasses separating you from your freedom seem to stretch for miles, that one tiny crack you made months ago by hitting your head first into the glass seems to dissolve if you glance at it from a side angle.

You are alone. You and your dead fish bones. There used to be dreams too. But dreams come from your imaginations, and your imaginations are choosing to float away, one air bubble at a time.

Life outside the fish tank looks beautiful. You can see rainbows and unicorns, and oh look there’s the green field and the sun shining on those pretty pink pansies. You cannot wait to get out. The tiny crack you made months ago now suddenly seems larger. I have to get out. I have to touch the rainbow. One push, two push, a thousand pushes. I shall not give up until I smell those pansies. The crack finally gives in.

You flow outside the fish tank, the amount of water that falls on top of you is enough to make your own little pool, until it starts seeping and soaking down the thick carpet below and you look around to see little wet rainbow pieces and torn pansy pieces making paper islands in the vanishing pool. The air doesn’t seem so fresh anymore, and you flop around hoping that someone will pick you up and lay you down among your fish bones, for you realize that in pursuit of something wild and beautiful, you forgot that you were just a tiny little fish who didn’t know how to breathe out of water.

I’ve Been Thinking

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I’ve been thinking. My school is on strike since yesterday, and I have nothing to do. So I’ve been thinking.

I finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath yesterday, and I couldn’t help but resonate myself to the character Esther who is depressed and cannot write. I am depressed, but I can write. The only time I cannot write is when I am not depressed, and that makes me question my own creativity.

I would like to think that my ADHD medication is not putting a stop to my creativity. I feel good. I feel organized. My thoughts are still a chaos, but I find myself deflecting them often. I do not have the time to be sad and I do not have time to write.

I like the way that I can collect myself, rationalize my priorities, even make my bed every morning (which I never did before !), but I feel like I’m fighting to write, fighting to let my words flow freely, fighting to compose poetry, fighting to retain the things about me I love the most.

I started to type this up an hour ago, and I’ve barely written 200 words. Two hundred words feel like an infinite stretch to my infinite feelings. I squeeze my thoughts in, between each space of every word I write, but they are just tiny scrawls in invisible ink.

I have so much to say, countless things to express and so many questions. I am watching the light snow fall outside. I can see every single snow flake that melts as soon as it touches the ground because the sun is shining. My thoughts are no different. They are beautiful and sad and cold and blue, and slowly fading away.

For the first time, the sun is shining in my life and I am not sure I like the warmth.

Sweet Summer of Twelve

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Sweet summer of twelve standing in the balcony of my room
on the third floor of our huge house facing the gurgling river a few yards ahead,
I felt a touch of sky dropping on my shoulders.
Gods had given me a gift- the weight of the whole world rested inside my frail heart.

I remember it was the same fall of twelve, a few months later
I was standing in the same balcony,
only it was the sky that was gurgling. Pouring and screaming, clashing and crying.
I stood there in the middle of the night. Not quite in the middle; it was 2 a.m.
I hated the rain, and I wanted to die.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t jump, I couldn’t cut, I couldn’t overdose.
I was weak. I was brave. I was unhappy. I was not enough. I was never enough.

I stood in the rain to torture myself. I was scared of the thunder. I was controlling my fears.

I felt limitless.

I thought a lot about suicide that night. Sounds insane but I wanted a chance.
One shot at the power to control my life; even if it meant during my death.

Sometimes freedom is all you really need.

Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

I moved places, I saw faces, I saw freedom, I saw more pain. The more you have, the more you need.

Freedom is to dive off cliffs and kiss strangers, smoke pot and watch the stars, sleep until you drift away into oblivion, wake up, pack your bags, and
move on someplace else because the freedom you have is not enough.

Freedom is to let go of such expectations, yet hold on to your dreams, embrace your sadness, turn it into a weapon,
feel every single breath your lover takes,
see the grass, see the sky, see yourself in the mirror, see what you really are and not look away.

Wild winter of fifteen, I stand in a different balcony looking at a lake
calm and vast, the weight of the grey sky turning it into a deep shade of silver.
It looks beautiful.

The same winter of fifteen, I choose to live.
Live while I’m alive, live after I die, my organs in the bodies of strangers,
my dreams in the minds of millions,
my sadness in the struggles of every depressed person,
my hopes in the insides of their hearts.

I cry. You cry.
I am depressed. My friend has social anxiety.
Another one is schizophrenic.
Another one told me he was seeing a therapist.

I am depressed. You are not.
Yet we are the same.
One day we shall realize that the borders we have
are just lines on sand
easy to create, easier to cross.
I shall donate my organs, you shall donate your hopes.
Hopes and organs and bodies and dreams and
hurts and fears
different for each, same for all.
The universe stops only at a full circle.