This lockdown brought a lot of new experiences to all of our lives. Some of us learned new things, while others brought out their own talents that were hidden behind their busy lives. We became the real version of ourselves by spending time with our family, but there was a rewind of past in some of our lives that brought our depression back.
With the comeback of depression, one question that also came was how one can deal with it. It’s next to impossible for those suffering from depression, but maybe not for those who have overcome this. They are probably ones who suffered from depression and overcame it because of the lockdown.
So basically, I went into depression because of my friend. You might be thinking: how can someone slip into depressed because of a friend? In my case, this was true. I won’t speak about all the incidents that led me to depression, because I don’t want to go back to those memories. Rather than moving on, I would like to say that I dealt with my depression for one and a half years.
These one and a half years taught me a lot of things. Truly, a lot of things. More than anything, it taught me the reality of depression. We all think that a person suffering from depression always cries for attention, but no, it’s nothing like that. The person suffering from it really doesn’t share anything like that. All they need is a person who will come to them and ask them what the problem is.
Then, a person suffering from it tells you what it is because it’s difficult for a person dealing with such trauma to simply recite all those experiences. I didn’t have that person who would come to me and ask “what’s the matter?” Rather, this lockdown did that for me. Before this lockdown, I used to smile, but was never happy. If I tried to laugh openly, I wouldn’t be able to because as soon as I would, tears would start rolling down my eyes. I don’t know why, but they would roll every time. But during this lockdown, I stayed and spent time with my family, played games with them and cooked with them. All these events and all the things that we did together just brought back the real version of me.
After one and a half years, I was not only smiling but I was also happy. It was so visible that even my mom said “Ananya, during this lockdown, the only change I saw was watching you be happy, so all I want to tell you from my experience is that if someone can bring depression in our life, then spending time with someone whom we can trust, and talking with someone who knows us and understands us can also take away our depression from our lives and help us become the person we really are. After all, our lives are too short for us to stay unhappy.”
The world is a very beautiful and happy place, so why just waste time by staying sad and depressed. Even if we live a short life, it should be happy. So stay happy, joyful and safe.”