By now, you must be wondering if all I am going to do is write about how horrible my past continues to be. Fear not. This is where I end the bit about my past. It’s always too tedious to talk about the past unless you are a great writer and have the capability to do so, which I very obviously do not possess.
So, without further ado, let’s delve into it again. For one last time.
The one thing I desperately knew at the time of my wedding was that my end was near. That I wasn’t going to last the year. It was that certainty that truly made my sister worried for me. She had forever been a rock during those times, an absolute help without whom I would not be here. I was just going through the motions, wondering if I should jump to my death whenever I traveled alone. Be it a train or a bus or even a taxi. I was just waiting for the right day, I suppose. I can’t say I knew what was going through my mind. All I knew was that I wanted to end it all, this suffering, this slow death, this suffocation.
Then one day, I had a severe panic attack and I literally couldn’t move from a bus stop and I called up my sister. She came and picked me up and we had ice cream. I remember that day so clearly. It was a sunny day and turning into a brilliant sunset, the sky had been pretty. I remember that, I also remember how cold I had become while I waited for my sister to come. How I trembled and couldn’t look at people or breathe properly. How I called her thrice while she was on the way.
That was the day she finally snapped and told me that I needed help beyond she could provide. We finally made an appointment with a doctor. He turned out to be…not as helpful as we had thought him to be. He thought it was just nerves talking, that every new bride felt this way. I doubted that very much. Does every new bride want to jump off and die, I wondered. Then, I changed the psychiatrist and someone listened. And took notes and told me that I seemed to be suffering from depression and that I was clearly suicidal and that I needed to have some tests.
I agreed and it turned out that the depression was pretty severe. Severe enough that I had to take medicines for almost a whole year. Following that, the appointments were pretty regular and slowly, I started to feel better. There were dark thoughts and nobody could deny that I wasn’t completely healed. But there started to be good days, days on which I didn’t think everything was bad and doom was near. Those days, I treasured like a dragon treasures it’s gold.
My father finally understood what it was he had ignored. He wasn’t willing to accept his actions in the whole fiasco but he could see that his unwillingness to see the truth had led me into a dark place. My husband still had hopes for a reunion. I wasn’t really allowed to tell him that it was futile, my doctor was very firm on that. She said that if I were to say so while I was still very much in depression, people might not take me seriously. And she was right, even when I spoke of divorce within my father’s presence, he would have that pinched look about him.
Still, months passed and I slowly came out of it. I might never come out of it completely, turned out I have a depressive component in my personality that overpowers quite a lot of other things. So, while I might need help in trying to see positive my whole life, I was slowly coming out of the dark hole I had found myself in. It wasn’t pretty, as I am sure many know. I still had panic attacks regularly, I couldn’t handle being in crowds and I absolutely shut down whenever someone would say my husband’s name or mention his family.
I couldn’t help it, it was almost like a phobia. My heart would start beating faster, my body would tremble and I would feel out of breath. But finally the day came when everybody accepted that a divorce was the best option for everyone involved. I sighed a breath of relief so profound, I doubt I would ever feel again.
I was married for barely three months, during those times, I was in a cage with no escape and no light. The worst thing is, my in-laws are good people, they didn’t deserve any of this. I am only sorry that I played a part in their heartbreak. I couldn’t help it and if I feel sorry about anything then it’s that. Just that.
A year ago,
you did not know today.
You did not know
how you’d make it here.
But you made it here.
By grace, you made it here.
– Morgan Harper Nichols
It was over. Life was moving on. Slowly, my doctor lessened the potency of my medicines. I had thought that with this, I would get to feel better and be almost a normal human. I realised too late that I wasn’t quite there yet. I haven’t been able to hold down a job for almost a year now. It’s not that I don’t understand the work, it’s that there comes a point wherein the fear of failure overpowers me. It’s been embedded in me, I think, from my days of failures.
I have left three jobs in one year.
I have a long way to go before I feel confident enough but the thing is, if I don’t try, how would I know if I am capable or not? So, I am going to try again. And again. And again. Till I am successful.
bookwormmuse 