“How are you, today?” he asks, a smile playing on his lips. As
soon as the words leave his mouth, I realise that I am feeling more lost than
usual. Somehow, unlike the other days, I cannot bring myself to articulate “fine”.
Instead I just nod at his question. Taking it as a sign of my disinterest, he
waves an uncomfortable goodbye and heads towards his seat. Suddenly, I am
struggling to breathe, my legs feel like jelly, ready to give up any time.
Hands balled into a fist, I somehow manage to wobble to the powder room.
I find myself staring at the girl in the
mirror but I do not recognise the girl staring back at me. Her eyes are hollow
and kind of empty. Her flushed cheeks are stained with tears. She looks
like a ghost, sickly and pale. The girl in the mirror feels so foreign to me
that I find myself reaching towards her. As my burning arm touches the mirror,
the spell breaks. Breathing is not effortless anymore, the walls in the
lavatory start closing in on me, just like my throat.
My heartbeat quickens and my arms feel
like they are burning and freezing all at once. I struggle to stay firm,
leaning against the basin. My knuckles are white and my palms are bleeding from
where my nails pressed. My head is in a riot. I feel nothing but pain and
confusion.
“Everything hurts,” I think to
myself.
I try to look at five different
objects in the narrow loo but I fail miserably. The only objects I can grasp
onto are the sink, the mirror and my sweat-drenched shirt. There is nothing to
smell other than the disgusting smell of urine mixed with cleaning agents. I
can hear the buzz of people talking, coming from behind the locked door. My
hands rise to cover my ears, trying to block the noise. Tears leak out of my
now bloodshot eyes.
“I am having a panic attack,” I
whisper to no one. The truth is overwhelming but with whatever strength that I
have left in my being, I take a deep breath. I gradually feel the burn in my
shoulders and arms lessen with each passing breath. The lids of my eyes are
tightly shut, as I chant the words, ‘this will pass soon’ to myself. And after
what feels like eternity, it does pass.
I slump down in a corner in the room, my
mind unable to process what just happened.
I have read about panic attacks, how
unnerving and how physically and mentally taxing they are but nothing had
prepared me for what had just wrecked my body. Though I was quite sure that I
was prone to anxiety and battled the symptoms of depression, I had not thought
that I could have a panic attack.
With shaking hands, I pushed myself off
the floor and splashed some cold water on my tear-stained face, reapplying some
moisturiser and lip balm, to make myself presentable again. Like clockwork, a
knock on the door managed to bring whatever part of me was still reeling from
the experience, back to my body. Plastering as real a smile as I could muster,
I walked out of the door.
I was met with the irritated face of an
acquaintance of mine. She gave me a small smile, as she almost ran inside the
loo. I walked back to my desk, getting back to my work.
After a while, I closed my laptop shut,
unable to concentrate on my impending work. As I was about to call it a day and
head out to go back home, a hand pulled me back. Startled, I turned around to
stare at the grinning face of Nikita. Things clicked inside my otherwise
deranged brain, I realised that I had agreed to go out with her that evening,
the eve of her birthday. Pushing the happenings of the afternoon away, I
clasped on to her hand, walking out with her and our group of common friends.
I had always seen Nikita as someone whose
appropriate middle name should have been, ‘happy-go-lucky.’ Seriously, the girl
was good at everything she did! On top of that, her ever smiling persona won
over everyone she met. Quite naturally, I loved to hang out with her but
not that day. That day, I wanted to go back to my room and pull the quilt over
my head and cry myself to sleep again. But I could not.
As I sat in the restaurant, laughing with
all the people there, I realized that the loneliness had still not left my body.
I was lonely in the crowd. I wanted to tell someone how hard it was to open my
eyes and get off the bed every morning but I could not bring myself to.
When my body finally sank into the
mattress and there was no one and nothing to stop me, I curled into a ball,
letting the tears fall freely. I knew I was struggling. I was trying to make it
all stop. The dark moods, the distancing from everyone, the burn in my arms,
the confusion in my head, everything. But they only went away for a while,
always coming back at the lightest of triggers.
The worst days were spent in pulling
myself out of the bed and into the shower, all the while trying to come off as
a human being who was perfectly fine. I had tried to tell my friends, how I
felt but I could not bring myself to. Eventually, I stopped trying to explain.
I knew I was closing off, building high walls around myself. But I had to, I
absolutely had to master the art of leaving people alone……
The ringing of my phone woke me up.
Without checking the caller, I swiped it to decline. I tried to fall asleep to
no avail. As my thoughts started wandering away from my body, I was jolted
again. My phone was ringing off the hook. Clearly annoyed, I answered.
“Elena?” a voice said from the
other side.
Puzzled at the thickness of the female
voice, I shakily murmured a timid, “Yeah.”
“Elena…I am…I am Lolita, Nikita’s
sister. She…uh…she passed away a few hours ago.”
“What?...How?” I managed to say
before I broke into a sob.
What seemed like an eternity later, she replied,
“She killed herself.”
I felt myself flinch at her words; it was
as if a bolt shot through my body. So as the phone went dead, for the first
time in a while, I shot off the bed and ran into the shower. With shaking hands
and a blurry vision, I wiggled into the first white shirt and pair of jeans I
could spot, running out of the door, as fast as my legs could carry.
When I reached her house, all I could see
were bleared and grim-faced strangers. Standing in a far corner were our
friends. Leila was hunched over crying as Ravi held onto her shoulders. The
rest of them stood together, same blank expressions with frowns etched on their
faces. As I slithered through the crowd, the words, ‘coward’, ‘idiot’,
‘selfish brat’ were all I heard. Most people had that same
confused-mixed-with-sad expression on their faces, which I am sure I wore as
well.
I finally spotted her family. Her sister,
her mother and her father. I had not met them before but one look at her
mother’s face told me they were related. She looked as broken as I normally
felt. Her hair was dishevelled, her cheeks were flushed, kohl stained, she was
hunched over her daughter’s lifeless body, sobs still wreaking her being.
Nikita’s sister was bawling too, she clung to her father for her dear life. Her
father, on the other hand, was staring at Nikita’s colourless face. There was
something in his gaze that made me feel like an intruder in a very private
situation.
Deciding against bothering her mourning
family, I joined our friends. The same ones, with whom she had had her last
hurrah.
The girl, who seemed like she had
everything together, had killed herself on her birthday. I thought that I had
her figured out; her smiles had never felt fake like mine. She was a ray of
sunshine and I could think of numerous instances when I had wanted to be as
happy as her. I had never once thought that she could take this drastic step. I
had no idea that she was battling depression just as I was. I had never once
given a thought that her parents’ divorce was still something she was having a
hard time coming to terms with. I felt like I, of all the people, should have
known.
Her mother’s face was breaking my heart. I
went back to all the moments where giving up had seemed so much easier. I was
suddenly, very thankful that I had fought through all of it. I knew I deserved
better and so did Nikita. More importantly, I could not fathom the sight of my
mother, crying over the remains of me. I could not believe she was gone and if
I did not get help, I could be too.
As I exited her house, trepidation filled
my body. I dialed a number that I thought I would never have the courage to
call.
“Hello, hi.... I am Elena Dutta and I
would like to set an appointment with Dr. Bose of the Psychiatric Ward…. thank
you…. yes, I will be there at 4 today.”
Putting that phone down, I dialed another
number, I never imagined calling, about my struggle with depression.
“Hello? Mom? Hi! I wanted to talk to
you about something important... yeah... when can I come over? Yeah and mom? Ask
dad to be there too…”
“Sweetheart, are you okay?” She
asked, her voice lined with fear.
Thinking for a moment, I replied, “No,
Mom… I do not think I am… but I will be… I promise.”
*This story is dedicated to
de-stigmatizing Mental Health and seeking help.
I am an ardent reader of books. When I am not busy penning a piece, I
enjoy travelling and learning about different cultures and languages of the
world. I am very passionate about the causes that I support such as Mental
Health and Equality. Writing brings me immense joy and when my words move
people, there is nothing better to me than that. Currently, student of Funlish,
Class XI.
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