When you reach rock bottom the only way is UP
So here I am back again in the world of writing an online diary. It’s taken me a while to feel like doing it again, my Open Diary was barely posted on in the last few years so when it was announced the website was shutting down for me it was closing a chapter. Though if I had been posting on it regularly or shelled out on a lifetime subscription I’d be pissed that it was closing!
I was always in the habit of saving any entries for my diaries/blogs on my computer; I always type into word before copy/pasting into the website and posting. So I can still read my every entry from Open Diary still.
My last couple of years of posting on there were frequently mired by depression. I have always had a problem with the blues but I never really acknowledged it or looked at whether there was a pattern. My 20s were plagued by the black dog constantly and sometimes it was so hard to shake it off.
I began my 30s in a positive way: feeling as though I had put it all behind me and that it was a new chapter. It was good, for a while. But then I got hit really bad a few years ago and this time it was so hard to shake it off. It was like constantly staring at a grey, gloomy, miserable sky and thinking when am I ever going to feel okay again? Just okay would be good?
Sometimes things that are happening can make you feel bad, and sometimes nothing is happening and it can make you feel bad, the latter is worse as in when some minor insignificant thing can happen and make you feel even more so like shit.
Anyway back in 2011 I was hit really bad. Some minor complications with some girl turned into a huge problem in my head. I started to realise that the main pattern with me over the years was that I felt really down during the winter months. Seasonal affective disorder. The UK summers 2010-2012 had been pretty crappy too.
During that time my Grandmother had died and things didn’t work with a certain girl. I was never going out with her but I was in this weird situation where she was ‘the one that got away’ and she kept me strung along with a hope that something was going to happen one day when the time was right.
I think with depression the sufferer has to have a magic realisation. A point where the sufferer has to put up their hand and say actually I don’t feel right and something is wrong. And there really is nothing wrong with feeling wrong. We live in a society where we have this idea of happiness shoved down our throats to the point that we feel like we’re doing something wrong if not enjoying ourselves. But life isn’t all haa haa hee hee. Pain is there to remind you that we are all alive.
So I had my magic realisation. I went to the doctor who said it was too late to be put on medication. If it really is a seasonal depression, you have to start taking the meds in advance of the winter approaching. The only thing to do is expose myself to more light and go out into the light (go into the light ha ha). Or try to get away somewhere sunnier during the winter months.
Fortunately/unfortunately (please delete as appropriate) there was an early spring in 2012 (this is always a sure sign that our Great British summer is going to be a wash out by the way!) and I booked myself a trip away. I booked a trip to Nepal. My Uncle and his Family were living in Kathmandu and I could go out there and leap frog to other parts of the country while also playing the family game in Kathmandu. I had been to Kathmandu before for 3 days before with my Parents, Sister, and Niece. So I always planned on going back.
I was feeling very lost and alone. So I found myself in Kathmandu, Manakamana, Pokhara, and Lumbini during my two weeks there. In Kathmandu I found my Uncle in a similar philosophical place to me, his marriage had a shit load of problems and he was (and still is) married to an absolute dragon.
So I left Kathmandu behind and went off on my own to Manakamana. On my own . Shit, on my own! Manakamana is a village, a pilgrimage centre, buried in the foothills of the Himalayas and only accessible by cable car. The name can be interpreted as wish of the heart. Typically newlyweds will go there to see the temple and sacrifice a chicken or goat in order to bless their marriage. Hence why there are separate cable cars for livestock, imagine how the engineering company must have reacted when they saw those requirements?
Anyways I found myself in this strange place, I wasn’t feeling well, and I was freaking out. What the fuck was I doing? How the fuck am I going to cope being on my own for a week? I can get back to Kathmandu by bus, let’s ask the hotel to sort it out! I was tired, unwell, and slept for a while. After a while I woke up and thought to myself that I am being a pussy, that I should stop being a dick and go walk around maybe check things out.
I walked around the village and the temple and it was amazing. I’d missed the day’s ritual sacrifice. There were bells chiming in the wind. The locals were really friendly as I walked around the village. I drifted out of the village into the foothills. Cute little village children came up to me. Cute little dogs started following me and nudging my ankles with their noses for food. Then I was faced with the most awe inspiring view ever.
the most awe inspiring view ever
Now mind you this view is just of foothills. You can’t really see any Himalaya. But it was an amazing personal moment for me. I suddenly felt very free and confident. From that point on the holiday I was able to roam around carefree. I started to understand Nepali as it was very similar to my Parent’s language Bengali. The locals started to think I was one of them. Or I made out I was a South Asian citizen in order to take advantage of the South Asian economic agreement (SAARC).
I ended up in the birthplace of the Buddha, Lumbini. I had never seen the birthplace of someone so important, a religious figure. To be honest I was a bit dopey and walked past a rock where loads of people were queuing and going ape shit. I thought it’s just a freaking rock. Later on I realised that was the spot where Buddha’s heavily pregnant mother Maya Devi grabbed a branch of a Bodhi tree and gave birth to him!
It was amazing to see all these pilgrims at peace and collectively offering prayer. I spent so much time thinking about life and love. I realised that love wasn’t about imbalance and chasing after someone and holding them on a pedestal. You should be on the same ground staring each other in the eyes.
After 8 days of travelling around on my own I grabbed a plane back to Kathmandu. After I came back to England I was back at my shitty job. My head had been in such a mess before I left that I had also made the stupid decision to hand a note asking out one of my closest friends out, that I realised that we’d be great together (another story to tell sometime). Unfortunately being back at work and complications with this girl meant I was down again. But nothing can ever take away that experience I had in Nepal. The personal, almost spiritual, strength that I had gained from being there.
Eventually after another shitty British Summer I realised that I needed to take positive action to sort myself out. It was the London 2012 Olympics and I really didn’t give a shit about them. So I didn’t want to take medication. I started taking vitamins and sit in front of a daylight simulation lamp like a pot plant (like weed). I can’t say it is perfect these days but I try to look out for the signs.
When it hit me bad I couldn’t sleep properly. The more sleep deprived I got the more messy I felt. I felt like I was losing my sanity. The repetitive negative thinking. The lack of energy. The hopelessness. Putting on a face.
I haven’t been as bad as back then. When the winter comes I struggle with getting up and can feel quite groggy during the day. The light therapy makes me feel more ‘with it’ and better. (I am sitting in front of a lamp as I type this.) It doesn’t make what’s eating me disappear, no, but it better equips me to deal with life.
I write this entry in order to inspire people that are feeling a little low that you are not alone. Even though I feel positive at the moment my journey isn’t over. I am still battling through it. Echoes of despair are always around. But keeping it to myself and ignoring it did not help before. My ‘magic’ moment of realisation has certainly helped me get to a place where I am moving forward, rather than stuck in a quagmire of self doubt and pity.
the most awe inspiring view ever
If I am having a shitty day sometimes my mind disappears, back to Manakamana and the foothills. And I smile to myself and think of that view. No one can take that away from me. I hope one day that when I have found my ‘victim’ and I am settling down that I will take her to see that view with me, that I will it share it with her.
Stay beautiful!
Music listened to during the composition of this post:
Albums:
‘Know Your Enemy’ – Manic Street Preachers
http://open.spotify.com/album/1Iwcj3cWJH0PK5qAjYjmYP
‘Amnesiac’ – Radiohead
http://open.spotify.com/album/7mUKceir3qJ2WeQETnvz8g
‘Fallen Empires’ – Snow Patrol
http://open.spotify.com/album/35izIIezmP2AzFuPnp4dss
Key tracks to download/steal/borrow:
‘Found That Soul’ – Manic Street Preachers
http://open.spotify.com/track/0dCu53T79eWwmLJgfWqLZZ
‘I Might Be Wrong’ – Radiohead
http://open.spotify.com/track/1GZ9nQhyk51mS3ahn1fAiV
‘In The End’ – Snow Patrol
http://open.spotify.com/track/2hbvCWC0yPgLTtPqgV50XN
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