Assalamualaikum and goooood day!
More people are becoming aware of mental health now. More real-life confessions are made anonymously through a FB pages, more mental health articles are written and videos regarding this issue are shared among netizens. I'm sure all of us had feel stressed at least once in our life, right? But depression is not about feeling pressured. Depression pushed to the point that you don't feel pleasures in life anymore. Depression makes you feel like you are nothing in this world, you have negative effect whatsoever on other people and most times it makes you feel like 'my existence has no impact on anything at all and that my presence is just a burden.'
Well, I want to write what I have been feeling this few years. Yes, a few years. Depression is not something that happen overnight. It is a cumulative of events that happens without you even realising it. That was (is?) the case for me. I think I started to have depression during my final year as an undergraduate. Of course, our final year project took its toll on us, right? But I made a mistake. My mistake was that I compared myself with my friends at that time. BELIEVE ME, comparing your life to others is a big NO NO. We all had different research projects and sometimes it made me mad when thinking 'why my friends have easier projects than me?', 'why does my project requires me to stay up till night and had to come on the weekend?', 'why are my friends finishing their projects already?' etc. As you can expect, my project was a disaster, was viva presentation was a self-catastrophe and my CGPA was rubbish. I remember I wished my bus would just be thrown down the cliff so I don't have to finish my project. I knew I am trying to runaway from my problems but I also knew I have to face it no matter what. Hence, the suicidal thoughts. I know it seem typical to you, but for me it was real, I cried during the journey and cried even harder when I actually arrived at my university.
I embraced the whole final year thingy and thought this would all over. No more being stressed out all the time. HA-HA. Little did I know that was only the beginning, the first development of depression. After graduation, I was jobless for 6 months. I tried looking for jobs, but I only seek degree-related jobs, which is not many. I wanted to do other jobs, but there is always a picture in my mind of which my mother would not be satisfied with non-degree-related jobs. You see, my mother was already disappointed when I got accepted into the Biomedical Science programme. My mother had always picture me as a pharmacist, which she had told me when I was 16. When I told her about my degree programme, I can see no delightful smile from her. She was happy that I got accepted somewhere, but not excited, as she has no clue what job I can do after graduation (in which she was not wrong).
Anyway, back to as a jobless period. You would think it would be nice to do nothing everyday, right? Well, no! That jobless duration just makes me more suffocated. I would cry most days during shower and most nights before sleep. I was depressed to the point that even when small unrelated things happened to me, I could easily burst into tears. Once there was a piece of fried chicken got stuck between my teeth and after many failed trails to get it out, I just burst into tears, thinking why my life is so hard? why can't I be like other people? why can't my life just be normal? There was actually a time when my aunt said 'honorable jobless' to me and I shrugged it off at that time. But actually that really hurts me and when her daughter also said something hurtful I broke down in the bathroom. I pleaded my mom to go home and was very relieved she agreed to it after a long disagreement. There was also a hurtful memory to me. While in the car, a relative casually asked me about my career. My mom was in the car too and she suddenly fell into silence and what make it worst was I can see her expression changed, into disappointment. I can't remember what I said to that relative, but my mother's expression wold never fade from my memory.
Six months fast-forward, I found an opportunity to continue my study which I took it right away. As long as I don't have to stay at home all the time and to shut people up. While pursuing my master a whole set of pressure came along. It was the pressure of having money. As a student, I was not paid. My tuition fee comes from my mom, my life-support comes from my mother and my siblings. Sh*tty life of a sh*tty person huh? Recently, I was pre-diagnosed to have hypothyroidism. This condition can actually mess up my hormones and my emotions. It is a rare condition since most thyroid related condition people have hyperthyroidism. But at least I found my enemy. In another few weeks, I'm going to know for sure and I hope it IS hypothyroidism so that all I have to do now is to consume thyroxine.
But how do I know I have hypothyroidism? Well, it started when I, for the first time in my life had a panic attack. I know I have mild mood swing but never a panic attack. It started when one night one of my sisters yelled at his son. It wasn't a usual mother-to-child yelling. It was a top of the lungs yelling. THAT triggered me to have a panic attack. (I suspect I have PTSD due to yelling because of a childhood memory, but I never see a doctor about this). The panic attack made my heart beating as if I was running but my body was still. I can feel nerve signals were sent to my hands. My hands were cold. All I could do was go to sleep. The next day, I was feeling better. I went to the university like nothing happened. But as I was having my lunch, it happened again, my second panic attack. I was hysterical. I really can't control it. I stopped eating, pacing back and forth, shaking my hands vigorously to get rid of the cold sensation and my heart was beating wildly as if it wants to get out of the rib cage. Immediately I went to see a doctor and they did a blood test. After the attack, I always feel mini anxiety few episodes everyday. But overtime, it gets better. The mini anxiety visit was less frequent per week. [A year ago, I had a panic attack while I was shopping. At that time, I didn't know it was a panic attack. As I was walking, I suddenly feel out of breath, I had to stop walking and calm myself down, taking deep breaths. It was for a few minutes then I was okay. I didn't think much of it at that time.]
Writing this all out makes me feel better. Although some memories did make me feel agitated. I hope I this will all pass and my wish is that no people should experience it again. Or at least know how to manage it. Just remember this magic words:
YOU WILL BE OK. YOU WILL BE FINE.
