And the worst part was that it had just begun.
16
The ink blots
When I shifted to Bombay with dreams in my eyes and hopes in my heart, trampling over love and other such trivial things that young boys and girls of that age normally indulged in, the last thing I had anticipated or foreseen was finding myself at the door of a psychiatrist's clinic.
I had tried to fool myself and fool my parents as well, assuring them that I was fine. I had told them I would be okay in a few days. They had believed me. I too had believed myself. After all, it was indeed just what I felt and it was all in my head. I thought I would be very strong and shake it off. I tried my best to force myself. But things only got worse.
I stayed at home for a week more and by then it was clear to me that I was not in any position to go back to my course. I did not tell my parents what I had realised. Unknown to them, the same panic attacks that came earlier had happened two more times, when I had tried to think about going back to my college. So I pushed it aside and refused to think about it. I did not want these terrifying attacks to come back. My parents did not know what to do. They were at their wits end. When they asked me when I would resume my studies, I told them to give me just a few days more.
My father called up the college and spoke to the Dean. I don't know what he told them. I did not want to know. It was like I wanted to shut out college and anything to do with it.
The blackness was now a permanent thing. It surrounded me all the time, refusing to go away. The void was a permanent feature. It was like I was dead from inside. Earlier I had been experiencing a deep sense of pain. But now it seemed to have been replaced by a bottomless pit. I was totally the opposite of what I had been a few weeks back. I did not feel any inclination to run. I felt no interest in my management books. I felt no interest in anything. I just wanted to lie in my bed and go deeper into the vacuum which was now my mind. I looked at the poems I had written earlier. I tried to make myself feel some passion, to stir in myself some kind of feeling, to push myself to be what I used to be. But I failed. Miserably. No words came. No thoughts came. It was a horrible place to be trapped in. I did not want to be there. But there seemed to be no escape.
The last straw came when I tried to read. I picked up a book which lay on my table, which I had bought, a long time back, while I was in Cochin, intending to read it. It was Arthur Hailey's Hotel. I opened it and tried to read it. It gave me a rude jolt. I was shocked to discover that by the time I reached the end of a sentence I could not remember what was at the beginning. I tried again. Then once more. And yet again. I just could not believe it. Along with my words, I seemed to have lost the ability to read and comprehend too.
I tried telling myself that it was because I was distracted and I could of course read. I had devoured so many books, that too far heavier than this. Besides, this was something I would enjoy reading too. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I just could not do it. The more I tried, the more I failed.
Then, I opened my file of colour coded notes that I had so meticulously made. I tried reading them. I could not read even beyond a paragraph. I had no idea what they meant. I would read the same sentence over and over without comprehending a single thing. It was as though my mind could focus only on one word for a very brief period, perhaps a few seconds and the next second, it had forgotten it. The words vanished from my mind like the chalk writings on a blackboard being wiped clean. I seemed to no longer have any control over them. Then I opened the Kotler book and a feeling of nausea flooded me. I looked at the marketing jargon and felt sick. The sinking feeling which was now a permanent fixture rose higher, drowning me. Frustration, rage, tears and helplessness welled up inside me. I closed my fingers again and my nails dug deep.
I tried one more time. It was simply no use. It was like somebody had switched off some important part of my brain which controlled reading, comprehension and even thinking. I felt like a broken toy. I felt a deep sense of hopelessness. The helplessness of the situation that I found myself in was too much to bear. I did not know what to do. Life, as I knew it, had vanished, handing me in its place this mockery to make sense of. Everything I had taken for granted had disappeared. It was simply unbearable. In a fit of pure frustration, I swept the file containing my notes, the Kotler book and a few other sheets of paper off my desk.
They went crashing to the floor along with a reading lamp that the book hit while being swept off. The bulb of the lamp broke and I felt like it was my life. My parents came running into the room hearing the noise.
“What happened?” asked my mother.
“A re you all right, Ankita?” asked my dad.
I was too ashamed to admit that I had pushed the things on to the floor. I knew there was no way I could explain to my parents that I was not able to read, rather comprehend what I was reading anymore. I myself could not understand it. Then how could I expect my parents to? What could I tell them about this scary new thing that I had just discovered? It would only worry them more. As it is, they were so anxious about me. Even now as they spoke, I could see the worry and the anxiety written all over their faces.
“The lamp slipped while I was tidying up,” I lied.
“You should be more careful. Look now the glass pieces have spread all over,” said my mom.
I didn't say anything and I began picking up the pieces. My parents believed what I had said and left me alone.
After they went I felt as though the room was closing in on me.
I feel down and depressed. I feel worthless. I don' t know what is happening to me and why I am feeling this way. There is really no reason. I have tried to make these thoughts go away. I have failed. I don't want to do this MBA anymore. I can't bear the thought of looking at Joseph, Chaya and Jigna again. The thought of seeing my classmates faces make me sick. The professors, the course material, the case studies—I just do not want to set my eyes on them again. I don' t want to tell all this to my parents either. They have high hopes about me. They are so proud of me and if I drop out, they really will have no face to show the people to whom they so proudly boasted of my achievements.
My throat feels dry. I sit with my head in my hands. For how many hours I sit like this I don' t know. I feel I cannot go on anymore. There is nothing left to live for. There is nothing to look forward to. I pick up a pen and try to write what I am feeling. But words too seem to have abandoned me. Nothing comes. I am unable to write too. Just like I am unable to read. I scribble on the paper hard. Round and round, round and round, I scribble and press hard with the tip of the pen until the paper tears. Then I cast it aside and I continue sitting still, staring into the blank.
This is frightening, this world without words, this world of darkness and void. I don' t want to be here anymore. I want to make it stop.
I remember the paper cutting knife again. I take it and this time I want to hurt myself really bad. I want to kill this pain inside me which refuses to go away. I want to feel better. I want to give this pain a physical form.
I must have walked into the bathroom with the knife.
The next thing I remember is my dad trying to grab it from me. I resisted with all my might and I swung my right hand which had the knife, trying to push him away with my left. The knife made a cut all across my left forearm, extending from the back of the arm, almost at the centre, running diagonally across it, ending just near the wrist. The sight of blood shocked my mother who had come rushing out of her bedroom, hearing the commotion.
“WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE YOU TRYING TO DO?” screamed my dad. There was shock, pain and grief in his voice.
“Oh my God, Oh My God. What has happened to her?” repeated my mother over and over again. She was crying.
I was unmoved. Strangely I was feeling a little relieved that the focus of the pain could now be shifted to elsewhere. My dad applied the astringent to the cut on my arm and covered the cut with cotton. He tied a crepe bandage around it to make the blood stop.
&n
bsp; I never felt more alone that night as I lay on my bed, sleep still evading me. My parents would not leave me alone after that. They took turns watching me. They did it out of concern. They were genuinely worried. But I felt like a prisoner. I felt trapped and frightened. I did not want to be watched over like this. This way I felt, it was becoming difficult to breathe. I did not even want to eat, but my parents forced me to. I would eat just to satisfy them, the bare minimum that my body could manage with. I wanted everything to just end. I did not want to be in this situation anymore. I was tired. I was defeated. I was broken too.
Finally on the fourth night I promised them I would never ever do it again. My dad wanted me to agree to accompany him to the psychiatrist. I was too beaten to even argue and that was how I found myself that morning, outside the clinic, wearing a full sleeved shirt to hide the scar on my left arm.
I felt like a sacrificial lamb waiting to be executed. I hated the look of the building itself. The clinic was on the ground floor of a three storied building, which seemed to need a coat of paint badly. Dad had made an appointment and my mother too had accompanied us.
The doctor was a woman called Mukta Nagraj who looked very young. She wore a saree and her short hair was neatly styled. She seemed to take great pride in her numerous academic qualifications as the wall behind her was decorated with various medical degrees from various colleges all over the world. I was least interested in meeting her. I was doing this only for my parents' sake.
“Hello, Good morning. You must be Ankita” she greeted me glancing at the list of appointments she had in her diary which was open at her desk.
I did not respond. Her manner was fake, her smile was professional and it appeared as though she was genuinely concerned. But I could see through it. I hated the sight of her. My dad explained to her that we had recently moved from Cochin. He explained how I had got into one of the most coveted management schools in Bombay. He told her about how bright I was academically, how I had won the elections. Then he explained how I was doing well academically in the Management course too but how I was now reluctant to go back. I was grateful that he did not mention the incident with the knife.
She listened carefully and then told my parents that she wanted to speak to me in private. They said they would wait outside.
She looked at me and smiled again.
I looked at her sullenly.
“Can you answer a few questions for me Ankita?”
I want to hit you so hard that the stupid smirk on your face vanishes forever.
“Yes.”
“Have you been sleeping well lately?”
What concern is that of yours, bitch?
“Not as well as before.”
She quizzed me endlessly. Had I been eating well? Had I enjoyed the course? What other things was I interested in? How did I feel about the move? Did I miss my old life? If I had a chance to go back to Cochin, would I like to? What did I feel about travelling in trains in Bombay? Was it a huge change to shift from a small place to a big town?
I answered in monosyllables. I was angry about my life being pried open like this.
Then she asked me something which I had no monosyllabic answer for.
“If you don't mind, could you tell me if you were romantically involved with someone?”
One is dead, one is madly in love with me and one would be wondering right now what is happening and why he isn' t able to get in touch with me and would be desperate to talk to me.
“No,” I lied. There was no way I was telling this smirking condescending woman my life story. What would she do? Advise me and everything would be all right? I would feel instantly better and go back to my course?
She did not advise me at all. She did something worse. She asked if I was okay with taking a few psychological tests. She said it would help her in her analysis. I thought of refusing. Then I thought of my parents waiting outside with hope and anxiety. So I agreed.
“Okay,” she said. “I am going to show you a few images and I want you to tell me what you associate with them as soon as you see them. Just don't think too much about them. Just tell me what you feel they could be as soon as you see them. I will be writing down whatever you say. These are for my notes. Don't bother about that.” She said
I nodded.
She smiled again.
Hatred oozed out of my pores like molten lava but I concealed it. I just could not bring myself to smile back at her smug, superior self though.
She took out the first card, which was about the size of an A4 paper. It had an ink blot on it, a very abstract black and white ink-blot and showed it to me. She asked me what I saw.
I could see at least fifty things in it depending on which way was up and which way you looked at it.
“What way is it placed?” I asked.
“Anyway dear, just tell me what you see!” she could not keep the condescending tone out of her voice.
It took all my self control not to snatch the card out of her hand and hit her repeatedly across her face with it.
I looked at the card instead and immediately told her at least ten things I could see. She wrote them all down. I asked her if she wanted me to tell her more. I was sure this time I could not keep the superior tone out of my voice. I felt quite proud of my creative abilities and visual skills.
She said that was enough.
I smiled for the first time in days.
Then she continued this exercise with more cards. There were ten in all. I was beginning to enjoy it.
Then it was all over.
She told me to give her 5 minutes while she studied my responses.
She took about twelve minutes.
Then she called my parents in.
“I have studied her responses, and analysed what she has told me in depth. I have also analysed the test which she just did.”
My parents nodded gratefully eager for anything she would say, waiting for whatever little scraps of her wisdom which would shed some light on why their daughter, their star child was behaving like this.
“She has severe depression. We should start her on medication immediately. That will help her a lot. Otherwise her condition will worsen,” she pronounced.
Then she wrote out a prescription with names of some tablets I had never heard of, before.
My parents took it from her hands like it was a gem.
“These will just help her sleep better and also regulate her low mood,” she said.
She asked my parents to come back with me after two weeks when she would assess me again and adjust dosage if needed. Then we were dismissed and I saw her already glancing at her next appointment.
I wondered how much my parents had paid for this. I wondered how much this lady made in a day. It must have been a huge packet, judging by the number of patients that were waiting, whom I noticed on the way out. We must have been her first appointment for the day.
My dad stopped off at a Chemist's shop and bought the tablets she had prescribed.
“Don't worry Ankita,” he said as he entered the car. “Everything will be just fine. You will be okay soon.” The hope in his voice broke my heart.
That was when I started crying.
I couldn't stop even when we reached home.
17
The light goes out
I got progressively worse. The medication which the doctor had prescribed did not seem to help the least bit. My parents were convinced it would work and a cure was just round the corner. Sadly it was like the elusive lottery that hopefuls keep buying week after week, in anticipation of a jackpot. But they were as unaware of failure as I was.
The tablets were to be taken twice a day. There was a little yellow one and a slightly larger white one. I had no idea what they were for and what they were called. But my parents had pinned their hopes and their aspirations for me on these two little tablets which held the promise of miraculously, or rather medically, turning my life around.
Each morning my dad stood at the foot of my b
ed with the tablets in hand and a glass of water. Almost every day, the same story repeated itself.
“Dad, I really do not want to take these. They make me drowsy,” I would say.
“Ankita, your body and mind both need rest. If you don't take the medicine how will you get better? This is only temporary. Now be a good girl and take it,” he would coax patiently.
I would then swallow both at once and he would be pleased.
I felt a little bit like a prisoner but the only place that I was trapped in, was inside my own mind. The worst thing was that there was no escape.
The medication made me drowsy. I slept when I felt like and woke up when I felt like it. What was truly terrifying was the blankness. There were simply no thoughts inside my head. It was all a blank. It was an endless vacuum, a huge void. Earlier, I had sought refuge in the magnificent images that I could conjure up without an effort. I could write what I felt. I could pour my emotions and my feelings into words. I had my poetry and my pictures and words. But this terrible and completely strange state that I found myself in, was something that I just could not bear. The agony of it made me want to weep and wail out my sorrow but even grief eluded me. I was numb and senseless. I ached to feel something. I ached to feel pain. I ached to cry. I ached to think. I ached and ached. The ache was a constant companion like a shadow. There was no getting rid of it. It never went away and the moment I opened my eyes, it was there, prodding me, hurting me, taunting me and mocking me. I wanted to run away from it. I wanted a respite. I wanted to escape. I just wanted to be able to feel once more.
Nights and days merged into one another. I could not bear the light and would draw the curtains of my room and shut the windows. If my parents as much as tried to open it even a teeny bit, I would scream asking them to let it be. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards anything that was dark. During the waking hours, it was pure agony to just remain alive. The pain was terrifying. Everything that was once attractive and interesting now appeared drab. What had come easily at one point in time took a massive effort now. It was a huge ordeal to even wake up and get out of bed. I preferred lying in the dark, with the darkness of my mind and the blankness for company. I wanted to be left alone. If my parents tried to sit with me, I would get agitated and angry and tell them to go away and let me be in peace. They did not know what to do and hence most of the time, left me alone, only coming in to see that I had my tablets.
Life Is What You Make It A Story Of Love, Hope And How Determination Can Overcome Even Destiny Page 12