Depression Has No Face

(Originally Posted on 18th, October 2020)

Tantra woke up early to clean her home on a rainy Sunday morning. She had to also attend the wedding of her dear friend on Google Meet with the lockdown in place. All that done and the home sparkling, as if, just moved in. She grabbed lunch, sat on the couch, and switched on the telly.

Gone Too Soon, said the ticker on the news channel. A prominent Indian actor killed himself. She was stunned and kept her lunch aside. Some deaths happened through the Indian film industry but this somehow touched her soul. There were cancer-related deaths, corona-related, and some to old age. But this was different. The man was depressed. He was handsome. He was successful. He didn’t carry any burden on his face while in public. There was no depression written on his face. He had a great physique. He had a great wardrobe. But, but, maybe not a smashing mental health. Tantra had a flashback of sorts. A few years back when she was diagnosed with a carcinogenic parasite in her intestine, Tantra had a lockdown of sorts. This lockdown of hers lasted for almost a year. Her friends were applying for higher education, some were in jobs, others getting married and here she was making hospital visits to get the right diagnosis for the disease. With excruciating pain in her lower abdomen, she barely moved from the four walls of her room and relied on nicotine-laced painkillers. She was on steroids as part of the initial diagnosis to get rid of the pain. She grew fat, she lost time, and she had no existence socially. Her mind became a vacuum. She scribbled blank notes. Drew centipedes on the curtains. Sometimes held her stomach and cried in pain. She feared any movement could cause the unknown parasite to move and respond in anger and cause her searing pain. Tantra grabbed her stomach tight, Paved way for another sleepless night! Days on the trot, she wouldn’t bath, Night on the trot, she got no sleep! Her mind so brittle, The pain was a tough riddle! She wrote, she read, she sang, With food restrictions, in place, she calmed her taste buds pang! Tantra opened her laptop and switched on F.R.I.E.N.D.S, the TV show and that gave her some reprieve from her mental distress. Tantra had everyone around, on-call, in person, by message but she refused to share her trauma with anyone. It was her fight and she wanted to come out victorious or maybe not as much. But she was poised to fight this battle alone. F.R.I.E.N.D.S calmed her mind when it went to solitary confinement and she wrote when it wandered. She was depressed but never let the thought press her in any way. She gave it time, more than a year, and recovered from her mental and physical trauma. Her past just ran through her eyes as the news channel reported the filmography of the demised actor. Depression is the master when it comes to disguising. It keeps knocking on your mind until you break down and let it in. It’s hiding, it’s hiding right there. It may be within you or maybe within the person talking ever so calmly with you. It’s very easy to put out a message to reach out, to speak out, to vent out but the mind of a human is a testing lab of varied emotions. Sadness comes slowly and settles down and keeps asking you to cry in that pain. Even if it’s not needed. A person can be lonely in a joint family and happy in solitary confinement. This death is not the proof, many deaths have happened that continually prove, time and again, that depression has no face. A smile can have a million sorrows and a teardrop can have a million joys. For some, the medicine for depression is to fight it through, and for some a strong dose of death.