Meet Richa Mahajan, a Woman to a Supermom, mother of a 10 months old, who doesn’t shy away from sharing her journey be it from a PCOD diagnosis to conceiving and delivering naturally or her battle with depression. She is one brave woman who wants to talk about these ‘hush-hush’ topics and make the change in society by Being the Change.
Read her story in her own words on how she gave a tough fight to Depression and won over it with her support system by her side.
Connect with her on Instagram woman_to_superwoman.
Richa says, “It’s an irony that these days that the most trending word yet least talked topic is “Depression“. Recently the suicide case of the bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput shook the whole nation. A nation that was already struggling to cope with all the negativity, anxiety and uncertainty due to Covid-19 wasn’t ready to know that there was sadness behind that smiling face too.
Suddenly, entire social media got flooded with messages, advices and open invitations to talk, share or call if someone is going through mental stress. I wasn’t very convinced with this idea of open invitations because since I have been in that dark place some years ago so I know how difficult it is for a depressive to open up to anyone and how easy it is for the people to pass judgements on hearing their story.
Here I would like to share my stint with Depression so that I can show some glimpses of how it effects a person.
Before taking you through my journey I would like to first introduce you to the kind of a person I was before I got into depression. I was a soft spoken yet fierce, confident, ambitious yet grounded and a friendly person. Few years ago, I was going through a rough patch in my life that was draining me emotionally. Though I was trying hard to stay strong and cope with the situation by following every possible formula like talk to friends, eat healthy and meditate, have fun, dress up and go out, shop for yourself etc. but nothing was actually helping.
My mind was just not letting me move forward or think differently. I was losing control over my thoughts; my confidence was shattering day by day and I was feeling lost.
Soon I started showing signs of Depression:
- Forgetting things frequently
- Dizziness during the day
- Feeling sad and burdened all the time
- Walking with a stooped back
- Suddenly bursting into tears, even on trivial matters
- Losing appetite
A confident and friendly girl was suddenly so underconfident to talk to anyone.
I noticed an effect on my mental and emotional health:
- I stopped stepping out alone because I was afraid of forgetting my way back home
- I Had developed Inferiority complex
- I lost interest in everything I used to love doing like cooking, dancing, shopping etc.
- I would pick up random things without realising that I have picked up something or not knowing why I did so (State of being clueless)
- I started hearing hundreds of voices in my head
- I had difficulty in decision making
- I started hating and blaming everyone around
- I forgot to smile and used to have a stoned face expression most of the time
- I started noticing only the sad faces in the crowd
- I couldn’t sleep through the nights as the mind was never at peace
But thankfully, I never ever had a thought of giving upon the life.
It impacted my Physical health as well:
- Continuous backache
- Frequent indigestion issues or nausea
- Weight loss
- Early morning headaches
- Break out of Acne
- Rise in body temperature
- Fatigue
- Shivering in hands and legs.
How I recovered from Depression?
Depression had pushed me into a place where everything looked sad and dismal as if, happiness was a distant dream. Though my mind was clouded and my heart was numb, my soul never stopped telling me that
“This is not your place…”, “You don’t belong here…”,” You have to get out of here ASAP..”
I knew it wasn’t possible for me to pull myself on my own, so I needed an anchor to hold onto. I gathered some strength and reached out to my parents and my childhood friends. I opened myself to them slowly and poured out all I was going through. I must say I am blessed that my parents and friends understood what I was going through and immediately started helping me out. Since I was staying alone in a city far from my home so firstly, my parents insisted me to shift to a city closer to my hometown, so it would be easy for me to visit home whenever I wanted to. I followed their advice and changed the city.
Following are the other steps that I followed over a period of 2 years to fight against my depression and recover fully from it:
- Identified my strengths and achievements and embraced myself
- Visited my hometown frequently so I could be with my loved ones and be loved
- Kept interacting with my close friends
- Slowed down my pace and gave myself time to heal
- Looked within to find reasons why I failed or why I allowed circumstances to bog me down
- Reworked on the goals of my life
- Started the process of accepting myself, my issues and problems and to make some changes for good
- Went on trips with friends to take some time off from all the fuzz and let my soul breathe a little.
Through this process, I had to make some changes to myself and how I perceived life around me, like I
- Mastered the art of filtering thoughts, people, and choices
- Ensured to research before trusting anyone
- Prioritised my happiness over everything else
- Invested my time and money in myself and my loved ones
- Learnt to choose my competitors and fight wisely
- Started enjoying little happiness everyday
- Understood whatever happens, happens for good.
Most importantly I learnt never to be shy of our imperfections and failures because former makes us unique and later are our teachers.”
If you have a story which you would like to share or you know someone who has battled depression and can inspire others, I am all ears and ready to ink it.
Click here to know more about Postpartum Depression and their Signs & Symptoms.