Moving to a different country is difficult. Moving with a busybody toddler solo parenting all the way is all kinds of crazy! I am sure you all agree.
But I did it!
And at the cost of blowing my trumpet, I think we have adapted well. Going from having two household help and my parents to support, I have transitioned to managing my son, household and adapting to a life with little or no support is nothing short of being commendable.
Yay for me! You’d think I will be massively proud of myself. But, after the dust settled, I was gripped by a loneliness so intense that getting out of bed seemed challenging on good days. Like with everything, I chalked it down to readjustment, put on a brave face, shrugged the darkness that gripped me and chugged on because doing anything else was not an option.
Everything depended on me! Everyone was dependent on me, or so I thought!
I went on and all till one day I couldn’t. But I did what I’ve always done, decided to be the ostrich and bury my head into the sand. Pretending if others can’t see me breaking, they won’t know it. Close friendships and people in my corner have never been my forte; I do have few people I love to death, but they will tell you that they always get to know about me and my life as a courtesy note and never when it is actually happening. I guess the only person privy to my life is my husband, and that’s not by choice! If I could, I would hide from him as well.
How did being a mother impact this? It made me come out in seams, unglued, unhinged. A relationship which I can’t escape out of, can’t take a break from. A baby who is dependent on you 24/7, and how do you teach yourself to unlearn everything, to put away your fears? This lack of an escape route put me in despair, and I felt trapped. It made me morose and angrier because this crying, clingy bundle of joy is the result of my massive struggle with infertility; this is what I asked God every waking moment for four years of my life!
There were breaks in between – a few days where husband stepped in, few days where I willed myself to rise, but they were far and few. What made the journey worst was I really had no reason to be depressed. I had everything going for me, and I was a mom, something which I never thought was possible a couple of years ago. I was in the UK, a country I dreamt of being in ever since I read the first Enid Blyton. I couldn’t shake it, and I couldn’t be free.
Finally, after grappling with it for six months, I decided to seek help. I joined a course which was called Understanding of depression and dealing with it based on awareness and cognitive skills.
It sounds a lot, doesn’t it? Actually, it is not. What it teaches you is to look for patterns of depression and break them. The best part of this was if life dealt you coconut sized lemons in the past and buried you under them. You don’t need to stay buried; you can break out of it. All you need to do is just break the habit. Just take one step at a time, break the pattern, look for alternatives. If going out seems too much, call a friend to take you out. If getting up out of bed seems a task, get your hubby to give u a steaming cuppa. If you are lonely and alone, get a pet! You don’t have to be perfect, and most importantly, look at no one for approval. If they don’t like you with your imperfections, well, then good luck to them. ‘Good riddance to rubbish.’ I say.
You can break out of depression; you just need to find that one tiny hole and start hammering!
See someone behaving differently, withdrawn, refusing to enjoy things which they used to swear by? Never say probably they need space to handle things; sometimes all they need is someone to wait it out with them
Be the mate in their corner! Help them to break free!