My struggle with clinical depression

“I worry more about appearing perfect in front of others rather than my actual happiness,” shares Ali Awan,* a corporate banker in his early 30s. “My self-esteem and confidence come from achievements at work and my perception of how others perceive me. But I feel I have no real confidence in myself, despite my professional and personal success. Every time I make a mistake at work, I instantly think I’ll get fired now. I feel like an impostor living someone else’s life. I constantly fear messing up and losing everything; that people will find out I’ve been faking it all this time.”

“The funny thing is that I don’t think my paranoia and irrational fears are abnormal,” Ali says. “I have always lived in a state of low level anxiety and stress. In fact, I need to be slightly anxious about a goal to be functional and get a high when I overcome the challenge that’s giving me anxiety. I never knew this was a symptom of a deeper problem which was growing unchecked. I’m sharing my story today to help others sliding on the slippery slope from normal anxiety to clinical depression. If I can help one person, it’ll be worth sharing my story.”

“I’ve lived a good, privileged life,” shares Ali, a graduate of IBA. “This made my depression all the more inexplicable and made me feel even worse. I was depressed about being depressed. I graduated with a high GPA, got a job at a multi-national bank, married the love of my life and yet, one fine day, I couldn’t get out of bed because I was so depressed. It was as if all the colour had been stolen from my life. I couldn’t take a shower. I had no hunger to eat. No thirst for life. I couldn’t talk. I used to sit on the sofa between my mother and my wife, struggling to become a part of the conversation because I had nothing to say to them. I felt like a zombie in my own body; I was brain dead. I felt like a waste of space. I was in free fall. I kept going lower and lower, waiting for someone or something to break the fall.”

“To understand my depression, you have to understand the self-sabotaging thoughts which have shackled my life to self-fulfilling worst case scenarios,” shares Ali. “As a friend likes to joke, my life is like a bad Bollywood move on repeat. I make decisions out of fear rather than hope or even pragmatism. For example, at work, the fear of getting fired motivates me to work harder. I see the world in binaries. If I have a fight with my wife, she might leave me. If a friend talks to me with a different tone, he no longer wants to be friends with me. When I was depressed, I was wearing dark glasses and viewing everything through that lens. I thought my family and friends were constantly talking behind my back. About how weak I was. How I couldn’t control my emotions or my depression. How I wasn’t the poster child of perfect. How I wasn’t living up to the image I had made in my mind about the image others had of me.”

“The self-stigma was so deep and painful that it took me to breaking point,” Ali shares. “My family and friends intervened when I was flirting with suicide. I finally broke down after not being able to sleep for more than 30 minutes every night for three weeks in a row. This was despite being in bed for 16-18 hours every day. I finally got the help I needed: talk therapy, medication and reconnecting spiritually with God, while receiving unwavering support from family and friends. I’m now pivoting from a life anchored in fear to a life fuelled by hope.”

“The colour has returned to my life,” Ali shares. “I’m so hungry I’ve put back the 30 pounds I lost during the depression. I feel I’m more capable than I was before because my self-defeating thoughts no longer act as party poopers to me pursuing my highest hopes & dreams. Now I want to convert my terrible experience into something positive by trying to help others,” Ali says. “I want to share my story openly so others can get help early rather than self-stigmatising to the point that it makes things much worse than they need to be. The road to recovery is long and difficult but it is possible to bounce back, even stronger than you were before. The more we talk about this the easier it’ll be for others to get the help they need.” Let’s erase the stigma around depression by talking about it openly with #NoMoreStigma.

*Name has been changed due to the personal nature of the subject matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2016.

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