The M word

I remember seeing an ad once which made me look twice: it was a fitness brand, depicting this woman jumping into a pool with the caption 'I work out not because I hate my body, but because I love it.'

That struck a chord.

This ad came to mind as I steeled myself to do something I never thought I would do: take medication for depression.

Day 2 of medication and I'm feeling... unimpressed.

I'm nauseous, terrified of putting on weight (although the nausea has reduced my normally large appetite to nothing), light-headed and frankly wondering why people put themselves through this. I guess this is what being pregnant feels like. But I'm committed to this, let's call it, err, experiment.

I took this decision, after I realised I had spent about 18 months in a rut. One bomb after the other, as I call them, exploded, culminating in the death of my father. Death is weird. It breaks open a gaping hole where all manner of things, ranging from spiritual epiphanies to helpless rages, seep in. It forces you to take stock.

After 18 months of trying to make sense of things, of eating fabulously healthy home-prepped meals two days a week and binge-eating comfort food on the remaining five days, of fitful nights and 3-hour sleep each night despite sleeping pills, of regular outbursts with the boyfriend, of drastically dipping productivity at work and eventually having a massive breakdown at a diplomatic event... I decided enough was enough and I needed to do something.

I decided to face the fact: I love my life too much to let it go to pieces. I love my job, #SeeingBlue, and pretty much everything else that I do and wanted to do all of it justice.

I decided to give medication a go, with the firm resolve to get things under control. The discussions online were terrifying, as were the testimonies of some of my friends: for 50% of them, medication helped a lot; for the others, they didn't - and even exacerbated their underlying anxieties.

I guess I took a leap of faith. My rationale is this: if you're running a race, and your foot is hurt, what's the point of limping ahead without fixing it? You'd cover much more distance if you get it fixed. Or, take the example of a toothache. You can't just namasté away your cavity with yoga or positive thinking. Or diabetes. If you need insulin, you need insulin. So why the double standards with mental health? Why is there so much reluctance on behalf of society to admit that people who have mental health issues are still/ can still be fully productive beings, but they also need to nurture their state of mind?

Anyway, I think mental health issues are no longer as taboo as they were a while back; in this day and age of depression, Trumpism, neoliberalism and general planetary destruction, it may even be fashionable for Millennials to be afflicted with something or the other.

Whilst we're becoming more accepting of mental health issues, I think we have yet to become accepting or progressive in our responses to them. For the major part, we'll still face a well-meaning, 'chin up!' or 'snap out of it' when we open up about depression or anxiety.

The importance of taking care of our mental health - much as we would take care of our physical health and treat our body with the medicine, rest and TLC that it needs - has yet to be understood by most of us, including myself.

So yes, I'm not taking medication because I hate my life, but because I love it - and I want to keep getting better, break boundaries and kick ass in everything I do. Let's see how it goes.