For all the smiles we fake.

[This piece was part a dramatic reading - Off the record, Northwestern University Feinberg Medical School, Chicago, IL 60611. Date: 05-14-2021]

First, there was this delirious abstraction. Then, the unapologetic ‘dissolution into vacuous nothingness’ ensued. I became comfortably numb. The clique that prides itself of pulling in some truly ill-fated desolate individuals as its prized possession; the ones for whom happiness is Martian and are unwittingly devoted to pain, hurt, and loneliness soon became my stomping grounds. I wanted to be released from the tight grip of the boa constrictor and just crawl back abjectly into the womb.‘It is a torment that more often than not starts young and goes unheeded’, they said. ‘They’ being researchers like myself. Several original research articles devoted to this affliction aside, the first encounter with this uninvited slithery demon took me by surprise. My first encounter happened eons (hyperbole, of course) ago when I was sitting in my room working on some chemistry equations and listening to Richard Marx trying to convince everyone that he left her by the river.Without any prior warning, my eyes welled up and a solitary tear, defying gravity, much like a candle flame would in microgravity, dropped into the hollow benzene ring giving it a beautiful round shape. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I was all of 17 years young, living a charmed life; why did I have this clawing sense of impending doom? I was confused. That was the very first time I faced the fear of not being in complete control of my faculties. I was scared out of my wits. A dense cloud descended, engulfing me like a thick blanket. I did not know how to free myself or worse still, ‘if’ I even wanted to break free from the dense muck. My state of mind at that point was, suffice to say, akin to getting lost in a labyrinth hoping to see some bread crumbs along the way that would ipso facto lead me to safety. Instead, the bread crumbs lead me straight into the house of cake and confectionary. Everything felt normal in a couple of days, although I blamed myself for not hiring the metaphorical ‘Sherlock’ to solve this surreal unpleasant mystery. After my second encounter with this ogre, my common sense, which was evidently on a small vacation, slowly woke up, gained momentum and gave me a sense of realization, which was much more complex than I could fathom. Not knowing something as real (in flesh) as what I felt personally (as an abstract) and unable to verbalize had (still has) its painful upshots, but with no real climactic situation. It is more like what the ‘Governator’ would say, “I’ll be back! The quiescent monster was never totally out of my life. Merely hibernating, only to wake up for a next round of rejuvenated torture. Every single time, before the 'awakening', I had this ‘sixth sense’ that would nudge and forewarn me and prepare me for that new round of torture. I tried to outmaneuver it and regain my control. Turned out, it is not as easy as I thought. I have been trying this for the past 24 years! Apparently, I am not smart, considering I haven’t learnt my lesson.With every passing bout, I started throwing myself more and more into my school work, followed by undergraduate work, postgrad work and so on. I started focusing only on my research, reading literature, writing my trying times and internal conflicts in my journal. I tried hard to get my nose out of my books to occasionally venture out with friends, although, more often than not, I ended up sitting at home with my books!I was cognizant of the fact that I would probably be very difficult to talk to and did not want to share my dire situation with anyone, not even my close friends.Despite the possible reduction in my brain serotonin levels, something alerted me to seek help. I DIDN’T. I was completely lost and took comfortable residence in Kafka’s world of Gregory Samsa, in Poe’s world of unnamed protagonists and Plutos, and plunged deeper into the world of Lolitas, Esthers, and Mrs. Dalloways. I felt at peace there. I took comfort in the fantasy land of literary bigwigs (know-it-alls to ‘meh’s included) against opening up and actually parting with my woes.Mind you, there are several social stigmas attached to a person that visits a psychiatrist. They will be adorned with wonderful names such as, ‘crazy’, ‘loon’, ‘psycho’ to name a few. Social predilections aside, I was not sure about it myself in the first place. I was becoming more and more adept at masking my blahs. While I talked and laughed with my family and friends, my thoughts were the darkest shade of stygian, and unforgivably cold in barraging their resolve. While I presented a chipper exterior, I could hear high-pitched echoes, “You’re a failure, a complete and utter failure.. a burden.. useless.” reverberating and my near and dears were none the wiser. Short of putting my head in the oven (that my oven doesn’t really work is a side note), I had a dark sense of isolation and inner emptiness which although I couldn’t verbalize, found its way into my journal entries. Even though I knew what was happening (after a fair number of years, and especially, gaining considerable knowledge secondary to my postgrad area of research and my current postdoctoral area of research) alludes to this affliction, I still tried to take matters into my own ‘lab’ hands, just as a know-it-all would do. I had a false sense of hope, a conceited supposition that I could assuage this situation with no help. I had a firm theoretical as well as practical knowledge about the types of depressions and how they resolve themselves within a year, with or without treatment, and that sometimes they take hold and won’t let go, becoming incrementally worse with each passing day, until suicide seems like the only way out. When I was in my 3rd year of my PhD, I finally made up my mind to go to a professional and let him fish out what exactly was going on.I owe the driving force for this first visit to the ‘Psychiatrist Couch’ to a nerdy researcher’s (i.e. me) pet peeve. THE day was the day when I did not want to part with my quilt, to go to my lab to conduct an experiment which I had painstakingly designed. This was a death blow to me (so to speak). Even though I had suffered and handled my situation until that point (okay-ishly) come what may, the only thing that kept me going was my love for research. When I realized that my passion and career were at stake, I took that all important step. I was told that aside from the usual suspects, i.e. serotonin levels’ and ‘hormonal imbalance’, psychosocial stressors added more to my plight, which thence triggered my descent into subsequent bouts, which consequently increased in frequency — as with many case history, my unrelenting clinical depression was hugely attributed to my hormonal imbalance and stressors. I contemplated the continued stigma attached to going public with my experience and silently struggle(d) with depression.To me, part of the appeal to write this piece was to show at least a fraction of the audience how hard, yet plausible it is to open up a small section of your life and share that piece, your vulnerability to virtual strangers despite several day-to-day shortcomings. It is still a chore, but, I have taken my first baby steps through this blog. You would think that being a researcher in the area of Neuropharmacology, and working in the area of depression, I’ve got it made. You’re wrong there! I have more than enough knowledge about antidepressants having tested them through behavioral studies myself. I was reluctant to try pills for something that seemed so intrinsic to who I was — the state of mind in which I lived, so to speak. But, I had to try before dismissing anything (scientific curiosity!).. Enter – Citalopram! Well, it did not work. Although I cannot fault the drug. Considering I was supposed to be taking it religiously, I hardly ever made it a proper schedule. Having studied several mechanisms to test the effect of antidepressant medications as part of my research projects, I can give conclusive lab evidences for something to validate the positive findings, but to take the same compound (which showed so much promise in my pre-clinical studies) as part of my regime to counter depression is a whole another concept, that warrants a book or two.The last few decades have brought improvement in the way mental illness is treated and the way it is portrayed in literature. Not all characters are generalized as depressed bipolar lunatics with a fair few tin foils notwithstanding. Some characters are allowed to come down from their self-afflicted solitary confinements (ala - me) and tell their own stories. In memoirs, authors share their experiences in raw, first person accounts, case in point.- my first-person account through this blog, as I can relate via my personal experiences (still do) in the arduous quest into nothingness. So, here I am, typing this blog..How is it possible that despite no medications, solely relying on my passion for research and writing, I wake up every morning, push myself hard with all my might and be a researcher? Does this mean that my depression isn’t as bad as Virginia Woolf’s or even Plath’s? I wondered what it would be like to lose this symbiotic relationship (I use ‘symbiotic’ loosely here) I shared with my abject feelings of void which had grown, matured with me since I was seventeen! The truth is that I don’t know how it’s possible for me to be coping with depression as well as I am (or may be not). Over time, however, I’ve learned that my brain fatigues trying to reason its way through the labyrinth and my thoughts quiet. I FEEL COMFORTABLY NUMB. Perhaps, my complete indifference helps me endure depression, or perhaps the yo-yoing between emotions of overwhelming wretchedness and oblivion does the trick. It is also possible that in the quest to understand why I feel the way I feel, I’m literally tiring myself out. Let’s face it.. depression is so complex that we may never be able to fully comprehend it, and my brain keeps trying to figure it out; keeps me occupied and perhaps that is my much needed coping mechanism? Yes, I still push myself every single day, throw myself into research and overwork my neurons. Yes, this helps me overcome the constant niggling voice whose life mission is to put me down and make me feel worthless. However, following Skinner's operant training method (which I extrapolated from rodents to me, of course!), I've managed to successfully train my eyes to see a glimpse of light even in the darkest corners. It is hard, but having worked my way through harshest of hairpin bends unto this point in my life, I gained this extra something .. some may call it,’Faith’.. I call it ‘Determination’..THE DETERMINATION TO NEVER GIVE THIS SLITHERY MONSTER UNDUE ATTENTION AND THE DETERMINATION TO NEVER GIVE UP!