All you need is… interruption.
Diary entry.
Date: Obit.
Time: 3:21 am
I can’t recall the first time I started feeling this way. This feeling feels to have been a part of my existence since forever. Just like one doesn’t know when one adapts a certain mannerism in the company of new friends. Maybe an initiation as this is shared by all emotions. But I know I am totally mistaken there for I have seen happier day, where I have given happiness, received happiness, and shared the emotion out of pure gratitude. The truth is I have forgotten how that state of bliss feels now. It seems to be familiar and yet so unacquainted.
My present state pains me. It makes me suffer emotionally, mentally and physically. Emotionally, I feel so deprived of the joy of life. How can you spread happiness around when your don’t have even a shred of it left? Turns out I am not ignorant of the fact that I am no more proving to be a source of jubilation for people in my life. I feel like an encumbrance. I have this constant reminder in the back of my head that my dear ones make me feel loved just for the sake of it. And I know there lies no fault of theirs in this, all guilt is of mine who can’t focus but on the cynical aspect itself. No matter how hard I try to fight off this complex of lowliness, it won’t go away. This good-for-nothing feels are eating away at my flesh and bone, both metaphorically and literally.
On the mental health front, I don’t myself reckon how to make it intelligible. One thing I’m conscious of is that I have been overthinking. Overthinking about just everything and to be precise in a direction that’s gloom-ridden. What’s all the more unpleasant is that I just can’t stop even after recognising this trait! Possibly because there’s only much you can do after a thought finds its home in your mind. Thoughts, I tell you, are like spoilt stubborn babies. I often think I shouldn’t have disregarded the small details of the past. They acted like the neglected spark that set the house ablaze. It has sort of turned my guilty pleasure. I have gotten so used to it that not only thinking of pleasant things demands so much energy now, but also, I feel so at home just being gloomy. Or maybe this fellow feeling for the company of hopelessness has developed because it exhausts my entire being to think otherwise. Either way, the doom is conceivable.
The physical manifestations of this hurt include this lump in my throat, that won’t listen to subside and has been a constant associate on many occasions and is so even now as I note down these affairs in my diary. Besides that, this pain in my chest — as if somebody is trying to tear it open from inside — is a persistent visitor.
It is not my first write up on my status quo, but certainly is the most straightforward. Finally all these years of enduring the affliction have taught me to simplify the things. I did try to reach out for help, but expression via talks is so overrated that it makes me puke. All I ended up with was the realisation that no matter how clear I try to be, no one actually gets it. You do get pieces of advice; wisdom and philosophy gets thrown in; people take their time to turn into psychologists and worst of it all — words of pity! I’m not even going to start complaining about that because if I do I will end up in an abyss of rancour and I am firm on the fact that my last diary entry is not going to spill out detestation for anyone. After I’m gone, I don’t want people to consider that I acted egocentric even during the last moments when I was thinking of putting an end to this agony that I have been condoning for so long now. I can’t go on like this any further, fought it with all my might. No more stamina is left inside this fragile existence of mine now. Exerting more this way makes me grow more and more despondent. I have given my melancholy all the good of me. Just wish it had shown me a little clemency.
All this while I have been whining out on the pages. Means I am capable of that. That’s a revelation which makes me wonder why didn’t I consider talking to a counsellor? For it is more or less about whining. Is it not? Perhaps I did give it a thought and then just brushed it off because I’m of the opinion that it’s not easy to open up to an outsider. I wonder why many people don’t talk about this very fact. It might be because there’re certain things that one can disclose more effortlessly to a stranger; for instance in my case, how for the last few months I have have these suicidal thoughts rumbling with my mind. I would have gotten a lot off my chest, had I trusted someone with the dealings of my being. For I can’t be telling it to my people, especially my parents. It will be like giving them the feeling that they failed at it, that they should have known better. I can’t subject them to that trauma. I also know I can’t put it out to my friends. I don’t want to act an attention seeker. Regardless, all they advice is to turn over a new leaf. It is too late for considerations as these. Anyway, more talking is not going to help as I’m so close to the limit of my endurance and I need it in me to do what I am shortly about to.
Not gonna babble in here about how much I love mom and dad. I have left them scheduled emails to take care of that. They’ll receive it when the time is right, along with other details regarding my bank accounts, passwords and stuff. Nevertheless, I love those 2 humans more than anything else and it’s hurting me to hurt them this way but here is the instance I chose myself over all else.
One strong regret remain though… If only the events had proceeded a little differently.
Done with taking it out of my cardiac muscles. I feel lighter. Always late for good things. I think this to myself as I close my diary and put it to my side on the bed, on which I am sitting. I am not even determined to place it in the bedside cabinet, where it resides.
“Now let’s get the task done.” Declaring this, with a sombre expression, I take a glance at the container of the hypnotic drugs on the nightstand. I have this sudden awareness that my room — which is so ill-lit right now — has never felt this suffocating before. A pleasant breeze is blowing outside, which I was a sucker for in the days gone by. I loved it for the fact that it kind of did away with the dead silence of the night. But now it makes me feel nauseating. As goes for everything else, I’ve lost interest in these delicate blows of air against my skin, that I used to enjoy before. I sense I have outgrown all the delightful things. This condition alone is worse than mortality itself.
So back to the Sleeping Pills: The method I have so wisely chosen after throwing in some calculations. My dear old friends. First the pills will put me to sleep, then the overdose will put me in a state of depressed breathing while I am asleep, and then it will be over. This is my thought out comprehensive pain regimen so I at-least die peacefully. I too deserve these moments of solace even if for a while.
There are many things running in my mind but the clearest of them all that I can pick out is this thought: What if it doesn’t kill me? Am I prepared to face the dread of explaining it all over again to the bamboozled faces of those who will enquire about the incidence? That is going to be such an embarrassment; more so additional distress for my near ones and myself. The only encouragement here is my last night’s Google search that re-establishes my faith in this method. It is probabilistic but I got to trust the process.
All is set. I take a deep breath as I reach out to the ‘medicine’ and the tumbler of water that has been intentionally placed next to it. The lump in my throat and the pain in my chest — still my companions. There is fear in me and a lot of it but surprisingly I’m not trembling out of it. The fear that is not perceptible is the worst kind of fear. My hands are steadfast, probably because there is this sense of recompensation that soon this all is going to come to an end. I console myself that it’s now time to take the things in my own hands and put a closure to it, for good.
Now comes the grey swan event as I take hold of the pill bottle.
* Ringtone plays *
I sense shivers down my spine. The tune startles me and makes me come out of the reverie that I was previously indulged in. Who could it be at this hour? Am I hallucinating? I return the pill bottle to its previous abode and take my phone. It is Mom.
My hands start to shiver. I receive the call and put the phone to my ear with great difficulty but not a word escapes my mouth.
A pause.
Then Mom speaks up, “My child, so sorry to disturb you at this hour, I just wanted to ascertain that you are doing fine.”
I muster the courage of my entire body to mumble something to assure her that her child is listening to her.
She continues, “I had this terrible dream. Just wanted to make sure that you are OK.”
At this moment, I am shaken beyond belief. My grip loosens and the phone falls. I don’t know how long it took me to get back to her call. I don’t remember what all I was thinking that while. But I vividly remember staring at the wallpaper in front of me, and I remember the exact spot on that wallpaper that my eyes were fixated on. Out of sheer reflex I pick the phone again. The call is still connected.
Mom : “Hello! Hello you there? Please speak up something. I’m getting worried dear.”
The worry is clearly apparent in her voice, so could I make out despite feeling overtired myself. I lie to her, say I am fine. I have no means to carry on with the conversation. I have a hell lot to say, but I am shocked and exhausted and above all I am not in my senses. She goes on to say that she thought I slept again after receiving the call. She enquires about me, again. Even goes on to crack a joke or two about calling past midnight. But she doesn’t tell me anything more about her dream.
She apologises again for ‘disturbing my sleep’ and we wish each other goodnight. After dropping the call, flabbergasted, I keep staring at the home-screen of my cell phone. A family picture clicked during a vacation, almost a year back. Mom, Dad and I — in Hawaii — seem to be having the time of our lives. All smiles with glistening eyes. At this point, there is inception of a tear in my eye without my knowledge, it leaves my eye and trickles down my face without my permission, falls straight onto the phone screen and then spreads as if trying to invade as much territory as it can.
I am worn out beyond limit. I lie down on my bed, slowly falling into a state of stupor and thinking so indistinctly a thousand thoughts… Tomorrow first thing in the morning… begin the treatment… see a doc… talk to a counsellor… delete the scheduled mails… maybe one more chance… another try… So many thoughts and all at once, as if a beehive been subjected to fumigation. All the bees break into a run, en masse. Move in random directions, even collide with one another during the impulse. The discipline, that they so followed until now, escapes in thin air. These thousand thoughts spontaneously take birth and die in front of my mind’s eye.
I don’t remember at which point I fall asleep into this conversation with myself; but I can clearly state one thing, I haven’t had such a fulfilled sleep in the longest time.
A fictional account.
