(As told to Indira Nityanandam)
We had been college sweethearts who got married
I affectionately caressed Anahita’s cheeks as the child smiled in her sleep. Gehana had left me with this precious gift: something to remember her by but also to keep racking my brains for an answer! An answer which would evade me but which I couldn’t not think about!
Memories keep rushing into my head all the time, memories of the wonderful initial years and of course the horrors of her last few days. How I wish I could use a mouse to delete all unwanted images but I do know I am not a computer but a flesh and blood human being, with feelings and emotions, joys and sorrows, hope and despair, but above all, a memory to last till eternity.
How can I forget our first meeting in the University building corridor, her shy smile as a common friend introduced us! And then past and present coalesce as those two years rushed by, without a moment of doubt about our affection which grew into love even before we realised it! How our friends always referred to us as Amit and Jaya – me all of six feet and she hardly five. We were inseparable; needless to say the butt of many jokes too! But who cared, we had each other and that’s all that mattered.
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That’s hurtful, depression makes you so lonely and alienated. That must have been difficult for that man to look after wife and baby at the same time. God bless people!
That’s the thing about depression. It comes slowly crawling its way through , and by the time its impacts become noticeable, it has already set itself as a giant iceberg. And our country is yet to be sensitised properly about depression and the significance of mental health. Depression can grab anyone at any point of time and unless we are educated about it, we can not help our loved ones. Worse still, we would lose them without any alarm.
This is really shocking. The helplessness you suffer is really heartbreaking. I hope you had tried your best to talk to her about the depression rather than letting it go as a part of post par tum depression so to speak.
Agree with Ishita. This is not just about postpartum depression. Depression affects everyone from all age groups we need to educate ourselves about the symptoms manifested by a depressed person and get them help as soon as possible.
Depression is a legit thing and not an attention seeking phase like people make it out to be. We should help people and not condemn them.
Heart wrenching. I was not aware that post-partum depression can be so severe.
Oh this is really very sad…Kudos to you brother for staying strong.
Very very sad to read this. Wish she had not taken such a drastic step.