Ayisha Qureshi

I don’t think I have ever suffered from depression but then what do I know? I have never been evaluated formally. But I have come across a lot of people who have, at some stage or the other in their lives, suffered from what they are fairly confident was depression. Even if it had not been depression, it was strong enough to force them to stop and look around in horror and dismay at where they had ended up in life. And more importantly, they realized that they were not well equipped to handle what life was sending their way.

To understand this obsessively talked about topic, I want to build on my earlier article “Why should the mind be tamed?” and take it a step further. The mind is an unchained monkey. Now imagine this unchained monkey, going crazy, straying from thought to thought, literally jumping from here to there. It suddenly finds a thought that is very, very strong. It doesn’t have to be a positive thought- the mind doesn’t care. It just needs the next stimulation. Let’s say the thought is rejection or jealousy or envy or hate. Now the mind forms a loop. It goes around and around this thought in a vicious cycle. But there is a problem. Life is happening as you spend time in your head and that must be dealt with as well. So you deal with big and small issues of life as they come your way halfheartedly and using only a part of your conscience and intelligence. Of course, then you make mistakes and blunder along. This adds fuel to the vicious cycle that your mind is already running.

Now there is another problem. The mind is exhausted and so are you. Tired and drained and fatigued and very, very upset. Well, then any sane person with a sane mind should just stop!! Stop the vicious cycle, chain the monkey and take a break. But you can’t. Why? Because your mind won’t let you. And the mind can’t stop because it doesn’t know how to. It is a slave and not the master and because the master is not taking lead, nor will the slave. And so continues this ongoing battle for sanity which you ultimately loose, of course, because you have no energy left anyways.

If you must defeat the enemy, you must understand it first. Understand that it is normal that you get upset by something but recognize that it NOT OK to think about it incessantly. Don’t overanalyse. Evaluate the situation, identify what happened, learn the lesson and move on. You are the only one who can do it! So go ahead and decide to let go. If thousands of pins on Pinterest and pics on Instagram are saying the same thing, then there must be some truth in it. LET GO! You are the only one who can do anything about it, so do it. Don’t wait for help. You can help yourself. And that is by chaining the mind and telling it STOP. Decide to focus on something else and redirect your energies. And you will feel better and accomplish something along the way. It’s true when they say: An empty mind is a devil’s workshop.

Also understand the difference between sadness and depression. If there has been a major loss in your life, you should be sad. In fact, if you are not, there is something to worry about. However, with depression there is no reason, no cause, maybe a trigger in the recent past that should just have upset you but instead it took over your entire life.

In the next article, I will talk about some tips on managing mood, depression and staying sane. Till then think about what you just read, learn the lesson and move on. I think it’s a good time to start.