It is now at least three weeks since I have slept properly.
Even the times when I finally fell asleep, exhausted with all the myriad things I was involved in, it wasn't for more than a couple of hours.
The thoughts raced around madly. I tried desperately to control them, to rein them in. They were like wild horses on a racing spree. The more I tried, the faster they seemed to gallop.
At one point I was so exhausted I just wanted to sleep.
I wanted to shout at the thoughts telling them to stop. I tried shutting them out mentally by closing my eyes tightly. I tried to calm myself by counting sheep as I lay on my bed, trying desperately to fall asleep.
I wake up every morning and I feel deeply unhappy.
Not depressed, just deeply unhappy.
It is the kind of hollowness that I have never known.
It is a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach which spreads slowly upwards, towards my throat.
It feels like somebody has blindfolded me from behind, has his hands around my throat and squeezing tightly.
I feel angry.
Extremely angry.
There is no logical reason to it, really.
My brain just freezes at times. It is irrational, incomprehensible and terrifying.
I wish to shake it off, but I do not know what to shake off.
One part of me tries to rationalize and speak to myself, but it is drowned in this massive panic I experience.
I sit on my bed and watch the clock ticking.
I feel more and more rebellious with every passing second.
Simultaneously it feels like I am losing something.
I cannot put a name to it, but I know it has to be stopped.
I feel Helpless.
I have no idea what is happening. Nothing is happening. Nothing that could be explained anyway.
When I hear myself speak, the voice belongs to somebody else.
All of a sudden, my hands turn icy. The soles of my feet are affected by frostbite it seems.
I just want to sink into the Earth and disappear.
I close my eyes willing whatever is gripping me to go away.
Your average middle-class society does not let one day of your life pass without reminding you constantly that the magic tag of being 'educated' would open many doors.
It has always been my ambition, like the ambition of most young people today - to get into a good college and then have a great career, earn big money and to be independent.
What I hadn't anticipated was that me being so hard on myself would make things a nightmare.
Blackness descends around me like a cloak.
I seem unable to look beyond it.
The rebelliousness is gone but it is replaced by a depressing feeling which makes my heart weigh a ton.
It is a sinking feeling, a feeling that something is just not right, a melancholic, miserable feeling that hangs around me now.
Assure people that I am fine? I cannot. I am not fine.
Feelings are powerful and logic was crushed under its weight.
I was governed by them, not by logic.
I was at their mercy and they were unrelenting, harsh and unforgiving.
But that was not on my mind at that point in time, at all. I lay down on my bed in my room.
I feel empty.
A huge, dark void was inside me now.
It is like a phantom pain which amputees experience when a limb is cut off.
The limb does not exist anymore but the pain they feel in that limb which no longer exists is very real. I did not know what to do to relieve the pain. I feel trapped in it. I want it to stop. I want no more of this agony.
I curl up my fist as tightly as I could and the fingernails dug deep into the flesh of my palm.
I did it again and again. The deeper my nails dug, the better I felt.
Then I saw the paper cutting knife which I had bought some time back. I took it and made a small cut on the side of my wrist. I winced slightly as the blade cut the skin and a line of blood appeared. I felt better then.
Now at least, the pain was real. I could bear this. It was not like the phantom pain which was terrifyingly unbearable.
I made my way to the bathroom and opened the cabinet which had cotton and Dettol.
I applied undiluted Dettol directly on the cut.
It Stung sharply and almost burnt. Oddly, I feel comforted.
“Look Joshita. Just be strong. These are simply thoughts inside your head. You can just snap out of it by controlling your thoughts”
Oh, how I tried! I wanted to snap myself out of it. I willed it to go away. I tried thinking of happy things.
I tried calling back my giant creatures and elves with musical hooves. They refused to come to my aid. All that was left now was a huge void and blackness.
I feel I have let everyone down in some way. I start to cry (A habit now). I cannot seem to stop the tears.
What I didn't know is that it is something much larger than any of my advisees and I have envisaged, anticipated or foreseen.
It is the beginning of a sharp curve, a painful detour, a journey that would lead me completely away from my destination, to the edge of a cliff.
A journey that would almost take my life, destroy me completely, suck the life force out of me and then toss me away as an empty shell.
And the worst part is that it has just begun.
