A few nights ago, I was tearing up before bed at the pure complexities and intricacies of life.
Except this year, unlike those days that I'll never stop banging on about, those of last spring, they were tears of happiness. An indication of what's changed in the space of just a year, an indication that I can function normally, an indication that for the first time I can reflect and feel genuinely happy with my life.
It's worth a moment to reflect on though. Even now, there are times when emotion overwhelms me and I'll burst into tears not because I want to end it but instead because, well, I don't really know.
I suppose it is the trigger of certain moments, feelings and events that take me back to last year and the impact its had on me. But equally I feel a pang of irrational selfishness for being overly open about my experience and emphasising it at every possible opportunity. And then again, those could both be explained by the sadness I feel when thinking about why so many others continue to take their own lives. I doubt whether there will ever be a clear reason for me as to the cause of this dejection but the only thing I keep going back to are the mental scars.
Without sounding as if I've been through more than whoever bothers to read this, you can't understand what it feels like without experiencing it. Of course, no-one can fully empathise or articulate with others' experiences, but when you've had the desire to kill yourself almost on a daily basis, it makes it so much more painful when you realise someone has - because it takes unbelievable levels of despair to actually take action and do it. It takes on a whole new meaning.
Going back to last year, I previously attributed the struggle on various things; social media, alcohol and even my previous homely surroundings. The first two have their dangers and impacted me granted, but it is only now that I realise that looking outside of me, blaming other factors in my life was wrong. The problem was me.
That sounds a very gloomy statement and it must be said, if I was to speak to the Kabir of a year ago and tell him that, it would have sent him in the opposite direction, such was the nature of his mental state. I must also stress before I do explain myself that I'm not telling anyone who finds themselves struggling to mentally attack themselves (quite the opposite), but more that looking back on my own individual circumstance a year later, only now do I realise how complex things were.
Granted, it is a cynical view, as are many of mine, but unpacking that statement in respect of my experiences is far less startling than it first appears. I simply think, no matter what I did to avoid it, what I could've changed, I wouldn't have found the quick improvement and cure to my mental state that I was so desperately searching for.
It is natural in life to experience bad periods, in the wider context of what I hope or imagine will be a life that spans almost a century, 2018 will be an afterthought. It's like having one bad day in three months - but its continuity and aggressiveness made it feel otherwise. Only now can I see this in a wider perspective.
That's the reason I believe I was the problem. Sometimes, you can have a bad day because of bad decisions, other people and sometimes just because of your own mind. My depression was simply the latter but over a concerted period of four or five months that I couldn't avoid. Something about me was the issue, but what that is doesn't matter now as it's over.
I usually wrap up posts quite cliched, as I like to create some emphasis to the post, but this time I want to draw attention to a fundraising effort that I'm doing (well I say "I'm doing", it's without doing any physical or exerting activity - because you simply don't have to, it's the donations that matter and the impact on people that matters!), in conjunction with Facebook to raise money for the Samaritans. Their job is so precious in helping people in crisis, and I'm now not afraid to admit it, I called them myself late October and, on the verge of tears and doing something incredibly rash, was consoled by an anonymous volunteer, who I cannot thank enough.
Last year a phenomenal amount was raised and if we could get even half of that again, I'd be blown away. I'll leave the link to the post at the bottom of the article. If I blamed social media for helping raise £450 for the Centre of Mental Health last year, and hopefully a good amount this year, given that the topic is so close to my heart now, I'd appear laughable! How things change.
I'm going to try and actually relate this blog a bit more back to politics in the next few months, but even if people haven't read these blogs over the past year, I just want to say thank you. The amount of positive reaction I had to the original and subsequent posts made me incredibly happy and has helped me feel confident in writing these throughout the course of the last 13 months. I will be eternally grateful:)
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