By Swarna Shrestha
Anxiety and depression is a kind of mental illness that completely take away the peace of mind. It is a battle that a lot of people must fight and winning or losing depends on the power of commitment and motivation to overcome it. This is the story of a young girl who suffered the ill fate of such sickness. Usha Karki, a student at Kathmandu University School of Arts shares her journey through anxiety and depression with the Republica. This article will give an insight into how it feels like to be a victim of depression and how one can overcome it.
As a young girl, when she had to move hometowns from Beni, Myagdi to Kathmandu city at the fragile age of six, Karki had never thought that she’d go through a phase of her life where she’d have to struggle with anxiety and depression. According to her, she was a bright and active child brimming with confidence. However, 12 years later, her struggle started after she graduated high school. “I had passed my +2 examinations and was looking forward to enrolling in the medical field but after I had failed to do so that’s when it all started”, she said. Karki added that she suffered depression for two years and lost motivation to move on with her life.
“Having failed to pursue a career as a nurse, as per the wishes of my family, I fell into a pit of darkness and despair. Dark thoughts consumed me, and I wasn’t able to bring myself out of it”, she added. She recalls how she had completely detached herself from her friends and family in isolation and locked herself up in her room for a long period of time.
When questioned further about how she felt at the moment, she replied, “I felt like I was a failure; like I was a good for nothing and I couldn’t achieve anything in life. It affected my self-esteem a lot and I completely lost all of my confidence.” She also mentioned that she went through massive weight loss due to her depression. “I lost ten kgs in just a few months when my depression got more severe. I used to weigh fifty-five kgs before but due to depression I became forty-five kgs.”
Although Karki had a very rough time fighting through anxiety issues and depression, she also expresses how she coped with it and eventually recovered from it even though it took her a long time. She says, “While I suffered depression, it was the worse time of my life, but I eventually found a distraction and that helped me to get better. Later, I also started watching motivational videos and speeches to lift up my spirit.” She shared that her mother encouraged her to join beauty training courses to be able to socialize more and fight her anxiety.
“I took up a beauty training courses in ITC, Gongabu and I learned many new things that interested me and met people who inspired me to fight my anxieties. I applied for basic and advanced courses in parlour training which was altogether for nine months.” She further added that the training sessions really helped her to improve her condition and she found happiness in it. Opening up to the subject more, she said, “I met a woman in her early thirties who was a victim of domestic abuse and so many other people like her who were struggling with a lot of hardships. It made me realize that there are people who have suffered worst fates than me and that I’m not alone.”
That experience and encounter seemed to be the push that she needed to heal herself and fight her depression. Eventually, she confessed that she started socializing once more and slowly gained her lost confidence back. She found happiness in making other people happy by giving them the gift of beauty through her training skills.
Now, she has acknowledged her dream of becoming a media person in the future and although she still suffers from anxiety attacks, she says that she’s learning to get stronger by the day and embrace her anxiousness and insecurities. “I have come to realize that I’m not broken as to not be able to heal again. I want to grow better.”
Even though her fight with depression gave her hard times, she feels that she’s learned to embrace it as a part of her. She explains, “Accordingly, depression is not something I ever hope to rid myself of. It’s not something I hope to cure. Rather, it’s something I’ve resolved to co-exist with- to utilize when able, fear when appropriate, and work continuously to contain. For whatever reason, reminding myself of this brings me something like peace.
Lastly, she even gave a little message to the people who still struggle with what she’s been through. She advised, “Don’t let your depression stop you from being the person you dream to be. At the end of the day, just remember that motivation is what gets you started and commitment it what keeps you going.”