A Journey from Denial to Strength

I was seated in a very uncomfortable plastic chair in the all-too-familiar waiting room. I kept gazing back and forth between the wall clock and the empty garden outside. He would be here anytime now: parking his car in the driveway, making his way from the corridor to the waiting room, greeting his secretary and impatient patients, shutting the door of his office, and then starting to call his patients in one by one.

Anticipation rushed through my veins, my heart began to race, and my hands began to sweat, but the emotion strongest in my mind was defeat. I felt defeated. Defeated because I had thought—no, I had prayed—that I wouldn’t find myself here, in this mental health clinic, after my terrible relapse three years ago. Not again.

Anxiety was something I always dealt with and never truly understood. Looking back, I can see now that I started showing signs of anxiety when I turned thirteen. I had battled a very tough childhood filled with abuse, my mum’s fluctuating health, and the academic pressure to best the rest of my cousins. By the time I turned thirteen, and had my 10th grade exams, the pressure to get a distinction got to me. I spent most of my time alone, never really talked to anyone, and worst of all, started wishing I wasn’t alive.

When my parents got me to a psychiatrist, the damage had been done—I was in severe depression. Nonetheless, I started medications and my parents ensured I wasn’t pressurized any further regarding anything. Being on SSRI’s wasn’t easy for a fourteen-year-old, but with the love and support of my parents, I got through it. It was a long, long journey of recovery, but once I got through it, I started truly living life. However, I still couldn’t share my story with anyone. I was supposed to keep quiet about my mental health, and the fact that I was on medication for it, because apparently, I shouldn’t have been. It would pass for me, as told to me by most of the people who knew my condition. Okay, I thought—it would pass for me.

When I got better a couple of years later, I stopped taking medications under my doctor’s supervision. Finally, I thought, it’s over for me.

Little did I know.

I relapsed when I got into university. It was one of the best engineering universities in Pakistan, and though being in one of the university’s top departments felt very rewarding, it was terrible for my mental health. As I sat in front of my psychiatrist, he told me to drop out, to get rid of the pressure that caused my anxiety to relapse. Listening to him tell me I should quit an achievement of mine was heartbreaking, to say the least. That day I went home and decided that I’d complete the degree no matter what.

That ‘no matter what’ was not something I could have ever expected. During my second semester, my mum passed away after a series of health complications. I can’t put to words how it felt back then, and I don’t want to recall the feelings even for the sake of this write-up. If I may, in one short sentence tell you what it’s like to lose a parent, I’d say your entire world falls apart.

I missed her dearly, day and night. But I guess God/the Universe gives power to those who have something precious taken away from them as a compensation. In 2018, four years after my mum’s passing, I completed my engineering degree with a great CGPA. And even though I couldn’t have expected what I’d have to do to get there, I was proud of myself for reaching my goal anyway.

I would have loved to end the blog here, and call it a happy ending, but unfortunately, that’s not what happened. A few months later I got a terrible relapse again. I was dealing with a very difficult relationship, and this time, my anxiety scared me. I just had to go back to my doctor. I needed to.

And so here I was, sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair again, waiting for my doctor to arrive. My dad was with me, but I was quiet and filled with thoughts.

“Why me?”

“Why am I here again?”

“What’s wrong with my body?”

“Why can’t I just be like everyone else?”

And then a voice inside said, “Because you’re not like everyone else.”

It was as if a bolt of lightning had gone through me. The reason why I kept relapsing was because I never accepted that anxiety was a general response my body gave to stressors around me. I realized then that it would always be there, no matter how much I tried to push it away or close my eyes to it. I needed to just accept it and adjust to it. It was my body’s way of keeping me safe from danger, real or perceived, by generating a fight or flight response inside. It was not a weakness; it was a strength. It was not something to hide or be ashamed of; it was a prompt for taking extra care of myself.

As my chain of thoughts continued, a smile spread across my face. No longer would I be the one hiding or getting rid of my condition. I’d be cherishing it, taking care of it, I’d be sharing it with people like me to pass on the strength I have now.

“Assalamoalaikum”

I glanced up to see my psychiatrist arriving with a briefcase in hand and going to his office.

“Ayesha, you’re up first,” called the secretary.

“I’m coming,” I said as I stood up from the uncomfortable plastic chair. I was ready.

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