Shining Through the Darkness – Part One

SIKH MAMA TRIBE – Shine Through The Darkness series

Hello all! I am super excited to introduce you to a new upcoming series called Shine Through the Darkness which will be all about mental health, mindfulness + self love… and how we can relate it all to Sikhi.  Today I will be sharing a little bit of my story, with more to come soon.  Over the coming weeks, we will also be sharing the story of another sister and we will learn about ways to cope and deal with anxiety and stress.  Our discussion will also include how we can overcome certain feelings and stressors with the help of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and how Sikhi plays a role in nurturing our souls + being able to shine through the darkness.

I sincerely want this blog to be a community where we can come together to support, encourage, and inspire one another with our personal stories and experiences.  As mothers, parents, and a community as a whole (I realize there are not only mothers following along), it is vital that we stick together and create a sense of oneness amongst one another. 

I am excited and honored to be a part of this SIKH MAMA TRIBE with you.  If you or anyone you know would like to share your story, please contact me at [email protected].  I would love to work with you and provide you with a platform to release your feelings and open up about your experiences.  It takes a lot of courage to open up, and I want you to know that I am here to support you! 

Mental Illness + the Stigma

With the recent passing of some celebrities, a much needed conversation about mental illness has been triggered across the globe….my heart is breaking for their loved ones and especially for them.  I start to think about what the person must have been experiencing and it has me reflecting about my struggles with my own mental health.  I can truly empathize with these individuals, and the thousands of others out there who are silently suffering.  Within our Sikh community recently, my heart was truly pained to learn about a young Singh from Seattle who was fighting a battle of his own.  It is a painful reminder that mental health doesn’t discriminate.  It does not matter what your ethnicity, religion, or background is, mental illness can affect any one of us. 

There is a stigma surrounding mental health, especially in the South Asian community. Fortunately, many individuals are starting to discuss and share their own stories which is  opening up a much needed dialogue about the struggles we are individually facing.  Recently, I read a post on Instagram where Emily McDowell compares mental illness to having a broken leg.  If you have a broken leg, you cannot walk yourself to the hospital. Similarly, there are neurotransmitters in our brains that are not allowing us to realize that we need to seek help and take the necessary steps towards getting better.  Mental illness truly is a brain disease.  Just because we cannot physically see it, does not mean it does not exist.  The individual experiencing the wrath of mental illness cannot help the way they are feeling and they feel helpless and alone.  They don’t know what to do, and most of the time they feel afraid to open up about their feelings.  The thought of someone brushing you off, or not understanding you is truly terrifying.  There is no specific cause of mental illness, sometimes it’s due to hormones, and sometimes it’s not.  It can happen to anyone, at any age, from any background.  There are many triggers of mental illness including:

• psychological trauma (emotional, physical, sexual abuse, loss of a loved one in childhood)
• environmental stressors (changing jobs, or schools, divorce, substance abuse, death, and much, much more)
• genetics (it may run in the family)
• biology (abnormal imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain which prohibit nerve cells to communicate with one another)
• low self esteem + low self-confidence 
• that feeling of having lack of control in our lives
• perfectionism

A Little Glimpse Into My Journey…

I have been battling Postpartum Depression (PPD) and Anxiety for many long years now.  I am a self-proclaimed PPD survivor, yet I still experience severe anxiety occasionally to this day.  It has become a part of who I am.  I have been dealing with it for so long that despite the loneliness, pain and anxiety it brings me, I am still able to say I am somehow thankful and eternally grateful for the experiences it has given me.  I used to expect somebody to swoop in and come to my rescue, and somehow help to cure me.  It took a long time of soul searching to realize that I truly needed to seek help.  I used to talk to anyone and everyone who would be willing to listen.  It was as if I was drowning and grabbing out of the water desperately, hoping that even one person could save me.  I know that a lot of people who I talked to felt a sense of helplessness – especially my husband, my family and my friends…many simply didn’t know what to do or how to help me even though they really wanted to help.  Although some people really meant well, but didn’t realize that their advice was not empathetic or helpful to me at that time:

• “Don’t worry, you will be okay. You have so much to be happy and thankful for!”
• “Just do Simran (meditate), you aren’t doing enough of it.”  (I wish I had the will to do it?!)
• “What happened? Did something happen? Something must have happened for you to feel this way.” (this is absolutely untrue and a common misconception)
• “You need to do A, B and C in order to get better. “
• “You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
• “I don’t know how to help you.  Why can’t you just see all the good things you have around you and be thankful for it?”

It is by no means the fault of those well meaning individuals.  What many people fail to realize, is that happiness and thankfulness have nothing to do with the internal battle we are fighting.  It wasn’t a choice for me.  I wanted all of those things, but I couldn’t just change my internal feelings like a light switch.  I felt so alone.  Even though when I looked around me, I wasn’t alone at all.  There were people around me who loved me and cared for me.  No matter what I did, I could not lose that sense of loneliness and I still sometimes feel it to this day.  I was always tired.  I never had the will to go anywhere.  I do not know how I managed to get my kids to the places they needed to be.  I felt as if I was in a zombie state…just mindlessly getting from A to B.  Thankfully, I had a couple of very generous and helpful friends who would come to my aid.  Occasionally they would take my kids for me and give me a much needed break.  Having said that, any small break that I did receive, just never seemed to be enough.

It Doesn’t Just Go Away…

There are so many days that I wake up and have to literally drag myself out of bed.  I do not have the will to get on with my day.  I still have those days where I feel alone, and where I just want to stay home and be away from everyone and everything.  A friend recently told me, that being alone is never beneficial for depressive episodes….we should force ourselves to get out when we want to be alone, even though it can be so hard to convince yourself to do this.  When I am in this state, it feels like my days are just dragging on.  I find myself looking forward to bedtime when there will hopefully be less for me to do and think about.  I feel overwhelmed at the thought of what my stay-at-home mom life consists of, day in and day out.

• somehow stay on top of my Gursikhi duties and responsibilities as an individual and as a mother
• make the kids + husband’s lunches
• feed them breakfast
• get kids ready for the day, get them to school (and barely ever make it on time)
• come home and clean, do laundry, plan and make dinner for the night (that’s on a good day)
• work on my decluttering mission, which feels like it’s been years and it still hasn’t gotten me anywhere
• be on time for wherever I need to be.  I can’t ever make it on time no matter how hard I try.
• the list goes on…

… most of the time I can’t even get it together to have dinner made and ready before it’s time to pick up my boys up from school.  Dinnertime used to bring me SO MUCH anxiety, I dreaded it as the day went on, I still had no idea what to make and really did not have it in me to make much of an effort to make anything.  I would choose the easiest meals that required minimal effort.  We were eating a lot of the same things every week.  I’m almost sure that my husband had gotten sick of it, but he never said anything (bless him!).

It is important to realize, it may not seem like a lot – but it’s overwhelming as a mother when you have these little people depending on you for attention and love… and you feel like you cannot give it to them.  You feel depleted and you have nothing to give to yourself or the ones who need you and depend on you.

When my children were in the newborn phase, I used to absolutely dread evenings, because it meant that I would be completely alone.  Even though my husband and kids were with me, I still dreaded that feeling of complete and utter darkness + loneliness.  I would lie there awake at night and think about anything and everything.  All of the reasons that I was a “bad mother” and a “bad person”…these are things I kept replaying in my mind constantly.  I truly believed these negative things about myself.  It wasn’t until more recently, that I figured out this concept of self-love…. that I need to be kinder to myself.  I need to love myself so that I can give love to my loved ones (will have to be discussed in another post because this is getting a lot longer than I thought it would be!).  I would try to communicate my feelings to my husband, breaking down and crying to him about how many regrets I had as a person, as a mother, and as a wife.  He would embrace me and reassure me that I was indeed a good person, mother and wife.  I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t.

Shining Through the Darkness

I personally had so many breaking points and days that I just couldn’t see myself making it through the day.  The thought of death crossed my mind on so many occasions.  It seemed like a good way to get out and to end all of the internal suffering.  I felt like nobody understood me no matter how hard I tried to tell them that I just wasn’t okay.  I would be having a completely overwhelming day (which felt like everyday), and I would be driving home with the kids, who were fighting, screaming, crying in the back… and I would have thoughts of just running the minivan off the road.  These thoughts were so scary for me.  I would immediately tell my husband about them.  He would call me and message me back from work or wherever he was, and desperately try to calm me down.

I remember one particular evening shortly after having my third child, my daughter.  I was at my wits end.  I was in survival mode.  Those of you who are parents will know exactly what I am talking about.  It is when you are just getting through your days moment-by- moment and your brain is operating at a base level of just surviving and getting through each day.

I had run into another parent who made a harmless joke as she was passing me by.  She didn’t mean anything by it, she was only joking.  She probably did not realize how her words affected me, how they hurt me, and how they triggered my anxiety… I felt so hurt that a fellow mother was making such hurtful comments to me… I had truly hit a breaking point.  I dragged myself to the Gurdwara Sahib (Guru’s Door – House of Worship) later that day, I walked up to Guru Sahib and I remember wanting to completely surrender and just lie there in His presence and cry.  I wanted to ask Him to take me. I couldn’t do this anymore.  I wasn’t cut out for this mom stuff.  I ran into another sister as I was walking out.  She was an acquaintance and an older bhenji (sister) that I did not know very well at that time.  She came up to me to say hello, she asked me, “How are you?”…

I burst into tears.  I couldn’t hold it in anymore.  I felt so stupid for breaking down in front of an almost stranger.  But it was fate that had brought us together that day.  She embraced me.  I could feel her love radiating through me.  She did not let go of me.  She wiped every single one of my tears away.  Even as I write this, it brings tears to my eyes when I think of how much love she gave me.  There was no judgement whatsoever.  Just pure love and acceptance.  She knew. She knew exactly what I was feeling.  She did not have to ask me what was wrong.  She smiled at me and kept on hugging me while I continued to cry in her arms.  She told me:

• she knew exactly what I was feeling
• that she was here for me.
• it was okay + normal to feel this way.
• she had been through this before.

She said, “Look at me, I’m here for you.”  She told me briefly about her struggles as a mom and the PPD experiences she had to endure.  She made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore.  We exchanged numbers, and she did not stop checking in on me.  She would message me constantly, asking me how I am.  I would tell her all of my honest and raw emotions.  I would go to meet her and just cry in her arms.  Most of the time I didn’t even know why I was crying! I felt so alone and isolated…but she made me feel loved and understood.  If we were ever at a program at the same time, she would go out of her way to make sure I had help with the kids.  She was there for me in so many ways,  I cannot even begin to list them here.  I am and always will be eternally grateful to her and to Guru Sahib for bringing us together that day.  It is because of her that I was able to begin to Shine Through the Darkness.  

-xx

…..Part Two….To Be Continued.

*** If you or anyone you know is in a crisis or may be having thoughts of suicide, please contact Crisis Services Canada or call1-833-456-4566.  If you are in the US, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or call at 1-800-273-8255.