“Aahhhhhh.Bapuuuuu.”
My mom’s incomprehensible words were followed by gut wrenching screams and cries. Despite being on separate floors, her shrieking voice made me jerk out of my sleep. Not knowing what was happening, I jumped out of bed and followed her terrifying screams leading down to the kitchen. As I ran down the stairs, I heard her slamming and throwing things around. When I made my way to her, I saw my helpless mother sobbing while throwing out the dough for the choraphali she was planning on making for me. I was going to be heading off to college in a few weeks, so she had wanted to make all of my favorite Indian snacks before I left. However, all her preparations were going into the trash instead of onto the stove.
At this point, I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Reluctantly, I asked my mom what happened. In Gujarati, she screamed, “Bapu is no more.” A range of emotions circulated my head as I backed into the counter. Not knowing what to do or say, I grabbed my mom and hugged her like an infant. As I felt her sobbing against my chest, tears began rolling down my face. When she was finally able to get words out again, my mom told me to call my dad to let him know. Not wanting to leave her side, I forced myself to pull away from her embrace and reached for the home phone.
Trembling, I walked over towards the bathroom, dialed my dad’s number and impatiently waited for him to answer. As always, my dad answered in his cheery voice. Before he could say anything else, I burst into tears and told him that Dada passed away. After an unbearably long moment of silence, he finally started speaking again. His voice seemed choked up and I could tell he was trying to hold back tears. In a very calm, but concerned manner, my dad told me to call my sister, to comfort my mom and that he would be home soon.
As soon as I hung up, a feeling of emptiness took over my body.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone who seemed like a complete stranger. The girl staring back at me appeared lost and scared, helpless and confused. The bloodshot eyes looking back at me reflected nothing but devastation. However, I was able to pull myself together enough to call my sister who was taking summer classes at Champaign. After I told her what happened, Puja replied saying, “Are you serious?” The feeling of emptiness suddenly turned into an unexpected feeling of rage. I angrily yelled back asking why I would joke about something like this. Even though I knew she was just shocked and didn’t know what to say, I felt an undesirable hatred towards her at the moment. Eager to hang up, I told Puja that we’re probably going to India and that she needed to come home. My tears prevented me from saying much else.
By the time I hung up, news had traveled fast and Chandrika Ba was already over. People were starting to come to our house to console my mom and offer their condolences. The whole time, I just sat on the couch sobbing and refusing to drink water. When my dad came home, I could not hold it together anymore. Dad made his way over to Mom to hug her. As soon as he sat down next to her, their sobs turned into indescribable noises. The image, sounds and emotions of my parents at that moment have never left my head because I cannot remember a time I have seen both of them look so defeated. I couldn’t take it anymore and ran upstairs to my room.
I plopped onto my bed and just laid their motionless. I didn’t know what to do, where to go or whom to talk to. All I could do was think about the night before. I was texting one of my closest friends, Masu, about how we might be going to India soon to visit my Dada because he was sick. However, my aunt and uncle went there earlier and told us not to worry because everything was fine. For some reason though, as I was texting her, an uneasy feeling was taking over my body. I kept telling her that I had a bad feeling about something. Even though we were told his health was fine, I just kept crying for some reason. Masu kept telling me not to worry and that everything was or will be fine. I tried to believe her, but while I was showering I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face. I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t make sense of. I just stared up at the shower head as the warm water splashed onto my face and blended in with the water of my own tears. I told myself to go pray after I got out of the shower.
But I didn’t.
That’s all I could think about the next day as I lay there on my bed. Although I knew there was nothing I could have done and that it was not my fault, a part of me felt responsible. My Dada was a really religious man and praying played a major role in his life. I thought about how all I had to do the night before was to come out of the bathroom and stop in the mandir room to pray on my way to my own room. But I didn’t. I thought about how my family believes that if you pray continuously, God will be kind to you and answer your prayers. But I didn’t. I thought about how praying could have saved my Dada. But I didn’t.
I had it engrained in my head that I didn’t pray and that my Dada passed away. At the time, the two seemed to have a cause and effect relationship, and my mind would never let me forget about it.
While I was deep in my thoughts, one of my grandmas came to get me and told me to sit downstairs with my mom. However, once I was downstairs, I couldn’t handle being around everyone else. The cries, concerned looks, hugs and attempts of reassurance were starting to give me a massive headache. The only comfort I got was looking over at Ruhi who held my hand and cried with me, without saying a word. When she left to get her sister, I crawled into a ball and pretended to sleep for the next few hours. Even when Krupa and Ruhi came back and sat on the couch across from me, I didn’t open my eyes.
I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone, so I began my first of many charades.
The next few hours consisted of people entering and leaving our house. Looking back at it now, I feel so appreciative and blessed to have all of those friends and family in our lives. Having the support and love of everyone definitely helped us get through that difficult time more easily. However, at the time, my frustration let me believe otherwise. I told myself not to talk to or laugh with everyone else because it would have been inappropriate.
I didn’t reply to texts I got, especially texts from friends who didn’t know what happened and were asking about my plans with Michigan. I gave disgusted looks to people who said things like, “I’m so jealous that you’re spending a month in India!” All I could think about was how these people didn’t understand that I was about to spend an entire month in India without one of my grandpas being there–and I absolutely dreaded it.
Later that day, we needed to book last minute flights and renew our visas, so I watched my mom take out all the money she was saving up for my dad’s surprise birthday party. That moment made me think about how family functions would never be the same again. Even worse, I led myself to believe that we probably shouldn’t host any future events or do anything else related to celebrations or joyous occasions.
We had to go get new pictures taken at CVS for our visas, and for the first time since my awkward days, I didn’t smile in front of the camera. Three of my closest friends came to visit and comfort me with gifts before I left, and for the first time I didn’t laugh with them or bring out my sassy/sarcastic personality. When we went to the airport, two of our closest friends came to drop us off and we met up with some of our cousins who had their connecting flights in Chicago. For the first time, I wasn’t sad to leave my friends or excited to see my family.
For the first time, I started feeling nothing at all.
To this day, I still wake up in the middle of the night hearing those scarring noises that I woke up to on the morning of July 18, 2013. It was supposed to be a normal summer day and I was supposed to go to Six Flags with my friends. However, when I woke up, my life was never the same again. As I later found out, this was one, of many, triggers in my life (others explained in future posts).
For a while, I thought that my illness was a direct result of my dada’s death. However, over the years, I learned that mental health issues involve a combination of factors. The wiring of my brain, little triggers throughout my life and me trying to be strong on my own for too long all led to my biggest depressive episode. I don’t talk about this incident in depth a lot, but it actually helps explain so much.
Although my Dada’s death didn’t cause my depression, my response to it and how I dealt with future events had a lot to do with it. I felt responsible for not being religious enough and praying when I felt like something bad was happening. I later felt guilty for not being as close to my Dada as I wish I was. As always, I internalized a bunch of feelings and tried carrying the burden of everything on my own.
This was the first close death and major loss for me in my family. For all of the other tragedies I have faced or the obstacles I have had to overcome in my life, I have been able to handle everything on my own. Everyone who knows me knows I love talking–a lot. However, in the past I would never talk about any personal concerns that were bothering me. I never like troubling others and in the past I always thought that talking about my own feelings would just annoy everyone else.
I didn’t want to seem like a drama queen, so I just wanted to help others and never thought about helping myself. I love being independent, but over the years, I’ve learned that I’ve tried being too strong on my own for too long. This experience was one that I could not handle on my own. Even though I was able to jump over previous hurdles, there were leftover thoughts, emotions and stress that accumulated within me over the years. After keeping everything bottled up for so long, there was no way that I could have handled the explosions that would follow.
The next three years proved to be some of the most difficult years of my life. Not because my Dada passed away. Not because I went to a new school. And definitely not because I was too weak.
It was because I was being strong on my own for too long.
Many people are reluctant to address mental health concerns because they don’t want to seem “too weak” or “too crazy.” What these individuals don’t realize is that approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experience some sort of mental illness in any given year. And that’s only what’s reported.
You’re not alone and need to know that it’s okay if something’s wrong. Triggers can vary from childhood experiences to school to deaths in the family. We all go through things in life and just have to find the right way to deal with things.
I wanted to write this post for two reasons:
- For my own benefit, I needed to write out what has been in my head about that day for years now.
- I constantly want to stress the importance of talking to others.
I have never really talked to anyone about the day I found out about my Dada and only one or two people know about the experience I had the night before. However, I would replay those two scenes in my head over and over again. That only led me to blame myself, develop more guilt and form even more negative thoughts in my head.
Now, three years later, I know how much it would have helped to just talk it out. However, since I never relied on my support system or utilized available health resources , I continued down a path that led to my depression and accompanying social anxiety disorder. My life has been a rollercoaster of events since then, but this trigger was the one that I most definitely could not handle on my own. It’s the one where I learned so much–about myself and about the importance of others!
*The purpose of me sharing this stuff is to release what’s been bottled up for so long and to help spread awareness. So, most importantly, please talk to me or anyone else if you need or want to:)
