An Autobiography of a Semi Colon

CHAPTER 1

It's anatomically impossible for humans to comprehend anything to its full essence without the aid of the senses. There will always be some very "learned" participants of a righteous society who will have claimed to master the abstract but have they really?

This thought had become an obsession of late as I shambled from one class to another. My diploma had earned me anything but literary genius. I struggled to write this story or that story but would stop mid-sentence as another more worthy, more novel idea swept its predecessor that was borne and half bred on paper. The struggle would have been worthwhile had these 'novel' ideas not mimicked the fate of their ancestors.

Life as it was, was easy; a sister, two healthy and working parents, a belly full of food and the best of provisions. I thought I was content. So, what was it that ate away at the nerves? I would wake up with a hollow feeling just beside the place that was scientifically proven to be the haunt of the heart. Sometimes a drumming at the temples would hum away the peace of my mind. Most often than not either a hysterical laughter amidst a crowd or a cavernous feeling of loneliness crashed over me. The loneliness would have been fine but it mostly accompanied me when I wouldn't be alone.

This in-equilibrium of my mental aptitude brought slight amnesia, slight insomnia, slight mood disorders and slights of a couple of other diseased feelings. So, on a late evening of February, when the sun shone its last, it was decided that I needed "Help" and did I get "Help".

"Help" came in a box that was stripped blue and white. It was 10mgs of pure help for those that suffered the inexactitude of "feelings". I was only 22 and had a long life and brighter prospects yet I was "depressed". I was diagnosed with a mood disorder called "Bipolar" or "Manic depression" in lax terms.

"It's not a thing to worry about, my dear! In today's day and age everyone suffers one way or another. Now tell me what your childhood was like?"

The psychiatrist was an old lady of a short stature, her spectacles made her look she could see into the very soul of her patient and I squirmed under her gaze.

"It was good, I had everything I ever wanted and I might have thought myself as a favorite child every now and then."

She seemed to have not liked what she heard and rephrased her question; "were there any servants or maybe some family member who touch…"

She lingered on that last word. I rethought my childhood, apart from some harassments in the streets, I dint remember anything that was amiss. "No", I replied agitated.

"What of your relationships? Romantic and platonic?"

She seemed unconvinced of every answer I gave her. As far as I remembered, my friends had been few or close to non-existent. I had no romantic antics to distort my mood on a daily basis. My extended family had been a typical Pakistani one; the scheming paternal side, the ever-so obliging yet cynical and disagreeable maternal side and amidst these a dark, fat chubby child who always wanted to be treated as the favorite but never really fit the cut.

"It was usual, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I was never the favorite cousin or the grandchild or the favorite anything so I made do with cartoons and my sister and my parents".

After a series of questions whose answers seemed all very unsatisfactory to her, she nodded and started scribbling on her prescription pad.

'I am not lying, you know!"

She looked up at me through her glasses as if that was the first time I spoke.

"What do you mean?"

I cleared my throat; "I AM feeling all these things and I know you might think I am trying to seek attention but I am not."

She looked incredulous; "I know, my dear. You actually do have a slight….um…unrest in your nature". Slight paranoia

I felt like a little child so I blurted; "then don't give one of those …things that doctors give to the patients who pretend to be sick. You know that…thing…. I don't remember the word but it starts with a 'P'."

"A placebo?" she looked at me half amused and half sympathetic. Slight amnesia

I don't remember what happened after that, I was suddenly clutching a bag full of "help" and rushing out into a cold night. That night I stayed awake, not only for the slight insomnia but that sympathetic look of the psychiatric nagged at me for the good part of the night.

CHAPTER 2

"I am an oak, bald and sere,

I am a flag, torn and sheared"

"Heeeyyy"; Natsha beamed at me. "Where were you yesterday? You missed a ton of work and a lot of other things".

We had been friends since the start of the varsity year and I felt like we got on very well, at least I got on very well with her. As I suppressed a yawn, I told her the whole story of the doctor and a disease that was not apparent. Her eyes started growing or maybe it was one of the side effects of the "help". She looked solemn and very concerned. By the time I finished she looked sideways and out of the nearby window and said "Seems like Roma is late today!"

Roma was always late and if I hadn't paid attention to that fact before, it was very apparent for me today. The effect of my "dis-ease" was apparent on Natsha's face today, she was ill at her ease. Something sank down to the base of my being as I felt that she disregarded everything that I had said and was stuck with the notion of a "psychiatrist". As soon as Roma set foot in the class, Natasha's face distorted into the queerest of expression as she turned to Roma's side and pretended to be excited about some event or another. By that time, I had lost track of most of the conversation majorly because I sat bent over to listen to their chatter and as soon as I interjected the subjected was changed. It did not take me very long to realize that I wasn't a part of the conversation but a mere "semicolon" in a sentence, a mere mark of punctuation that represented nothing but a start of a listing.

I sat adjacent to a window from that day on and stared out as if the trees had something more to teach me than half the teachers that stood at the dais. Natasha and Roma were always giggling at this or that. A wall had erected between me and them. It wasn't just the two of my close friends but the whole of associations unified into a whole and became "them". Every pointed finger or a sneer or a jeer had a personalized affront to a mind that was devouring itself.

The days were a mixture of grey and blue as spring tried to take over the dying winter. This day in particular was greying and still. The grass looked a little greener but at the same time it had various patches that had died on its own. Slight Life. Natasha and I sat on a grassy patch as she prattled on about last evening. She seemed so excited to have gone to a mall all by herself yet the day had been marred by her mother's concern and it ended as the mother and daughter fought. She explained as to how she might have over reacted about the whole situation. This little sorry might not have been a chat between two associates had I not commented jokingly that the whole of her story sounded like she had Bipolar. Her mouth tightened as she gave me a sour look and almost yelled: "don't you dare say that, not even as a joke". Something grey crept up before me besides the creeping storm. She looked around for Roma as I sheepishly asked for pardon. Roma was indeed late that day.

I dragged my feet across the barren soccer field of the varsity. My shoulders were hunched and I carried the weight of a million stray feelings on my shoulders. A lot of emotions vied with each other to be felt. The sun had started shinning a bit brighter, the wind sighed a little louder and my mind died a little more with every passing day. Demons of different legions where afoot within me, not for ailment but for alienation. A broken bone or a cracked skull would have made me a subject of human consideration. A virtuous person here or a self-righteous man there would have tried to carry my bags or ask me politely what had happened. I would be asked of the medicines I was taking and upon a single grimace a lot would have gathered to offer me assistance of whatever sort. But I would be given no such privileges for the wounds could not be perceived.

CHAPTER 3

"So that's what life has come to,

A disease that would never go,

And poetry that wouldn't rhyme."

I signed my name under it and the pen hung in the air as I tried to remember the date. It was an awful lot of effort these days to try and remember the little details of day-to-day life. Every day seemed like a trial for the next. Every face, every personality seemed to have been a continuation of the one before it. Every person seemed to have been making a personal jape at me, like I had grown antlers or seemed to be missing some major part of 'normality'. It wasn't like it was something unusual. I had stopped taking care of myself a week ago. My hair was disheveled, I wore some shoes that I never knew were my size until I had a blistered heal and I wore my pajamas to the class daily. I had lost all sense of keeping a social profile. In or out, I seemed to have found a need to be monotonous. Or maybe, I didn't have 'needs' or 'feelings'.

The poetry class seemed to have been going on and on and I sat musing about nothing in particular. The question was more sudden than unexpected; "what are you doing?"

Natasha had taken it upon herself to make me feel I belonged. She had recently hit on a reserve of gentleness that had to be wasted upon me. I had been scribbling on paper and she answered it herself; "Oh, you are writing". This was as much of interaction she needed with me just to acknowledge that she was there and I was too. By now I had gotten used to these shrunk interventions of real life. My 'dis-ease' had been too greatly pondered upon in silences; it had been a topic of a lot of debate before the matter was brought to me.

'So, what's it really like, your disease I mean?' Roma asked me over a mouthful of shawarma. I stared at her in disbelief, not because of her question but the way she posed it. Her indifference had been so causal that for a moment I smiled. I opened my mouth to reply to her as she snapped hers shut over another bite of her food.

'It's not contagious', was all I could manage. The answer did not satisfy her.

'Obviously, silly! How often do you get your fits?"

"Fits?" … Crunch

"Yeah. You know how people are when they go crazy?"

"But I am not...Crunch"

"Of course NOT!!! Why would you think that? But what happens in bipolar?"

"I don't really know what to tell you, I just feel depressed most of the times and that's it. There is supposed to be an opposite and more extreme end which is called the state of ecstasy but I haven't felt that yet".

Horrendous crunching and finally the cracking of the butter paper.

"I don't understand, I am the one living in hostels and eating cafeteria food and you are the one who is depressed? What do you have to worry about?'

I did not know which question to answer first and frankly I had no answer to give her. I was tired of explaining these to myself. I had no reason to feel or not feel any of the feelings that had been laid on my back. I sighed out loud as Roma continued. "You know what, I can help you out. Only be as happy as you can be. Rid yourself of everything negative. There is so much life to live. Quit being sad all the time. If you are a student of literature doesn't mean you are the heroine of every sad, Victorian novel we have ever read."

That night as I lay in bed a lot of questions were answered. I realized that I wasn't sad after all. I had quit feeling at all. I wasn't even depressed; I was fighting a battle to return to a normal being as per the demands of the surroundings. I saw a frivolous jollity everywhere around me, the girls laughed at jokes that weren't funny and the boys found it fascinating. I stayed quiet, I observed too much. The society offered nothing to a person whose expertise was to see its façade and remain aloof from it. I had to conform in some way. I had to find a way to please the society no matter the inner struggle. My friend wanted me to "quit being sad", so I had to force myself to quit feeling something I never felt.

I had to tell myself I was not the heroine of 'every sad, Victorian novel'. I repeated it to myself so often that it had become a prayer. It wasn't the ignorance behind the comment that had hurt me, it was the apathy.

The society has a liking for tragedy, its people feed upon the "oohs" and "ahhs" of a person's misfortune. The pain is measured in terms of physical hurt, financial loss or a huge sociological falling out with humans itself. The imperceptible pain of a human mind finds no social adjustment in human tragedies. It can't be rumored for special effects, it can't be talked over dinner or quoted as a premonition to an inevitable misfortune of future. Because it can't be fathomed or measured or has a precedent it's not worth the consideration. The societies over blown likes for dramatics has dimmed the extent of mental diseases. If one suffers in mind and not on the roads with hair matted with mud and clothes ripped at their seams, one does not classify as a mentally ill person.

CHAPTER 4

'The monsters are awake,

The demons are afoot.

The legions of hell have gathered,

The battle of survival has begun.'

Every day had become a little more difficult than its predecessor. I felt like my body and my mind were always at war. If my body demanded rest, my mind demanded activity and when my body was required to be active, my mind shut off on itself. I had been battling with this situation for more than six months now. Every morning I woke and tried to find some reservoir of my lost motivation to go on. A pretense had to be put up, to satisfy the curious eyes of family and friends. A pretense that required sheer strength and a humongous amount of will power. I had to smile when I had no reason to smile. I had to laugh when my heart wrung itself for the effort. Changing into some decent ware seemed to take a super human focus. My life had become a series of motion pictures that played on my memory in the form of flashbacks.

It hadn't been much longer that a cousin sought me out and began preaching me of how despair ate away at Faith. I wasn't a very religious person before but bipolar had taken away at any hope of salvation. My cousin gave me a look of disapproval that chilled the remnants of my faith. She clicked her tongue so many times as I told her I wasn't praying to the Almighty anymore or asking for His blessings. She stared my deep in the eyes for a second too long.

"You do know that a Muslim needs his prayers as much as he needs his oxygen?"

I shook my head in acquiescence.

"The angels will ask you of your prayers in the grave, not of your degree in Literature."

I opened my mouth but she interrupted me.

"You don't pray, that's your main issue. You are going to be alright if you stop thinking and just put your mind to religion."

I had heard so much of her, my dead mind protested and I longed to shut her up so I said that I didn't see how I could motivate myself to pray when I couldn't even remember the words to my prayer. I felt a hypocrite for standing before the Almighty just for my needs and causes and yet not giving Him the due honor.

A horrified expression spread across her face, she seemed incredulous.

"How could you say something so sacrilegious? This is blasphemy. The Almighty doesn't need your prayers, you need Him. You don't have to motivate yourself to pray, you just have to pray. It's your duty,"

I couldn't fathom her outburst; I had said something that I had felt in my bones. Yet she never understood my reasoning. I told her we were all sinners. That asking for pardon after sinning had been the real charm of being human, that all of us were astray but finding our way back to the Almighty was our calling. That the Almighty had not constricted His being in prayer only but we could find Him anywhere if we tired.

A smirk spread upon her lips. She straightened her scarf and began with a patronizing tone: "I see your problem. You have studied too much literature. You are mixing religion with the philosophies of your literary scholars. You have to read the Holy Book. You have to find solace in prayer. No wonder you are taking medicines for a disease that's probably an excuse to run away from religious duties."

She got up to offer her prayer and I stared the Faith she left in her wake. I stared at her sure-footed gait and I envied her satisfaction. I saw the minute details of how she would gather her scarf and carry out a mundane activity like making tea and get appreciated for it. Meanwhile I longed to be appreciated to be able to function with a handicapped mind and no one appreciated that a little bit.

I sat on the roof and stared at the traffic on the highway that evening. The cars were nothing but blurs of red light that shot past each other. The universe seemed to be at a race. On the roads, in the classrooms, in mosques everyone seemed to be in a competition with the other person. Everyone seemed to want to out-do his neighbor. I had fallen a-prey to this competition unknowingly, I had started a war in which I would be defeated no matter the display of power or expertise.

The wind was chilly and the music I played numbed my senses. I stared at the deep purple of the sky and asked myself if I was really making excuses to rid myself of religious duties. I remembered my cousin telling me what a horrible place hell was and the immaculate details of how I would be tortured for being blasphemous. She told me of how there was an outcome for every act, small or big and the Almighty saw it all.

A grandfather clock has a pendulum that oscillates. The swinging of its pendulum is the emblem of the continuity of time, as long as it moves to and fro, we know that time goes on. It's the same with a mind that has bipolar. There are two extremes to which the mind swings; heaven and hell. Heaven comprises of a quiet that comes from within, the world starts making sense and just for some time, though transiently even the mind makes peace with itself. A day with a blue sky or tree with its branches full of leaves would give the mind a reason to console itself, to make do with the slightest possibility of joy. A day in heaven seems a good place to live until the pendulum gains momentum and swings to the other side.

The other side is a hideous and scary place, no details of its tortures can be given. It's a war within a war. A war to survive and a war to lose. The mind starts gnawing at itself, it starts to eat away at the foundations of sanity, it concocts such illusions as fit to make one go crazy. The mind plays tricks on itself, a single glance here or a leer there seems a direct jab at some unseen weakness. A small, harmless remark can stimulate a hysterical response. The stimulation of incorrect responses is paired with an indecisive and weak will power, the mind wars while the body lays to rest.

The point at which the pendulum stops momentarily is where a healthy mind resides. 'The normal' ones stay there, the pendulum sees neither side so it sticks to the middle ground. It imagines a hell and a heaven; it imagines the momentum of a pendulum and finds it defying the laws of nature. This defiance to a stagnant pendulum is 'excuses', 'blasphemy' and 'laziness'.

So, pardon a diseased mind if it doesn't get sacred of being in hell, pardon it for not taking to religion, and pardon the mind for tarrying at prayers and offerings. A diseased mind; a 'swinging pendulum' sees heaven and hell at its threshold, it doesn't imagine the torture or the respite of either, so it finds solace in the Almighty's existence, it feels a power that holds it from giving itself to the demons, a power that keeps the soul alive while the body gives way to temptations of suicide or addiction.

So how could I make excuses to rid myself of the religious duties when I saw the Creator of those duties everywhere, a warm aura that enveloped me in moments of despair? I clicked my tongue at my cousin's phantom and smirked as I asked her if she had felt the Almighty consoling her and cradling her the way he blessed me. Indeed, He saw everything.

CHAPTER 5

'Oh, you broken hearted child,

An angel without wings,

An atheist without a will,

A demon without malice,

A loner in a crowd.'

Living with a mind that had a will of its own had become an integral part of my personality. Apart from the noisy din around me, another voice nagged at me at the most unusual of times. I would stand near a precipitous place and the voice would urge me to see how many bones I will break if I jumped. I would see a knife and the voice would ask me how much blood I would lose before I lost my life. There were too many "what if's" that the voice of my mind needed to know. It demanded me to pay the toll for its leisure thinking. My mind always wanted to satisfy its curiosities by putting my life at stake. So, as I refused its slow descent into madness, it formulated another more disastrous wile.

I started losing my interest in everything I loved once. Reading, watching movies, family picnics, music, driving all of these had lost their charm. I would lie in bed from dawn to dusk, my speech would slur and my eyes seemed to be fixed at a near distance in the air, I stopped seeing. Everything felt like a frivolity my mind didn't want to enjoy. It seemed like every emotion had been felt too early and to its full extent. Life had nothing to show to me, it had done its best, had performed its worst and I felt like a hundred years old.

My life had been a musical but now it felt as if there was a narrator that read my life out loud and changed its course at its whims. The music had gone out, my song had stopped playing and I had forgotten its tune and its rhyme. My life had become a consistent droning, and I had become the bored student in the lecture room who finishes the course ahead of the class. I had no will neither the energy to keep the inertia of a life that was socially acceptable, so I caved into myself. What I thought, did, heard or said had become a story of the past. In that moment of infinitesimal awareness of my disease, I had come undone.

I had been plastered into a state of ennui, a monotonous greying of the edges had set in like a winter. I pondered on the life of a semicolon. I had read that a semicolon tattoo had become an emblem of a recovering depressive. "Life goes on", "it's an important piece of punctuation", "the sentence goes on", such were the thoughts of the creator.

I sat in my room, stale for three days, smelling of stale sweat as I tried to carve a semicolon somewhere to make me feel that life continued. It wasn't until the voice of my mind snickered that I realized it was a lost cause. I tried to envision the continuity of a sentence as a semicolon was put into it, I tried to see how the sentence I was living would go on but I didn't see a continuation to it.

The society is too diligent at pointing out insufficiencies. The frailties of a diseased mind are ignored and disregarded for want of visual proof. The people of the society are themselves at risk if they come in contact with a person with a weak mind, so how could a semicolon find its place in a society that did not know the difference between a colon and a semicolon.