At the age of seven, I found myself counting tiles on the floor.

From a very early age I knew something was wrong with me, something which always isolated me from others. I was different but I didn’t know why I felt this way. At the age of seven, I found myself counting tiles on the floor. I wondered if counting tiles was a normal and everyone else also does this. But, later I started having suicidal thoughts and I knew this wasn’t healthy. I struggled daily. I fought with my thoughts every day. I was young yet there was an unbearable burden on my shoulders. And it was worse with the bubble I created around me and vowed never to tell anyone about my condition because I didn’t know what to tell them and how would they react.

Depression among childhood and adolescence is common. 1 out of every 5 children faces depression and anxiety. At such a young age children doesn’t even know themselves what depression or anxiety is. It is the responsibility of parents to keep a check on their children and a develop a relationship of friendly communication with their children. If a child starts losing interest in what he used to enjoy, staying isolated, confused and facing trouble getting things done, then it’s a time parents should seek psychologist or try understanding their children through communication. Hadiqa (story teller), suffered same, she was young when she started feeling depressed.

My condition was worsening with the passage of time. At the age of 17, I committed suicide. At this point I knew I had to tell someone. I was sane enough to understand what I was doing wasn’t right and I wanted to be better. For the first time opened up and seek for mental help. I was diagnosed with clinical depression, OCD and anxiety disorder. I was given medicines but I refused because of my suicidal tendencies, as with medication, people are not their usual self and become more prone to self-harm. Therapies also didn’t work on me as it seemed like a coerced order. Only self-improvement articles and blogs helped me move towards betterment. It is not necessary that every mentally ill person has to go through therapies and medication for recovery. Everyone can have different ways of gaining recovery but one should must consult a doctor in order to understand it is okay to be not okay.

I was recovering but yet I needed to channelize my negative energy somewhere. I developed my own blog and started to pen down my negative energy in the form of poems. I considered writing poems my biggest blessing because this is how I was able to use my disorder to my advantage. A mentally ill person is much likely to doubt his worth and be filled with pessimistic thoughts. It was important to shatter down these thoughts. It gives me an immense satisfaction when my work is appreciated. I feeling of survival with the disorder and still able to climb up the ladder of success is unexplainable.

Hadiqa might not have committed suicide if she had been given necessary attention while she was young and fighting depression on her own. Childhood stress, anxiety and depression can lead to bigger problems in future. People with mental illness needs others to understand them. Do you think the road of Hadiqa’s recovery was smooth? Absolutely, No. Read in our next article about Hadiqa’s hardships during recovery.