There are seasons in life when you smile for the world but feel empty inside. For me, that season lasted almost three years – after diagnosis. I didn’t know its name then. Now I know it was depression.
A mind at war
Those first years were a nightmare. My mind would not stop. I overthought everything: every word, every silence, every delay. My anxiety would rise like a storm tide without warning. I took on two HR consultancy projects and could not finish either. Not because I didn’t care, but because something inside me had gone quiet. I couldn’t bring myself to do the work, and the guilt of that silence was heavier than the failure itself.
People around me thought I was distracted, careless, or lazy. I thought so too. I kept waiting for the old energy to return, but each morning felt heavier than the last. I lived inside my own head, trapped in a loop of thoughts that had no door to walk out of.
“I was living behind my own eyes — but couldn’t find myself.”
Losing my language
Then came the moment that frightened me most: I couldn’t write. Writing had always been my voice, my passion, my prayer. But suddenly the words were gone. I sat in front of my computer for two months trying to write a report. Each day I managed one paragraph. Then nothing. Just the blank white screen staring back at me.
Every morning, I promised myself, Today, I’ll finish it. Every evening, I left defeated. It wasn’t writer’s block: it was life block. The ocean of words that had carried me for decades had dried without warning.
Faith under fire
Even then, my faith was my anchor. I held on to it the way a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood. Yet, in those days, I heard words that cut deeper than silence. Some said depression was a sign of weak faith: that if I believed more, I would not feel this way. But I did believe. I whispered Alhamdhulillahi every morning, even when I could not feel grateful. Faith was not gone: it was the only thing keeping me alive.
“It wasn’t the lack of faith that broke me: it was being told that faith should make me unbreakable.”
The day it was named
On the World Mental Health Day of 2017, I finally met a doctor who named it. Depression. A single word that made the sky fall on my head.
I remember sitting there, frozen. I couldn’t feel anything no fear, no relief, just a heavy stillness. Then the thought crept in: I will be useless for the rest of my life. Yet, even in that numbness, I reached for what mattered most. I called my wife, my daughter, and my son. They didn’t say much. They just said, “We’re here.” And in those words, I felt the first drop of hope.
A light through the crack
Looking back, that day didn’t end the darkness: it named it. It gave me permission to seek light. It taught me that when pain is named, it loses its power to shame you. It becomes something you can face, something you can live with.
Faith had not failed me. People had not abandoned me. The sky had fallen, yes: but somehow, the light still found a way through.
Next in the series: Part 2 – The Day the Sky Fell How a friend’s tap on my shoulder changed everything.
Smile and Let Smile 