Chapter 3 - first trip out to Srinigar

 It is quiet at Samrat, it's situated on a highway  between two main towns, both about a 30 minute drive away. The quiet, peaceful mountain views gave me a lot of time to process, which I so desperately needed to do. I was terrified of sitting with myself, but knew I needed to, to get past it I needed to acknowledge it. 

Aside from the great amount of.courage and strength it takes to reach out for help at the bottom of that pit of depression, the next difficulty is sitting with feelings, really sitting with them. Depression, to me, is in a way, hiding from reality. You become convinced you're not worthy, not deserving, and with no worth feelings and emotions don't matter, nothing matters, everything is hopeless and pointless. And when I first reached out after months of spiralling and sinking, I had no self worth, but others still saw my worth, others had hope for me, and I had to allow them to carry that worth and hope for me. 

And sitting looking out at those mountains, I could have been anywhere in the world.. I was just relieved I was no longer in Sydney, which had become haunted by so many memories, a "home" I dread returning to. 

After a few days of quiet reflection, and trying to adjust my sleeping patterns, and still feeling so utterly stuck in that spiral, we headed over to Srinigar. It is so different here, the people, the culture and way of life  the shop fronts, the food... it was a lot to take in.

And cows,  cows everywhere! They are considered sacred beings here in India, and slaughtering them is prohibited in most states. The main religions here in India (Hinduism, bhuddism, and Jainism),at their core, embrace the concept of Ahimsa, that all living beings are sacred. Violence towards other living beings is to be violent towards oneself, and karma will come back and bite you!

This means most of the population here are vegetarian, most restaurants are purely vegetarian, and the restaurants that do serve meat, the only meat I've seen on menus has been chicken, and occasionally lamb. As someone who was vegan for several years, the predominantly plant based way of life has made it all the more easier to embrace and enjoy the food and culture here.

I've never been super religious. Spiritual yes, religious? Hm. I was brought up Christian, with a clairvoyant mother. And really, at their core, most religions say the same thing: "don't be a jerk to one another, everyone has value, and there's a God/Goddess out there who loves you". 

I have sort of explored Buddhism in the past, which seems more of a way of life than a religion. 

"Be kind whenever possible. 
It is always possible."
- The Dalai Lama

Artsy afternoons & poetry

 

Chapter 2 - Samrat, the Indian Fawlty Towers

  Yep, if there was an Indian Fawlty towers, the samrat resort would be it. The upstairs unit my parents are in had plumbing issues, with blocked toilets and the washing machine flooding the laundry. It took them weeks to fix it  and idk what they did but the unit I was in downstairs, whatever they did meant that that bathroom down there the drains stank... I finally moved to one of the little cabins next door yesterday. 

 Its very pretty  with mountains and river views, and a walk down to a temple, for hanuman, the monkey God.

 On one of the first days here, Mum and I walked up and along the road and took some photos of the river, when we walked back, there were some guys who asked me for a selfie (they all want selfie with white people!) I said no, and they seemed to follow us which was a little intimidating.. the owner or one of the managers was standing out the front, very much the Indian John Cleese, no idea what he asked us something about if we liked the trees!? I've no idea what anyone says here, even when they're seemingly trying to speak English, it's worse than a scottish accent!!

Food here at samrat is OK, panneer korma dish was yummy, and they do a very tasty veg chow mein. Hey, as I said, once a foodie, always a foodie..

 One of the first mornings here I woke up, and stepped out to the back balcony, sat down and cried. It was maybe a little more therapeutic crying in front of a view of mountains than sitting on my shitty balcony in the apartment I'd grown to hate in wiley park. I never thought I'd end up here. 

Chapter 1 - arriving in Delhi

 With so much anxiety leading up to this trip, it was a bit surreal to sit my butt down on a plane. The first flight to Adelaide only took a couple of hours,  which I slept for most of. Then on to the long flight from Adelaide to Delhi. There was a girl sitting next to me, around my age maybe, I thought I was an anxious mess! I guess I just don't portray it outwardly, she was very.. jittery.  I didn't manage to sleep, started watching a couple of movies  but grew bored quickly, watched a few episodes of a couple of shows, I don't remember what they were now.  I spent some time on the plane journalling.

Landing was a  bit stressful, I just kind of followed everyone else through the airport. I wasn't sure where my parents would be, I paced a bit around the exits, and then spotted my mum through one of the doors. It was a relief to see them, but I think my parents were more relieved to see me. Last time they saw me, the day they both left, I was very thin, and a total mess. I've come a long way since then, I guess I'm only realising that now.  


Getting from the airport to the hotel we stayed at in Delhi, omg the drivers here! No one seems to follow any road rules, there's lanes on the road no one uses, and constant beeping! People whizzing around on scooters and motor bikes, often with 3 or more people on them. Seeing 2 adults and 3 kids on the back of a scooter, no one wearing helmets...! apparently the only person who has to wear helmet is the person driving the bike or scooter, so if there is an accident, they know who to blame!

 We had dinner at the hotel, and I was exhausted. The next day we did a long drive down to Agra, to see the taj mahal. That was a challenge, everything still felt so surreal, and I was trying to manage anxieties around a new place, a completely different culture  and covid anxiety - the taj was very busy. It was beautiful architecture, guess I could tick that off my bucket list if I had one ha.

 We stayed in a hotel in Agra called the taj view, which was a bit fancy. Dad quickly commented "don't get used to this, samrat isn't like this at all" we took a tuktuk from the taj back to the hotel - my first experience on a tuk tuk not gonna lie, it was terrifying! At this stage I was still trying to manage a lot of covid anxiety (I've since managed to let go of that and relax a little). Breakfast at the taj view was yummy,  I had a perfectly crispy dosa! Yumm (once a foodie always a foodie!)

 The drive up to rudraprayag where my parents have been living took all day, i  spent most of it looking out at the different scenery, as we whizzed thru cities and towns, hills and cows, people, poverty, pollution,  noise. 

As we approached Northern India, the landscapes changed dramatically. Hills became mountains, greeted by beautiful rivers. It all still felt very surreal.

Questioning my (in)sanity

 The last year has been... all kinds of mental anguish and torture. 

I spiralled into a depression I genuinely didn't think I'd survive to see the other side of. 

What was going to help? I felt isolated and alone, and my parents suggestion of going to see them in India was a terrifying thought. I was barely eating, barely functioning, and it seemed like such a big jump to go from where I was, to getting on a plane and travelling to a foreign land. But with the help of a wonderful counsellor, and some dearly valued folk I felt comfortable reaching out to, I put one foot in front of the other, until I was sitting on an aeroplane. 

And despite the baggage, the dysfunction, the chaos, my family provide love and support. And I needed that, I needed familiarity, breathing space, to start to process, to start to let go, to start to break free.

The following is a reflection of the last year. 

There were a lot of stresses towards the end of 2020, and my mind broke.  There were emotional triggers, H.P's suicide, Troy's court case. Financial stress, working two stressful jobs and trying to finish off my studies, uncertainty with living arrangements, our housemate expressed wanting to live on his own. Relationship stress, I was trying really hard to make her happy, coz if she was happy I was happy, but it broke me.

Each stressor, each trigger, like hammers, slowly but surely making cracks in my sense of reality, until it all crumbled and totally fell apart.

But I didn't realise how much i was falling apart. Paranoid and delusional, was stacy abusive? To a degree,  but my state of mind over emphasised all of it.

I had what I thought was this break thru of understanding of my mental health. I've had problems with memory and dissociation for years, my memory has always been shite. And then it seemed these other alternate personalities were coming thru when I was dissociating- with different names and ages. Jason observed  and "met" most, if not all of these "alters", my whole demeanour changed, voice, body language. Did I have DID? It was a terrifying idea that seemed to make a lot of sense.

When I met Jason online and it was like he was the opposite of my last relationship, and he created this space where I felt safe existing and expressing myself in a way I'd never had with anyone. A safe space for these "alters" to introduce themselves.

And it was like gradually and suddenly reality started to come back into focus, it was like waking up from a nightmare. I was full of so much confusion, grief, shame, guilt and self loathing. And as the depression began to creep and seep in to my existence, like a fog creeping in, encompassing everything... my head went quiet. It was just me, alone with these awful feelings, wondering what the hell had happened over the last few months. What happened to those "alters"? DID doesn't go away on its own. Had I just temporarily fragmented myself to process some of the trauma I'd been through in my life? When I suddenly started to doubt all of it Jason was there, vouching for the fact that whatever it was, he'd met these alternate personas, and they were very different from "Jen".

I'd Totally lost  any  and all sense of purpose, self worth and identity. And I sunk into that heavy depression, and it consumed me for months. I'd withdrawn from everybody,  and convinced myself I was worthless and had nothing to live for. Those feelings of guilt and shame fuelled the spiral and the depth of depression, weighing it down with so much self hate. And I'm still there. I guess instead of being chin deep, it's waist deep, and it's not as consuming as it was. But I have no idea where to go from here, because underlying everything is still those feelings of grief, shame, guilt and self loathing.