On the perfect blogger

There is a reason why I am back online today. This morning I read Rachna Parmar's post on "The Perfect Blogger" and it raised two important points for me—1. On how we project ourselves online and 2. A more bigger issue on how depression is badly misunderstood.

Projection is a normal human tendency. Erving Goffman in his dramaturgical theory (1959) speaks of us as actors playing roles—constantly projecting certain personas while interacting. Even in our most intimate relationships we are never 100% “all” us 100% of the time. Social media is but a role we play. We choose how and what we want to project and more importantly why.  

I, for one, choose to use this online platform to help those who read, see an issue or their world a little differently; to inspire those in need with new hopes, new horizons, strength, courage, joy. By enacting my life as much as possible in those lines, I try to make my living worthwhile and purposeful.There is joy when so many of my readers started their own blogs or take active interest in writing. There is joy when many choose to enquire about how to give to others and even greater joy when several give up well-toned careers to a path of social work. There is joy when sisters find their voice heard, when traumatized find solidarity. There is joy when people "like" a Fb post (to me they are smiling and what joy in knowing that they may have smiled) or retweet a tweet. The number of likes is proportional to the number of hearts you managed to touch that day--at least that is true for me.

Often this means, I hide the dark alleys of my life—the scary shadowy corners that I am sometimes lost in. Which is okay—why to frighten and depress others with what is uniquely your experience.Hence, some people may mistake that I am eternally strong and cheerful.

Like the woman character in the blog, I too suffer from severe depression—have suffered for decades now. Depression doesn’t need an external cause always, it is sometimes the chemical cycle in the brain that is often hard to overcome. You can’t help being overtly sensitive, overtly anxious, overtly fearful and sometimes deep dark sad.

Irrespective of whether a husband is philanderer or I lose a job, the dark shadow continues, seeps beneath the heart, sometimes evident, sometimes not, as the self struggles mightily to keep the light in. I once attempted suicide after a flying cockroach landed on me middle of the night—the dying cockroach a haunting symbol of my own dark shadow.

I know some of you will shudder reading this. But here is the piece—irrespective of all pain and all suffering, I REMAIN—re-emerging again and again, re-inventing myself again and again—like a phoenix from its ashes. And here is the catch, to be the phoenix you have to have the courage to be reduced to ashes. An extraordinary ability to feel and sense the world, to see those subtle nuances that few can sight, to hear the sounds beyond normal aural range and then, an extraordinary ability to convert it all into learning for others. From every dark episode, I have arisen with new knowledge.

Yes, there would be some episodes from which I won’t awaken—then so be it. It is a life well-lived.

And to that woman, who lies in the hospital in coma after an overdose, I whisper—sister, I know how mightily you have struggled to live—and that everyone of your fb posts and your photographs and the blogs were pearls of lessons that you brought up from the depths of that dark sea. That they were honest to the core. And that in that you were indeed perfect—a perfect blogger!