Coping With Depression 

Depression and anxiety, fear; we all have experienced one way or the other. But that's, not the point here, the thing is how you can cope with these negative feelings, and experiences. 

The past two years have been somewhat like a temporal anomaly. Everyone was locked within their homes and forced to repeat a similar day over and over again. Friendships and relationships broke. Livelihoods were lost and the spirits of people were diminished. Overall, it was a period of despair. With no place to go to and no one to confide in, all of us were lonely. At such a time, like reviving an old friendship, an old habit of mine rekindled. Reading books became the sole highlight of my days in lockdown. I found a different world within the crispy pages. The labyrinth of sentences made by the authors transported me to different timelines. Sometimes am fighting alongside WWI soldiers in Russia or at other times I am revolting with the freedom fighters in India. With the lack of people. I made connections with paper characters. I went to different places experienced exquisite adventures and discovered various things from them. The stories became a place of comfort. I escaped in them when our world was crumbling. Consuming stories by reading is not similar to other media. When we watch a movie or a show, there is no blank for us to fill in. We see and accept the creator's vision. There is no space for us to make the story our own. On the other hand. books give us a free space to imagine the story ourselves. We have our visions of the characters, of the story and at the end, it becomes something of our own, something very close to our hearts. That is why reading is a very personal and subjective hobby. It affects the reader at a deeper level.

Other than providing me comfort and escape, the stories helped me grow as a person and learn about the ways of the world. It gave me perspectives of people about whom I knew very little and helped me understand them. Unintentionally, I was so absorbed with my life and my problems that I never understood that I was not the main character in everyone's story. Reading about different people all around the world showed me the vastness of the wild world and bit by bit made me compassionate towards others. They showed me the everyday struggles of some people, and how people struggle just to survive every day and live a life where they are not discriminated against. 

They taught me about people's grief. They taught me to let go of some things and hold on to the ones that matter. Even though the stories are fictitious, the characters are nonexistent, their problems are inconsequential, we connect with them. We connect with them so much that we smile when they are happy and we cry when they are sad. They make mistakes, and we learn. They make friendships, we feel. They triumph, and we are proud. The characters develop, and we grow along with them. Words do have the power to shape us, mold us, and create an individual full of unique thoughts and ideas. Although people lost many things during the lockdown, I got a beautiful gift, my love for reading. The lyrical prose, inspiring words, and captivating stories saved these two years for me. While the whole world was stuck in their homes, I went around the world with my books.