This is my story of how two movies, HUSH (2016) & Gerald’s Game (2017), helped me leap forward towards curing my post-partum depression. If you haven’t seen these movies and have a stomach for crime/thrillers, I highly recommend watching them, writing down your feelings, and coming back to this article. I Hope that, despite us being strangers, we can share some profound moments through this article, which is essentially a narration of what I felt after I saw these movies at a time when I was at an emotionally low point in my life.
| The key traits of depression, as per Martin E. P. Seligman, are sad mood, loss of interest in life/zest/vitality, weight loss, sleep disturbance (not the kind that happens because of anxiety but, for example, waking up early in the morning to a helpless dream), psychomotor slowness, fatigue, low self-esteem, being indecisive and thoughts of death. |
Depression is not just sadness; it is pessimism working at its full capacity. While the symptoms are complicated, the cure is simple – incremental investments in an optimistic life, in building a life where we feel we matter, we belong, we are accepted and can bring our gifts to be shared with the world.
If the solution is simple, although not easy, why are we as a society struggling to create a system of support and cure, similar to dealing with cancer? While therapy and loving relationships are two sure-shot ways to alienate one’s depressive self from the optimistic self, unfortunately even these necessities are not available or accessible to most people when they need it most. Worse still is the fact even if most of this knowledge is available, we are often not receptive to following it because it’s not narrated to us in a way that we can “feel” the wisdom. I purposefully used the word “feel” and not “understand” the wisdom because it is the “feelings” part of our brain that is sick when we are depressed. We end up trying to cure depression with logical advice and understanding but most times it doesn’t help because we don’t feel differently even after knowing the solution to our current problem that we are stuck in. No one is ever moved by logic, it is only the feelings that are generated in our core being that move us. All the happiness that every human is chasing, is, at the end of the day a feeling, a feeling of awe or joy or calm and contentment.
So if we want to help ourselves or a loved one, therapy is the way to go. Till we find that, there is no reason to remain in that dark place, we should take steps – no matter how small – to move toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
When I was suffering from postpartum depression, I would tend to gravitate towards movies and news and content that I felt would re-enforce my feelings of hopelessness as opposed to content that would instil hope. One night I started watching a movie on Netflix called, HUSH. HUSH, (spoiler warning!) is about a deaf-mute author who lives alone in a house in the woods and finds herself a target of a masked killer. In my negative frame of mind, I was expecting that the movie would show “that no matter what you do, even if you are a good person, once the floating bad luck decides to land on you, you are done – that there is nothing you can do, and the more you struggle the more it tightens it’s grip.” However, once I finished the movie I was so uneasy as if someone has punched me in the gut! While I had expected that either the poor girl would die, or maybe one of her tricks would work so the movie would end with her running out of that house into the woods and eventually to the police station – None of this happened as the girl ended by killing the killer!
The next night after having my dinner, once again when all fell asleep, I went to Netfilx hoping to find some dark movie that resonated with the sad darkness inside me. The movie I watched was “Gerald’s Game” which is about a woman who finds herself handcuffed to bed, alone in a secluded house and soon becomes delirious. The husband died very early on in the story and there was no way the wife could have survived. My early guess was that, her dead body was supposed to be found by someone who would be murdered and the cycle would continue. Once I finished this movie there was no peace for me at all, because I would have not even thought of doing what they did and would have given up very quickly, but the characters didn’t lose hope.
What both these movies had in common was the underlying theme of a person on whom bad luck came and persisted, which I perceived were situations just like mine. However, I felt that the lead characters were in situations 100 times worse than mine and yet they were able to turn the tables around, not by being superheroes but by taking action, trying one thing after another, and finally not only getting out of their horrible situations but also making world a little better a little safer!
For the first time I could relate to the’ protagonists as they were not special or chosen ones but normal people like me and you- I could feel their pain of helplessness and would hope for someone to show up to help them. I would hope their world to be better than mine and someone to hear their calls for help. But to my horror, they were in a similar situation as me – no one to speak to, no one to understand, no one to show sympathy or mercy.
And, then, I noticed that they had to take the first steps-to go back to civilization, back to people. I was rooting for them as there was very clearly defined -evil’ existed in the plot in contrast to whom the protagonists, the ‘GOOD’ had to win for us mortals to have faith and hope. I was hoping for a miracle but it never happened. At some point the protagonist decided they need to ‘do’ something. They can’t resign, they can’t give up. They need to ‘apply’ themselves and focus on taking one step after another even when they can’t see light at the end of the tunnel.
These movies stayed with me long after I had watched them. I could feel they have struck a nerve. I also realised that after their ordeal, these people returned to the same “pathetic and not so ideal” situations they were living in at the start of the story. However, they were different people now and it was their actions that had definitely changed the tiny world they were in into something better than when they started.
So, to anyone who is struggling with their mental health and not immediately able to find support, I would recommend that open your favorite OTT platforms and find content that resonates with you – there will surely be something that could help you “feel” better.
| Some more movies I would recommend are – The Book of Eli , 2010 (Hope in apocalypse) When we first met, 2018 (even if the situation changes you remain you) Apocalypto, 2006 (young man saves his family) Ready Player One, 2018 Vanilla Sky, 2001 (would you choose reality over imagination) |
Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments, and I’ll be happy to discuss 🙂
If you or loved one would like immediate emotional support, reach out to these helplines right away
Ellenomics 