Suicidal to Responsible

April 2019,

Some random day, the moment my eyes opened in the morning I hated and abused my parents, friends, surroundings, society, college and everything and that how my days used to start for almost 3 months. I was suicidal very suicidal, today I look back and I’m surprised that I’m alive because I wanted to kill myself so bad that it shivers my spine today just thinking about it. What I’m going to tell is what I experienced, what I did and what I learned to come out of a situation where I could have killed myself any moment to where I’m today.

At some point of time, we feel sorry, disgusted, angry, low etc about ourselves it is normal, it happens from time to time to everyone but the worst of all is when someone is scared of oneself. For 2 months every day, every hour, every minute, every second I was scared of myself. I was so scared that I might take my life at any moment. I became bi-polar I experienced two personalities inside my head fighting each other every moment. My situation was so bad that I use to cry every night before sleeping and then later in April I use to cry 3–4 times a day and I use to cry because I was afraid of myself and use to think what have I become. My situation was so bad that for a moment I use to think I will kill myself and I deeply believed in it and then the next moment another voice used to come that what are you thinking? And then I used to break down in tears. I was fighting myself to stay alive. There were moments where I believed that if something will happen which I don’t like then I’ll simply hang myself or jump in a river and then the next moment I use to slap myself for thinking this. At times I use to jump out of the bed to do something to myself and then use to stop and then sit on the floor and breakdown. At times when I was out of the house random simultaneous thoughts use to occur “jump from the bus”, “accident should occur of my car”, “wanted to ramp my scooter in a wall”. It’s hard to explain it was like a small part of me wanted to live and was scared to the bones because a bigger part of me wanted to die. I was afraid of UTKARSH SINGH.

I suppose that the accumulation of this thinking started when I joined college but today I look back and I can tell the signals which I didn’t saw earlier. I became very hateful, started fighting with everyone, stopped doing everything then gradually I stopped polishing my shoes(since 8 years I’ve never gone out of the house without polishing shoes), then I started sleeping a lot, all the time in the bed then gradually started watching porn 3–4 times a day (never did it before) time passed didn’t take any notice everything seemed normal. Around February stopped talking to parents and lot of fights with them, then I think in March I started eating junk a lot, there was a week I ate pizza straight for a week twice a day (I never eat junk more than once a week), my bed used to be a litter, plate, spoons, fruits, biscuits all filth on my sheet. I stilled noticed nothing suicidal thoughts use to pop here and there. I started thinking that suicidal thoughts are normal for everyone some times. My condition became worse day by day and in starting April I stopped Exercising. Now, this was a serious blow and a wake-up call because exercise is never a burden it is my most fun activity to do. It was too late I was highly suicidal, I told nobody about it and never let it come on my face or let the people around me figure out something. Only two things which just kept me alive was my younger brother (whenever I use to think the crap photo of my brother use to come up in my head) and my pride.

I tried so hard on everything but nothing worked time tables, motivational videos, work ethic etc I tried every trick in the book nut nothing worked. More I pushed myself to be productive, responsible, use full, sensible more my condition became worse. I was seeing my destruction and was able to do nothing about it and just came to the very edge and somehow I am alive today. I’ll be honest I do not know from where a thought came and it changed everything.

I took a step back and decided I’ll do nothing no studying, no projects, no external responsibilities, no socializing, nothing. I’ll only work on myself by that I mean:

I’ll wake up early and set my bed

eat healthily

wash my utensils

wash my clothes

will work on leaving social media

always try to keep my workplace clean

reduce my porn

sleep at a reasonable time

I’ll take my plate to the kitchen after a meal

fill the water bottles

iron my clothes

I will give time to myself only I’m the priority stop fixing other people.

You might think what’s special it’s just good habits. Yes! true but “WE DO NOT DO IT”. For me these tasks were the end goals of the day, I mean no assignment, no project, no gossip, no studying, no high productive time-table or work, no responsibilities, no commitments, just these simple tasks which I needed to complete. For example, people have goals or jobs to do like mail someone, studying a chapter, working on a skill etc. My goal was just clean my utensils, clothes, bed etc with my full conscious.

Just after a day of doing these tasks, I realized that how much broke I am and how much repair I need. I mean just cleaning a plate, a spoon, a bowl which takes hardly 60 seconds at best with no skill, no effort, no focus, nothing gets easier than this and I had to strain myself and put in the effort to do it, my mind and body were not allowing me to do it. This blew my mind off I was like I’m not able to do the most unskillful and easy task there can ever be without straining and tiring myself then how come I was trying to be 10-hour productive person since last 3 months. I was fundamentally broken, It used to take me a humongous mental effort to just set my bed in the morning which hardly takes 2 minutes. Then I realized that I never in my life had a mindset of doing tasks which are the most essential for any human being. This is the very source of basic responsibilities, If I had to think and put in an effort and then feeling tired to do these 2-minute simple tasks then I needed to fix the most basic of my mindset to do anything in this world. If I can’t do this then I am good for nothing. It is not necessary to do these things every day to be successful, I’m saying you need to have a mindset to do it.

I only focused on these small things like not sliding the plate after having a meal to the side, not keeping an empty bottle in the fridge, putting the cap back onto the pen and then in the pencil-stand, putting my shoes back in the shoe rack, taking a bath etc and I had to put effort and conscious to first recognize that I’m doing something wrong and then working on it. All these tasks hardly took 2–3 minutes maximum but somehow were very difficult and frustrating to do. I bet it is the same for 99% of the people and what I want to bring to notice is all these puny tasks should not take effort or think at all. These should come naturally to us just like breathing. I mean nothing in this world is more simple and fundamental than these and still taking a bath seems like an effort to most which shouldn’t be the case, it should be as easy as breathing, no thinking no effort.

It took me exactly 10 months to make these tasks natural to myself. Today I wake up and fix my bed half-asleep, I put the pen cap back on without even realizing, clean my utensils without thinking to clean. I’ll be honest I do not know what change occurred in my mind but in last 10–11 months, I became a completely different person by doing my fundamental human duties nothing special, no counselling, no Sandeep Maheshwari, no one. Just did those 2 min tasks consciously which do not come in the bracket of “I like it or not”.

In this whole process of 14–15 months I came out from death and I learned a lot. The most important thing I realized is all of us are in a car race with broken engines and not realizing that the engine is damaged. So someone who is going slow his/her engine will last longer and will break down later (suicide state), people who are going full throttle then their engine will break down soon same what happened to me ( I didn’t have a mindset to do even fundamental human tasks and I was trying to do very productive).

Next thing I realized is we make life difficult ourselves and then we think it is a hustle and all. Let me explain, imagine doing Integration in maths without knowing trigonometry and algebra. So no matter how much we work hard, no matter how much we hustle, any amount of motivation and commitment will not simply work because our basic reasoning and concepts are not clear. This applies the same to “Life”, we do not have the mindset and effort to fill our water bottles and are trying to work a 12-hour time-table. Then we see all these crap motivational videos and think we need to hustle. Just take a step back fix your trigonometry concepts and then integration will become 10 times easier, the same is with life.

Now the most important thing I learned and I want all of you to pay attention, all of us today run from responsibilities in the name of “passion” without even realizing it. I mean we are into something then the moment it becomes difficult or demands responsibility and discipline we jump the boat saying “I do not like it this is not my interest”, we do it again and keep repeating ourselves. We do not realize that we are not seeking passion, we are seeking that thing which is easy (no responsibility,discipline and sacrifice) and the reality is nothing is easy from being a scientist to a cricketer to a stand-up comedian. let’s take an example, there is a kid who loves cricket, plays amazing, think of making a future in it as he progresses there will a time come where he needs to be disciplined in other fields like diet, workout, sleep etc which are unrelated to cricket. If the kid didn’t know what being responsible is then he will jump the boat saying “I’ve lost interest in cricket”. This is what we do we get into something it’s fun for a while then it becomes difficult, we leave it then we get into something else and repeat the process again and again. This is debatable that someone might genuinely not interested in something. True it might be the case but I assure you this the biggest red flag of a potentially suicidal person in future is that he/she runs from responsibilities because this is what I did I kept on jumping things in the name of “passion” sometimes tried to be responsible and disciplined ( but can’t as you know I didn’t have the mindset of doing basic things) and then I ran out of options and here the blaming and ranting starts. Everyone and everything is bad this is the biggest sign of a suicidal person. From jumping options, we get to a point where we are not even able to live life and the option is to die. So the mentality is always running from responsibilities and sacrifice.

Let’s take one more example. 90% of students do not take humanities because they love it they take humanities because they do not like science which means they are not willing to be responsible and disciplined which is required in science. They think humanities is easy and take it but it turns out after a certain time it is as difficult as science and they perform poorly there too.

Today we think that whatever is easy for us is our passion which is not TRUE. Passion is something for which we are ready to make sacrifices no matter what the cost. So choose your god-dam sacrifice. Today we expect that we have to sacrifice nothing which is just not possible. Choose a sacrifice you’re ready to make and stick by it. To become anything we need to do some kind of sacrifice. Ex. Virat Kholi became vegan there was no need but he did it for the thing he loves “cricket”.

So stand in front of the mirror and ask yourself am I finding “Passion” or running from “responsibilities and sacrifice”.

All of us are only working hard due to external force there is not even a shred of internal force which is another big cause which leads to suicidal thoughts, it’s a red flag. An external force is limited and there is a limit our mind and body can take it. I mean we work hard in pressure, deadline, force, fear etc this is only good for short bursts, not a long time. The moment these external forces go we become useless. When I was in 12th class my dad used to come in my room and use to tell me I’m not serious with my studies because my room was a mess and this use to make me angry because I used to study 10 hours and scored 93% in my pre-boards. I never understood him then. My messy room was an indication that I’m not responsible and disciplined and I’m only working hard in “pressure”.

Here I’ll give you two instances:

This one was told by my dad,

“When Britishers attacked Lucknow and marched in the Nawab’s palace everyone ran for their lives but the nawab stayed sitting on his throne,
Britishers asked, “why didn’t you run for your life”.
Nawab replied, “My servants ran off, I do not know how to wear shoes. Never worn them myself in life”.

This one is true

“The current prince of Udaipur Lakshya Raj Singh (The descendant of Maharana Pratap) a billionaire, his family runs HRH group of luxury hotels. He is worshipped as a monarch even today. He went to Australia for the Hotel Management course and worked as a bartender, a waiter, the lowest rug of hotels. Returned India and today runs the family business.”

My last piece of advice what I learned is learning to identify red flags and do not ignore them because one day that sparks in the forest you ignored will turn into a monstrous fire and then we just sit and see the destruction. It is ALWAYS our fault, even if you believe it is not, trust me do not blame others a blaming person will become suicidal in no time. Suck up the ego and fix the problem let the world move forward, take a step back fix your self and then come back strong and the last but not the least do not put tapes on a leaking pipe go fix the main problem.

The last thing if you see someone in the problem don’t say “everything will be fine or everything is fine” tell them to their face “grow the fuck up and get your shit together, don’t be a loser” today I look back and see if someone would have said this to me long back I guess I would never have become suicidal.