if depression gets the best of me

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i'm moreen reo. this is my story.

moreen is not my real name. it's an anagram of my favourite drug - meropenem. i'm a south asian - specifically indian woman who was born in a small village in bihar. bihar is one of the states of india where misogyny thrives. where women are abused and belittled and trivialised. i was the second girl child everyone wanted to abort.

growing up in that environment, i have become prey like. jhelna is a term in hindi which means endure. i have learnt to endure abuse. at the hands of my own parents. i only know how to endure. that makes me a coward and a people pleaser. someone who doesn't fight back because i've adapted to being prey. predators will always find me, and use me.

i will always be abused. and that's the tragedy. it's my mother's legacy. it's practically every woman's legacy in a country like india, especially in a state like bihar.

history will repeat itself. i am not a strong woman. i am the weak coward who's so pathetic that i should've been aborted.

i see only 2 future possibilities - sure death (i will do it myself because i do not wish to be abused and misunderstood for the rest of my life) or contentment. oh, i'm sure that i will never find happiness.

it's laughable to even hope. it's audacious. pathetic, really to hope for happiness. contentment will (might) come to me if i hold on and keep suffering and then escape this hellhole my mother chose to bring me up in. if i escape. we've already established that i'm weak enough to not be able to run from this place.

my sister is weak too. i don't think either of us will achieve our fiercest desire, because we're inherently prey and thus we're weak and easily toppled by the whims of the universe. we'll fail - as we always have. and then, in grief and regret of living such a life - we'll not hold on anymore.

we'll fall - hoping that the next life will be a gracious one.