Chapter 7

 I don’t understand what’s happening to me. Everyone is here—my family, friends—they say they support me, but still, I feel completely alone. It’s as if I’m trapped inside my own mind, a silent room where no one can reach me. The weight of caring for this tiny life, so innocent and fragile, is crushing me from within.

I smile when they smile, I nod when they speak, but inside, a storm rages. There are moments when I just want to disappear, to escape from this overwhelming flood of emotions I can’t control or explain. The baby cries, the sleepless nights—they blur into one long, exhausting fight.

I don’t know why I feel this way. I thought I would be happy, but instead, there’s this unbearable sadness, this restless ache. I try to hold onto hope, but it slips through my fingers like sand. I call out to the girl I used to be, but she seems to be fading farther away, lost in a frenzy I cannot catch.

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Arundhati’s Poem

Acknowledged for the pain she endured...

Respected for bringing a life that is pure...

Recognised for putting up with the hormones playing havoc inside her...

She confronted what she did not want—this beautiful gift beside her...

The baby blues that are so real...

Willingly or unwillingly, she embraced them all

for the high of feeling so surreal...

Fighting with all the brutality of childbirth...

Gasping with joy and boundless mirth...

Amidst all this, she tried hard to penetrate her gaze

to the sky of oblivion,

seeing her dreams being crushed into pieces of a million.

She was calling this girl with an unknown frequency...

It was her own self escaping into some frenzy...

As the girl blurred past her, higher and higher...

She held onto her with a heart filled with hope and desire...

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Tara’s Reflection

I remember a woman I once knew—someone who after childbirth became almost unrecognizable to those around her. The joy that was expected never came. Instead, she was swallowed by a darkness no one seemed to understand. Her family, overwhelmed and unsure, slowly drifted away, unable or unwilling to see the pain beneath the surface.

They whispered harsh words behind her back, labeling her a “bad woman,” as if her struggles were a choice or a character flaw. The loneliness she endured was not just from the depression itself, but from being abandoned by those who should have been her strongest allies.

Watching her disappear into that silent suffering broke something inside me. It made me realize how invisible and misunderstood postpartum depression truly is—how it isolates women in their most vulnerable moments. It’s a cruel fate to be judged and left alone when you need love and support the most.

This memory reminds me every day: postpartum blues are not mere sadness or tiredness. They are a real and painful illness that deserves compassion, understanding, and care. No woman should ever be left to fight this battle in solitude.