Depression, Burn Out and Renewal on the Streets of India

Was it just a funk? After nine month of nonstop travel, was I simply burning out? Either of those situations I could handle, but my real worry was that my once-vanquished depression had returned. Thousands of miles from home and on the ‘trip of a lifetime’, I found myself spending more time hanging out and reading in cafes than getting out and exploring.

I first noticed I was slowing down in Laos but attributed it to the mellow, slow pace of that lovely land and its people. The Lao tourism motto is “Stay Another Day!” and it’s a perfect and true choice. There’s something about sitting by a river and watching it ease by while sipping a cold and cheap Beer Laos that makes it so very easy to put off buying that bus ticket and say “maybe just one more day…”

By the time I reached India, six weeks later, I had to admit that something had gone amiss; some spark had been lost. I was posting less and less often on the blog and when sitting down to write I’d just stare at a blank screen with an equally-blank mind. The words wouldn’t flow and I had less and less to talk about — my oddball adventures and mishaps were becoming few and far between. Only so much can happen within a few blocks of your hotel, after all.

Prior to this trip, I had developed a pretty severe depression. I don’t want to oversell this — I wasn’t exactly standing on a ledge with pills in my hand. But I was more than ‘just blue’. Blue was a good day.

I was able to function in day-to-day life reasonably well but all non-work hours were spent at home alone, watching TV or playing video games. I developed a nasty social anxiety and for a few years I was pretty much a hermit. I just couldn’t handle crowds or groups of people I didn’t already know.

Eventually, I’d had enough and got medicated and got better. It wasn’t that simple, of course — I didn’t take a pill, then wake up the next day and say “What was that all about?” But gradually the meds gave me the emotional distance I needed to examine my life and figure out why I was feeling the way I did. And one of those reasons was that I’d given up on ever making the trip I’m on now.

A year from the day I made that realization, I was on a plane to Bangkok. And in my standard half-assed fashion, I hadn’t spoken to my doctor about quitting the meds — I simply cut the dose in half until I ran out and hoped for the best. I had planned to, of course. I just never got around to it.

I don’t recommend that you try this at home. After a month of mood-swings and an incredibly annoying zzzzzzzt! sound that I heard and felt right in the center of my head every fifteen minutes (which really did make me want to kill myself), I was med-free and loose in the world. It was good.

Until Laos and now India. Landing in Bombay, I decided I had a problem and checked at several pharmacies for my happy pills but they’d never heard of them. “Too new” was the usual explanation. Generic Prozac seemed to be the only option but just trying head meds at random seemed like a recipe for disaster.

My next stop was Pushkar, where I had planned on staying for a week or so. It was comfortable, interesting and relaxed. I stayed a few days extra to experience the Diwali holiday and then the famous Camel Fair was only five days away and then I had to rest up from the crowded madness of the Fair and then…

Somewhere in there I decided I shouldn’t fight it — I just didn’t feel like going anywhere so I didn’t. The usual doubts about what I was doing and why surfaced often but I ignored them as best I could.

I read a lot –a book a day, generally– and wandered about taking photos, or sat at cafes and watched the endless procession of humanity that flowed through the streets. I wasn’t bored but I wasn’t excited. I just was.

After five weeks, I decided it was time to get moving again. I felt rested and, though I wasn’t exactly on fire to get out and see the world, I was feeling a bit of the old zest for life. At least, I hoped I was.

I bought a train ticket to Rishikesh and it proved to be a difficult trip. My stomach was acting up and I ended up in a compartment with a family that just didn’t seem to like me from the moment we met. After trying several times to initiate conversations or get some kind of vibe going, I gave up, climbed into my bunk and read for the rest of the ride.

The train stopped in Hardiwar, where I needed to catch a bus or taxi onwards to Rishikesh, some 20km away. My stomach was still unhappy –I wasn’t sick or throwing up, but I was continually mapping in my mind the location of the nearest toilet– so I decided to spend the extra cash on a tuk tuk. It was an extra 300 rupees ($7.50 US) but seemed the wise choice.

It proved to be –in it’s own weird way– exactly what I needed.

The driver was a young guy, spoke no English at all and –like most tuk tuk drivers in India– was completely insane. The tuk tuk itself was the standard black three-wheeled affair with a canvas top and an engine that sounded as if was about to shake itself apart with its crazy arrhythmic “tikka tikka TONK” beat — any drum corp that could copy this sound could win Nationals easily.

Before I was fully in my seat, he launched us into oncoming traffic, narrowly missing a speeding truck. My cry of “Jeeeeeeeesus!” earned me a smile and a wink in the rear view mirror.

The tuk tuk only seemed to have two gears –low and lower– and he had it fully wound up. The engine sounded like it was full of angry bees on acid, screaming in pain as someone beat on it with a steel mallet. He charged onto a bridge in the wrong lane, ignoring the honking of an oncoming bus and I quickly crossed myself, before remembering that I’m not Catholic.

That all happened in the first minute. Only 45 more to go, I thought grimly. Looking out the rear window, I expected to see men with guns chasing us, but there was nothing behind us but a wall of taxis and tuk tuks with angry drivers shaking their fists.

It was a two-lane road –which in India means you can expect at least four lanes of traffic– but my driver somehow forged a fifth one through the chaos — all at full speed and without the use of brakes. I don’t think we even had brakes. At one point he hopped a wheel up on the opposite sidewalk to dodge a truck, and just missed sending an unsuspecting sadhu on another spin around the Wheel of Life.

He never let up, never slowed down — in my memory now, the ride is just one long blur of close calls, blaring horns and screaming (I’m pretty sure that was me). My backpack had nearly bounced out of the tuk tuk and I as was rearranging it, I noticed that we were now in a race with a bus and another tuk tuk. The bus was in the actual lane, the tuk tuk was passing it and we were passing the tuk tuk. The finish line was a rapidly-approaching speed bump and railroad track.

We won, if you consider hitting a speed bump and railroad track at full speed ‘winning’. The speed bump launched the rear end of the tuk tuk into the air and I smashed my head on one of the roof supports. I seemed to hang in the air for awhile, seeing stars, before gravity reasserted itself.

The rear wheels met the railroad tracks and headed skyward just as I hit the seat on the down stroke, instantly reconfiguring the family jewels into a necklace and matching earrings. Everything went white.

I found myself curled into a fetal position in the back of the tuk tuk, one hand slowly surveying my skull for open wounds and the other buried in my crotch, as I blinked tears from my eyes and whimpered. And in that moment I knew something had changed. Despite the pain and fear, I was grinning like a thief. The funk was over. The spark was back.

Was it a real break-through? Or just the inevitable result of a concussion and testicular trauma? At that moment, I didn’t know and I really didn’t care.

I’m back, I squeaked.

I’m Johnny Vagabond. And this is my world.

Tagged as: crazy stories, India