She Cried on the Stairs
"I feel like cursing myself..."
The words escaped before Mita could stop them.
She gripped the handrail tightly and slowly pulled herself up the stairs to the first floor of her home.
One step.
Pause.
Another step.
Pain.
For months she had learnt to cry silently.
When everyone slept...
When nobody was watching...
When she sat alone on the edge of her bed.
But today, the pain was stronger than her courage.
"Maa..."
Aditi had heard her.
She rushed out of her room.
"What's happened? Are you crying?"
Mita quickly wiped her tears with the end of her saree.
"No, no... nothing."
She forced a smile.
"It's just my knee again."
Aditi looked at her mother for a few seconds.
She knew.
It wasn't just the knee.
Mita was only forty-five.
She taught History in a government school.
She loved children.
Every morning she would walk around the classroom, stopping beside each student, correcting notebooks, smiling, encouraging.
"Very good."
"You can do even better."
That was Mita.
Always walking.
Always smiling.
Always full of energy.
Then, slowly...
Life began shrinking.
At first it was only pain after climbing stairs.
Then came pain after standing.
Soon walking to the market became difficult.
Getting into buses became frightening.
Visiting relatives became tiring.
Eventually...
She simply stopped going.
Friends called.
"Mita, we're all meeting this Sunday."
"You must come."
She smiled over the phone.
"Maybe next time."
There was never a next time.
Birthdays...
Family gatherings...
School picnics...
Temple visits...
Everything slowly disappeared from her life.
Not because she didn't want to go.
Because she could no longer enjoy going.
The pain wasn't only in her knees anymore.
It had quietly entered her heart.
She stopped laughing.
Stopped dressing up.
Stopped buying new sarees.
"What is the point?"
she would tell herself.
One evening her husband said gently,
"You hardly smile these days."
She replied,
"I don't even remember the last day I felt normal."
Something strange had happened.
The pain made her sad.
Then the sadness made the pain feel even worse.
She stopped walking.
Because she stopped walking...
Her muscles became weaker.
She gained weight.
Every extra kilogram placed more pressure on her painful joints.
The pain increased again.
The circle continued.
Round and round.
Like a prison with invisible walls.
Many people think depression always begins inside the mind.
Sometimes...
It begins inside a painful knee.
Or an aching back.
Or a damaged hip.
When pain steals your freedom...
It slowly steals your confidence.
Then it steals your happiness.
One afternoon Aditi quietly sat beside her mother.
She held her hand.
"Maa..."
"When was the last time you went anywhere because you wanted to... not because you had to?"
Mita couldn't answer.
She realised she couldn't even remember.
Pain deserves treatment.
But people deserve treatment too.
Sometimes medicines help.
Sometimes weight reduction changes everything.
Sometimes stronger muscles protect painful joints.
Sometimes better sleep improves both pain and mood.
Sometimes speaking to someone lifts a burden that no painkiller ever could.
Often...
It is not one treatment.
It is several small treatments working together.
If you or someone you love has stopped enjoying life because of persistent joint pain...
Please don't dismiss it as "just ageing."
Pain affects the body.
Pain affects the mind.
And together they can quietly steal years from a person's life.
The good news is that this cycle can often be broken.
The first step is not climbing the stairs.
The first step is asking for help.
#arthritis #depression #mentalhealth #jointpain
This story is fictional, but the emotions and medical problems it describes are experienced by many people every day.
Dr Arun Maji, MBBS, FRACGP (Australia)
Kargil War Veteran
Former Senior Medical Advisor to the Australian Defence Force (SA & NT)
Founder & Medical Director
Sydney Doctor Clinic
Kolkata
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