I am not exactly sure but ‘Last Puff‘ was probably the first work of Nibhal Bajracharya that I came across in 2016. The short that’s not even a minute long had me interested in more of the aspiring filmmaker’s works.

In the years to come, he was part of a lot of projects — mostly shorts and music videos as director, camera person and other creative roles.

View this post on Instagram

“A day with Nitro” #ChrisAdler #Nitro #Kathmandu #LambOfGod #WhatADayItWas #nibhalsworld

A post shared by Nibhal’s World (@nibhal) on Sep 27, 2017 at 10:47pm PDT

The year 2018, too, started on a not pretty good note for him and he was part of a couple of good music videos but as the months passed by, less of his works started to appear. And after two years, I know what had happened.

The vlogger put out a new video earlier this week, talking about the dark times he was going through in 2018, in the wake of the recent death by suicide of popular Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput that has people talking about mental health and depression.

“This was Holi 2018. This was around the time when I stopped making regular videos. Yeah, I was going through some shit times — depressed and useless. I spent most part of the year like this, staring at the ceiling of my room. Why you ask, that is the story for some other day”, remembers Nibhal.

“I woke up pissed off. I was angry all the time. I was pissed off at anything and everything for no reason at all. I hated everything. I hated all the days, all the mornings.”

The 12-minute-video then takes us to Holi 2018 when he went out with his friends and shared some good times with them. But it was momentarily with him going back to “square one” as soon as he got home and started getting pissed off for almost no reason.

Cut to now, the video has then Nibhal speaking about his experience and what he learned about depression. “This is is one tiny example of what living with depression looks like. I’m not saying that everyone experiences the same pattern all the time. People have their own ways to cope with things.”

“The joyless darkness becomes normal, almost a part of life, a weird comfort zone.” He then talks about how he appreciates the netizens offering to listen to people with mental illness on social media but why it might not be a great idea.

“Listening to someone with depression is a tough task and if you are not trained to listen, and if you do not know what to say and what not to say to a person with mental illness, you might make things worse for him or her, unintentionally.” He says it’s important to talk to a professional if you’re going through a hard time.

The first thing that I did after watching his video was sending him a message on Facebook and found out that our last conversation was in January of 2018 when he wished me a happy birthday; and before that, it was a year ago. It was good to know that he is doing well now.

Thank you for sharing your story, Nibhal. It was important. And to all the people who are having a tough time dealing with their situations right now, please hang in there. I hope it will be over soon. Talk to a professional if need be. Just take great care of yourself.