For most of my childhood, I was a bubbly, active child, who loved books and movies, art, photography and music and was always there to help anyone who needed it out. I was constantly creating things, and being an only child with two working parents meant I spent a lot of time on my own.
I remember being around 15
I stopped enjoying everything that made me, me. I was always emotional, and growing up, I dealt with being so different from the other kids that they made me feel like an outsider for it, even though I didn’t think much of it because I had a hundred dream worlds to escape to when I was alone. But suddenly, I was crying a lot more, fighting with my parents, failing classes and constantly doubting myself. I eventually saw a counsellor at school after a crying spell in class, and my school told my mom and dad about it.
I started therapy with a child psychologist to work on my anxiety, but after a few sessions I felt guilty about things like wasting my parents’ money, and not being able to control my thoughts and actions, so I stopped going to therapy. I tried to deal with everything on my own, but I hid the constant anxiety and occasional panic attacks for many years.
A few years into my life as a freelance designer…
I had some unexpected work setbacks that made me feel like a total failure and I struggled with the onset of a major depressive spell. Working in the design industry means there’s a constant pressure to innovate and create something new, which left me exhausted. I was irritable, crying all the time, and didn’t feel like being alive. I felt lost and broken inside. Like I was at the bottom of a pit, and nobody could reach me, and nobody wanted me around. I stopped showering, or being able to get out of bed, or eat more than a few bites of food, and didn’t want to see anyone.
- Use a mood chart to track your headspace. With different colours representing different moods, fill in one square of a grid each day. After a month, look back at the predominant colours of the grid.
A few weeks into this, I knew that I needed to get help, so I sat my mother down and told her that there was something wrong. That I was feeling messed up and worthless and I needed to see someone. She found me a psychiatrist, who immediately started me on medication and weekly therapy sessions, which continued for some time.
I’m lucky
Most of the people in my life saw the difference therapy and medication (I am no longer on them) was making to me. Of course, there were friends who thought I was being over dramatic, and made jokes about it. Thankfully, most of my close friends were happy that I was trying to sort myself out and regain control of my own life.
I had one of my oldest friends, Seirra, call around town to find me a new therapist, a few years ago, as I was going through a tough time. She then met me after every other session for movies and naptime, because therapy can be tough.
A close friend and neighbour, Krithika, who is also a therapist, spent a lot of time with me, just giving me a safe space to talk, and I began to find more fun and productive ways to unwind, like occasional yoga or playing board games.
I had another friend, who I met at a point in my life where I was ready to give up on living, unbeknownst to everyone in my life. He has really helped me see that everyone has something they are dealing with, and you just need to have faith in yourself and know that you will learn something from whatever you are going through. He is posted in another part of the country, so he lets me write mindless letters to him and make art that I always wanted to, but was scared to try. Having a non-judgemental outlet for my creativity was something I didn’t even realise I needed.
Other friends made sure to still include me in plans, even if I rarely showed up, and some of them came home because I often didn’t want to leave my bed. I know not everyone is lucky to find people like that, but I guess that it’s important to surround yourself with people that are good to you and for you.
Lately, I’ve met some friends who love to listen to music and eat and travel, so we do that together. It’s been great for me to take breaks and time away, with like-minded people, to laugh with and to discover what I like and who I am. It’s helped me overcome a lot of my anxiety. They let me be me, and are always a phone call away. It’s made many hard days better, just knowing they are around.
Why do we avoid asking for help?
I think more often than not, we are afraid to admit there’s something wrong, or that we are dealing with something that we need help with. There’s the guilt of being unable to deal with things that other people can, or the fact that I felt alone and like nobody would understand.
My friends Anisha and Anovshka, who had just started working on projects at The Live Love Laugh Foundation, reached out to me to work on some design for mental health awareness, and that’s when I realised how important helping other people find help is. It is common to keep everything behind closed doors in India, but at some point you have to just deal with it and not care, because it’s your life and your mental health. One day, your life will change too, and you’ll see that everything has led you to this moment.
In this series, we will be featuring first-person accounts of people who have accepted, acknowledged and sought help for their mental health problems
