I have a loving husband, a wonderful child, a good job, a supportive family and all I wanted was to end my life. I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what it was. I had carried so much over decades – an absent father, broken relationships, family issues, work-related stress. All those pent-up emotions started coming out in varied forms – as anger, anxiety, an absolute blankness, an inexplicable sadness. I couldn’t make sense of anything, it was so overwhelming. The mind went numb, and frequently.
It was sheer coincidence that I received a mail about an employee assistance program in my office. It was an initiative aimed at ensuring the mental wellbeing of the company workforce. I spoke to a therapist and that’s how my journey to recovery started.
I’ve been in therapy for over two years now and I’m glad that I took the first step. It has helped me understand my feelings, emotions and thought processes better; it has helped me introspect deeply. It’s like facing a mirror and it reflects all your good angles and rough edges which you didn’t know existed. It answers the Why on a lot of things, whether you are ready to accept them or not. Therapy is not a smooth ride; the more we started dredging, I started getting regular nightmares. As I adopted methods suggested by my therapist, the frequency of these nightmares came down and eventually stopped.
I, however, was sure about one thing – it helped me deal with my issues, it helped me decide against dodging them or pretending to ignore them. It gave me the courage to speak with my molester. I didn’t even realize that the incident which happened 35 year back had bothered me so much till I went to therapy. I was so clear on what I had to tell the person and when the conversation was over, I felt light. What I did felt so right. I was so glad that I spoke. For the first time, I understood what ‘dealing with something’ really meant. That is when I realized that I am on course to recovery.
Survivor Series: Anonymous5
After two years of therapy, I can say that I am in a much better space now. It’s very important that you find the right therapist – someone you can connect with, someone you can trust, someone who holds the boundaries as sacred, gives the freedom to discuss or not discuss something and changes the direction of therapy if the approach doesn’t work. It’s a given that the person should be empathetic, caring and not imposing his or her thoughts on “the right and the wrong” on you. A good therapist doesn’t decide things for you. He/she guides you to take your own decisions. I’m glad I found the right person and I am indebted to him forever.
I feel it’s very important to understand the diverse aspects of mental health. It’s important to read more about it since there are a lot of myths surrounding the subject. While dealing with the condition, I also had to work around uninformed, damaging responses and advices from well-meaning people. These myths are to be broken down.
- If you are a mother and you have a cheerful little one at home, you can never get depressed
- I also felt depressed last week when I missed the train
- Life is full of ups and downs; we should be strong enough to face all that, don’t be weak
- Everyone has problems, don’t make a big deal of yours
- Forgive people and you live in peace
- Forget the past and live in the present otherwise you will be unhappy forever
- Therapy is like addiction, you can never come out of it
- Meditation is better than therapy and it’s free
I am working towards creating awareness about mental wellbeing. I am also trying to break myths around the subject – one at-a-time.
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