Category: Self Therapy

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GG’s 12 Wellness and Health Journey Pointers

GG’s 12 Wellness and Health Journey Pointers

Hey there! You can call me GG. 🙂

The idea of mental health found a place for itself in my mind only when I was in my college. Until then, health entirely meant the physical aspect. Long story short, I was in a chaotic state while pursuing my engineering degree at NIT Trichy. My first and second years were gruelling, harsh and had a devastating impact on my mental state. I had a multitude problems from every front I could imagine – academics, career, relationships, and the protagonist of the story was existential crisis.

If what I am talking about here seems obscure, let me give you some background. I was an extremely studious person throughout school. Thanks to a sudden bombardment of existential questions and figuring out the meaning of it all, I lost my interest towards scoring high right at the perfect moment. Fortunately, my previous work paid off and helped me get a place in a good college. However, this state of mind followed me till college, and it was just the beginning.

Fear dawned within me. Actually, that’s an underplay. Fear and confusion “reigned” over me. My confusion: “What am I going to do with my life? What do I really like? What is the purpose?”, and all that sort of stuff. I just couldn’t bring myself to stability at that time. Days, months, in fact, years passed by as I was stuck in this state.

The Turning Phase

On one hand, I did enjoy my days there – Outings, late night talks and mini-adventures. The carefree nature I once imagined I could never have, also thrilled me. However, it were those same factors (people) that put me into depression for the first two years. Depression. Yes. Not sadness, depression. It wasn’t particularly people, but my thoughts which led to that state. I realize this as I reflect back now.

The turning phase came when I realized that this problem was not going to solve by itself. At the same time, this was something that I can tackle. My first break came as I began ranting about this to a close friend of mine. That lifted down a humungous weight off my chest. Next, I started listening to motivational stories – note, not motivational videos of people screaming, “Do this, do that!”, but inspirational stories of real-life people. I changed my eating habits, started pursuing new hobbies, went out, talked with more people. I was trying to figure out my passion, whilst reassuring that it’s going to be okay even if you’re late in discovering it. As time flew, I started noticing changes. A lot of them. I started becoming more stable, had lesser fear than before and felt a lot more at ease.

12 Wellness and Health Journey Pointers That I Follow Till Day

What I mentioned here was merely the nutshell of the things that I did and the time and patience it took for the internal transformation. If I were to list down the few key things of my journey so far, they would be:
1. Remember that it’s going to be okay.
2. You’re not alone in this battle.
3. Try sharing it with someone, if you’re comfortable with it.
4. Eat well. Eat healthy. ENJOY eating.
5. Do all the good physical stuff – yoga, breathing, exercises (it was dancing in my case).
6. Read, watch or listen to a lot of good stuff (remember, what type of content you consume is extremely important).
7. Consume relaxed content (the previous point was to focus more on inspirational or educational stuff). Stuff like music, anime and gaming always cheered me up.
8. Have a person you can look up to either in your personal life or some famous personality.
9. If you have ANY addictions in any form, try to get rid of them as early as possible (at the very least, reduce them).
10. Go out. Travel. Near or far, if you have the chance to go out, just go to that mountain or beach or forest, and enjoy the beauty of nature.
11. Start a new hobby. Few which I enjoy – writing, photography, cooking and dancing.
12. Interact more with people.

Also, get yourself around good people. I don’t mean to say some people are bad, but some relationships can be really toxic. For example, someone might applaud hustle culture, but that might not be suitable to you. Another example, you might be in a circle where everyone has a partner, but you personally feel that it isn’t the best time for you to get into one. Basically, end or loosen ends with toxic relationships that pressure you to do something you don’t like and surround yourself with people who can energize you, motivate you and keep you smiling.

These are some of the things that I did which eventually helped me to have a more healthy and stress-free state of mind. I really do hope and pray that this article is in some way helpful to you, the reader.

P. S. Hearty kudos to the team for the idea, vision and the work behind the Wellness and Health Journey.

Best wishes & peace :D!

 

GG is a first year MBA student.

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Thoughts on Social Media Posts about Mental Health

To make sense of your sadness and then heal from depression, negative memories, anxiety, health issues

It wasn’t too long ago that I saw something on Instagram that caught my attention. It was a post by an old college classmate of mine which said something along the lines of, “If you are ever feeling low, if you have something on your mind, please reach out to me and we can talk about it.” Now that post irritated me and I guess it’s just my anger issues cropping up but nonetheless, that post was thought provoking and I am here to tell you why.

I have had my fair share of mental health issues and I continue to work on them. I seek therapy often and I find that it helps me recognize and resolve the many issues that I face. And I want to stress on the important role therapy plays in deciphering, recognizing and resolving many mental health concerns and I want to make this clear, if you have issues that you find overwhelming, please visit a registered therapist and seek professional help. Do not fall prey to social media posts where untrained, attention seeking netizens claim to be there to help you. They have no idea what they are doing and more importantly you are confiding your deepest fears with them and this kind of granular personal information needs to be handled securely by a professional and not someone who puts up a post (unless they are from the professional background).

Therapy involves a lot of confidentiality and a lot of work. People who are not trained will not be able to handle such sensitive information nor have the right tools to efficiently protect your data. Many times speaking to untrained people can seem like a futile exercise and may add to the stress that you are facing. Those who think they can resolve people’s issues by declaring via social media that they are available to lend an ear – until and unless you are a trained health professional, don’t try to “resolve” someone’s mental health issues without proper training and experience. This could also be stressful personally. I would compare such a situation to giving a monkey the responsibility of maintaining a nuclear reactor, it is bound to cause a meltdown and if Chernobyl is anything to go by then there is no coming back from it.

I understand that mental health comes at a very steep price and these prices render it unaffordable for the majority of people and with stigma surrounding therapy you might feel like you do not want to seek help and put tags on your issues such as depression or anxiety but trust me a therapist is better suited to understand and resolve the issues that you face at the earliest and there are many pocket friendly ways in which you can seek professional help in your country.

I understand that it is a tough time and you don’t have to look too far for help.

Writing your thoughts helps with relaxing and slowing the mind.
Please Note: When you do not want Whj Online to post your articles, use the title “Do Not Publish: <<your title here>>”.

 

 

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Grief in Progress

Grief in Progress

My mind has never been a particularly “kind” place. Mistakes accumulate and failures persist. The sense of never-being-quite-good-enough lingers, and makes sure any new venture I start is heavy with the need to be perfect from the very beginning. To deal with this, I had a lot of mechanisms. I socialised, and drowned out the voice in my head with the quiet support of friends. I kept myself busy by picking up projects and setting deadlines for myself. I have 2 different To-Do List Apps, and at least 3 different notebooks tracking my tasks. At school, I tracked self-worth in grades received, events conducted, and teacher’s praise. When I started working as a teacher, my self-worth was contingent on how my students did, and I often thought of myself as the only factor contributing to their indifference/success in learning, completely sidestepping the multiplicity of factors that affected those students investments.

When the pandemic came around, I lost one of my coping mechanisms and I had a lot of time to myself. A lot of time to think about my mental space, and a lot of time to realise that the way I preferred to deal with my emotions was to not deal with them at all. Instead I rationalised and compartmentalised so that I never actually had to “feel” at all. I just needed to come up with explanations, I just needed to remain in control. When things happen, as they do, instead of allowing myself to feel guilt, sorrow, rage, frustration, I came up with excuses for why my emotions weren’t valid, or I would think of ways to suppress it all. I wanted to be different from my parents, so emotionally volatile, that I would rather feel nothing at all than drown in the depths. But the thing is, it’s also hard to feel joy and compassion and love if you have trained yourself to not let your emotions overwhelm you.

My therapist says that emotions remain in your body, that you can feel stress somewhere, anxiety somewhere else. If that’s true, my self-hatred rests between my ribs, always ready to knock me breathless when I am already down. My anxiety rests between tense shoulders, always ready to come to the forefront of any situation, and in a stomach that I hadn’t even realised I keep clenched, and in teeth that find themselves grinding, and in feet and hands that will not stop fidgeting and in my thoughts, “What if?”. I pushed my emotions down for years, but they stayed, making homes for themselves in my body, stubborn in their relentless need to be felt.

This year, grief has been so very loud. There have been so many endings. The suffering I have witnessed among communities, the struggle to stay ‘productive’, moving back to a broken home, and the constant fear of impending sickness– this is a year in which grief cannot be ignored.

So if you are grieving, for whatever reason or cause, know you aren’t alone. I grieve with you, and for you. Take your time, and let it overwhelm you. Your sorrow has a place in the world.

 

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Nikita’s Journey into Therapy

Nikita’s Journey into Therapy

For Anney

Needless to say, last year has been an absolute shit show. It was quite literally the most stressful I’ve ever been in my life and getting out of it has taken a lot of conscious effort. 

In March of 2020, right before the lockdown in India, I had a pretty sorted life. I had a job I loved, a wonderful apartment, a great set of friends and a loving partner. But in a matter of months literally everything unravelled. 

It began with my parents getting no income because of the lockdown. I was stuck in my hometown away from where I’ve been living for the last 6 years. I used to work for a travel company, so while I was lucky to still have a job (especially since about 40% of my company was furloughed), I hated the role I was given due to the reorganization that consequently happened. I was suddenly in a long distance relationship with no prep and things were just hard. No one really saw it coming and no one knew how long it was going to last for. 

3 months later, there was still not much change in the situation. But I went back to Bangalore where I was living and met my boyfriend and started looking for another job. I luckily got a much better offer and things were beginning to look better for me. However things at home were getting worse and there was a lot of guilt associated with staying alone and spending so much money when I could be back home and support my family that has 4 adults. So after much protest from my boyfriend, I packed all my things and moved back home. 

That put a real strain on my relationship. Things at home was very stressful and I became the mediator between all the adults fighting at home. Literally everything made me cry and I felt helpless and my boyfriend started shutting me out at this very point which ultimately pushed me over my limit. I knew I needed help and my friends were wonderful. They were always there for me if I wanted to talk. But if you are anything like me, even that started making me feel guilty because I didn’t want to depend on them too much, because I’m sure they had things happening in their life too and I was in no situation to support them. 

I finally turned to therapy. I just needed someone to talk to. To help me sort out all the stress, anxiety and fear I was feeling. When I started therapy I knew a break up with my boyfriend was inevitable and it did happen. I was depressed for the next couple of months and I was constantly crying and lost a lot of weight. And this was not something I could talk about with my family. I had completely lost sight of who I was as a person which was a huge shock in itself, because I have always had a very strong sense of self. 

I had very flexible working hours and I was anyway working from home, so it was becoming hard to differentiate day and night, weekdays and weekends. Therapy was something that I started looking forward to. It was a much needed pause to an otherwise endless blob. Recollecting the past week helped when there is an active listener making note of everything that I say and guiding me through it, one step at a time. Therapy really helped me go back to who I was. It helped me figure out what I can compromise on and what I cannot. It helped me set boundaries and not feel guilty about things that were not my fault. It helped me accept the fact that I cannot control everything happening around me and it really just helped me during a very hard time in my life. 

This was 7 months ago and a lot has happened since then. My parents are still financially strained, but things are better after making some hard decisions. I took a solo trip for a month, just to get a change in environment that really really helped me. By A LOT. I applied for my masters and am all set to begin in the next few months. After struggling with my new job in the beginning with everything else that was happening in my life, it’s currently going really well. My ex boyfriend also reached out to me wanting to fix things and while that is gonna take more time, we are working on figuring things out. 

The past year was difficult but I have learnt a lot about myself as a person. It came with a lot of hard lessons and through it all, I have continued therapy. 

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Tjard’s Apprenticeship as an Electrician

Tjard’s Apprenticeship as an Electrician

Hello! I am Tjard and I have lived on the island of Sylt in Germany all 20 years of my life. If I would not live here I would probably be way happier. I am fine with any pronouns used on me but feel uncomfortable at the idea of expressing myself about it here. I have some reasons for this like my uncle(that lives on the “property”) who just before my apprenticeship started, “warned” me about a “man” who outside of work hours wears dresses. Also, the co-worker I am on tour with most of the time, once told me he would be very disappointed in seeing me date a man. He is my direct neighbour. He is hard to deal with most days and drains me. I theoretically like what I work as and it can be really rewarding and get me really really happy. I am an electrician’s apprentice. I like the diagnosis and repair of home appliances and love to see “historic” home appliances on which this is the easiest.

I understand the need for more efficient appliances, maybe just more sustainable but what I see in modern devices does not seem in any way more sustainable to me. They use more electronic components which are prone to failure and are “repaired” by replacement. This is expensive and resource intensive. Our global recycling does not recover all resources and is energy intensive. I am pretty certain that the longevity of the historic devices outweigh the environmental harm done by their “excessive” use of water and electricity. The need of our capitalist system to grow has incentivised companies to lower the lifetime of devices and make it harder to repair them. It is really depressing to see/hear how people’s right to repair their own property has limited everyone. They should have easy access to repair tutorials and resources to do so.

I decided to learn about electronics around the age of 13 and started working at the age of 19. There are a couple of reasons for this. My family had financial hardships in the past and this job pays decently and feels really secure to me understandably. The interest in physical labour here has dropped so far that there is serious lack of personnel everywhere so it will be easy to find employment anywhere and will get me to a point where I can go to uni without needing to go into debt. I always had some interest in this and it just gives me even further independence by being able to fix any electrical problems I personally encounter with ease.

One recommendation I have for anyone that has come this far is to go to their distribution box and look if there is any device that says “test it regularly”, and well, just test it. They might also be built into sockets primarily in bathrooms. This would probably be a residual circuit breaker (RCD) and it is one of the few ways to protect people from death by electrocution and I find them really important.

This post has been written over around 2 hours. I like writing about myself and will continue with introducing myself further and going over to the previous chapters of my life at high school, which I could probably write many thousands of words over and still continue with this topic but I think 500 words of my incoherent rambling is more than enough.

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