This all started when I was in 11th Grade and a high performing student. Suddenly one day, I started having sleeping difficulties which were so pronounced that I looked like a zombie within a week. I had visible dark circles under my eyes and I was unable to react to everyday situations normally. I kept on hiding and running from others and couldn’t study as I had been able to before. I suddenly became addicted to food and gadgets, and was constantly fighting with others as I was short tempered, and would get angry at the pettiest of things. All of this led me to temporarily drop out of school. I was taken to every mental health specialist available in my town, however no diagnoses came up and doctors claimed that I was normal even though I felt otherwise. I survived on my sleep meds and started depending on it when I was anxious during my college interviews.
Finally after taking a successful gap year, the last thing I expected was that I would fall back into the same nightmare. My university life started extremely well where I was the life of every event that I participated in, but soon I started falling into a steep ditch that made me very vulnerable. I started having eating problems due to excessive eating, sleeping problems and self-harming episodes and constant inability and fear to face people and take care of academics. When I was finally able to visit a clinical psychologist and based on my history she suggested that I may be living with C PTSD. This diagnosis did not make much sense to me and I felt as if I am the loneliest creature on the planet. I decided to take another interruption on the suggestion of my psychologist and my professor, and returned back to my home feeling sad that I couldn’t even finish the first semester.
When I returned home, I was initially very volatile and felt guilty for having returned back and seeing all my other classmates flourish in their classes, even though I feel great for them at times. The main problem was the amount of ups and down in my emotions, which I had no idea how to explain, combined with regular infliction of pain on my body which felt as if some monster was putting me through the pain and not me. Finally I visited a psychiatrist thinking Psychotherapy is not my cup of tea. That is when I was given medication, which made me feel more vulnerable even though it was good in the beginning. After roughly 2 weeks of using this medication, I started having serious flashbacks and I started behaving in a crazy fashion with my parents. I was given medication as an emergency measure to calm me and I remember, I was sleeping the entire next day because of the drowsiness caused by the medication.
Afterwards my online psychologist, with whom I had spoken with regularly since a few years, was able to diagnose me with a particular disorder that I could totally relate with. I finally felt I had found a match and started using my situation as fruitfully as possible; using my own problem as my positive force in life and started participating in social media writing blogs about mental health and conversing back with my classmates, old friends and family.
I think seeking help is very important and it as important as physical health and positive self affirmations like these help:
I am good enough for being myself
I am good and I ❤️myself
I am at peace with myself
I am good and I love my self for whoever I am
