“I know,
For me the pain won’t go away
I’ll keep dying inside until there’s nothing left.
If this is who I really am, I don’t want to live.
Why is it hard. It hurts so much”.
This used to be my daily rant in my diary when I was completely unaware of my feelings and emotions.
I’m a college student studying Physics, and since I never studied Psychology, I had no clue why I felt that way. It started when I began feeling so unusual. I always felt that something was missing even though I had (and still do) great friends and a loving family. There was some unknown, unresolved issue inside, which I kept brushing off by calling it a normal “mood swing”.
But the feeling of being suffocated within my body never went away. It used to hurt so much. There was pain inside me, apparently for no reason. Some days it felt like living under piles and piles of dirt, and not knowing how to climb up and come out of it. Some days it felt like I am that pile of dirt and most of the days I felt absolutely empty and nothing. I could still see flesh and bones in front of the mirror, but there was no life reflecting back from that mirror. I stopped eating because of a weird theory that how could I eat If I wasn’t happy with myself. I thought I didn’t deserve to be happy, and this gradually led to losing almost 20 pounds of weight.
I knew I had to do something about my well-being, but the truth was, I didn’t really care. It didn’t matter to me, and in fact, nothing mattered anymore. I was alive and that was the biggest achievement for Riya. I used to randomly go to Connaught Place for mental peace and just walk and walk and walk aimlessly. My mantra was to physically exhaust myself when I was mentally tired because that way my mind became numb as it didn’t have any strength left to think about anything. But then it started hurting more and more. I wanted to scream and tell someone that “No, it’s not alright!” for a long time and to just save me from myself.
I hated every bit of me. Every day at night, I wondered if this is who I am, a broken person, an empty soul, and if yes, then what’s the point. I couldn’t pretend to be okay anymore. I lost control of my body. I became helpless. I was so frustrated that every day I used to romanticise the idea of dying. I had a habit of getting obsessed with a certain topic for a while, and so I started exhausting myself by reading everything about mental illnesses, watching videos about mental health and doing it all over again. This is how I build an awareness about mental health. But you see it didn’t come from a healthy place. Building an awareness about my health could never be done in this manner, but I didn’t know what else to do. Reaching out for help was not an option, because I didn’t know what to talk about. The most important reason why reaching out for help was tough was because I had never treated myself with enough respect to actually accept that there was something wrong and that I might need help. I thought, maybe it’s just an “imaginary” emotion. Taking care of my own mental health has always been difficult because when your head tells you that you’re useless, you lose the capability to think straight. At that time, you won’t tell yourself, “Oh Riya, let’s practice self-love by making a cup of coffee”. Eventually I had my “Enough is Enough” moment when I got completely frustrated with myself and it became too tiring to hate myself every single day. It was too much work.
And then came the journey to seek help. I had a habit of getting obsessed with certain ideas for a while, and I knew that’s what I should seek help for. Everything started with me being done with the situation and thinking, “What’s the worst that could possibly go wrong?”
I connected with a few therapists and that’s how my journey with mental health started.
For me, mental health means giving my emotions the validation they deserve and not undermining them by saying that they’re “nothing”. I’ve undermined them in the past and it doesn’t work. I’m not saying that I’ve overcome my darkest days and now everything is back to being great. I don’t like to sugarcoat things, so yes, there’s no fairy-tale ending to this. It comes and goes. But it does get better. I still have bad days, but now I’m more self-aware. I know what works for me and what doesn’t. I know that setting up long term goals freak me out. I’ve decided not to read too much about mental illnesses as it triggers me. I’ve made all these choices which make my mental health journey a bit easy.
I now feel grateful for the things I love and that give me joy, like music (Check out Novo Amor, you won’t regret it), long walks, and of course, Maggi. I’ve started learning how to play the guitar, because it gives me joy knowing that I’m doing something related to music. All this really helps me to keep moving forward and appreciate life even more.
In this journey, my friends were my biggest support as they accepted me the way I was and didn’t tell me that I was being annoying (which I was). They reminded me that I am brave even on days when I barely got out of bed. The biggest lesson I’ve learnt along the way is that no one can understand how you’re feeling. Be with those who “want” to understand it. I still struggle to get out of bed at times. Yes, it is tough. But I am tougher. When I was at my lowest, I used to think that this is who I am and this is my identity, but slowly I realised that this is only a part of who I am and not my whole identity. Having a mental health issue does not determine who you’re going to be.
In the end I just want to say that please reach out for help even if it means talking about it anonymously online. You deserve help and you’re not weaker by asking for it.
And to those who have friends struggling with certain issues, please don’t just tell them to reach out for help when in need, instead reach in and give them the love they’ve always deserved. Show them that you care and that they matter to you.
