Dreaming of you

    A peculiar characteristic of a lot of my dreams is that I am often out of my body, looking at myself from afar. It's an out of body experience that I can't explain. Now that I put it in words, it almost seems to be, that my dreams have an imposter in my flesh, who's trying to steal my life. But it wasn't so. I felt and thought everything that was happening, I could just see it from the outside. 

    A lot of us imagine what we look like from the outside....I do too. But how we're seen by society isn't the topic of this article today...it's about how you see your own life. 

    I grew up seeing and imitating a lot of thing I saw in shows and movies. I tried to fit into characters I liked and thought were cool. (Are we all imposters? Or is this just the imposter syndrome?)

And one of these imitations as a kid, happened to be journaling. It started out on an incident of rejection but turned out to be something that helped me gain a great awareness of myself. It has been 9 years since I first started.

    It’s great to have a way to rediscover who you used to be in the past. I often come back to my old diaries whenever I go through identity crises, which, due to life-changing decisions and my questioning, happens often. It’s a way to peep into your past mind…it’s all the information about you that you can’t memorialize into photographs. Though I’ve heard of another method of using photos in diaries. (I also want try video diaries in the future.)

    When you begin writing all about your day, you begin to learn how to capture every nuance of your living experience and convert it into words. It isn’t that other people can’t feel as much as you do or live boring lives. It’s only that they don’t romanticize their lives the way I do.

    They don’t understand how romantically exhilarating it is, to read one’s old diary entries and feel the fondness of self-love swell in your heart. A certain pride from looking back and ruminating over life and thinking, “Her, I knew her, I was her, I am her.”

    Maybe this is how my strange dream viewing from afar began to conceptualize in my mind. I relive moments of my life by reading diaries and dreaming about them. (I also dream of the future and fictional stuff like any other person.)

         Sometimes I wonder if I could live like that, peering at myself from the outside….in romance of how much I’m in love with the person I’m becoming. Then I realize I’m already doing that, in a way, when I look at the life of the one I love. I capture every moment and keep it in my heart fondly.

I see and I like what I see.

My journey through Mental Health

        I realize the opinion I was born into...that Mental Health didn't matter and I had to just tough it out. I thought therapy and psychological medicines were only for severe cases or for crazies but I was wrong. I now I realize there's a benefit that can be had for everyone.

       My journey began when one of my classmates committed suicide and I promised myself I would do everything I could, to reduce suicide rates in India. But it isn't just suicide, there are so many suffering mental illness patients that go untreated because of the stigma. I chose Arts and started studying Psychology, with an ambition to cure this country in whatever way I can, from the pains of having to suffer alone without required treatment. I wanted to become a psychologist. (I could still become one maybe)

        After a few years of conflicting reasoning with myself, I finally went for my first therapy session to my college's counsellor. She was great. We talked about so many things that bothered me. She guided me out of every dysfunctional rut I was in. She helped me become a better person and I'm so grateful for her. She inspired the article I wrote, "Good therapist, Bad therapist." She was a good therapist. She really equipped me with tools, I think I will always use in my life. I felt safe to have my mind in her hands, there was a trust between us and having her be so similar to me, really did help make that trust so strong. I felt like I didn't have to be a therapist if people like her already exist. The world felt like it was in good hands. My burden of thinking being a therapist would be the only way I could change the world had lightened.

Ever since my experience with her, I've been telling everyone to see a therapist and they've all been offended or annoyed at me. 

Why? 

It's because people still think you have to have something seriously wrong with you to go for therapy. 

I honestly felt that shame and stigma associated with it when I used to go. I would say lies instead of just blatantly saying that I'm going to the therapist, whenever I was asked where I'm going. I eventually got comfortable with saying I'm going for therapy, no matter what the reaction was. Everything unknown is scary, I guess, and then once it's known....it isn't scary anymore.

    A year later I went to another psychologist who wasn't so great. But it still made me feel better, having told someone about it. It isn't a surprise that she inspired me to write the 'Bad therapist' part of "Good therapist, Bad therapist." Though I'm sure she meant well. The fact is, some therapists don't work out. It's ok to go in search of others who will be right for you. 

    I find it utterly strange how slow the stigma for therapy is fading...everyday lives are lost to suicide...lives are ruined with mental dysfunction...or just the sad reality that some people constantly feel like they're living unsatisfactory or underperforming lives. Psychology brings us all together. It builds a path on how to be the better selves we want to be. It is so helpful if people just give it a chance.

Chances are, you're still not going to ring up a therapist and make an appointment for a session. But please, don't judge and shame people who do. Self-help books written by therapists also helps you better understand the way your mind works and how to better treat yourself...all in the comfort of not personally reaching out to a therapist for a session. 

    Everyone needs a little help sometimes. 

    That's the thing, we're never really alone in our problems. There always will be people who want to help you...whether it's a concerned friend/family member or a professional psychologist or psychiatrist. 

I know Mental Health Day 2020 is nearly over in India, but there's still so much that needs to be talked about and encouraged in our society. There's so much we can still do.