The one in which I battled myself

 If I've decided to write and share something after a gap of three and half years, then that's a story I'm passionate to tell. This story albeit different from the rest is one such story that has more lows than highs and has re-shaped my approach towards life. Before you get excited to read ahead, I must warn you that the theme of this story aligns with the theme of the morbid two years we as a generation have seen.

 

Let me dive into the central idea of what your next four minutes will look like, provided you don't get a social media notification and jump right off to that. Mental health. This is not a post that gives you gyan about mental health but walks you through my journey along with my learnings from it. It's my story.

 

The best way to start this is probably with a question. Did you ever wonder what you're doing with your life and why you are doing the things that you're doing? Be honest, at least as a passing thought you did. Or did you ever reach a point in your life when you felt that you're stuck, have no idea of how you've reached this point, and are clueless of the future? You are lucky if the answer is no. Allow me to elaborate using an analogy of a simple task- driving a car. For all my life I thought I was driving my own car but only recently I realized that the steering wasn't in my control. It was in autopilot mode. Responding to the realization, I hurried to gain control of the steering but got clueless about the direction I wanted to steer in. Not just that, there was another overwhelming realization that the point at which I am right now is not where I belong. There are other beautiful routes that I wish I had taken. This broke me down completely as I started to look back and question every turn I took; trying to pinpoint a "wrong" turn which led me to the wrong(current) destination. Though the car was in autopilot, I blamed myself for this as the steering was right there for me to control yet I didn't. While I was in this tangled state of mind, looking back to find where I went wrong, I lost track of the road ahead of me. Fear demons sought their moment and creeped into my consciousness. I was afraid of moving forward because I lost faith in myself. I doubted if I had the skills to handle the steering on my own. Heck the steering, I doubted if I was capable to drive the car anymore. Confidence was on a downward spiral and sleep was the only escape from reality. The fact that I was looking back at my life in search for the "wrong turn" pushed me down the spiral faster. I was focusing only on the failures and suddenly my entire life looked like one GIANT failure. The constant fear I had of moving forward made me anxious and the constant anxiety led to resentment which translated to excessive sleeping. I created my own little reality in my sleep, a parallel world where I didn't have to stress about driving my car. I constantly felt tired, sad and guilty of something which I couldn't comprehend.

 

As it was beyond my capabilities to comprehend, I reached out for help by going to a therapist. I was diagnosed with extreme depression, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. To be honest, I was happy that I got diagnosed with something, because suddenly there was hope that I could be better. However I still didn't know what they were or how I was going to get better. The first and the most difficult step of getting better is to identify that you have a problem; for which I needed professional's help. Without help there is no way I could have predicted what I was going through as my awareness on Depression or Anxiety disorders is non-existent. They were neither taught in school nor presented during my induction as an employee. Not only me, but also most of my friends and family to whom I've tried to talk were unaware of the symptoms. This is one compelling reason for me to write my story as I want you to get knowledgeable about mental health and all the disorders modern lifestyle has made us prone to. One, like me, should not be spending the better part of two years just to understand that their state of mental health is bad.

 

During this journey, I lost myself and along with that, my routine. Having a routine is the most under-rated benefit for one's mental health. I needed one, and the loss of routine meant I could build one along with the help of my therapist. Yoga, meditation, journaling and cold showers are all by-products of my new routine and have been with me since. However, I had to start from scratch and each day I failed to follow it, I would be too hard on myself and fall back into that slump again. After repeated and multiple falls, I understood that the secret to be better is to just do the best I can without judging myself or my progress. I remembered the famous dialogue from my favorite superhero film, "Why do we fall, Master Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up." I understood that there will be occasional blemishes or maybe even more but none of them should break my hope. Hope is one trusted ally that is always with us, and more often than not, the only ally we have. Once we lose hope, we are at risk of losing ourselves.

 

Are you wondering what made me look back and evaluate my life in such a critical way? One short and simple answer to that might be time. Since I was a young kid I always had a vision of being someone by a certain age, and when I was suddenly at that age it felt like time took all my dreams away. I didn't know how and when I grew up but I did, which led me to ask myself the questions I asked you at the beginning. I was as clueless as I was when I was a little kid. I still am. But it's okay. There was a false notion within me that "adults" have their life figured out and it freaked me out because I hadn't.

 

This journey redefined my core beliefs to the extent where I was broken completely and then slowly started to stitch myself back up. For the first time I experienced true pain but it was not physical. The broken pieces were calling me out because they wanted to heal, and I continue to heal.

 

To sum up my journey and all the learnings from it, if there's one advice I would give to my past self, it is this: there is no rush to accomplish anything by a certain age. Each person has their own path and their own journey, don't fall into the unhealthy habit of comparing timelines with your peers. The most important thing is to be at peace with yourself and the decisions you take, even if those decisions are bad, they will help you at some point in life. And if you connect with my story and feel the same somedays or everyday- you should know that you are not alone.

 

....and that is the message I want to pass on to everybody else.

 

Life is best when you go with the flow; don't try to control what you cannot but trust and BELIEVE that that's the best for you!