A little story of my life.

It was July 2017. The start of the rainy season. For some reason I have never liked the rains. The dull weather, very little sunlight and the unexpected rainshowers, always made me feel irritable. On the contrary, the greenery all around made me feel a bit fresh and alive, which was necessary as I wasn’t quite feeling that way from a long time.

I used to spend my time all alone at home, keeping myself locked in my room for hours. And when I wanted to sleep at night, exhausted from all the thoughts that kept running inside my head, I just could not! Simply because my mind had more time to wander here and there. Even if I did manage to sleep for an hour or so, I used to wake up finding it difficult to breathe. And all I could think of, was to run away from there, to find some air. Apparently, the air in my room wasn’t enough for me.

It was after twenty days of me behaving in a weird manner, that my mother decided to take me to a doctor for my little ‘sleeping problem’. It was then that I learned I was struggling from Insomnia. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself’ the doctor had said and gave the necessary medicines. I managed to sleep good for the next few days. But don’t they say you really can’t find peace when something is eating you up from inside? Very soon sleeping at night became even harder. Taking walks outside, picking up the calls, watching TV, and even eating proper meals felt like very big tasks to me.

I woke up from my regular two hour sleep one morning, and straightaway went outside to make an important call. Not even a minute had passed and I felt something strange. I was aware of my breathlessness, it wasn’t new for me. What made it strange was the fact that it was happening early in the morning this time, in the daylight.. instead of happening in the darkness of night. I cut the call as I felt my heartbeat getting faster and faster by seconds. I called my mom out, though something told me that I’ll get a heart attack if I screamed. My mother took me to the doctor immediately. Another round of medicines followed for the next two days. I had never felt so weak in my life. I did not even care to see what medicines I was taking. It was after two days, when I got hospitalized for feeling exactly the same way, that I realized I just had a panic attack. Though it should have been easy for me to determine what’s been going wrong, given that I have some idea of psychology from school. But we never really think that something like this could happen to us now, do we?

After yet another round of medications on panic attacks, OCD, and anxiety disorder, I felt weaker day by day. The only good thing happening around for me was the extra attention and love I got from my mother. We haven’t been very expressive when it came to be emotionally available for each other. It was always the small gestures like she making a cup of ginger tea for me, without asking.. or me putting on her favourite old songs from the 80s or 90s! On one hand when those medicines made me feel tired and forgetful, my counselor tried to make me remember things that were troubling me, most of which went back to my childhood and was already forgotten about. But ofcourse, you don’t just open up so fast when you’ve hidden a few things so deep inside your head, that you yourself are scared of visiting them.

In three years now, I have been to many psychologists and undergone therapy only to realize that it helps, but only temporarily. The path to self-growth and self-love comes from hardships, it’s not that easy and some good people might help you or push you a little in the right direction, but the journey remains yours. You and only you can take yourself out of that bubble of despair, and become the best version of yourself.

As for me, it has been an amazing and life-changing experience which only motivates me to look ahead and keep moving forward. And sometimes when it gets too much, I still seek help from outside without hesitation. And it still helps.