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It’s easy to call someone crazy. But you might not even understand what the other person might be going through. Here are 6 analogies, which might help you understand mental health conditions.
It’s easy to call someone crazy. But you might not even understand what the other person might be going through. Here are 5 analogies, which might help you understand mental health conditions.
It’s very easy to pass judgment on someone who is going to a mental illness. But do we really understand, what it really means to live with it. You really can’t know what it is to be disabled, until you fracture your bone.
To understand, mental illness better, here are some simple analogies.
Up and down and up and down. It sounds like fun and to those watching it seems like you are enjoying yourself and are on it, by choice. The reality is that some force put you on that trampoline and you don’t know how to get off it.
Being on a trampoline seems like fun until you have to do it forever. In healthcare terms an emotional trampoline is a condition called Bipolar or Manic Depressive disorder. Mania is when you go high up and do actually feel on top of the world, capable of achieving anything. And then you come down to a feeling of despair. After which as if you have no control, you just go back up and repeat the whole motion.
At times this trampoline game actually does get fun. It is when someone joins you, a friend or a romantic partner. You do fun, reckless things together and later they go back to normal lives while you hit rock bottom. At the end of the ride it gets tiring for the partner and they choose to leave. If only they could continue to hold our hand and help us keep some balance.
Wardrobes full of clothes, shoes and accessories and still ‘nothing to wear’ is a common feeling. To the outsider (later even to you) it seems like an irrational feeling, but it feels real to you. At that moment, it feels like your world is falling apart.
It is the same for those of us suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. At that moment everything that is going right for us our career, friends, family, home, money, roof over our head and even food seem inconsequential. We are hassled by that one thing that is not going right for us or the anticipation of it.
Anxiety is irrational. So are the ‘I have nothing to wear’ moments. We acknowledge the occurrence of the latter because they happen to more people.
Pre Menstrual Stress makes us women behave strangely i.e. unlike who we are. Sometime we feel extreme sadness or pain. We are easily irritable and angry. And there is no ‘real’ reason i.e. I may not have a reason to be angry with you but I feel angry because of some hormonal fluctuations. We have all grown to understand this phenomenon. Even men try to understand and care for it. But we hate ourselves for what happens to us in those days, because that is not how we are.
Now imagine feeling that way 24×7. 365 days a year. For years together. Top it up with no knowledge of if and when it will end.
“Dude you are not the one sitting here. I am scared and growing weaker by the day. I don’t have the courage to jump or face the consequences of my fall.”
Some of us on the tree try everything we can to climb down i.e. medication, therapy, astrology, diet, meditation etc. Some accept the reality and learn to live with the constant feeling of fear and fatigue.
People who love us are there on some days giving us company, play some music, bring our favourite food and generally give us the support we crave. They even help us climb down one branch at a time. But more often than not we are alone shivering in the rains, freezing in the cold and burning in the heat.
This person you are tied to is a bad person, a bad daughter/son, a bad parent, a bad friend, a bad sibling etc. Not just that this person is also ugly. Their skin has multiple breakouts and their hair has split ends. Their nails are not white enough. This person is unsuccessful. This person doesn’t even try enough. This person has a bleak future. There is no doubt that this person is constantly complaining.
Imagine being tied at the waist to this person. That is what we do when we indulge in self-hate. It helps if you gave us self-loathers a clearer picture, not with praise but with examples, instances and reminders.
Some potholes we avoid, some we jump over, some we fall in but it’s easy to get out. Then sometimes we fall into a deep one, it takes us a while but we eventually do crawl out. Sometimes we fall into a large pit and need you to pull us out.
And then there are times when we are so tired of navigating, falling, crawling out, asking for help that we choose to stay in and wish someone would cover us up with sand.
So, the next time you pass a comment or offer an advice, hope you are sensitive enough to understand that the other person might be in a space, which you might never know.
Depressed teen image via Shutterstock
The power of stories to inspire change made me turn into a storyteller. I write on 2 topics that need a very clear shift in attitude – ‘Being single in India’ & ‘Stigma attached to mental read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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