Why the World Would End Without Introspection and Mental Health
Since March 14,the day my college officially announced closure due to the pandemic,it has been a good three months,a life changing journey for me.
It was heartbreaking to see the cases rising day by day, fortunately we get to stay inside ,we are lucky to have a home for staying. All we have to do is stay home. Some of us are risking our life willfully to treat patients ,some are going the extra mile to keep people inside homes ,safe, some of us are lucky we have to do neither. This is an opportunity for us to spend more time with our family, and introspecting our lives .
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During college ,I was this anxious freak, filled with shame and nothing but ruminating all the time.I was close to burnout. I was so tired of life,tired of dealing with people,tired of feeling anxious, and felt more depressed day by day.I was exhausted.
When the lockdown started, I jumped at the fact that I can sleep longer without having to worry what I didn’t study for the next day, or how anxious I will feel the next day after seeing people.
The reason behind my fear isn’t overthinking.People tell me ,”Shruti you are overthinking, don’t overthink”.They were just trying to help with the purest intention. But stopping overthinking wasn’t the solution. You cannot stop a pattern of behavior that is so deeply etched in you since years.The more you try avoiding it, the more it will hit you. The society or ‘samaaj’ has taught everyone to be strong and not show our emotions at all.Well at least , not the sad ones. It isn’t about crying loudly in front of everyone .We don’t have to be happy when we aren’t.That shows how double faced we are taught to be.Lying about our feelings makes it even more difficult to accept them.
The present society is well aware now that depression ,anxiety and other mental health issues are real. Still, it is until a few years till everyone understands how to be supportive to someone dealing with not-so-good mental health. It doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful ,or how rich or poor the person is.
“Just like the corona virus does not discriminate between any human being, depression doesn’t either.”
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Everyone has had a depressive episode in their life at least once. One person could cope, took some time and came out of it. Some weren’t able to cope without someone’s support,doesn’t make this person was weaker than one that didn’t need support. Everyone’s experiences are different.
Human beings are social beings.One fundamental aspect of living with a better mental health is to have support . We cannot be alone for too long,we need people around us. But when circumstances don’t allow us to have that optimal social interaction, we need to feel in our hearts that we are not alone.
Someone could feel lonely even in a crowd of people, because these people may be there just for the sake of it. They may not understand what the person might be going through. With social media ,people have begun to worry more about the filter on their picture,than the happiness of the person in the picture. These media sites are empty and shallow if they are used to base your entire life’s worth.
I want all those who are reading my article to once picture their lives without this technology and see what their lives are like. If you feel worthless without it,then you have low self-esteem. And the problem isn’t “social media addiction” so just do a “social media detox”. The problem is the fear you have of people not liking or commenting on your posts.Just ask yourself a question:
After five years,would I love to remember the number of followers I had before? Or remember experiences in the real world?
Your pick.
You must be wondering how I just trailed off from talking about mental health to social media.
Because they are related. Now that we aren’t able to meet people in person for the support and feeling of belonging ,we rely on social media. I want all of us to see how social media can affect our mental health by this type of addiction. When we feel worthless,we feel hopeless. When we feel hopeless ,we get depressed. If the cycle doesn’t stop there, some may even contemplate self-harm.
Now I backspaced ‘self-harm’ three times after writing because it is so scary to hear about ,because no one knows how to manage someone that does self-harm. Those people actually don’t want to end their life, they want to end their trauma , their negative thoughts ,their feeling like a burden to everyone.
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You cannot control two of these three things- the traumatic events they may have had to go through,and thinking. You cannot tell someone how to think.
What you can do is let them know you are there for them as much as possible, as much as you can, and let them know that they are never a burden. That they can cry, talk, be silent, and you’ll be there by their side.
See who are your people, they may or may not be sad, doesn’t hurt to ask how they are doing. It’s not about ego here. Before, there were more phone calls than texts, so we felt more connected to people,even to those living far away. Texting was also invented for that very purpose ,but it was overused ,hence left us feeling less connected to people. Start calling more.Limit “chatting”.Call the person you want to text,talk to them.
Call up three people today and ask how they’re doing. :)
