“It’s a question that has always been on my mind, is it ok to talk about it? Or should I just stay quiet? Will someone ever understand or they’ll think I’m doing this for attention? Do they even care to listen and understand? Even if they do listen to me will it be out of care or curiosity? What if they judge me and think that I am crazy?
These thoughts have always stopped me to talk about what I am going through. I am having an invisible disease, most people won’t believe me because of the stigma that is attached to it people will judge me or worse laugh at me. . It has always been a taboo so that is why I kept suffering from depression and anxiety for years. I have put on that happy mask on the outside in order to hide it but when I am all by myself it comes to haunt me every minute, every second and then that fear to open up scares me more. Not getting out of the bed on the weekends, not washing my hair, not eating, not sleeping and isolating myself from everyone even my family and friends. Whenever they sense something is wrong I shut them out. Will this fear of judgement ever leave me? Will it ever be ok for me to talk about my problems or I’ll always be scared of our society that doesn’t understand mental illness.
Deep down I know I need a therapy but talking to my parents about it is my worst fear. They provide me with everything. They have always loved me more than anything, always been there for me so why am I depressed? It will hurt them knowing that their daughter is feeling so weak and empty even after all that love.
But it is what it is. I am suffering from it and it’s a fact and keeping it to myself has never helped me instead it’s making it worse. I need to let this fear out of my system and talk to someone. “
That’s exactly what I did the next day after all night of self talk. I told my parents. And to my surprise they were still proud of me and more for speaking up. They took me to therapist the next day for talk therapy. I took few sessions for 6 months where she made me talk about my feelings and taught me how to express them in a positive way. My whole family knew that I was taking this therapy. Some of them judged me but some of them supported me as well. I started speaking up about it not just to my family but also to my few good friends. The support I got, surprised me a lot. I was watching every person from the same spectacles before but my perception changed after opening up. My days were happier and my nights were peaceful. The woman in the mirror was different. She all of a sudden became happy and beautiful. Her smile was different now, it was genuine this time. She started taking interest in her appearance, activities and more than that she took interest in her soul, her inner peace. She was listening to a beautiful music the world was playing for her and she was dancing to that rhythm. I realized not everyone was a monster I thought they were maybe I was so scared to show my emotions. And as the saying goes “The more you hide it the more it intensifies”. We are human beings in the end we all fall down it’s about who gets up stronger than before and about who even gets up. For that we need a decision in the heat of the moment. Do we want a different life than this depressive state or we want to stay in the same darkness. It’s in our hands to make a conscious decision. Sometimes it’s not even necessary to tell someone through words we can express through art, through our writing, through music, through dance whatever way we like but getting it out is important otherwise it will intensify and eat you from inside. DON’T LET IT MAKE YOU A VICTIM, BE VICTORIOUS INSTEAD. What you give power to, has power over you. Don’t you forget that
