Me, My Mental Health and Others

Shatakshi Tripathi
Sep 24, 2020
3 min read

I have often found myself dabbling with the question," am I alright?", "Is this the usual me?", " am I getting too irritating these days or have I always been like this?"

As a person who loves overthinking their overthinking, every time I have some time, I end up introspecting. Quick browsing around and the world is found crying about the mental health and so, you end up feeling that damn, maybe I am depressed too!

People have all sorts of ideas about depression, stress, anxiety, and other things. I thought I'd take the scientific route and explore. So, I booked a therapy session, more like a 5 session mental health therapy to see if I really needed some help.

Now, I am a decently expressive person and also, at a lot of times, I can be found spending money just for the sake of it. I will not call myself a spendthrift but sometimes I spend because I perceive some value in it. The fact that there will be no value actually is another thing.

So, yes, I took this series of sessions. In all honesty, I found it hard to go beyond two.

The therapist expected me to open up and trust them. Maintain a journal may be, write down what hurts me, what I like, and all that stuff. Now, the problem is, if I had that kind of time, I would have sorted it out myself. Also, if I am finding it hard to cut a sorry figure for myself in front of my friends and family (who are actually very supportive), why would I open up to a random therapist.

Anyway, to save me from the situation, I reasoned with my brain and together we decided that no- I am not over-anxious or anything. I am just stressed because there is too much work. But then, being in a continuously stressful situation can wreak its own havoc.

For instance, thanks to all the continued working and stresses of the world, my cortisol levels increased significantly and I started having some serious water retention. A few months were full of irregular heartbeats and hyper fluctuating blood pressures too.

So, what did I do? Well, I started exercising, thinking that maybe this would give me the respite. It did help. I lost a lot of weight and it felt good for a while but then, aren't we humans the creatures of habit! I soon slipped back into my usual.

Fast forward 6 months, I still get very irritated. I still feel like I need rest, and yet when the time comes, I prefer working. I have way less tolerance for stupidity now than I had a year or so ago. Today, I feel comfortable in showcasing my charm offensive. I'll kick somebody's ass and not think twice because guess what- I don't care!

Now, someone may say that this is because I am too stressed and hence my emotions are out of control. I get that a lot, every time I call out a male whose ego is the size of a peanut. But, I think that's fine! They are humans too and they are stressed too!

All of us are stressed and have our own levels of tolerance. We all break as well.

But I think that's fine!

Anyway, here is what I do to de-stress or set my chakras straight:

A full body massage every month- I have the money, I'll pay for it
Sleep at a stretch whenever I want to by throwing my phone away
Take boiling hot showers- it really helps
Test that lamp in my workplace every morning.
Write one good thing on the board every day about why I am grateful for what I have- especially when I am super stressed
Think about how good I'll look giving the speech for Bharat Ratna
Write a random musing on Facebook
Look at a few memes every now and then