Dancing Into The Minds: (Part. Two)

Written by Andi Bazaar | Aug. 6, 2022

“Bad mental health does not excuse treating anyone and everyone like shit, it is not a get out of jail card and makes a joke out of people who genuinely suffer and make efforts to get themselves healthy.”

This article is going to be long as I’d try to pen down my journey from a kid to an adult and my tryst with anxiety all across this timeline.

I have experienced a strict parenting since my childhood:

• i wasn’t allowed to venture out.
• play with kids of the many regrets which i’ve is that i never got to play with marbles.
• never held a cricket bat in my hands in my childhood.
• i wasn’t supposed to even go cycling.

I recall my childhood being caged like a pigeon in a cage who isn’t allowed to fly, I pulled through it until I passed my high school examination and I wasn’t good at mathematics but my future was already decided by family and relatives.

I had to crack JKCET entrance examination and be a doctor, a road in which I was destined to fail miserably and I did fail in this pursuit, I was already on anti-anxiety drugs since my childhood and when my secondary school examination results came out it was disappointing.

This was a phase when whole of my family along with neighbours started vilifying me at the mohalla shops and inside my home, I never knew what's it like to be content and peaceful at home since I could never find peace inside it.

I was subjected to a violent and abusive up-bringing and the only thing at that time in my mind was to find an alibi and escape through the prevailing hostility, abuse and disdain towards me I finally went to Jammu for a polytechnic course, something I never wanted to but I had to move out just to be away from everyone, to find peace in my solitude.

It continued for a couple of years until I decided to return home and continue my studies, I was good in arts so I took up a judgment call, called my mom and told her that I'm coming back.

She resisted initially but gave in to my insistence, I finally came back. I went to college for an admission but owing to my extrovert nature and vulnerabilities I couldn't find it compatible to go and sit in classrooms which were now occupied by my juniors, thanks to my lack of self confidence and the bullying I had been through in my school days.

A professor then advised me to continue my education through distance mode and I did that and completed my graduation in 2002 I remember on the completion of my graduation a strange sense of joy filled me, it was a rare experience which I never got to feel too often.

I then enrolled myself in NYU for a PG programme, this was a time I was already publishing articles regularly in different dailies of the state, a series of protests swept the whole of NYU and the state booked me under fabricated charges, the examination was going on in the university and I was undergoing trial for a crime I never committed.

I was forced to stuck back to the quagmire I just had freed myself from, this phase which continued for almost two years was way depressing than anything I had experienced in my past.

I couldn't sleep well, there was so much going in my mind and I had no one to talk to, instead of support and love I was again met with disdain, disapproval and disappointment.

My academic career was hit hard, I once again had to pull myself together and seek my PG from distance all by myself with no one to counsel me or support me. As the time kept passing I started figuring out that even I don't know myself completely, I discovered a totally strange person in me who can do anything anytime.

The games which your mind plays with you are so twisted and twirled that once you get tangled into them it's not easy to escape, the worst you can get during such a rough patch is that those who you look up to don't understand you.

“your own family doesn’t understand the person you are, the battles you are fighting with your own self.”

Such a situation can push you to a limit of no return, my nights and day are still spent thinking recalling my past with an immense sense of remorse, I had always been sure of one thing that no matter what happens but I can’t harm my own self but that has also changed now.

I don't know when your bound of tolerance gets breached and you end up taking a step which you never would have approved of in your past, mocking mental health, bullying and abuse can mean nothing for those who haven't been through it but trust me it's not a pleasant thing.

I vent myself on social media platforms, I use them as my journals and some of you have been very kind here who listen to me, lend me a shoulder of support. These things may seem to be small but they mean a world to me, they give me the strength to keep going through my darkest days.

I only hope now that one day all this will be over like a bad dream and I'll look back at it and reminscence all the wrongs I've done, I will overlook the people who failed me and the expectations which I had from them.

You're not defeated when a world turns against you but you're bound to be shattered once your own family becomes insensitive and careless about you.

We talk a lot about people ending their lives without knowing the situation they're in but we don't talk about the rot which our society is plagued with, there's so much to talk about and there is so much to be corrected and there is so much to appreciated about life.

THIS IS MY SHORT JOURNEY THROUGH MY PANIC ATTACKS AND ANXIETY

It's been 10 years since I started suffering from panic attacks and anxiety, I was diagnosed of the these two disorders sometimes October 2010. It was a horrible experience when these two disorders started!

It all started with a normal insomnia, then being irritable during the day and then uncomfortable blood rush associated with thoughts of fear, negative thoughts, irrational thoughts, existential crisis and catastrophizing. Yep I wondered a lot about life and why we existed!

“the more thoughts running though my head, the more i experienced panic attacks, then they became persistent, they came daily, i was almost anxious all the time.”

My life was paralyzed, I was always anxious at all the times and couldn't function anymore and missed classes.

During the semester which these disorders started I was staying on the second floor, I asked to be moved to the ground floor as I started developing phobias for heights and some people perceived this as madness Yeah right, I figured that this was going to be a long battle!

I was 22 years of age, I always closed myself indoors. It almost felt like I was scared of the world, I was scared to live, scared of everything even just driving inside a moving vehicles was an impossible thing to do. It felt like I was once in a car accident or survived a crush, I quit school.

Story I never told a lot of people or don't feel proud of, yep! I became a varsity drop out... out and back home, scared of everything almost felt like depressive episodes. I isolated my self for almost a year doing nothing, just sleeping, eating and panicking.

The level of education or awareness on panic attacks and anxiety in New York was very low and disappointing, only psychiatrists and psychologists understood what I was going though was. I survived, I survived and I grew my knowledge as well.

Read daily on how I have survived, referenced a lot. I almost studied the entire panic attack and anxiety.

“the more i learnt and got the meds, the more i understood what my mind was capable of the more i got control of the situation. i went to church as well, built some faith.”

I got better, went back to varsity kicked ass and now I am in control of my health. I know how it feels to be alive and dead at the same time or alive and not serve the purpose god intended you to serve, I am relieved and I am doing well. It is a life time battle and I am ready.

Your mental health, your capability in life. mental health is as important as any other health threat out there, stay well and always be grateful.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Dr Oliver Schofield, MD (Consulting)
• Dr Seth Gryffen, MD (Consulting)
• Henrie Louis Friedrich (Analyst)
• Clayton Euridicé Schofield (Editor/Model)
• Shot at GQ’s Studios by José Schenkkan and Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph