Therapy blues

Therapy, taking help of mental help professional to sort thoughts and behaviours. Is not an acceptable word in our day to day discussions.

Around a decade back at a juncture when it was realised that an external help for mental health was essential. A lot of reactions came my way.

• This is not a thing we usually do, you can do it, distract yourself.
• May be pray harder.
• May be you didn’t do something right, so it’s a way of payback.
• I am here to talk for you. Why tell a stranger, what if it’s leaked.
• What is there so much to feel about? Why don’t you replace this thought with something positive.
• All these well intended or not, suggestions were not convincing enough at that time to defy and take external help.

Once you take help, then too, you are cautioned not to talk about it or discuss it. This needs to be either told as something more appealing like say some training. The fear is labelling or assumptions that the people around have.

There are many thoughts which float around, like

• Once a mental patient then you are one for life.
• There is nothing you can do to help such things, as these are just illusions.
• Mind needs to be controlled. You have the luxury of letting it free.
• If there are medications involved, then you are addicted to it for life.
• Just take a break, reset and come back. You would be OK.

The patient, in this case, is already in a vulnerable place, and all these doubts when heard can make us think of incapable individuals with pitiable self-confidence and zilch self-drive.

In my case, I shopped around therapists, not necessarily with the first person you would be comfortable with. So there could be a lot of persistent effort from our side, which in my case was driven by my pathetic state, for which I needed a quick fix.

That is another myth which got busted, I started my repair around age of 40, so by then there is almost four decades of set patterns and of which some or most needs tweaking. And I was looking for quick fix, which is immaterial even by creator himself. So slow progress by different methods is the normal process. In this case some time the progress 10 fold and then very next we might have retracted 12.

The care givers in this journey needs special mention. They do take a big brunt as it is as much your journey as theirs too. Most of which is not known to them, which can make them frustrated and disconnected in certain circumstances.

By hook or crook by some distractions, the symptoms might move on, and some sunny days do dawn on. Thus, the cycle continues until there is a self realisation to break a spoke of the wheel and snap out of the spiral.

This self destructive spiral is not at all self afflicted, but a messy mashup of behaviors acquired over the years and situational influences internal and external.

Each of ours snapping out of this spiral process is different, too. Some of us can do it themselves, some choose not to do it at all, and others can do it with help from trained professionals or friends. Whatever may be it, what’s expected from people around could be

• Trust in our process and no inkling doubt.
• Patience and well timed humor
• Space, where there is understanding to intervene when needed
• Foremost Love to accept it as a journey sometimes relatable and other times to be just witnessed from fringes, with assurance for both sides to be there, what may be.