The Mental Health Mirror Issue #3
Year 2018, Issue Number 3
Soundtrack of the issue:
This issue is best enjoyed while listening to
Inside Out
by
Spoon
Links: Soundcloud | Spotify | Youtube
Brought to you by:
This week's newsletter has not been made possible by multi-tasking, overwhelming nostalgia, or 5 18-hour days of working on excel sheets. Yet, against all odds, here is the latest edition, a rather shorter but sweeter and chattier one. Or, to go by the cliché, third time's a charm!
The demotion of emotion: of the things we need to unlearn
If there's anything that exhausts and exasperates me more than Trump's antics, it is the negative publicity that emotions (or the expression of) have earned in all these years of human evolution. We have progressed and regressed in countless ways but somehow 'being strong' has always been equated with being fierce, invincible and indefatigable. In a way, it is asking us to possess all the superpowers and be an impossible idea instead of the fallible humans that we are! When did being emotionally inept become a badge of honour?
The result is that we are a bunch of functioning humans, but not functional humans.
one: expressing our emotions is the most natural, but underrated part of being a human. But look at how many people just talk but never have a conversation, because, eww, feelings. All mental health issues begin with emotions that are not dealt with: either suppressed emotions, or repressed reactions to extreme situations and bottled up feelings that are bound to dangerously erupt at the most inappropriate and catastrophic outlets.
Honestly, people being able to emote properly (read: healthy) would be so refreshing for all of us right now.
two: stop shaming the people who are overly expressive. Expressing one's emotions is a sign of better mental health, and it doesn't make you a snowflake. I have personally dealt with awkward meetings where I have been called "too excited" or "chirpy" or the "over-enthusiastic" one. Guess what people, on days I give words to my feelings, or externalise my thoughts, at least I don't go through mental nightmare at night. Who's the winner?
three: know the right kind of superpowers to wish for! We all want to have a strength that makes us unbeatable, but consider this: we have enough people willing to tone their physical muscles, or plotting to be bit by a spider, but how about you think of your superpower as being the kindest person you know? (Not a competition, but you get what I mean) And if you think about (one) and (two) carefully, you'll realise it is as much abut emotional strength/resilience as much as it is about any traditional superpower.
Allow me to part with a dose of Grey's Anatomy, "We deny that we're tired, we deny we are scared, we deny how badly we want to succeed, and most importantly we deny that we are in denial."
Own your feelings, unabashedly!
the right questions
Stop asking
the wrong questions
Stop asking if
I am homesick
For a person
Or home
Or familiarity
Stop asking
if this longing is
for the hugs
or the friendships
Stop asking
if I want to go back
to years' worth of tears and smiles
to a knowing warmth
to a known embrace
Stop asking
the wrong questions
The Pick-Week Papers: (This column's name is a failed pun, and this column is a collection of my picks/recommendations of random things)
THOUGHT OF THE FORTNIGHT (or as I like to call it, Fodder for the Order):
On the myths around therapy:
I recently went for a therapy session and realised that recovery is a very conscious, concerted and gradual process and therapy is just a part of it. There's so much more determination needed. And another side of therapy is how I noticed myself noticing the very eery details of the office. How the waiting area had fluorescent cushions (which I mocked as an ineffective attempt to create a cheerful ambiance?, as I waited for my call)
But the concerning part is how so many people think of therapy as this magical solution, which it isn't.
So if any one of you has been to therapy, share anything and everything about it, so others know! Quite possibly this might also be the only good way you'd see Sarahah being used. Here's the link.
BOOK OF THE ISSUE:
Em and the Big Hoom
by
Jerry Pinto
Why I think this is an important book as far as the mental health discourse in India is concerned is because through the lens of fiction, we hardly get to see such a raw depiction of mental illnesses/disorders, and that too, in the Indian context!
You can read the blurb on goodreads, so I won't go there, but this beautiful book brings together and challenges so many of the established ways: how to live as a family, depression beyond its depiction as glamorous, middle age and mental health, among other important, hitherto unspoken themes.
Disclaimer and a word with the subscriber:
Your feelings are valid!
Thank you for being on this journey with me, and feel free to reply to this email or holler at kritika@thementalhealthmirror.com. Hedwig would have delivered your letter with your feedback, your comments, your perspectives, your opinions, and even your suggestions about what I could write in the next issue, but she's dead.
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