“While silence can in some circumstances bespeak noble self-control, it can also signify suppression, oblivion or cowardice.” – Ephraim Mirvis
Being a people’s person, Uzma has always been a person with a lot of friends surrounding her! Uzma’s flamboyant personality denotes her enthusiasm towards various interests. Uzma happens to be a beautiful singer and has her hands on musical instruments too.
Uzma, who is 21-years-old, is currently pursuing her UG in Engineering Physics. Born and brought up in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, Uzma has been a jack of all trades, throughout her life! As a passionate nature enthusiast, Uzma aims at contributing to the environment as well. So, as a part of her final project, she plans to work on restoring the environment in her own possible way.
“With the onset of the pandemic, we were all homebound. I started developing a fear of oblivion along with a set of other problems.”
Being an extrovert, staying inside four walls without much social interaction had become a very difficult task for Uzma. Her mental state had lowered down as she felt more and more demotivated about everything.
While Uzma was still trying to push further in her studies, she was also bothered by the fact that everyone around her was bringing good grades. As much of the bane these online classes had become during the paYndemic, it was also causing difficulty to maintain relative grading in a fair manner.
“I began to fear oblivion. It was uncertain if I would get to experience college life again. What if all my friends forget me?”
Uzma wasn’t scoring her best grades at this point. The issues went deeper when Uzma felt a sudden drift from one of her best friends. Uzma was extremely close to one particular friend with whom some discrepancies occurred leading to a break in their friendship. Apparently, it was her friend’s fault. But,Uzma on the other hand, started questioning herself. She was overwhelmed by the feeling of her being on the wrong side and that took a toll on her mental health.
“Soon, I was losing hold of my appetite and schedule. I began to wonder if there was any point in anything that we were doing in life.”
As the fear of oblivion became her best friend, Uzma also started eating a lot of junk food compromising on her health. As she would get up late in the mornings and with her regime negatively affected, it was also creating a ripple effect on all other aspects of her life.
At that point, Uzma found the opportunity to get in touch with a counselor from YourDOST, which had a tie-up with her college as their emotional wellness coach.
“I realised that I needed somebody else’s opinion to get a clearer picture of what I was going through. So, I got in touch with Elisheba, a counselor from YourDOST.”
Uzma got connected with Elisheba through chats after which she moved to voice calls. Elisheba on the other hand listened to Uzma thoroughly before suggesting any solutions. There were times when Uzma was advised to carry out certain tasks on a bandwidth of 10 days and then connect back with Elisheba. Elisheba suggested Uzma follow a particular routine in the first place and add exercising to her lifestyle.
“I felt energetic throughout the day as I began to get past my bad experiences. By then, the pressure regarding my studies was also over, so it was easier for me to focus on my mental health.”
As time went on, Uzma was also getting back on track. The drifting away of her friend began to become the least of her concern. The best part was that instead of playing the blame game, Uzma stopped thinking about it altogether.
As Uzma extends her hearty gratitude to her counselor, she also mentions that YourDOST has been a very friendly platform. Uzma also states that “Without Elisheba, I would have been in a much worse place”. Sometimes we all need that one helping hand, don’t we?
In a fun rapid-fire round with YourDOST, Uzma described her progress through counseling as “insightful” and rated her overall improvement through counseling with a 4 out of 5. We, at YourDOST, are proud to see her reach this position today and wish her all the best in her future endeavours.
Uzma’s Warrior Tips:
1. We’re all struggling somehow and somewhere. It is better to get help from somebody who would be able to give a third-person perspective and give a piece of unbiased advice to our problems.
2. We’re so much in our heads sometimes that we forget that there are other perspectives to look at things.
3. It is not wrong to go for counseling because, at some point, we all need it.
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