Naimish belongs to the city of Kathak and lip-smacking food – Lucknow, UP and grew up in a family of 10 and although he was always surrounded by people, he is particularly close to his grandmother. The 22-year-old is currently pursuing his graduation in chemical engineering and residing on the campus of Central University at Chhattisgarh.
His hobbies include playing board games like chess, and cricket and watching Hollywood movies and much more.
Things started going south after his 4-year relationship came to an end. The long distance was difficult, and his girlfriend also confessed to having been involved with another love interest. They went to school together and had been involved with each other for a long time and suddenly breaking up like this shattered him.
“Those were the worst days of my life, I couldn’t speak to anybody because nobody really talks about mental health in depth.”
It was suffocating him to know that she had moved on but he was barely making it through the day. Although he tried to keep his happy face during the day, the night hours saw him awake and alone. He began withdrawing from all kinds of social interactions.
He persistently tried to get back with her and could not realise the pain he was going through. There was a lot of misunderstanding between the two and after the breakup, things were getting worse for him.
His friends could only tell him to move on, and the words felt like empty advice. Finally, it was his ex-girlfriend who navigated him towards YourDOST.
“Did I deserve this? I didn’t know what to think. I was getting engulfed by my own emotions and she had moved on. I needed an intervention.”
Naimish had his own share of stigmas attached to the concept of therapy and counselling. Growing up in an environment where mental health problems are deemed taboos, made Naimish question the process of counselling.
However, after a lot of overthinking and analysing, he decided to give it a try. He recalls that YourDOST was the only means of getting things out of his mind and speaking freely.
He got connected with his counsellor and was able to build a trusting rapport with her. She provided a safe space for him to share his worries and speak his mind.
“My counsellor was a great listener and was my guide through my hard days. She motivated me to speak up and let out all my insecurities and find a way around them.”
He was recommended a number of techniques that included breathing exercises and journaling. This helped him to calm down in times of stress or anxiety, and journaling helped him organise his thoughts, feelings and emotions better.
Although time becomes a constraint for a student, he was able to follow through with the methods and make them a part of his daily regimen.
“When you write about your feelings, it feels like a 3rd person is listening to you without any judgement. It helped me feel lighter and I was able to breathe comfortably.”
His sessions helped him express his emotions better and address his concerns in a more mature way. His frequency of overthinking reduced quite a bit and helped him sleep longer.
With counseling he also found his path back to social interactions with people.
His journey has been difficult at times when it gets extremely stressful when he is reminded of her. His emotions often flood through his mind and his memories engulf him, but now he is able to control himself better.
“At first I was sceptical about the process of therapy, but I am thankful to my counsellor for guiding me and showing me the true essence of counselling. Now, I advocate mental health counselling.”
Today, he has built his self-esteem and learnt to protect himself from negativity. He is more vigilant and confident about himself.
He is a much happier person as compared to when he entered his sessions. Counselling discovered a way to improve his ability in identifying his needs.
He describes his improvement as a newfound way of living life and rated himself a whopping 3.5 out of 5 in terms of getting better.
Naimish’s Warrior Tips:
1.Stressful incidents are part of life and one should go through the issues rather than avoiding them.
2.Take things one at a time and easy, a few years down the road, maybe you will stop and laugh at those moments.
