We as humans come across a series of relationships, connections and bonds that we create with people. While some are fortunate as it lasts, for some it becomes a life lesson.
Here is the warrior story of Rupali (name changed) who is a vibrant and joyful student from the prestigious college of IIITD, pursuing her M.Tech.
She has expressed that she is an army kid and the task of relocating has been a common thing in her life. This also means that Rupali had the opportunity to be around people from different cultures and that she had good exposure to the outside world growing up.
Rupali also mentioned that for most of her life, she has not had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her dad due to his occupational nature.
Her hobbies include listening to music, watching movies, and spending the rest of her time reading books. College space is where we as adults transform into becoming adults, and in Rupali’s case she started seeing people from multiple cultures come together all under one roof in her college and started exploring her interests.
“Joining college made me miss my family a lot. I started developing connections with people in college and developed a liking towards a guy who belonged to my friend group.”
She spoke of how things were all good until the dynamics between them started changing, and this started affecting her relationship with her and the friend group.
Rupali explained that they decided to break up, and this resulted in losing her friends.
She underwent anxiety, and panic attacks post the break-up and this is when she realised she needed therapy. It takes a whole lot of courage to say goodbye to someone you love so deeply. It’s easy for no one, but sometimes necessary.
Though Rupali would have never expected this initially, she knew that this was a new phase in her life that she had to go through, and decided to book her first session with YourDOST as the college had a subscription with the organisation as their official mental health partner.
“It was important for me to vibe with the therapist, I am seeing Ms. Anita Eliza and have been seeking sessions from her for almost a year now.”
She did not have a lot of trust the first time she sat down for therapy as she was unaware of its positive impact.
Rupali articulated that there were a lot of family issues and also understood that she needed to heal from them so she decided to use therapy to heal from it.
“Free counseling was available and I wanted to improve myself and be a better person and YourDOST was there to provide me that.”
She mentioned that her ex and she had issues as she used to share her feelings with him regarding a sponsorship she applied for in the management. There were occasions when he felt that it was too much and toxic for him and decided to break up.
We’ve heard the famous saying “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
“I felt this sudden void in my life after my breakup. It was very hard for me to accept what happened, and it made me contemplate my self-worth.”
She felt herself withdraw from interacting with her loved ones, family and friends. She started to go down the spiral of overthinking, overanalyzing, and self-doubt.
Growing up she was under the impression that staying in a relationship would hamper her education and would always be double-minded about it.
Rupali explained that post her break-up she met another guy, and started dating in less than 2 months. After a year she went into another relationship and that guy cheated on her too and it left her feeling helpless she hated what was happening to her and put herself through severe blame.
“One of my biggest problems was that I could not let go of the past. It would always be on my mind, and I couldn’t move forward.”
The world-renowned poet Robert Frost says it best- “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
“I’ve never been a very expressive person before I began therapy. Though I had my doubts about it, therapy has helped in ways that I did not know were possible.”
Her counselor assisted her with various techniques for healing from the past and living in the present.
She described that her therapist suggested she with a therapy sheet with questions for her to note down about her week. The pros and cons of it and she was supposed to finish this before the next therapy session.
This activity helped her process and reflect on her feelings. She started to develop a deeper understanding of herself and the role of her relationships in her life.
“I’m extremely grateful to Ms. Anita for everything she did for me. It is through her guidance that I felt like I have met myself, and that has been a liberating journey.”
She narrated how she helped her understand how to control her emotions over the environment, she changed her outlook towards how she understands people and also identified the root cause of the problems and worked on it.
With the courage and determination of a true warrior, Rupali has been able to battle against fears, doubts, and insecurities that were holding her down. She learned to be kinder to herself and discover what it truly means to love herself.
Rupali’s journey with therapy has been one of enlightenment and positivity.
“Ms. Anita helped me stay positive and become more rational as a person. The people around me also started seeing these changes actively and healthily handled my break-up. If she would not have been around. I would not have been able to navigate through my problems the way I did.”
She rates herself a 4 out of 5 in terms of feeling better on her journey toward acceptance and is determined to stay focused and positive, no matter what.
Rupali’s Warrior Tips:
1.“Always remember that tough times don’t last, tough people do.”
2.“Therapy can help you in ways that you may not know you need, but has the power to change your perspective on life.”
3.“If it’s meant to be it will be. Stay patient and work on yourself till you get there.”
