“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” – Shakespeare
Our contemporary lives have changed with time and so has how we comprehend social evils. Nilofer (name changed) is a young spirited 24-year-old woman who belongs to Haryana. She is a B.Tech student at Lovely Professional University.
“My family is small, and I believe that is why I hold them very close to my heart and are close-knitted.”
She was brought up in two different places and mentioned that she has mostly spent most of her childhood moving. She was able to connect with her mother and not much with her father.
Pankhudi has a little sister who is 8 years old, and as a part of her leisure activities, she spends time travelling, listening to music and meeting new people.
She articulates that she is an avid learner when it comes to hobbies, dancing, driving, badminton and much more.
She enjoys finding new hobbies and is also getting trained as a professional kathak dancer as it helps her keep herself on her toes through the day and brings her sanity.
We as humans find sanity in patterns, relationships, and the different things we do. However, sanity is crooked in its ways. When it breaks, it takes us through a void that is hard to contemplate.
While things were slowly beginning to shape up in her life she moved out of home for her higher education and this gave her the opportunity to meet with people and she started building connections with them. One such situation is when something bad happened to her and she ended up feeling triggered by her childhood traumas.
“I had a series of physical abuse since my childhood. I never told anybody or even recognised for awhile. I understood it as a means for somebody to love me until an incident happened.”
It was around this time she realised that these things affected a lot of her personality, sleeplessness got to her mentally and her routine spiralled bad.
All the instances regarding her abuse were mostly because of her friends and family members.
“I came to know that my college had a partnership with YourDOST as their official mental health partner and I decided to book sessions with my counselor and I am glad I took this step for myself.”
Nilofer narrates incidents that had her sanity collapsing and made her feel unsafe in her skin. Additionally, she was also dealing with severe anxiety which affected her overall mental health.
She mentions that she met her counselor Ms. Ananya Bhattacharya regularly, and this slowly helped her turn over a new leaf.
“I hid my problems from my family for a long time as I was worried it would break them.”
The act of opening up can be a task for a lot of people, but with opening up, also comes a lot of power and realisations of all the tough steps one had to take to get to where they are, and it is special for everybody.
Nilofer mentions how she was driven by fear and everything was becoming too much to bear and she just took comfort from Ms Ananya’s sessions.
“When I initially started therapy I was not able to always figure out my emotions effectively. My counselor would give me homeworks like how I feel today, jot down my thoughts, guided meditation and also how to build my lifestyle. Most of the techniques were verbal which later on became exercises.”
Nilofer speaks of the immense help her counselor provided her through her techniques and which include deep breathing exercises, and reflecting on certain questions.
“Every time I meet her it felt good and comfortable to have her by my side. She has been super patient and helped me understand myself more, she never forced me to talk about things.”
These are Pankhudi’s words of gratitude to her counselor:
“Thank you for supporting me during this time and being around and not seeing me as a trouble in helping me in every possible way for helping me holistically reveal things and feel comfortable doing so.”
She expressed that after her sessions she feels less guilty and more confident about her body. She is now able to identify her feelings of anxiety or uneasiness and do the needful exercises.
Nilofer’s dreams are what hold her together and we are super proud of how far she has come.
Healing is a process and it never comes with a timeline. Nilofer’s healing is also a work in progress and we are here to help her get there.
Nilofer’s Warrior Tips:
1.“When the going gets tough, the tougher the going.”
2.“Sterotypes must stop as therapy is a true healer.”
3.“Its not scary, while it even though takes some time to start feeling better but the process is worth it.”
