Meet Naresh, a 32-year-old senior manager, father, and husband. He works at Freshworks in Chennai.
He was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan and lived there until he finished schooling. Being the first generation in his family to receive an education, Naresh made sure he was focused on his academics and became a chartered accountant at the age of 20.
“I’m always grateful to my parents for making my childhood easier and giving me the education I needed despite the background and environment we had.”
Naresh explains that he has travelled across the country and worked as a finance professional for various multinational companies before joining Freshworks and settling in Chennai. He lives there with his beautiful family, including his wife and two daughters.
He adds that even though he loves to play and watch cricket during his free time, he has always been so passionate about his profession that he indulges in researching and reading more about it while having leisure time.
While Naresh became successful at a young age and continued to see growth in his professional and personal life, in 2022, he started experiencing sudden fears about life that led to a series of panic attacks.
“I was extremely paranoid, and I used to fear everything. Whenever I would experience sweating, I would think that it might be a heart attack. Whenever I felt a small discomfort, I would correlate it to cancer or any other major chronic disease. It was a loop of nightmares, never-ending.”
Naresh explains that he started visiting doctors frequently. He would consult with a neurologist for a brain scan one day and a gastroenterologist the next day. After a while, Naresh noticed a pattern: every time he feared he had an illness and went to the doctor, the reports always came back within normal parameters.
Even the doctor mentioned this to him. It then struck Naresh that there could be a possibility of all of these having a mental aspect rather than a physical illness. He couldn’t take it anymore when this paranoia grew into a fear of flying, as he started thinking it would cause him a cardiac arrest. It started having a profound impact on his personal and professional life.
Naresh remembered his firm partnering with YourDOST during the pandemic to assist employees with mental well-being. He thought about using the platform to understand more about his issues and started connecting with an expert.
“I began taking sessions from a Bengali expert, Ms Rineeta. She was young, dedicated and had great listening skills. She always had a smile, was fantastic and brought a lot of energy to our conversations.”
Naresh recollects sharing all his problems and fears with his therapist. He shared with her how emotional he felt about everything going on and how he broke down in the middle of the Chennai airport before he had to fly. He explains that the doctors at the airport had to give him a check, and even after they cleared him to fly, Naresh couldn’t do it and argued with them.
In the first few sessions, he spoke about these issues and everything about himself so that the therapist could understand him better. Gaining insights into his interests, family, and background, the counselor started by offering him emotional support.
“The first step, when I spoke about everything myself, gave me a lifetime lesson, and I loved how eager my therapist was to know more about how someone can offer support to someone without knowing everything about them. She not only heard but also understood me well before offering any guidance.”
He adds that through these, Naresh was made aware that the problem he had was ‘fear of sudden death, ’ and he says Ms Rineeta Banerjee gently exposed him to these definitions and then to identifying the root causes. In step two, the counselor gave him a set of questions as a task to complete before the next session. The questions included the first time he got to about ‘death’ as a concept, his first experience with losing someone in his circle, his memory around death, etc.
Writing these took him back and forth through his life for the entire week, making him cry out the whole time. Naresh explains that writing the scenarios was a game-changer. In the following sessions, he realised the root cause was seeing the death of his close members in his life.
“When I was 7, my cousin passed away due to lightning, and that changed a lot of things for me. After I grew up, I lost my paternal uncle due to an electric shock and my girlfriend due to dengue. These convinced my subconscious mind about the uncertainty of human life and that something might also happen to me.”
Naresh elaborates that these instilled thoughts developed into fear when he got married and had his daughters, as he was scared about who would take care of them if something happened to him. He explains that half of the problem was solved when he understood the root causes. He knew the third step would be finding ways to eliminate the issues from the root.
The counselor made Naresh write more about the deaths in his family and suggested he try the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding techniques and deep breathing techniques. This was to distract him from the fearful thoughts and calm him down whenever he had the triggers. She also suggested that Naresh spend time with his family and friends and watch or play a cricket game to make him look forward to the future rather than fear based on his past. These allowed Naresh to divert his mind, and connecting with the people around him made him feel good.
“After taking the sessions, I still use the techniques my therapist taught, and I just cannot explain the benefits I got from them because there are so many!”
Naresh elaborates that he started rationalising his body symptoms better and also started accepting death as part of life. This helped him control his emotions and nullify his irrational fears. He adds that solving this also helped him be more energetic and eliminated procrastination.
He recalls telling his therapist that he can never forget her in his life and that he would forever be grateful to her. He credits her for helping him lead a normal life and adds that his wife and daughters would forever be thankful to her.
As he improves his parameters, he rates himself 4.5 out of 5 and proudly says, ‘I no longer visit the doctors every day!’
We are proud of Naresh and amazed by his progress. We wish him the best of luck and hope that he and his family stay cheerful and happy always!
Naresh’s Warrior Tips:
1.“Negative thoughts lead us towards darkness, so think positively and create a clean energy around yourself.”
2.“Keep aside the human ego and seek help when there’s an imbalance in life.”
3.“Never compare the severity of your problems and focus on how to solve them.”
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