I Am Sorry

Mental health is as important as your physical health. When you get an injury, it is easy to share your pain. Others can see it with their physical eyes and accept, comfort and possibly help you.

Compare that to mental health – it’s mostly in your mind. For most of the things – there isn’t a direct machine to measure or physical thing for others to see.

Hence, it becomes difficult for you to share your pain. And the most common feedback you receive is – ‘it’s all in your mind’.

Which is true but painful. Sure it is in your mind but there ain’t everything you control. Your reactions, emotions and narrative can be fueled by many things and it can get out of your control. If nothing else, it can feel like it. And that’s why you need help – in a way more than you would need for a physical pain.

But what do people do – they dismiss you. In many societies, you would be considered as a taboo. This can’t get worse – you are already in pain and society including your family members are shunning you instead of helping.

Not Knowing

Anxiety is the most common where you get anxious when you don’t get an answer – Yes Or No.

In that case, you start to wonder about all the possibilities and your mind wander to the worst things. Nothing has happened yet and as per the probability, chances are it will get sorted out. But you worry because you have been left in the between and your mind is going insane.

At this point, your reaction is like fire. It hurts to the other person and yourself too. You make assumptions and based on that – you go and act in bad taste. The other person is not aware of your state of mind. You are not thinking rationally and when you realise about your rational – the damage has been done.

Your friend thinks you have gone rogue and you feel bad for yourself because for no apparent reason, you have made a situation.

Now your attitude is normal. But since the other person is in bad taste now, they are not believing in you. So they ignore your message. And this makes you sad even more. The very worry because of which you overreacted now is becoming true because of the overreaction. Your brain is in frenzy mood. You eat the food and sleep tight hoping it will be over.

The Good And Bad

The marriage is around the corner. And you are excited for the dance performances. You sneak out of the classroom to see some good tricks. But your teacher had caught you and now you are being punished by standing at the terrace.

Jackie just graced the event and you are thrilled. Seeing your childhood hero in front of your eyes made you warm. But you couldn’t get up and shake his hand. He seemed off and young. Last time you remembered him as old and wrinkly. Nonetheless you go out and Shraddha Kapoor is in the house. You ask for a selfie and she denies. As she goes ahead she gives out photo to many others and you feel like left out.

And now the time is up, so you go and completed the marriage ceremony. You are heartbroken that you need to stay away from your mom. After all you are married, wait a second – where is your wife. You search for her and couldn’t find. And while running out of breath, you wake up.

Sorry

The incident of yesterday is still in your mind and is taking up your mind space. Adding more pain to your mind. You are living in the present but your mind is still living in the past. The riff between your friend is still fresh and you can’t cope up with the fact that you hurt her.

You take up the phone and see the last message. The words are innocent and it seems okay. But the meaning and the tone is off. It isn’t the usual choice of words and you feel it. So you try to come up with choice of words to make up for the bad day yesterday. But you are failing before even trying.

Your mind is playing the game again and imagining the worst case scenarios which ain’t going to happen. But your mind is bursting and so you take a nap again. Thinking that you can somehow erase the memory and move on. But the thing about mental scare is that it stays with more memory than the physical pain.

Enough is enough and you pick up the phone and type in – SORRY.

Ring Ring

Your friend immediately calls you and makes you understand that she is alright. And in fact, she is curious about your behaviour. This is the first time in many months that someone else has asked you about your state. And the best thing is she is willing to listen.

You burst out and tell her about your anxiety and how sometimes you get anxious about the unknown. And then burst out in the wrong way. Also you let her know that you are working on it. There is pin drop silence on the other side of the phone. You say – hello, hellooo…

And she speaks with a hmm… You are relieved that she is listening attentively. She didn’t give you any advice or mocks you. She blurts out the word you have dying to listen – I am here for you. You can share how you feel.

You feel better. Sure the pain is there, anxiety is there. But when you have someone who can understands and ready to be there, it makes you feel like an amazing person. The best superpower in the world is listening. And often a simple willingness to listen can make the persons day.

Next time someone is messing it up, be there and be willing to listen. No solutions, advice or interferences. Only pure listening. And when you are the one messing up, muster up and say, SORRY.