Taking superintendency of oneself is not as easy as it seems. Increasingly so if you are in a social environment where mental health is neglected and mental health issues ate looked lanugo upon. Once you fight your way out of this, you are unbeatable and you develop the wings that hold the potential to share the undersong of others. Today we have one such soul who fought her way up versus her family, relatives, and friends to ensure her mental health is taken superintendency of. She extended her hands to hold others’ and share their peace stories with the world. Meet Swarnali Nath, founder of The Peace Stories Initiative. She is an Author, Blogger, Content Creator, and a Wellbeing Researcher when she shared her struggles and why is mental health important.
Swarnali Nath – Warrior of Womanhood
Welcome, Swarnali. Thanks for joining WoW as our first Warrior of Womanhood.
Thank you for inviting me to your WoW Initiative. It’s an honor to be a part of this wonderful endeavor by you.
The world knows Swarnali Nath as a successful topnotch blogger. Overdue that blogger, deep inside there is a child who has fought for happiness and peace. Would you wish to introduce her to the world?
Yes, I indeed have a child in me and I never want her to grow up. She has fought for happiness and peace falling under the trap of mind when she was left all vacated in the darkroom of despair. But when she saw the sunbeam peeking from the window, she realized that life is vastitude this small room. And thus, she started her journey to bring smiles to others’ lives as she wants to spread hope, love, and peace in this world.
We are in the 21st century but People still don’t know why is mental health important. Did you overly find it difficult to speak well-nigh yours?
Yes, every time. My parents don’t understand my mental health issues as these problems can’t be seen. I alimony shouting well-nigh my problems but this only end up having a series of misunderstandings with them.
Lack of awareness
The foremost problem in recognizing a mental health disorder is the lack of sensation in people to identify the symptoms of mental health disorders and how to take superintendency of mental health. These symptoms are increasingly to be felt, to suffer in silence, and sob the pain inside considering nobody understands what they don’t see with unshut eyes.
Even people who have been there once, refuse to understand your problems and they want the solutions at the soonest, as anyhow. They will alimony pointing at everything you do and consider them as your faults. They will alimony discouraging you, hurting you, and instead of stretching their hands to hold you in the visionless tunnel, they only leave you alone. Grieving, breaking, and shrinking to the abyss, all alone. Suffering from mental health issues like peepers makes the person undergo a situation that is equally painful, frightening, and alarming. The person seeks help to live, but every vapor is zonkers so life can show its ugly side to him/her. This time, all he/she needs is love, empathy, and compassion from his/her dear ones, but unfortunately, he/she rarely receives it.
The taboo
Here comes flipside important speciality of calling mental health disorders a taboo. Many people still don’t want to unshut up in public or consult with a professional in the fear of society and their judgments. This is disappointing and heartbreaking at the same time. The increasingly we will be vocal well-nigh our mental health problems, the largest will be the situation in the future. I really hope people understand the sufferings of mental health fighters and deal with them with empathy and kindness so the scenario changes in the coming years. I hope people will understand why is mental health important.
Warrior of Womanhood – Struggles of Swarnali
We all have our own share of struggles. My fight with mental health started in the second semester of my Engineering but then I was not enlightened that I was stepping into a deep hollow of darkness. From the leader girl in school, I turned to a timid girl who never questioned her lecturers or enjoyed her higher days. Rather, I was never a free-spirited girl during my higher days and slowly I started shrinking inwards. Additionally, plane when I did well in my higher semesters and grabbed the highest marks on tough papers, I was never appreciated. Instead, when I failed to grab a job in higher placement, I was cornered as a loser by my fellow professors.
I met with an wrecking in my seventh semester and that made me immobile for months. Plane when I recovered, I was walking with pain in my ankle. Without a year of pain and despair, I discovered that I was taking treatment for a wrong diagnosis. Further, the proper treatment commenced but it was very late so I couldn’t get my toddle when to normal and will never be worldly-wise to. This was unbearable for my parents not to indulge me to go to flipside state for a job. They told me to find a suitable job in Kolkata. I saw my friends grabbing decent jobs in MNCs and me, struggling nonflexible to get a job. I started preparing for PSU sector jobs then.
The next lap or the drastic sequel?
Initially, it was all good until we shifted to a new city, Durgapur. In my native town, Chittaranjan, there was an entirely variegated undercurrent of dreams and ambition. Although a small town, my native town itself proudly finds its place on the map of India as the railway town of Bengal.
But in the new city, Durgapur, in the neighborhood we moved to live, everyone was concerned well-nigh my marriage. A twenty-three-year-old girl, unmarried, seemed like a undersong to her weather-beaten parents. On a daily basis, their nose was poking into our household, and plane my relatives who lived in the neighborhood started taunting me for my ambition. I was unchangingly rented in my preparation for the PSU jobs, spending most of the day in my study room, practicing with mock tests and inventing my own methods to solve the problems in a quicker time. Plane when I spent time with my younger cousins and played and laughed, the situation became such that I started feeling guilty well-nigh laughing my heart out. Plane now I can’t smile from within; don’t know when I will be worldly-wise to smile like my teenage self who smiled from the heart.
But they never understood. Moreover, they unchangingly spoke to me harshly, triumphal my failures in passing the exams, and not stuff worldly-wise to grab a job. I paid no heed to them and unfurled seeming for exams and interviews. But destiny had a variegated game with me. Every time I could not succeed with only a 0.5 or 0.25 deficit in the passing marks. I have unchangingly wanted to be financially self-sustaining and never thought of a life otherwise. Plane though I appeared for many interviews in private sector jobs, the same thing happened there too.
The friend in need
Meanwhile, I lost all my friends. Some of them stopped talking to me with an excuse of stuff rented with their work, some of them stopped talking to me as I was lagging overdue them in life, and some of them considered me as their competitor in the competitive job exams. There was flipside lot who were never genuine and later when I came to know the truth, I shredded from them. Gradually I became vacated and for the unshortened day, I was serving in the small study room and spent my days with the desktop (later my laptop) and books. At that time, the only friend I had in the real world was my sister.
But here is one good thing surrounded everything bad. Without some time, I befriended some gems of people who are still with me through thick and thin. They have their own struggles but they teach me the true meaning of perseverance. Since then, I started yoyo that spring comes only when you let go of winter.
My old friends left me but I unfluctuating with the new friends who taught me the real meaning of life, hope, dreaming, resilience, adventures, and whatnot! Here I want to mention that not everyone in my new whirligig was genuine, but I became increasingly cautious well-nigh whom I unliable to stay in my life and whom I let go.
Sometimes I used to get bored with studying all the time. Then I listened to music, and here sprouted a new passion for music. However, withal with music, I started reading online articles, downloading pdf versions of books, and reading a lot in my self-ruling time. In 2017, I started blogging to express my unspoken words through the written word.
The crossroad
It was in 2017 when I realized that my inner world was meeting unexpected turns and twists. One year prior to that, I only started realizing the inner transformation but this time, though I valued my new learnings and the new world of music and writing, my frustration for not stuff worldly-wise to start my career made me devastated.
I know, it is not pearly to undeniability someone a failure who does not have a unexceptionable career. There are many people in this world who don’t prefer to do a full-time job. But you know what, it is all inside the mind. For an would-be girl like me, getting a decent job was everything that I dreamed of since my childhood. All my classmates were well-settled in their lives. Be it a career, be it marriage, be it owning a car, or be it making their parents happy, they were succeeding in every sphere of life.
Slowly, this fuelled an inferiority ramified in me. My parents were not happy with me. Deep down, I was wrenched and shattered. Still, I gathered all my valiance and energy to protract my preparation and requite exams and interviews. Life is not as ugly as it seems when you are living in despair. But, at the same time, it does not seem trappy either, when you see your dreams are lost. When you see those diaper dreams that you planted in the deepest of your heart’s garden and water every day to flower when you will grow up, are lost in oblivion, the world becomes a standstill for you.
The descend
I sacrificed many things, the enjoyment a twenty-something loves to have, and the fun-filled life a young sultana wants to live. And all my efforts and hard-works and sacrifices went in vain considering I could not succeed in my goals. In 2020, I was all prepared to see my name in the final selection list. For the global pandemic, the result was delayed. When it went out, I went to trammels my name, and it was not there.
My name was not there in the last exam I gave for getting a job in the government financial sector. This twenty-word sentence seems like an ordinary sentence placed in this article, but for me, this is the root rationalization of my trauma. I went into deep trauma without that result.
Swarnali Nath
I spent sleepless nights, and in the daytime, when I tried to sleep, within a few minutes of latter my eyes, I woke up crying, shouting, and howling. My soul started shivering, pulling my hair with all my strength, I wanted to wilt deaf so no sound from this world I could hear. I veiled my throne in my folded knees and cried for the whole day.
Many a times, I attempted to set my grade sheets ablaze, but my dad stopped me anyhow. I questioned myself, “What is the need for these scorecards showing my wonk excellence when they can’t fetch me any decent jobs?” Many people tell me hearing my mental health issues, “why are you getting unauthentic so much? You are in your late twenties, unmarried, and living with your parents, you don’t need to panic much.” As if I am living in heaven and I am panicking to take me to hell.
They tell me I don’t have to worry well-nigh the daily chores to do, meals to cook, and children to feed and teach and take superintendency of. My dad buys the groceries and vegetables, and my mom cooks the meals and serves them on my plate. According to them, that’s why I can’t have any mental health issues. Increasingly precisely, I shouldn’t.
We, the young adults, can have our own share of grief, loss, heartbreaks, failures, deceives, and each of them is unbearable to trigger mental health problems.
Swarnali Nath
Is mental health important?
In 2020, I could recognize the mental health issues that I had been suffering from since my higher days but I could not identify them before. At that time, I was suffering from social anxiety, panic attacks, frustration, stress, anxiety, and despair. At some point in life, I started having uneasiness attacks twice a day. Without every attack, my soul became heavy like a waddle mountain. I felt too tired that I couldn’t plane move in bed. I felt sleepy but couldn’t sleep. It was nonflexible for me to unshut my vision as my eyelashes seemed very heavy. But soon without having some attacks, I decided to watch a soothing video on my mobile and walk yellowish feet on the porch to reduce the uneasiness wade duration.
I should have ideally met a professional expert and consulted my problems but as my mom was just recovering from her uneasiness disorders, we two sisters were rented in making her involved in craft therapy at home. It was just a few days when we saw my mom smiling without many months of suffering. Seeing her smiling face, I decided to sob my pain and preferred to divert my mind to somewhere else.
The pitstop
Slowly, I recovered from that worst state (as I believed so). This is when I started my Mindfulness studies and gradually, I started working with the mind because I realized everything was in my mind, only in my mind.
And this way, without two years, now I have wilt a well-being researcher. Among the various genres of my works, one of the main subjects that I aim at working for my unshortened life is mindful living. I work towards bringing moments of wifely in everyday life and making a deeper connection with your inner self so you can have some peaceful moments surrounded the hustle of life and spend some time with yourself blissfully. Empowered by my own story, now, I run The Peace Stories Initiative to spread messages of hope, love, and peace to the world.
Which is that moment when you decided that “This is it. I no longer want to suffer.”
In 2021, I started learning digital marketing and then I got a job as a content writer. But there was something that I was missing badly. Soon I started suffering from remote work burnout. At the end of 2022, I resigned from my second job and decided to requite myself that much-needed unravel from my ever-stressed mind.
There is flipside reason for choosing this relaxing life over making my career in the field of digital marketing. I know I have upset my parents in every visualization I have taken for myself, but my health left no other nomination for me. At the whence of 2023, when I was searching for a new job to do something increasingly interesting than my previous roles, I could identify my trauma, my fear, my anxiety, and my depressed thoughts that were coming when to me. Slowly, at the whence of February, I reached the same state that I was in mid-2020.
I could sense something was not right inside me, and I realized that if I did not stop it here, there is very less endangerment to get recovered from this trauma overly in the future.
Swarnali Nath
I realized that the failure in getting the desired job roles was making me fall under the trap of mind then and that was triggering that trauma to make my life a living hell once again.
This is when one spring morning, I decided to put an end to my suffering with that pain. Now, I am enjoying my break, rarely taking up freelance projects, reading, listening to music, watching movies, and writing. Currently, I am not worrying well-nigh towers a unexceptionable career or getting married as I am enjoying my self-rule from stress, anxiety, and despair.
I am waiting to bring a new self of me whom I wanted to see for a long, and now, I am sketching her in my inner canvas, one stroke at a time.
If there is one person or instance you would undeniability the turning point in your life, who/which would be it?
2016 is a life-changing year for me. In March 2016, I started realizing my inner transformation and suddenly the whole world reverted for me. Life’s perspectives changed, life’s meaning changed, and the way I was perceiving life totally changed. It was the year when I entered a variegated world of thoughts and experiences. So, I would like to say the year 2016 was a life-changing period for me.
Moving forward what is one thing that you would protract to do, for yourself?
I want to protract my research on the subjects that intrigue me. Apart from this, I want to protract working towards bringing hope, love, and peace to the earth through my writing endeavors. I moreover want to protract working in the niche of wellness.
What is the definition of wellness for you?
Wellness for me is taking largest superintendency of yourself so that you can alimony working withal with living life to the fullest. When your health is not well, you can’t focus on the important things in life, whether it is your work, family, or other things. Therefore, wellness for me is aligning my mind, body, and soul to the part-way of kicks so that I find peace in every step of life.
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