SHAKTI PERSPECTIVES

Shakti perspectives: Komal
Mental health. Believe it or not I only learnt the term “mental health” when I was diagnosed with general anxiety, clinical depression & ptsd at the age of 15. At first, when I spoke about it there were many comments such as; lazy, coo coo, attention seeking or just plain “get over it”. Each commentator though had their own battles and chose to “get over it”. Seeing the way that their battle scars are still something that they are ashamed of, I decided to seek some professional guidance.

My family members played a wonderful role in bringing betrayal and abuse into my life, being cheated on and spoken about by your loved ones were never easy, especially when your family would happily ignore the agony you were in and tell you to get over it. Being gay wasn’t easy, coming out seemed like a burden off my shoulders but slowly the burden started to pile up again because of the hostile body language and abandonment I faced when I spoke about my feelings.

The ones who were my own age had many ways to tell me to stop believing there’s something wrong with me (besides me being diagnosed by numerous specialist who studied in that field). It’s a part of us, a part we need to stop treating like nothing because it doesn’t make us feel any better when we ignore it and certainly doesn’t give you the right to justify what others should feel or not.
Working in the mental health sector brought many new feelings and thoughts into my life, I could see the world on a new level and accept myself for who I truly am.

I am Komal Singh, I am diagnosed with mental health issues and I proudly accept them as well as put in effort to better my mind and heart. Sometimes it’s a part of you that you cannot get rid off, but you can befriend and look after it enough to make you a better version of yourself. I say the strongest are those who express their feelings, it takes a lot of strength to be able to speak about your feelings especially if many around you pretend to be perfectly sane and judge you.