They don’t hesitate from talking about the time when they wanted to give up on life, or sharing photos from a vulnerable moment. Mental health illness survivors say sharing on social media is helping people feel less alone
Social entrepreneur Sonal Jain, who is also a trained peer supporter, feels that the country currently lacks psychiatric practices which are patient-centric and focused towards holistic wellbeing
Milana Prakash takes her social media page very seriously. It’s here that she posts vignettes about the happy parts of her life—getting into IIM Ahmedabad, date nights with her boyfriend, and meeting a best friend after four years. But, she also doesn’t hold herself back from talking about fighting the voices in her head, the feeling of not wanting to exist: “sometimes [it] gets too loud. Too frightening. And life doesn’t seem like it’s worth living.”
The 24-year-old was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BPAD), attention deficit disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder three-and-a-half years ago. “The first six months [after the diagnosis] were strange…,” she tells us. Reading journalist Sandhya Menon’s posts about her struggle with BPAD, made her feel less alone. “You know when you get a diagnosis, you start feeling whether it’s the end… in terms of vitality and productivity. Sandhya inspired me, because she is successful despite everything.”
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Architect and mental health advocate Shivalee Ghadigaonkar, who has recovered from OCD, says it took her six years to recover from her diagnosis, and it’s what prompted her to share her experiences publicly
It’s what compelled Prakash to start talking about her own mental health journey publicly. “I wanted to let people know ‘yes, my life is miserable on most days, but I am still functioning. And if I can, so can you’.”
She uses more than one platform to talk about her experience. Prakash runs BPD Humans, an Instagram support group with friend Maheema Misra, where they talk about borderline personality disorder, and @neurodivergentpoetry, where she shares mental health-related songs and poems that she has composed.
Prakash, who is pursuing an MBA at IIM Ahmedabad, gets told by friends and peers that over-sharing could cost her a potential recruitment. “But shouldn’t they know what they are signing up for?” she asks. “It’s best that I am transparent about it... this is who I am. I am confident about my skills, and I want my employers to know that too.”
Milana Prakash
Sonal Jain is a social entrepreneur running Boondh.co that works in the area of menstruation-related interventions, activism and advocacy. They started talking about their mental health, when they were diagnosed with anhedonia, a symptom of depression, which is the lack of ability to experience pleasure. “I remember writing about it [anhedonia] on social media, not as much to share, but to talk about something new that I had learnt,” they explain. Sonal was diagnosed in 2019, when the social-political upheavals, including the anti-Citizens Amendment Act protest and the situation in Kashmir, began to indirectly impact them. They decided to seek help in psychiatric medication sometime during the pandemic, when the isolation got too much to handle. “Social media also became a blogging platform… I wanted help, but I didn’t want to reach out to anyone specific since that would put them in a spot. I was going through this intense mental and physical pain, and sometimes, I would try to describe the feeling in words. I documented some parts of it on Instagram posts and stories, sharing how mood swings sometime felt like my brain was physically being put through a sieve and how nondescript heaviness took over my entire body, until all I did was float in nothingness. There are mental health terms like disassociation, anhedonia, depression, anxiety that may come close to describing these feelings and incidents. I attempted to describe them as I was experiencing it, maybe to seek community and in turn I ended up offering solidarity to some, too.” It began with sharing lived experiences, and in a matter of months, it spiraled into help. Several people reached out to them and Sonal shared contacts of psychiatrists and therapists with those who wanted to heal. They add, “After an attempt to end my life as I then knew it, I put up a story on Instagram; this led to starting a support group on WhatsApp which turned into a support group for those who had been through similar experiences or had thoughts about ending their lives.”
Mumbai-based architect and mental health advocate Shivalee Ghadigaonkar, who has recovered from OCD, recently posted a video of her seemingly vulnerable. It was taken back in 2015, when she was experiencing a panic attack. “I was scared to open up, to tell people that I was suffering from a mental disorder. I felt like I was unfit for the society. But I meant no harm to anybody, then why was I feeling guilty and shameful?” she writes in the post. Ghadigaonkar says it took her six years to recover from her diagnosis, and it’s what prompted her to begin sharing. “When others reached out to me, it pushed me to talk further. I try to be as real and vulnerable as possible.” Last year, she had a tiny breakdown, and she admits it wasn’t too major to talk about, “but I still shared”. “Because, I don’t want people to have false ideas about recovery.
Mallika Jhaveri
Mallika Jhaveri says that it was because of social media, and the posts and tools that were shared by other mental health illness survivors that she was able to get the right diagnosis for her learning disability. “I don’t have boundaries when I share… I like to document everything that I am doing. And since my life revolves around my disability, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be talking about it.”
When it comes to discussing mental health, Sonal, who is a trained peer supporter, suggests that it’s always best to speak from a personal point of view, instead of making a generic comment about, say depression. “Mental health is a subjective experience, and it needs a customised treatment plan. There’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s also best not to compare medication or treatment plans.” They added that the country currently lacks psychiatric practices that are patient-centric and focused towards holistic wellbeing.
Ultimately, Prakash says, we must do anything and everything that makes us feel better. “We all seek validation, and we all want to be healed and helped.”
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