Strength TogetHER 13 - Session 9
Jan 29, 2022
A Time I Felt Mentally Tired
Tiredness can be mental too.
On this topic we had invited Situ Shrestha, who is a final year undergraduate in community development at Kathmandu University School of Arts. She is the Co-founder and Regional Coordinator at Me For Myself (M4M), an international campaign on mental health and well being. She is also a peer educator at Y-PEER Nepal providing education about SRHR-Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. She enjoys watching movies and series and also has a keen interest in art, design and more.
Our session started with a short introduction of all participants.
After the introduction, we directly started with our first speaker. She shared with us her story about her life after class10. Her parents forcefully took her to a science college. She always wanted to study management but due to her parents pressure she studied science. When a person does something forcefully or under pressure, it often leads to mental tiredness. She mentally became exhausted as this was not her field of interest. And one fine day, she stood up for herself but came out of the science faculty and joined management. She had to face a lot of difficulties but for her own good she decided to stick to her matter of interest. She says if I hadn't taken the risk, I would be somewhere I wouldn’t feel personal satisfaction. With this she ended here and we moved on to the next speaker.
Our next speaker also shared an event after class 11. She was a science student by choice but she used to have anxiety on her exam days. She used to feel nausea when she spoiled her exams. She started making excuses and was well aware that she herself had started making excuses for not studying. She used to go to her college which is 2 hours away from her house. She saw class 7 students going to the school enthusiastically. Their school was also 2 hours away from the house. Then she decided to be strong and realized that she is not only the one suffering. With that she thought about it and said it’s not about the suffering but it is about how we perceive it and look at it. With this we moved on to our next speaker and talked about her days when she mentally exhausted. She gave up on everything, she stopped doing the things which she loved to do. It was hard for her to get out of bed and she also faced the problem of eating disorders. Small things also used to cause big stress to her. Gradually, she collected herself and started to meditate, read books and work out. These things helped her to get out of the dark zone. She also added that every person needs a little push in order to get the best version of themselves.
Our next speaker shared her journey after her 12th. She was preparing for her entrance exam after losing a year and also for the 2nd year she could not crack the entrance exam. This made her feel very dumb and insecure. She started seeing people around her really successful and living their best lives. She wanted to be apart from everything but she could not, this made her feel mentally exhausted.
Our next speaker has a similar experience. She was very good in her studies till grade 10. After that she kinda felt a competition with her own sibling due to family and relative things. Our next speaker shared a really heart wrenching story of hers.
Our next speaker shared how the sudden demise of someone close can be heart wrenching. She lost her mom when she was in her early teens. The demise of her mom led her to being mentally exhausted. Those things still haunt her till date. She has tried keeping those things out of her mind and is trying to move on but the whole in her heart will always remain, she said.
When a person is mentally exhausted he or she can not differentiate between what’s wrong and what’s right. As a student, everyone has struggled and with that our moderator connected it to our upbringing. She said she volunteered in a school, where she saw a child with a child. That was her first time seeing something like that, and she realized that the thing she saw in the social media and books she actually saw in real life. And she also got to know she was a victim of domestic violence and the lady started crying because she didn’t want to go to the maternity hospital and that time she said I don’t want to live. This incident made me realize that mental health is important, counseling is important. That inspired her and she started to give her attention to children more. She also said being sad is not a bad thing. It’s our emotion and we have to respect that. We cannot always be happy and every emotion should be appreciated. We can provide time for that, it’ll heal the pain. Everything takes time and to be patient is the key to good mental health. With that the session ended.
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