Are We Really Allowed To Feel?

Why is it that the one who feels, always feels the need to justify their emotions or emotional state?

What is so wrong in feelings and emotions?

Can’t a mental health survivor feel it? Or for that matter, anyone?

Why does everyone feel that mental ailments are something like a taboo and
still don’t consider a mental ailment as any other ailment and treat it the same
way?

Agreed, my parents took the right step by taking me to a psychiatrist and further
on scheduling counselling sessions for me.

Also I can’t deny the fact that they realised the gravity of the situation 11 years
ago when I stopped talking and became like I was deaf and dumb (no offence to
such people – you are doing great despite your limitations) in front of our family
doctor and got afraid just uttered the word SUICIDE in front of my psychiatrist. I still remember the words my psychiatrist said at the time – which was
something like – “This is a very sensitive issue. She needs to be handled
carefully.”

Yes, from there on, my family supported me throughout. You could say – through
thick and thin! My mother ordered the medicines prescribed for me that very
night and my father took care of the scene with relatives well. Despite the fact
that they were themselves clueless of what was happening to me. Forget
acceptance, I guess no one in my near and dear had suffered from something
like this, so it was understandable that everyone would have felt curious yet
concerned, in denial yet in support.

You must have heard stories from your grandparents and / or ancestors that if
anyone spoke or witnessed anyone going bonkers or losing emotional balance
and reacting in a rather odd way, then such people who were ailing would be
christened as having gone mad or say, a Goddess has entered the scene,
through that ailing person. Irony of the fact is that, way back in time – those
days, no one wanted to recognise or give hope to the person ailing, forget
acceptance or acknowledgement.

Well, past stories are lessons for the future, I believe.

• We can’t change the mentality of our ancestors.
• But what we can change is our perspective.
• I am not saying that readily accept my point of view, but really, coming from the
  mouth of a mental ailment survivor, you need to know, that we are also normal
  humans only, some persons are not so lucky enough to get everything tailor
  made or some persons might not even get resources for subsistence, here I am
  having both, yet I feel low many a times!
• One can interject and say here, that “Oh! She has everything in life, what more
  does she want?”
• Please do not take it as my retort, because it is not.
• When I said 11 years I’ve been through peaks and troughs, I am telling the truth,
  not lying. I cross my heart.
• When I said 11 years, I meant it.
• When I said 11 years, I don’t want to say it has ended and it is a thing of the past,
  because I am still going through it and I sometimes feel so helpless that I find
  that everything can be extinguished just be shedding silent tears, not ones of joy
  or something I resort to if I am in pain.
• I am not here to change any thought pattern.
• But tell me, whatever I feel now, I feel many people of my age have felt it way
  back and I am late, if I can say.
• But what is the beauty of this statement – is that – there is no age for feeling
  any better or worse, there is no age for anguish or mirth, there is no age for
  achievement, for everything there is something that is said universally – AGE
  NO BAR.
• But tell me, some emotions which my counterparts faced years ago, the feeling
  of being wanted, being loved, being cared for, by whomsoever (I am not singling
  out only relationships of companionship, it can be any other relationship too),
  am I not allowed to feel it even or why is it that I am always told to push it under
  the carpet?
• Are mental health survivors some creatures who have emerged from nowhere
  or are aliens?

Why – just why – in any sphere – be it marriage, seeking to study further,
hunting for jobs, in all kind of atmospheres, why do we have to struggle our way
to the top?

• Okay, not top.
• But give us a chance, I am sure we shall also excel or I could say – strive to
  achieve just the way so called normal people are given a chance.
• Why does it have to happen that everything, simply put, about us need to be
  thought of, firstly as the mentally challenged person’s achievement and always
  look at us as though we are a grade lower to people attaining achievements
  through accolades? Are accolades of mentally challenged persons or mental
  ailment survivors less great?
• Why do normal people want to shield their offsprings from the so called
  tortures that mental ailment survivors supposedly give?
• Are we any different? If yes, kindly explain to me – how is that.
• This is not any explanation I want to give to the people around me or even justify
  my actions and reactions towards all and sundry.
• We Indians are in the same boat as foreigners when it comes to suffering from
  an ailment, typically a mental ailment.
• Abroad, every second person you meet might have anxiety issues and suffer
  from it, yet it is considered normal for the very same reason that every second
  person gets it there.
• As for India, sorry I am not degrading our nation, one in 10 people suffer from a
  mental ailment, I might be not as common as diabetes or cardiac arrest, cancer
  or stroke, but you get my point, I hope!
• Awareness is required, but coming back to my original submission.
• Are any of us really allowed to feel? Are we committing a crime while wanting to feel? For that matter, feeling and emoting comes naturally, no one has the power to control that which is bestowed upon us by the Law of Nature.
• Sad fact is that majority of Indians, educated or not, do view us as
  a misfit or outcast, and the same herd mentality continues.
• Because, even today, if one says that they have a mental ailment, then they are
  discriminated and looked upon like aliens.
• I am not saying that give us honours and celebrate us, but at least acknowledge
  our limitations, encourage our talents and give us the required opportunities as you give normal people, can’t you?