Perceived: Losing and Finding my Mind

AFTER THE EPISODES

For a long time after, I had a lot of ideas of reference and thought I was receiving subliminal messages through the television, my laptop and even everyday conversations with people. Again, my self-confidence was shattered. I was finding it hard to get motivated to get out of bed, because closing my eyes and laying there just felt so good. I didn’t feel anxious doing this, I could relax my mind and I wasn’t second-guessing my sanity. I could see that my family were worrying about me, to the point where I would have fights with my sister, who, as a GP, said she was worried about me and that I needed to find the energy to get out of my bed and fight everything. I owe my sister a lot. She was the one who kept telling me that quitting university was not an option, that she had many patients who were on medications long-term and lived healthy, fulfilled lives and that I needed to exercise for both my mental and physical health, giving me hope. I owe a lot to my parents as well, who kept encouraging me and being patient with me even though I was acting like a completely different Priyanka to the one they knew. I truly believe that there is someone, somewhere out there looking out for me, because just at the right time, I had been talking to this guy named Eli for a while as a friend, and he wanted to meet up. We did, and we hit it off on that first date. Since then, we went on many fun adventures and dates together, and I shared some of my deepest vulnerabilities with him.

Despite the hardships my family and I have faced, today, I still sit here with a smile on my face. I have successfully completed a double degree in Law with Honours and Business with Distinction. To some I know this doesn’t sound like much, but to me, personally, achieving this after conquering battles that were so incredibly challenging for me to overcome, makes me emotional and so incredibly thankful to all the uplifting, supportive people around me who encouraged me to keep pushing through. I have the most genuine, supportive family, and the most gorgeous nieces who are always full of so much life and laughter.

This directs my mind to a conversation I had with my psychiatrist at an appointment, where I told her I was done with university forever. With a sparkle in her eye, she exclaimed, “We did it!” “Absolutely,” I thought, “we did it”. I even ended up scoring a Government job, the possibility of which had been wiped from my mind’s contemplation after my first episode, yet here we are. Every single human on earth goes through ups and downs, some worse than others. The thing is, most of the time, the downs aren’t in our control. We must live with them, learn from them and persevere through them not only for ourselves, but also for the sake of those we love.

My relationship with Eli ended, because I felt as though our values didn’t really align in the end, and while he was a nice guy, I wasn’t extremely happy in the relationship. I was happy alone surrounded by friends and family for the time being, and didn’t want to settle for something that wasn’t meeting my emotional needs as much as I would have wanted.

I started second-guessing for a while whether my perception of Eli and I being in a bad place was even real, given my condition. However, after talking things through with my psychologist, I was reassured that I had tried time and time again to make things better, and was coming from a very reasonable and authentic place in wanting to end things.

Further conversations with my psychologist involved her telling me I have a good head on my shoulders and that perceptions about the sort of health issues I was facing and supposed “violent and aggressive” tendencies or inability to live a fulfilled life of people with the condition I had were a myth, in many cases, as demonstrated by myself.