Mental Health
How did isolation work for those of us who are already quarantined in perpetuity by the cis-heteronormative gaze?
मां बनने के बाद से आत्म-देखभाल पर मेरे नज़रिये में बहुत बदलाव आया है। एक अभिभावक की भूमिका निभाते हुए और उसकी चुनौतियों का सामना करते हुए अपना ख़्याल कैसे रखा जा सकता है?
हमारा मानसिक स्वास्थ्य सिर्फ़ हमारी इकलौती ज़िम्मेदारी नहीं है बल्कि उन संस्थाओं और व्यवस्थाओं की भी ज़िम्मेदारी है जिनका हम हिस्सा हैं। इसलिए हमारी सेहत और ख़ुशहाली बनाए रखने के लिए इनका योगदान ज़रूरी है।
Sadhana Vohra is a psychotherapist in private practice in New Delhi, India. She divides her time between long hours at…
But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.
The short-lived thinness had left me before I knew it. I became fat, and thereby undesirable, once again. A chasm appeared in my relationship with my body. Its ways of responding had become strange. My form became unfamiliar to me, and to those around me.
Who is this that works my hand?
Who is this that moves my pen?
Touch is a beetle creeping on this foreign thing
That wears my body like an evening.
Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.
The Half of It is beautiful because it brings out the insecurities of teenagers who want to fit in with the world around them and are confused about their feelings which might be the diametrical opposite of what is socially expected.
If sharing was a proverbial coin at the rehabilitation facility, connections were one side of it, and sexuality was the other. Men and women were not allowed to touch one another – no handshakes or hugs or an eager slap on the back.
A few days ago, in a telephonic conversation with my mother, I was made aware of the inadequacies of my…
We need to recognise that mental health stressors that queer people face are not because something is inherently wrong with them.