Mental Health
Wellbeing and sexuality for me therefore entailed thinking through and dealing with violence, understanding and acknowledging it as not the entirety of one’s experience, and going through a process of healing.
This thought-provoking, luminously illustrated The School of Life video reminds us of self-compassion being essential to building our own selves up, and being a safe space where we can extend the same love and imagination to our vulnerabilities, insecurities, fears, and doubts as we do to our friends.
Conversations about stress, burnout and mental health have gained prominence, especially during and since the COVID-19 pandemic. But, what is stress and burnout?
We need to recognise that mental health stressors that queer people face are not because something is inherently wrong with them.
The issue with the ‘Aunty’ body arises from a deeply misogynistic and dehumanising understanding of women. In this imagination the woman, whom the world now addresses as ‘Aunty’, has basically served her purpose of marriage and child bearing, and is hence rendered useless.
I had risked so much already, not just by loving another woman, but by acting on my desires. By allowing myself to feel intimacy and connection with another queer person. Despite feeling guilt and shame, this risk had become increasingly vital to take.
In a time when reason is more valued than emotion, unravelling and understanding the politics of self-care becomes all the more fundamental for us, and the movements we seek to develop and build. When our bodies, our emotions and our needs become weapons to be used against us, acts of defiance become rooted in thinking about your self and how we practice it. I find I am faced with more questions than answers, but I also know that asking the questions is the first step to finding the answers
I know that the lives of many human rights defenders are under continuous threat, that sometimes it is impossible to sleep or to enjoy a moment of peace because of the harassment coming from the outside. What I address in this text is our internal disposition as activists, and the ideas that stop us from taking care of and holding ourselves together.
Should it have been a full stop or a question mark that finished the above title? It deeply confused me….
While we have come a long way from the singular Freudian focus on sexual energies and reducing most mental health disturbances to sexuality, there is no doubting its significance for an individual’s wellbeing.
“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you…
It was, however, the community’s consistent refrain of having “no one” to talk to, that made the problem of mental health crises stand out during my conversations.
A few days ago, in a telephonic conversation with my mother, I was made aware of the inadequacies of my…
Sudha ji’s indomitable spirit made me question if I was settling down for too little, if there was more that I should ask for, and if there is more that I deserve.
I am 27 now and marriage is the most brought-up topic of conversation by my parents and relatives. Now, choosing or wanting to stay single is inversely proportional to my reputation, respect, and worthiness.