Im not crazy, you are!

“I was trying to explain my situation to myself. My situation was that I was in pain and nobody knew it, even I had trouble knowing it. So I told myself, over and over, You are in pain. It was the only way I could get through to myself. I was demonstrating externally and irrefutably an inward condition.” 

― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted 

Today,Lets talk Mental Health

Susanna Kaysen is an American author, best known for her 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted. She attended high school at the Commonwealth School  in Boston, and the Cambridge School of Weston before being sent to McLean Hospital  in 1967 to undergo psychiatric treatment  for depression . It was there she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder . She was released after 18 months. She later drew on this experience for her 1993 memoir Girl,Interrupted , which was adapted into a film in 1999; she was portrayed by Winona Ryder.

The reason I mention Susanna Kaysen is simply because she revolutionised depression and mental health for me. In fact, she made me conscious to the idea that I may have been depressed. Heres a quick backstory to what Im talking about:

One fine summers day, a school day in fact, I was home alone too tired to go to school. I missed my classes that day and I had steadily doing so for weeks, some but not all. I couldn't understand what was going on with me, I was very sad, very anxious, very paranoid and the only that helped me feel slightly better was sleep. At some point, tired of staring at the walls of my bedroom, I decided to watch a movie Girl,Interrupted. I never really watched the movie before and it was very weird. It was about some girl who found herself in a psychiatric facility, and funny enough she wasn't that 'mad' compared to the other patients that were there. And the whole movie really opened my mind to the idea of mental health.

After the movie ended, I decided to clean the house up a bit just so I could feel somewhat useful. As I was sweeping in the sitting room I became overwhelmed with emotion and I cried...I cried so hard and fell to the floor, at some point I looked outside and I just couldn't understand why everybody's world kept going while mine stopped. Then I stopped crying. Picked myself up. Got changed and went school. And thus started a series of meaningful events.

I googled Susanna Kaysen, her biography, her book, her quotes and what she said really spoke me. Till this day, I used her quotes to not only understand my mental health but also others. Yes I understand we're all different but at least I have some sort of understanding and I'm not so ignorant. 

My whole reason for this blog post was to reach out to someone who might not know what they're feeling, might not know what to do with themselves and just encourage you to feel everything, allow yourself to feel everything because once you do you'll be able to overcome it, trust me. If you have a story almost similar to mine, or just a story to tell please share it below!