We all might have realized, at one point or another, that if we do not start taking care of our mental health, we will not be able to move forward productively and happily in our lives. The mental health journey starts with the ability to understand what you need as an individual regarding one’s well-being, and this is a win that should be celebrated!

Sadly, such celebrations and acknowledgements rarely happen, which further makes the path ahead and the whole journey of “trying to get better” very difficult and overwhelming.

If I talk about myself, something that I have struggled with in my mental health and wellbeing journey is finding a proper space to commence, or begin my journey to healing. With me, I know that I need help, but I panic while figuring out when, where, and how to ask for it. I either freeze or flee from the situation because confrontation doesn’t seem inviting; sometimes not at all in that moment. 

Individualizing one’s mental health journey

Yes, I agree. We have opened up about mental health quite a bit as a society. Multiple institutions provide awareness and intervention support across Nepal. We also have duplicity of resources, techniques, and methodologies. There are “trendy” and “popular” techniques for relief that honestly didn’t help me personally.

Rather, they made me feel worse, and made me question if I was facing something that cannot be ‘fixed’ or ‘healed’.

We certainly see A LOT of people just casually passing their advice around on mental health. Some of these pieces of advice include: “Just seek therapy”, “Get on antidepressants”, “Go for a holiday in the hills”, “Take a walk”, so on and so forth.

People might share their advice to ensure that we feel better, but I know that, for me, more than half of the time, “It doesn’t work!”.

I don’t know about anyone else, but if someone advised me to go for a holiday and I do go, then I will have the same drooping mental health, but maybe in a serene place with prettier clothes.

I believe, given how all of us are individuals of our own, the one-size-fits-all analogy doesn’t work when we are on the journey of our mental health and well-being. Individualism in the mental health journey of a person plays a very big role.

What I am trying to say is, mental health healing goes beyond the clinical four-walled counseling and medical services. Such extended interventions might include dancing and expressing body movements for some, whereas it might include sound and components of healing with music for others.

So, maybe for you talk therapy looks like the right way to go but for me, I might have to explore therapeutic interventions based on body movements more and then for some other individual, therapy as an intervention might not work at all leading them to the idea that a clinical path might just be beneficial for them!

Thinking beyond

This experience made me realize that promoting only certain kinds of mental health interventions and approaches is not the correct approach.

In addition to individualization, we also have to understand the importance of contextualization. It is high time that we understand the cultural and social context of the nation and approach the idea of mental health and well-being accordingly. Being in Kathmandu, where most of the country’s resources are centralized, we often find ourselves absently making assumptions about other metropolitan areas or municipalities of Nepal where the contexts are very different. Also, what about areas beyond cities where such ideas have not even been introduced?

In my experience, I have seen that the clinical terms used for mental health in Kathmandu do not resonate with people from suburban and rural areas. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to start one’s mental health journey when there aren’t any context-friendly interventions. 

Therapeutic settings might work in Kathmandu, but for other areas, given the culture and tradition of those areas, having communal settings for mental health also seems like the need of the hour.

The gap between young people and their accessibility to mental health services is not just a gap seen in Kathmandu, but it is even wider when you see the status of Nepal as a whole.

The process for an individual to get to a point of awareness and to realise that they need professional help regardless of where they are from or what their background is; is daunting and scary, I would say, because “mental health” does not generally fit into our day-to-day conversations, given the stigma, shame, and misinformation that is collated around it.

It took me a lot of time to realise that, regardless of the intentions behind all the advice and support from others, when it comes to mental health, we have to be aware of when to seek proper professional advice. The real struggle then becomes: How do we know when that time comes to seek help, and then what do we do? 

What I learned …

Being a social worker and a person diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD) who almost took five to six years to finally choose the right path for their healing and recovery, I believe I can share a few pointers that might bring clarity to you about how one can commence on their mental health journey towards overall wellbeing.

1. Seeking professional help becomes necessary when your day-to-day functioning is hampered by what you are going through, mentally and emotionally. This might mean your sleep cycle, food cycle, socialization, work, and studies being disrupted to a level that you can’t lead your day like you generally would. 

2. It’s okay to have a point in one’s life where the general functioning is hampered, and it’s okay to realize that professional help is required to generate healthy coping mechanisms.

3. Having the awareness that what you are facing might not completely disappear, but seeking professional help nonetheless will prepare you to cope with the symptoms positively and regulate your emotions, which is important.

4. Ensure you get a full body check-up first to rule out any physiological issues that might be affecting your health, and then only move towards meeting a mental health practitioner.

5. Initially, psychosocial approaches should be preferred. You can try out different types of therapies, may it be individually or by joining a group, body movement regulations, sound healing, so on and so forth. (There are institutions offering telecommunication services and online services which are cost-effective too.)

6. Seeking the correct type of professional help is important for your mental health journey. If one type is not working out for you, trust me, there are other interventions out there that will help you. You just have to trust yourself and be patient with the process.

7. Understand that clinical psychologists in hospitals and psychosocial counselors in organizations provide psychosocial support of various kinds, and a psychiatrist is someone who’s ideally responsible for prescribing medications.

8. Don’t opt directly for medication until you have tried psychosocial approaches in your mental health journey, or your doctor hasn’t recommended it. Understand like when in physical distress, operation is your last resort, similarly, in mental health distress, medication is the last resort.

This is primarily what helped me, and also what I have seen and experienced in my day-to-day practice as a social worker.

I understand that these steps may not resonate with everyone, but if they offer clarity, comfort, or even a small sense of connection to just one person, then this blog has served its purpose. To anyone out there struggling with their mental health: know that you're not alone. 

Healing isn't always linear, and the path can be long, but there is a path. I truly hope you find the strength to keep going and discover what well-being looks like for you–in your own time, and on your terms.