Stepping out of the therapist’s room, her words still ring in my head, “According to the diagnosis, you have… …”

First thought: So it’s real.

Your second: So it’s permanent?

I couldn’t really listen or take in what she said afterwards.

I look around, the world is the same, people holding coffee cups in their hands and going across the street, yet my world, I feel I’m shattered, nothing in me is really left, that is actually me. There wasn’t anybody I could talk to about my feelings or who could help me out of the funk that I was now experiencing more and more frequently. It was kind of bewildering.

The questions like:

Am I unwell?

Am I not normal?

Am I too unwell that it is easy to notice?

Am I my illness now?

Or am I still me?

I was losing the grasp of the distinction between mental illness and physical illness or that I had a mental medical condition. Was all the therapy I took all in vain? Now what?

The next step from here was to tell my family. The fear from just thinking how they will react was nerve-wracking. The issue, I think, is that it is very easy to get a wrong first impression from all the labels that surround a mental illness and problem.

My family was equally frightened and worried, as I told them. Why wasn’t I cheerful like before?

Why wasn’t I interested in anything that was happening? This diagnosis was the answer to all of their questions. You would think diagnosis would have thrown me for a loop, if I say no, I would be lying.

I was so confused by all the terms that surround having a mental illness and the wrongful connotations some of them have, even when the doctor diagnosed me. But it did relieve me, for I was not the only one who experienced all of these, they were not wrong, they had a name, they could be managed. My feelings that something wasn’t right for such a long time were not only vindicated, but I would now get the chance to really understand my issues, where they come from and most important of all, learn how to feel better on a daily basis. Days pass.

You start reading about it, Googling symptoms at 2 AM. You find online forums where strangers sound like they’ve lived your life. It’s both haunting and soothing, I’m not alone, but God,

I wish

I were.

Therapy begins. Medication begins.

Some mornings you wake up feeling almost normal and wonder if the diagnosis was wrong.

Then the next day you can’t brush your hair, can’t answer texts, and it slams back showing the proof, the evidence, the truth.

But then you notice the change, less negative spirals, you notice more calmer movements, difference in thought process, and without any notice, you now want to interact, have more in life than just confining yourself in a room.

The journey was like a tunnel, it felt like important to move forward with my life, it was all dark as I began, but a ray of light and hope kept me going. There were moments when thoughts like there’s no end and this is my destiny crept in, and hope was a little strand of thread that I could barely hold to, but I held.

And somewhere in all that chaos, one small, rebellious thought appears:

Maybe this isn’t an ending. Maybe it’s a language I’m just starting to learn.

• By Raanya Arora