It is known, at least to the people close to me, that I go quiet on social media when I am not doing well. I come back when I have energy enough for thought and articulation. It is tempting in that time to only write about the floating and keep hidden the part where I almost drowned before I got my head up the surface. I often give in to the temptation, only writing about the 4pm sun, the nice poem in my inbox, the bedsheet with a tiger and a lion on it, the new plants, the books that make me want to cuddle inside them with warm coffee, the conversation I had with a boy that, even if for a minute, gave me a fantasy of a happy future. And my my, the plants! To describe in minute detail my Ikea shopping; who would have thought there was so much joy to be got from a bedsheet!
But I feel discomfort, like an itch on my back that I can’t reach, when I leave out from these the times I struggled with taking my medicines, the meltdown from watching a war movie, the anger I feel towards my own body and all the collateral damage I do to my relationships. It doesn’t feel worth it, at least now when N doesn’t give me gifts every 200 posts! to write about the pain at the cost of feeling bare and vulnerable; and yet I know it is. Last week someone reached out to me when they were too scared to take their newly prescribed mental health medicine, which made me realize why I do this, this opening of my heart for those who can use it, to help all the Prachis who could use a story like mine.
So here is my plan: Pluck up my courage, be honest and write, about the good times, but mostly about the bad ones that I survive to get there.
