A disease is a disease, whether physical or mental.

“I am not good enough!”

“No one loves me!”

“Let me try keeping others happy {even if I am not happy doing it?}. My happiness doesn’t matter.”

Wondering what all this is about? Ever made these statements or statements similar to this?

If you haven’t or are afraid to admit it – let me start by saying these are statements that I have frequently made to myself for practically 33 years of my life. Not even knowing about the existence of words, like self-love, self-care, self-confidence, self-worth and so on, I grew up being a “people-pleaser”. I could do anything and everything; irrespective of whether I liked it and even if it didn’t make me happy. I would just do things, so that people become happy through my actions and, in short, like me or even love me. I always felt - I didn't deserve to be loved. No one ever even cared to point out that this kind of behaviour is not right. Instead, people would land up taking advantage of my behaviour and attitude and use it to their benefit. I would even at times hurt myself so that people would take notice of me.

5 years back, I was introduced to words, like self-love and self-care and very recently, the word – “self-worth” got added to my dictionary. Today I tell people around me that there is no one I love more than myself. Also, now Kareena Kapoor’s dialogue also, from “Jab We Met” makes a lot of sense – “Main Apni favourite hu (No one can love me more than my love for myself).” And in fact, this is also the statement I often make about myself ?. Oh! And trust me I am very proud to say it. Today when I look in the mirror, I see my biggest motivator and my biggest inspiration. No one can inspire more than how much I inspire myself. Every day the mirror shows me a person who is a warrior and a person who can achieve anything that she sets her heart to and will not care what anyone says.

Now when I look back, sometimes I don’t even know how to react. At times I even land up laughing, wondering what I used to put in so much effort at that time for people to like me and now all I have to do is SMILE and it does the entire trick. At this point in life, there is nothing more important to me than my physical and mental health. I am willing to go to any heights to ensure that these two are in place.

The things I have realized about this change is that

1.    People can’t love you if you don’t love yourself. It’s just not possible.

2.    Keep yourself happy first. When you are happy, everyone around you will start becoming happy.

3.    Make yourself a priority. It has to be every aspect of your being – mental as well as physical.

4.    F*** the world. The world never came to support when I was suffering from depression and low self-esteem issues. I will live my life the way I want it.

5.    Find your team of supporters. You will always have critics all around you. The best way to beat them is to surround yourself with people who will not hesitate to kick you when you are on the wrong path but would also be the first ones to lift you if you fall.

6.    There is no harm in meeting a counsellor or a psychologist, for that matter. They will not have an answer to all your problems; however, they would provide a different perspective or just teach you a better way to handle it.

7.    SMILE. You don’t own all the problems in the world. Be grateful for what you have. There are people out there who are less privileged than you.

8.    There is no harm in asking for help. You will realize that once you reach out, there will be millions that would be willing to help.

9.    Accepting that you have a problem is half the journey walked.

Mental health and depression are things that are not easily identifiable and they are the primary reasons for half the problems when it comes to relationships, be it with your spouse, or even your friends and family for that matter.

The relationship with your self is the MOST important relationship of all. That is the relationship that you have to live with your entire life.