It’s Not Just You is an exclusive weekly column for apt mental health advice by Dr. Vishvamohan Thakur. He is a Consultant Psychiatrist. He is doing private practice for 38 years and also providing services at Zydus Hospitals. He is passionate about his subject and likes to demystify the functioning of the human mind. He uses psychotherapy as well as medicines required to help his patients.
Question:
I feel nobody understands me. I feel I am the one who is always sacrificing. I feel I am the one who is taken for granted be it by my family, friends or colleagues. There are days I curse my destiny and there are days I curse all around me but most of the days I curse myself. I feel suicidal too. Please advise.
-Anu
Answer:
Dear Anu,
You are not alone!
Often the need to be understood, which is a universal human need, is unmet. And you also believe strongly that your contributions to others are not reciprocated.
Both of these are deeply frustrating and at this precise juncture we often make the mistake of taking the blame pathway – blaming others, destiny, or oneself. This way, we end up feeling bitter for others or for oneself. This often leads to weakening of relationships and depression and sometimes the resultant hopelessness is such that we become suicidal.
Instead of taking the blame route described above, we can use our feeling of frustration to get in touch with our own unmet needs. Thus we get in touch with what is alive in us. This involves no blame or self pity. It simply means getting in touch with what is alive in us at that moment – which are our feelings and their underlying needs. As needs are the expressions of life in us, we see the unmet needs as the source of our frustrations and NOT the external factors or ourselves that we earlier thought.
This inward attention to our unmet needs lets us replace our bitterness with calmness and makes us use our mind to revise our strategies to meet our needs. We act out of responsibility for our needs to be met, and drop the strategies that didn’t work.
Seeking professional help is often very helpful as obviously we are blind to our blind spots.
Seeking professional help is extremely critical if you are seriously contemplating suicide. Simple office based treatment, using a harmless nasal spray can end serious suicidal ideation within half an hour. So please don’t hesitate to take professional psychiatric help to overcome these common problems and learn a more effective way of living life joyfully.
Best wishes.
–Dr Thakur.
To get apt mental health advice you can send your questions on 7069083311.
