Journal entry 2025

TW- Suicide, anxiety, mental health.

A few months ago, I rang up my mother crying, unaware of what that conversation would open up for me. While we were talking, she casually remarked how she had never known me to have cried a lot growing up. A simple observation that didn't seem to strike me for the few seconds and then it did. My mother was unaware of how easily or often I cried growing up. And that opened a Pandora's box of unpleasant memories. It struck me that I had cried almost every day for as long as my memory stood correct and that I had mostly cried before bedtime or after waking up. This meant two things, my immediate family did not always know of the crying and that it was not being triggered by an active element. It was mostly without an argument or fight, without being put in danger or harm's way. 

Over the past few years, it is well known among my social circles that I can cry at the drop of a hat. Some people, who've known me for over a couple of years kept telling me It was something new. they had not always known, I cry so easily. People who know me for far lesser time often seemed confused or concerned. And then it struck me at 25 years of age, I had not become this person who only knew how to express multiple emotions through crying overnight. I had always been expressing grief and fear, sometimes even anger through tears. Just that the emotions had become more and more public as life unfolded. 
When someone got angry with me some weeks ago for being teary about everything, it struck me, it was not always fear or anger or grief. It was everything from happy to being exhausted. I was crying when I was happy about something. I was also crying when I was tired and overwhelmed with the dishes in my kitchen (which by the way never seem to go away). 
So, while I realized a couple of things that we call "childhood trauma" or "unresolved issues" in casual therapy speak, I was also figuring out a stagnant career that was slightly hinting a not so happy ending. I was constantly sick, both physically and mentally. and I was, for what seemed like the first time in half a decade, losing patience for company of those who made me feel repeatedly unsafe and undervalued. And as life would always have it, there happened to be someone who comes into your life, makes you feel like you're yourself again and then things fall apart. 
As I moved from one month of the latter half of 2025 to another, I was rediscovering a lot of my not so pleasant parts. 
A few weeks after an enlightening few minutes with my mother, shit hit the ceiling. I have spoken about this period, which is short in time but seemed to have taken forever to get past, rarely and only casually. Perhaps, I had not processed it or rather I was carrying it with a couple kilos of guilt and shame. On the first Tuesday of November, I woke up with tears (was not surprised one bit).I reached out for help, didn't seem to know where to go and sat spiraling for couple of hours, and then very casually, as if it is nothing, I am doing for the first time that could alter multiple lives in a minute, I made my first attempt. Well, in good news, I am writing this, so it was a failed one, but it changed me completely. 
For a few days after that, I didn't think of it, I didn't speak about it, I didn't seek help and then it hit me. I could have been gone. I suppose, I have been down and low multiple times for extended periods of time, but the last two months have been hard. When I finally spoke about it, it felt like the weight was off my shoulders. I was wrong once more. It kept coming back to me. Every moment of those few minutes would flash in front of my eyes and I would spiral. I didn't know how it could ever be expressed so I cried more and more. 
And it isn't to say I have felt weak at all times of these few months. There have been fleeting moments of pure joy with people who showed up in ways they knew best, in ways that were perhaps, best. But it was hard to show up. To show up at a high-pressure job. To show up at dinners and lunches. Hard to complete chores, cook or eat food. Hard to talk without starting an argument. But I know I showed up, nonetheless. To many a disappointments and displeasure of others, I showed up. 
And for someone who doesn't journal, and doesn't write without a tone of irrelevant, exaggerated metaphors like blue mugs and vintage sarees, I took the better part of December to write this. Every time I began, I resented myself. I resented people sometimes, and I often also resented the idea of putting this out altogether. But I wrote my truth for people reading this to know, you can survive. Most things, if not all, can be survived. It changes you. It breaks you. It makes you unlearn and relearn patterns you only discovered now. It makes you bitter in your worst moments; it ends up hurting your closest relationships. It makes you hate yourself. But it has an ending. 
Is the worst over? Who's to know, but I know it was the best I could do. When I got angry, I knew when to stop talking. When I was overwhelmed, I learnt when to request for a day off. When things got dark, I know there was nothing wrong in wanting to step out and simply exist. 
As I write the final part of this year's diary entry, I know I have lost a few important people, I am thankful I have gained a few very warm relationships, and I am scared that there are some that hang in between somewhere. 
But I know I will not give up again. I know I will show up over and over. Because if there's anything people and I have known of me and myself, is that I have an innate quality of perseverance. I cry through it, making most people think I am weak, but for someone who is fully aware they could have not been here this moment, I suppose my strength was in acknowledging my tears. It was in forgiving myself for my mistakes and starting over because I am sure this cannot be how the chapter I am writing, ends.