It's okay to not be okay

Life is an amalgam of happy and sad moments. Without sad moments in life, you wouldn’t know what the happy moments are. We all showcase our happy moments, our moments of victory, and pride but fail to even express our low, sad and embarrassing moments. Why is that? Because we think that it’s a sign of weakness to express our low moments.

But in reality, it’s a sign of ultimate strength to recognize your overwhelming emotions and trying to just get through the day. I think that people who are dealing with mental health problem and still manage to function normally are the ultimate heroes.

Because everyone can brag about their strengths and victories, but it takes the utmost courage to even talk about your weakness and accepting that it’s normal to feel low sometimes.

Looking up to this, Editorial Director of “Rotaract club of Birla College” came up with an amazing initiative named “It’s okay to not be okay”. The fundamental concept behind this is project is to let people share their adverse phase in their life and their way to tackle it. The overall response was great and here are some responses from our participants.

“My adverse phase till now is when I was in 12th standard and pursuing Science and was about to give my entrance for MBBS but by heart I never wanted to do MBBS and was very hard for me to take a stand at home about this and tackled this situation alone for 2 years but at the end when I was about to give my entrance I thought to myself if I don't do it now I will not have chance later and took a stand for me in front of my parents to change my stream where I am interested which was really hard for me but now I am happy about that day what I did because of that day now I am doing what I enjoy doing and happy now.”

“One of the most adverse phases in my life was stepping my first step in to the stock market. Initially, I thought that it would be easy to make consistent profits but after beginning my journey the losses shook me and made me clear that one should have a proper planning & strategy. And to recover my loss amount I started referring various platforms and earning through it. And the only best way to tackle my adverse phase was learning and understanding market with a change in psychology. And till the date I am learning the market and making few consistent profits through trading.”

“My adverse situation was when my whole family was tested as Covid Positive. My grandfather and father both had to be admitted while we were home quarantined. Starting with the admission process to the discharge we had literally no clue of how it had to be done. It was very little that we knew about how it was going to affect us. Though we were asymptomatic, my father and grandfather had strong symptoms which further increased our worry. The constant fear of dealing with covid plus the worry of it being transmitted to our pet cats made us lose our mental cool. Though our neighbors and relatives helped us in our daily requirements but the thing that helped us out of the mental sickness of the covid was that we believed in our recovery. We strongly believed that nothing wrong was bound to happen and that we all would recover soon. This was the only thing that helped us mentally get out of the covid trauma.”

“The most sorrowful phase in my life was when my grandfather passed away, he was my greatest support system and the pioneer of my life. It took an ample amount of time for me to rescue myself from the tough time. I was deeply engrossed in his memories but my parents were the people who helped me to move on. They strongly advised me to engage myself in numerous activities so that I could divert my mind elsewhere. Eventually, I decided to learn the Spanish language and joined the academy. I also started reading novels for engaging my brain. Gradually, I was able to move on and after some days I did successfully cope with all the repeated thoughts.”

We use different words to talk about sadness: agony, anguish, broken heart, hurt, sorrow, dejection, dismay, homesickness, distress, unhappiness and more. All these emotions can occur in response to a negative or unexpected situations, or life changes.

Sadness often occurs at the same time as other feelings, such as anger, stress, guilt, grief, anxiety or hopelessness. Sometimes, the other feeling may be so strong that you don’t realize you are sad.

Sadness may also change how you feel emotionally. Perhaps you are teary, grumpy, bored or frustrated, or just keen to avoid other people. But recognizing your sadness, and understanding that it is okay to feel sad, is a sign of a stable sense of wellbeing.