Sharing Our Innermost Thoughts

Sorry everyone. It’s a long read but wanted to vent out.
Let me tell you about my distress and how it all started. It was during year 2005-2006 I was kind of a normal happy to go kid with friends and normal school life routine. It was during 7th standard I slowly started to loose interest in studies started bunking school with lame excuses and prefered sitting idle at home. Started with one day a week then 2 days and so on and then completely discontinued. After almost 2 months of absence in the meanwhile with my family doing with some religious rituals but also took me to a psychiatrist because they could sense something was wrong with me. With medications and other things I felt ok resumed school completed my 7th standard. Till first term of 8th standard I was ok but from 2nd term again same thing started repeating. But this time it really was very bad. I didn’t attend school for the whole second term and didn’t write final exams. As a result I was failed in 8th standard. My parents and neither me wanted to go back to the same school again in 8th standard. They changed by school and the principal of the new school were very considerate and empathetic towards me. But again same thing started happening in new school. I hardly have been to the new school for the next two years but even then the school principal allowed me to write midterm exam and final exam by making sitting away from school premises and passed me in 8th and 9th grade with grace marks. But he was helpless in 10th standard because of the attendance criteria required by state board as well as internal and external marks criteria and since I was in the same state he suggested my parents to get my name out of school and enroll privately to appear for 10th. My parents did that but I didn’t write the 10th exam. And for next 2 years I was only 9th pass person. All these while my parents took me to various psychiatrists counselors as well as vedic rituals etc. It was only then I found a doctor who kind of was a messiha in my life. He diagnosed me with schizophrenia because I was showing some signs of delusions and hallucinations. He put me on Nexito and Skizoril on higher power. Slowly the medications started working. I started feeling better started getting back interests in life and one fine day I told my parents I want to study again. I was just a 9th pass with almost around 3 years gap and was quite reluctant to do 10th standard with children 3 years younger to me. That’s when someone suggested about open university which gives opportunity for people of any age to complete graduation if for any reason the person had left studies midday. I enrolled myself there did my graduation b.com with first class. Next I was interested for post graduation and more keen on doing something in IT field but was denied admission for regular course because of my unfamiliar past studies. I went back to open university did my MCA with first class. Till now I was on Nexito and Skizoril with somewhat reduced dosage. Now getting a job became somewhat difficult because of my past and I guess this was somewhere my anxiety disorder started. After struggling to find a job for around 6-7 months I finally found one with a startup company. I worked there for one year but in that one year I was also preparing for competitive exams like ibps etc. I cracked an psu insurance company exam but at the time of documents verification I was denied go ahead for the interview process. After lots of arguments and negotiation about the genuineness of my problems and after submitting the government gazette copy for recognition of open university degrees I was allowed for interview. The interview didn’t go well I messed up on even silly questions may be because of the incidents that happened before the interview and at one point I just wanted to walk off the interview declaring myself as incompetent but didn’t. The results came in after around 1 month and my name wasn’t in the final list. I was expecting the same result because internally I knew I won’t make it after the interview. I was sad about it for somedays but then it was kind of fine. And accidentally during a routine checkup I was diagnosed to be suffering from hypertension as my blood pressure remained on higher side in next few days checkup. Subsequently I was put on antihypertensive drugs. I often used to feel anxious used to sweat a lot but neither my treating psychiatrist nor anyone could diagnose it. And then I cleared a bank’s exam. And again had to go through the process of documents verification and interview. There was no major issue with my documents verification because I also submitted the government gazette copy of open university. I was given go ahead for interview. The initial start of interview went well. Was answering the questions properly. And then suddenly I started messing up on questions I started feeling nauseous and dizzy and in next few moments I was fully drenched in sweat. My heart beating harder. Feeling dizzy. The panel members stopped the interview arranged for a fan immediately to cool me down. Offered me some water and gave some comforting words. The interview ended on that note. My treating psychiatrist termed it as hypertension episode and kept continuing with the Nexito and Skizoril medications along with hypertension medications. Finally had to take second opinion who diagnosed it to be anxiety disorder and termed the interview incident as panic attack. Though he kept continuing with the same Skizoril and Nexito but added anti anxiety drugs Clonazepam. In the meanwhile I was stunned to see that I’m selected for the bank job. I joined the job with the above medications. Initial days were managable even though I had the spells of panic attacks. I earned a good name in the organisation for my work. But somewhere something wasn’t going right in my mind. And it started showing up in my work. And panic attacks started getting stronger day by day. Low moods and lack of motivation resulted in increasing absences from work place. Had to switch doctors to get something right. And there were many alterations in the medications and new medications were introduced. This went on for 3 years. And my performance my absence everything had deteriorated. And after completing 3 years of service I again had to undergo an interview process to get selected as a confirmed employee. Attending interview again felt like a big pain for me. And with all these I went for the interview. And again I messed up couldn’t even answer about my desk work. Similar panic attack experience was repeated in this interview. But sometimes what seems like bitter trials are often blessings in disguise the panel knew me well for my hardwork and my 3 years of working and learning about work of different departments said everything about me. The interview got over and in the evening announcement came as no one was rejected and everyone in the batch were selected as confirmed employees. But instead of feeling happy and delighted I felt like a failure. It was a feeling as if I was selected just as a compassion and I didn’t deserve to be confirmed employee. The next few months went from bad to worse. I started loosing interest in work. And then a burnout of almost 2 months happened. My treating doctor at that time completely overhauled the medications and added new set of medications which actually helped me. After being at home for 2 months almost I rejoined office. But this time my cover of having a mental health condition was blown. Initial days and months people distanced themselves from me. Even though a lot of negative emotions were still there inside me but slowly something positive started happening. Slowly the acceptance of my condition started coming inside me. I started to valuing myself more. This started to help in clearing the clutter from mind. My work performance which had gone down badly started improving. I even started getting into people started interacting more with coworkers. And things slowly and steadily improved. I don’t want to brood about myself but I’m considered as one of the most valued employee of my department.