My brother used to tell me that I was one of the few people whom he followed on Twitter. I did check his twitter once. He was following celebrities like Donald Trump and then there was me. When I asked him why, he said it was interesting to see what was on my mind. I shrugged it off. But then his decision came back to bite me in the ass later. That is a story for another day!
But Twitter was one of the tools that helped me get over my depression during college.
When I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and depression I was pretty much silent and won’t talk to anybody. I won’t raise my voice or even ask for water or ask someone let me through. I was scared to open my mouth. But that does not mean that my mind was also silent. In fact that was the time when my mind worked over time. I had way too many thoughts that needed to be pushed out of my head. I did not have anyone I could talk to and I was not taking any therapy at that time as well. So I needed an outlet. As much as fanfictions helped, they were still not getting my raw thoughts out. I was getting suffocated until I thought “Let me see what is there in twitter”
Due to cyber bullying I had deleted my Facebook account. It was kept that way for around three years. During that time I got into twitter and just kept tweeting away. Having a nice smart phone helped. Most of the folks at college did not have one. I now had a secret journal where I wrote the deepest darkest stuff that emerged from my heart. And I had a few people assure me that I was not alone in thinking that way. It was comforting in the weirdest way. At that time I did not know that this was the kind of therapy I needed. I was opening up in a platform where nobody knew me, nobody judged me, nobody even cared what I was like. I loved it. I made friends. I kept talking about random things. Random thoughts that came into my head was shared uncensored. I almost felt a little better.
The more you talk about your inner thoughts the more clearer you get. This is something I realized from all my days of being miserable. Being an introvert does not help as well. You generally just choose not to talk at all. I had to delete my twitter after using it for 4 years. Thanks to my brother. And I recently joined back again. But now I have a few of my friends following me. Now I am not so sure about sharing everything. Because I know I have people whose thought process I am aware of. I know that they may or may not judge. They may or may not care. I have had instances where I had someone get worried about my depressed tweets. So I feel a little self conscious now.
Tweeting out is like screaming or yelling or just softly telling things at the beach. The waves are crashing and there is a constant sound that drowns yours. But in the off chance that someone hears your screaming and agree/disagree with it, you have some company. Or it is just you throwing out words into the wind. Getting things off your chest. You don’t hurt anyone. You just want to feel lighter. Now fortunately or unfortunately there are a few people around you while you scream and they make you stop. They mean well. But they also need to understand that this is how you feel better. This has been your therapy for a long time, and you are trying to get back to your therapy…
I feel a piece of mind written above, but I don’t tweet much. I write quotes into an app called Yourquote. Reading through above eased out me a bit. Thanks for it Trika! ? Cool name. Look up for meaning of Trika.