How Therapy Helped Anushka Let Go of the Past and Embrace the Present

Anushka Singh, 20, is thrilled to be graduating with her BTech degree at this young an age. That too from a prestigious institution like NIT Trichy. What’s more, she has also received an admit into a Europe-based business school. 

Confident, intelligent, and charismatic, Anushka is very pleasant to speak to. She’s also very open about her experience with counseling.

Born in 1999, Anushka grew up in a home where her parents’ marriage hadn’t been the smoothest. Her younger sister was born in 2007. The unhealthy family environment forced Anushka to grow beyond her years at a very young age.

Being the elder kid, I turned into someone who needed to be in control of the situation. I took up the caretaker role too seriously and that seems to have stayed with me throughout.

At times Anushka would find it difficult to let go. 

I’m usually prepared for everything and if there’s a change, I’m not sure how to deal with it. I’ll take care of stuff to the minutest detail. If anything goes wrong, I’m not sure how to handle it.

She grew up a very independent and confident person. 

All my decisions were taken by me and I had to do stuff on my own which is why I moved from Lucknow to Trichy to come out of where I had been and it was a huge change.

She mentions that everything had been going well while she was still in school. She took to books, studying and writing to spend her time. But she found the sudden change in environment after moving to NIT a bit difficult to adjust to. 

The environment here is quite conservative. I faced a lot of discrimination for being a girl AND a North Indian.

Anushka vividly remembers what led her to seek support from YourDOST.

There was a time when companies were coming to campus for internships. The only company that’s open to my branch for management is P&G and they come only for internships. I did not get through.

Anushka didn’t realise how much it affected her at the time but this experience put her off from placements and she decided to go for higher studies. She wrote her GRE and then started applying to business schools. But for some reason, some of those applications got delayed. Anushka was in distress. 

It was basically everything related to college coming to an end and there were a lot of unprocessed things that I felt were there inside of me and I needed someone to help me make sense of it.

That’s when Anushka connected with Psychologist, Ms. Amulya DSL for help. 

It was basically to give closure to my college life so that I could move forward with a clean slate.

She describes her sessions with Amulya as rant sessions where she would talk about herself. She wanted Amulya to understand where she was coming from to the minutest detail. 

I described everything to her in order starting from the 1st semester all the way to the last one. In between we would talk about the current happenings.

Towards the end of each session Amulya would always give Anushka questions to ponder over. Every session would start with a discussion about the question she received in the previous session and the thought process around it. Amulya had asked Anushka initially about what she expected out of therapy.

For me at that time, there was nothing specific I was looking for. For me, it was just a place to be myself and a place where I can talk to somebody about everything.

Counseling proved to be tremendously helpful for Anushka with many factors in her life including her self-image.

I had a very negative self-image. I thought I was a really bad person because of some incidents & I was never good enough for anything because of the various rejections I had faced in life.

Rejection was something that she always had difficulty in handling. Amulya gave her this perspective that she could separate her actions from the person that she was. 

My actions don’t necessarily define who I am and situations can be looked at in different ways by different people. Slowly and steadily, I was able to change that self-image.

Anushka was also able to stop blaming herself for some things that had happened in the past. She became more aware of what her strengths and weaknesses were. Anushka feels far more in control of her emotions now.

I’m able to control my temper and my attitude a lot. There was a time I would lose my temper very easily. Anything could tick me off. This has come down now.

Anushka and Amulya’s last session ended with them exchanging closure letters with each other.

Anushka mentions how she has a group of friends who were there to support her throughout the counselling process. She credits counseling with helping her move on from a lot of pent up emotions which she had kept bottled for ages.

We wish this warrior all the best for her future which is going to be inevitably bright.

Are you someone who has gone through a difficult phase and emerged stronger and better, with some professional help? Share your story with us to encourage thousands of others who might be struggling. Click here to submit your story.

Anushka’s Warrior Tips:
1. Surround yourself with friends who are supportive of you.
2. It’s okay to not be in control all the time
3. Every setback is a stepping stone to success