1 August 2020.
Strengthening together with every session, we successfully completed the 6th session of Strength togetHER on 1st August 2020. A virtual session that was initially created as space for girls to come together to share and hear stories comfortably has actually completed its objective. "Strength togetHER" has turned into a family to share and hear problems and also get solutions to it. To quote "Individually we were one drop, together we are an ocean."
This program, along with its two cohorts "Strength togetHER cohort 2" and "Strength togetHER cohort 3" is facilitated by LOKOPAKAR, a youth organization dedicated to bringing innovative programs for the youths.
Keeping the feedbacks of the participants from the previous session in mind, this time we had a session entirely dedicated to 'Experience Sharing'. Our moderators were Rosy Karna, Psy.D candidate at Stanford University with a specialization in Clinical psychology and Dr.Sweta Gautam, a sufferer of mental health issues who has recently completed her MBBS.
Personally, I was looking forward to this session for the longest time because this session didn't have a specific topic and specific speakers which means that one could talk about all the issues and speak their minds.
Our moderators started with sharing their own experiences so that the session would be more interactive and effective. The participants then shared their stories.
•One of our moderator shared her terrible experience of being diagnosed with OCD. She said how everything used to disgust her. She was so mentally ill that she wouldn't touch anything with her bare hands, be it water taps or doorknobs. She would use her feet to do get certain things are done and sometimes she would even let the door open so that she wouldn't have to touch the knob. As the matter got worse, she consulted a therapist. During the therapy, the doctor would make her touch dirty surfaces and wouldn't allow her to sanitize her hands. This went for a few days until she finally got habituated.
•Our another moderator shared her fear about big pictures. She took us back in the time of her school days when she suddenly saw a picture of a big snake in a random book. Instead of letting her fear swallow her, she decided to fight against it. Thus, she took the picture book home. Even today, she fears huge pictures but not like in back then.
•Our one participant shared her story when she was almost suspected to have cancer. She had to go through multiple CT scans and operations. Just in a small age, she had to go through many medical treatments. To add up, she also lives far from her home. Hearing her story made us proud of her. She is a brave one.
•Another participant shared how her best friend is slowly distancing from her just cause her friend got a new partner. Our participants said that she is not cared for as much as she was cared for before and there have also been many communication gaps.
•Our next participant shared her experience about this lockdown where she has restarted on her business venture. She has an online business so she said how she is constantly paranoid because she has to deliver her goods even in this state of extreme fear of COVID-19. She also talked about how she overthinks which causes extreme fear.
After hearing the experiences from the participants, we were given tips and advice from our moderators.
The advices were:
• Engage in some kind of physical activity.
•Schedule your day.
•Don't check the phone as soon as you wake up.
•Practice mindfulness.
•Early in the morning, look outside and make schedules of the things to be done.
•Anger is not an emotion, it's a reaction.
•Truth hurts but speak and accept the truth.
•Be aware of the surrounding.
•When you're overthinking, make a list of "things you can control" and "things you can't control".
All in all, it was a very beneficial session where we got to learn about mental health and ways to tackle with some emotions from our health expert moderators. The session started from 12.00 pm unlike other sessions and went on till 1.30 pm with the active participation of 20 girls via the Zoom app. It was a positive and productive session where we all interacted with each other.
Written by: Aastha Shrestha (Cohort Coordinator, LOKOPAKAR)
Edited by: Barsha Tamang (LOKOPAKAR)
Beautifully written ; )
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