A few days ago, I was going through some old notebooks. In them, was the ‘What I want to be when I grow up’ section. After getting over my detective phase because of all the crime shows I used to watch, this was the first time I wrote ‘physchologist’. Yeah I thought there was an ‘h’ because physician did and they sounded similar to me. So despite the terrible spellings, I found myself getting pulled towards a subject
We’ve all been fascinated with how the mind works right? Well, my fascination was a little extra. I’ve always tried to provide justifications for behaviour- some clicked, some didn’t but either way, I kept reading, kept researching. It took me a long time to realise what Psychology actually was. It isn’t just ‘mind reading’ or ‘predicting outcomes’- it’s a complicated subject. There’ s constant learning- no matter how old you are, whatever Psychology you know at this very moment is not enough, there’s so much more out there waiting for you to grasp on to.
Now fast forward to Grade 8- that’s when I started making notes. Notes for everything: School, my favourite conspiracy theories, and of course, Psychology. From the MBTI personalities, various mental health issues and even developmental theories, I wrote whatever I found. Going through them makes me realise that the passion I have for the subject is still the same. The questions change, but the desire to find answers will always exist.
If you know me, you know how I'll always find a way to bring up Psychology.
From Freudian slip to Kinesthetic learner- It’s very difficult to stop me once I start. Relating things I learn to daily life and even the most simple situations gives me this sense of satisfaction, the “oh this makes sense now” feeling, And every single time that happens, I find myself going deeper and deeper because once you start understanding the why, everything else falls into place on its own.
However this is just one aspect. The second and the more important one is Mental Health. Of course, this isn’t just limited to psychology but does play a major role as to why I am drawn to this subject. Growing up, I knew that things around me weren’t always how they seemed. There was always another emotion, another feeling in most situations which people tried to hide or ‘cover up’ so to say. I never understood why.
Why did people pretend to be fine when they are not? How does society expect us to be fine all the time? As years passed I understood the taboo and stigma behind it. I saw cases, saw what the lack of help could do and slowly understood the bigger picture-
it’s not like we’re expected to be fine all the time, we’re expected not to talk about it. This has always bothered me.
What I aim to achieve by writing this column is not just talking about psychologists and their theories or emotions and how they affect us (which honestly is pretty cool haha) but I want to show you the other side- the changed perception. I want to tell you about the importance of mental health and what we can do to make a difference, I want to explain the things that exist but no one talks about them like the psychopath in you and how morality changes the world around us. I want to make a difference, and by reading my articles, you’re helping me get one step closer to that. So thank you for making me love this subject even more. Thank you for texting me the ‘mind blown’ emoji once you finish the article every week and of course,thank you for telling me how you learnt something new because of the two thousand words I wrote. It means a lot to me :)
- Arohi Sachar
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