Sreeja* was a 20-year-old who found herself tossing and turning in bed when she was 17 years old, unable to sleep constantly. She couldn’t relax, or sleep, found it difficult to concentrate, and had constant headaches and a low self-image. She also had intrusive thoughts and images and didn’t know what to do. She went for a physical checkup to see if there was a physical issue but all her reports were normal. Baffled, she turned up at our centre.

Once she started her sessions, she started sharing more and opened up about her childhood experiences. She presented symptoms of an anxiety disorder and after a general diagnostic process, it was found that she had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and anxiety. The next few sessions focused on bringing awareness about her disorders and how they can proceed. She started having intense therapy sessions where she started following her thought processes and behaviors. Once she could identify them, she could comprehend that her intrusive thoughts about being ‘a victim of an acid attack or a geyser blast’ contributed to her low image and it was God’s way of punishing her for caring about her appearance. Our psychologist helped her realize that her thoughts didn’t have to turn into action and that being hyper-aware of herself was not helpful.

By helping her record her thoughts and feelings in a thought log, our psychologist helped her navigate and reconstruct her negative and intrusive thoughts into more helpful thoughts. Over time, Sreeja* improved considerably in her negative thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and behaviors.

(*name changed for anonymity)