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1. "#Happiness" can scare #anxiety patients. In our heads, things are always going wrong. Fear of a "happy" moment undone is doubly painful.

Sorry, this won't be a daily affair as I had earlier imagined. But here's insight #2 based on my brush with #depression/#anxiety.

2. I loved #walking. But now I hate it because Doc say it's part of the "treatment". It feels forced, like all those pills. I'm not lazy.

3. Often, crying is an uncontrollable, purely physical phenomenon - like hiccuping or sneezing. #depression #anxiety #mentalhealth

4. Side effects of pills - sweating, bloating, weird nightmares, twitching, blurred vision - will daily tempt you to stop. #mentalhealth

5. The last thing you want is your family telling you how sad your illness makes them. Piles on the #guilt. Makes you clam up. #mentalhealth

6. Chronic #nightmares as side effects of pills are like stomach ache. Hard to get sympathy because others can't see them. #mentalhealth

7. When someone asks me, "How did you find out?" I tend to describe physical symptoms rather than 'sadness' or 'feeling low'. #mentalhealth

8. My favourite uncle left us. Everyone is grieving. But my mother keeps glancing at me wondering if I will have a breakdown. #mentalhealth

9. This too is a reality of #mentalillness. Even on occasions of shared grief, you are hyper-aware that your own grief is a spectacle.

10. Unlike in other diseases, with #mentalillness you often can't tell if you are really improving. Symptoms might merely seem to morph.

11. Even if you're depressed, you don't lose the ability to comfort others in grief. Discovering this about myself now. #mentalhealth

Change 'don't' to 'may not'.

12. A less-known manifestation of #anxiety/#stress is inflammation of the temporomandibular joint near the, on which the lower jaw rests. Mine swells up because I clench my jaws hard owing to stress/nightmares. Solution: Chew gently. Don't open mouth too wide. Muscle relaxants.

13. My therapist is teaching me the power of 'distress tolerance'. Started with learning how to tolerate the distress caused by the behaviour/habits of others. Now, I'm working on a much harder problem: being OK with the distress I cause others. #mentalhealth #anxiety #depression

14. Earlier I wrote about jaw-joint pain as a physical symptom of #stress/#anxiety. While that's new for me, there's another pain I've lived with for >25 years. Aphthous ulcers that break out overnight and make even water burn the mouth. Now trying #Ayurveda. #Mentalhealth

15. If you are on pills, *do not* skip them or suddenly stop because you *think* you feel better. Abruptly stopping psychiatric medication is dangerous. Generally, a good doctor will gently wean you off pills rather than yanking you out. #mentalhealth #depression #anxiety

16. I just got myself a @fitbit. When I avhieve certain goals - a precommitted number of steps in a day, for example - Fitbit sends me a nice email as a pat on my back. If you are struggling with getting through the day, create moments of small triumph like this. #mentalhealth

17. You'll feel great anger. The sleeplessness, the side effects, the struggle to communicate your struggle - you'll wish you could take a hammer to the unfairness of it all. Allow yourself that anger. Find a person who'll let you scream. Take good care of her. #mentalhealth

18. I have been noticing a curious phenomenon with my body and mind. There are times when I feel the onset of an #anxiety attack and sense my heart racing. But #Fitbit tells me my heart rate is absolutely normal. It calms me. #mentalhealth

19. Lesson from my therapist: Confronting the past can be a powerful #healing force - if you treat it as an end in itself. If you want to confront someone about how they once wronged you, do. Just be prepared that they may not understand or say sorry. #mentalhealth #depression

20. Initially it sounded like vague spiritualese. Then I tried it - with my mother. Told her how something she'd once said had pained me, and that I didn't expect an apology. Was surprised how peaceful I felt and how little her eventual apology mattered to me. #mentalhealth

21. There will come a time when your doctor's words of consolation - "keep at it, you're getting better" - will ring hollow. But do keep at it. Pills, exercise, therapy, whatever. You don't have to believe. Don't try to find ways to believe. Just do. #Mentalhealth #depression

22. When I started taking pills for #mentalillness, it took me months to tell my parents. At first I couched it as "stress and vitamin deficiency," too cagey to say "#depression". Today, I got my father to buy my antidepressants during his evening walk. Minor win, yes?

23. Still, the urge to keep my parents out of my most intimate battles is strong. Why? Because #depression, while thriving on isolation, also makes you enjoy the isolation. It's a perverse luxury - a rare retreat into yourself that you owe no explanations for. #mentalillness

24. #Depression + #empathy is quicksand for the mind. Makes you see depression in every tired face and clutched forehead. Drags you into the hell of hopelessness. The antidote, a friend taught me, is constantly chanting, "Not my circus, not my ". #mentalillness

25. My #therapist is going away. So I must find someone new. Start all over again. In the 2 yrs since I started battling #depression/#anxiety, this is the most deflating news I've heard. Trying to hang on to my doctor's words. "Therapy matters. Not the therapist." Struggling.

26. Today was my last meeting with my therapist of 18 months. 18 extraordinary months, which changed everything I knew about myself, and when only #therapy brought sanity. I have the new therapist's number. Now if only I could bring myself to call her. #mentalillness #depression