“…Till The Point Of Burnout”: Former JNU Leader Shehla Rashid Explains Her 2 Year Break From Social Media
Former JNU student leader Shehla Rashid’s recent social media post is getting viral now. In the note she posted on Facebook, Ms Rashid details on how she overcome the painful last two years of her life and prepared for a series of competitive exams.
She started writing by expressing gratitude for God “for everything” happened to her and above all for the good health she was given with. Ms Rashid was suffering from a chain of deep despair and depression, and many-time the stress she met through eventually led her to psychological illness. This prompted her more to concentrate on her studies -only to studies – “relentlessly till the point of burn out”.
The substantially long paragraph she left on Facebook is all about how she survived from the two year long mental trauma and psychological illness. Her health was really poor, but managed to attend at least half a dozen competitive exams in the meantime.
During all the past two years, she was totally unwell and was difficult to even sit at a place and study. She had undergone a long overdue surgery immediately after attending her Mains examination. But shortly after that, Ms Rashid went straight back to her studies “while still lying in bed and on IV medication”.
Eventually, she was forced herself to destress. As part of that process, Ms Rashid switched off her social media platforms and started immersing oneself to Yoga meditations, “and exit echo chambers that only served to confirm my biases and hamper my growth…”
Then onwards, for straight an year she didn’t even left her floor and let herself alone the house. “My mother got irritated with all the home deliveries”, she added. The rollercoaster went finally for something good and Ms Rashid thanked God a lot for that.
Towards the end of her note, she mentioned certain things in advice for her followers; “avoid toxic people, avoid doomscrolling, agitate only about issues that you can do something about, go off social media and just focus on what”s important”. She added that it is completely ironical to express the moment of distraction from social media through social media! “I know it”s ironic that I”m saying this on social media, but I completely got rid of WhatsApp, Facebook, Insta, Twitter, everything and just focused on studies”.
She made a conclusion to the note by expressing her gratitude towards her mother and sister who stood with her on all the difficult times; “Alhamdulillah! Thanks to my mother and my sister who have been there unconditionally for me, always, even when I was difficult to put up with”.
