From Isolation to Illumination: My Journey with ADHD, Social Anxiety, and Healing Through Poetry

Growing up, I always knew I was different. But for the longest time, I didn’t have the words to explain how or why. I just knew that crowded rooms made me shrink, small talk made my heart race, and I often lived in the chaos of my own mind.

As a child, I was quiet—too quiet, according to my teachers. During parent-teacher meetings, they’d politely complain about me being “too reserved,” “too closed-off,” or “not interactive enough.” But no one really asked me why. I wasn’t just shy—I was battling social anxiety. And underneath that, something even more misunderstood: undiagnosed ADHD.

At school, I wasn’t the child raising her hand to volunteer in class or chatting away during breaks. I sat with my textbooks, holding on to academics like a lifeline. That was my way to stand out, to be seen—because inside, I felt like I was fading.

A Home That Didn’t Understand

Life at home wasn’t any easier. My grandmother never understood my hyperactivity. My parents, well-meaning but unaware, scolded me for being “too inattentive,” “too restless,” or “too dreamy.” The concept of mental health barely existed in our family vocabulary. I didn’t even know what I was going through had a name.

Family functions were my nightmare. I’d make up excuses like, “I have a test tomorrow,” and lock myself in my room, crying quietly. I didn’t realize it back then, but those were early signs of depression—silent, suffocating, and lonely.

The Breaking Point—and the Beginning of Healing

Through it all, I had a few kind friends who stood by me. But even their presence couldn’t stop the overwhelming waves of anxiety. One day, I reached a point where I almost decided to leave school for good. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

That’s when something unexpected happened—a school counselor visited my home. It was the first time someone saw through the layers of pain I was carrying. It was the first time someone said, “You’re not broken. You just need support.”

The diagnosis came: ADHD, anxiety, and mild depression. With professional help and medication, things started to shift. I stayed in school. I graduated. But the journey was far from over.

College, Lockdown, and the Collapse

College should have been a fresh start—but the pandemic changed everything. When lockdown lifted and classes resumed offline, I found myself spiraling again. The metro rides, the crowded canteens, the unfamiliar faces—it all triggered something deep in me.

I couldn’t make friends. I avoided conversations. I hated how I looked and constantly questioned my worth. I used to stare at my reflection, seeing only flaws. The body image issues gnawed at me. I missed college almost every day. But in that darkness, I found a flicker of light.

Poetry as a Safe Space

Words became my refuge when the world felt too loud. I poured every ounce of my anxiety, my grief, my longing into poems. It was the only place where I could be raw and real.

One of those poems, written during one of my darkest college days, still reminds me how far I’ve come:

Choosing this Wasn’t Easy

By Srijani Rupsha Mitra

It wasn’t easy to choose this slow journeying,

I still hesitate to call up my friends and say

“Hey I am tired of falling. And staying in this dark mesh of

A wood. Bring me to the light”

Right from that opening of college after lockdown

Triggering memories of nervous breakdowns

Gnaw at my heart, thorough and full of sorrows

And telling me to cease and heal. I so wish to

Sense fresh kinships, an open air, freed ecstasy in college

But some sort of incarceration loomed large over me

Like a saturnine despair drenching me, coiling me within

A miserable misery, choked throat, dread, dismay

I tried so much figuring out myself midst all the rigidity

But collapsing again and again, washed over faded like pinpricks

Of rain.

It was terrible to suddenly accept a pause, a halt

Where was my real self? Where did I lose the self, cluttered bits of

It lying here and there in abandonment, in closed spaces of my room

In pasts thrilling and enthralling, where was all the jubilance?

I tried to bring back the ruined heart, learning, I am still learning

To accept it’s okay to be in the dark and sometimes lose paths

It is okay to cease and say ‘ I need time to heal. I will heal ‘

And entering this open space gave me an emancipation away from

The litany, a liberation, to embrace, from the clouds to the silvering

Grace.

Publishing poems was my therapy. But despite the creative catharsis, I reached another breaking point. I decided to drop out of college. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life—but it also marked the start of something beautiful.

Open University and a New Chapter

Enrolling in an open university gave me the freedom to breathe again. The rigid structure of conventional college wasn’t for me—and that’s okay. It took me time to understand that healing doesn’t have to follow a straight line.

During this period, when I felt utterly lost and broken, I met someone who would change everything—my partner.

He met me when I was at my lowest. I had no college, no routine, no self-esteem. But he saw something in me I had long stopped seeing in myself: potential. Hope. Beauty.

With his encouragement, I started working out. I joined a gym, one hesitant step at a time. Slowly, I began to rebuild not just my body, but my confidence.

Transformation Inside and Out

Over the next few months, I lost 20 kilos. But more importantly, I shed layers of shame, insecurity, and self-hate. I began to appreciate my body for what it could do—not just how it looked.

I won’t say my social anxiety is gone. It’s still a part of me. But now, I manage it better. I have tools, support, and most importantly, self-compassion. I’ve stopped punishing myself for being “different.” I’ve started celebrating the fact that I survived, and I am healing.

The Journey Continues

ADHD and social anxiety didn’t disappear from my life—but they no longer define me. What defines me now is resilience, poetry, and the people who held my hand when I couldn’t hold myself together.

This journey hasn’t been easy. But it has been real. And it has been mine.

To anyone reading this who feels like they’re drowning in isolation, who feels unseen, unheard—please know: you’re not alone. You’re not “too much” or “too little.” You’re just human.

Give yourself the grace to heal. Seek help. Write your heart out. And one day, you’ll look back at your story and realize—you didn’t just survive. You grew.