Meet Akanksha!
Akanksha is completing a double major in Psychology and Criminology & Sociolegal Studies and will be entering her 4th year of studies in the 2021 Winter Semester. Her interest in psychology first began when she was in Grade 9, having had an amazing psychology teacher. Her empathetic nature ultimately pushed Akanksha to pursue psychology at the post-secondary level, to one day become a counselor for young adults. Apart from her studies, Akanksha loves dogs, making new friends, reading fiction (her favourite book is The Catcher and the Rye) and watching sad movies (the ones where she can have a good cry).
Moving on From
Akanksha is an international student who began her studies in 2016. Although her parents were supportive of her decision to come to the University of Toronto, they were nervous for her success and well-being. For the first time, Akanksha was leaving her sheltered environment in Singapore to live alone in an unfamiliar city. Obtaining a SIM card for her phone, learning to cook through YouTube videos, and understanding how banking worked were frustrating and challenging at first, but they ultimately gave Akanksha a newfound perspective on independent life.
Not all aspects of Akanksha’s transition to UofT and international life were smooth. Adjusting to Canadian weather was difficult for her— she found the winter months long, cold, dark, and above all, extremely isolating. The loneliness she experienced during this initial winter of her first semester was especially heightened as Akanksha did not have a roommate, having missed the deadline to live in residence and thus had to live off-campus. However, her boyfriend at the time, the friends she had made during Orientation Week and her family helped offset these feelings of loneliness. During her second semester, she finally got a roommate and things started to seem like they were getting better.
The first semester of second year proved even more difficult for Akanksha. Her dog of more than 12 years passed away back home in the spring of 2017, serving as a primary trigger in a series of depressive episodes. Once the second winter hit, Akanksha and her boyfriend broke up, which made her lose a part of her support system that helped her get through the past year. Scared to reach out for help, Akanksha attempted to deal with this difficult period on her own. She found it progressively harder to get out of bed, and soon began to withdraw from her studies and extracurriculars. As her personal situation got worse, she made attempts to reach out to Health and Wellness, but the long waitlist discouraged her to continue to seek these services.
Eventually, Akanksha began to self-harm, and in January of 2018, was hospitalized as a result of sever self-harm.
Akanksha’s father flew down from Singapore after receiving word of her hospitalization and tried to convince her that she needed to come home. Initially she was resistant to his suggestion, as she believed she could get better on her own, though deep down she knew leaving was in her best interest. After accepting it was for the best, Akanksha first went back to Singapore with her father, before going to her native home of India, where she spent the next 2 months feeling miserable, as she felt that she was falling behind on everything she had worked hard to achieve. She then flew down to Canada for a family vacation where she attempted suicide and was hospitalized in Quebec. Following her discharge, Akanksha went back to India, where she was struggling with feelings of immense guilt; hoping to come to terms with her suicide attempt, she signed up for therapy and began to see a psychiatrist. Akanksha eventually decided to enroll into a one-year Liberal Arts college program where she took a range of courses, from learning how to dance salsa, how to facilitate therapy, to human biology. The small class sizes there enabled her to make lots of new friends and she truly discovered the importance of having a community and a sense of belonging. After Akanksha completed the program, a part of her wanted to stay in India because she felt she belonged there more. However, she decided to resume her studies at UofT because she wanted to finish what she had started here.
Upon her return to UofT in 2019, Akanksha was able to find a psychiatrist through Health and Wellness, with whom she has a good relationship with. Finding the medications best suited for her was hard at first, but she has since found the combination that’s ideal for her. She became active on campus, becoming an executive with Healing Hearts Through Art (h2art), a group that uses art as a form of healing. Now when she looks back at the person she was 2 years ago, she doesn’t recognize the person who had attempted suicide. She used to feel there was no purpose to life, but she now believes that there is purpose in enjoying the little things in life, as opposed to getting caught up in thinking about the “bigger picture.” This past winter wasn’t as bad for Akanksha, as it wasn’t as cold, but she’s positive that she’ll be able to make it through this year.
Take Home Message
“It’s okay to not feel okay. It’s okay to reach out for help, it doesn’t make you weak. You may not know it, but you are resilient. Even though it’s hard to see it in the moment, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”- to her past self
“It’s hard to be positive all the time, and you don’t always need to be, but it’s important to learn to find happiness in the small things in life.”- to the people reading this