A Voice on Anxiety and Depression in India - OC87 Recovery Diaries

A Voice on Anxiety and Depression in India

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OC87 Recovery Diaries is pleased to re-introduce you to Sanjukta Chauhan, a writer from India who chronicled her journey with anxiety and depression in a terrific essay titled “Call Out Each Cloud by its Silver Lining: Life with Depression & Anxiety in India.”

Sanjukta, affectionately referred to by her international women’s writers retreat friends as “JuJu,” was one of five international guests at the 2019 Write on the Ocean Women Writers’ Retreat that OC87 Recovery Diaries hosted in Cape May, NJ earlier in 2019. 

We took the opportunity of this gathering to interview our international guests, including JuJu, a self-described “annoyingly optimistic” student from India, who bravely uses writing to tackle her depression. The interviews resulted in a new OC87 Recovery Diaries video series titled “Writers Talk,” in which we meet people discussing the important relationship between writing and mental health recovery. 

“People think writing is just one thing—it’s very mechanical, putting words to paper,” says JuJu, “but it’s more than that.  It’s you compiling your experiences and your personality. You know, it’s a very strong part of your individuality. I don’t think I wrote this essay for other people as much as I did it for myself.”

When you read JuJu’s story and watch her video interview, you realize the power that writing has had on her health.

For JuJu, writing, at the very least, is cathartic. At the very most, healing.

“I know that when I wrote these words I was crying because I remember vividly everything that I was describing. But right now I’m okay. I’m better than okay—it feels good.”

 

Sanjukta Chauhan with Florence Mukangenzi (Rwanda) and Claire Eastham (England) at the OC87 Recovery Diaries Writers’ Retreat

 

For the next five months, we will post interviews with each of the “fabulous five” writers featured in this special OC87 Recovery Diary series. They include Claire Eastham (England), Florence Mukangenzi, (Rwanda), Liza Brock (Australia), Pinar Tarhan (Turkey), and Sanjukta Chauhan (India).

We hope you’ll enjoy getting this international perspective on writing and mental health. We know you’ll enjoy meeting these terrific, articulate women.

Here’s a link to all of the Writers Talk videos »

 

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Gabriel Nathan | EDITOR: Glenn Holsten | DESIGN: Leah Alexandra Goldstein | PUBLISHER: Bud Clayman

See Related Recovery Stories: Anxiety, BIPOC Mental Health Recovery Stories, Depression, Mental Health Short Films

Glenn is an award-winning director who loves to create compelling documentary story experiences of all lengths for screens of all sizes. He is an avid reader, studied literature in college, and his passion for stories with strong characters and interesting narratives stems from those years. His career as a visual storyteller began at WHYY (the public television station in Philadelphia) where he worked for 15 years before becoming an independent filmmaker. In addition to his PBS documentaries about arts and culture, he has directed films about justice and human rights, and now, mental health. He was emboldened to undertake his current documentary project, Hollywood Beauty Salon, a colorful feature-length documentary about surviving mental illness and finding the courage for recovery, after his transformative experience directing OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger’s Movie, along with Bud Clayman and Scott Johnston.

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