Qureist

24/07/2025

Not stoic, just stuck. The trouble with conversations about men's mental health.

There is a particular silence that follows boys into manhood—an affective amnesia taught by praise for stoicism and punishment for vulnerability. When we ask why men don’t speak, the real question is: What language has been developed to speak about emotions?

When am influencer says therapy isn't men's "style" or a bollywood actor claims he doesn't think people should trust therapists, the messaging is a form of misguiding. There is nothing stoic about allowing a disturbed state of mind to destroy you from within in the name of masculinity.

🧠 Inhibition, not absence: Boys are socialized from early childhood to suppress or violently release emotional expression, especially sadness, fear, or hurt. Yet, brain imaging shows male limbic systems (including the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex) react just as strongly—sometimes more—to emotional stimuli. Still waters? No. Floodgates locked shut.

🧠 We Pathologize the Wrong Signs: Male depression often surfaces as anger, risk-taking, substance dependecy, or numbness, not necessarily tears. Patriarchal frameworks misguide the channeling of these feelings. But standard diagnostic frameworks often overlook these externalizing behaviors. We misrepresent men’s mental health because we misread them.

🧠 Silence is not Strength, It’s Often Shutdown: When someone is taught to bury their feelings, the brain rewires to survive, not feel. Parts of the brain go into overdrive, building logic walls, while the ventromedial prefrontal cortex—where emotion meets meaning—dims like a fading light. What emerges isn’t strength, but a trauma-shaped silence: freeze in a suit, fawn behind success, dissociate in the name of duty.

🧠 Masculinity Is Not Monolithic, Yet Our Interventions Are.
Public discourse still leans on reductive "talk to someone" campaigns, ignoring how masculinity is culturally coded. From drowning fears in alcohol or finding some form of misguided solace in the manosphere, the ways to soothe are jagged. Men engage more when therapy is framed as constructive (building skills) rather than corrective (fixing dysfunction).

Community, communication, care and support are not supposed to be gendered.

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09/06/2025

"When the parent sees you more as a disturbance than a child, you take on that perception and unconsciously allow it to shape your perspective. You remind yourself to take up less space, never ask for help, construct your own child math about how any happiness you experience must immediately be equalized by some form of psychological self-flagellation. "

On trauma bonds with narcissistic parents --

In Gillian Flynn’s novel “Sharp Objects” a line pierces me through and through - “A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.”When I was face to face with the worst form of intimate partner violence, I would often convince myself that playing the “bigger person” was more importa...

25/05/2025

Busting myths about PMDD today.

[ mental health, women's health, PMDD, menstruation, depression, anxiety, therapy, psychology, neuroscience ]

09/02/2025

Hello Tribe!

We have opened up our therapy appointments!

If you have wanted to start a meaningful therapeutic journey, please feel free to write to us - qureist@gmail.com

We are here to bust 2 common myths about -

1. You can only seek therapy if you have a mental illness diagnosis.
2. Therapy is just talking to someone so might as well talk to a family member or friend

Therapy is a relationship, a bridge, studied introspection.
It is also a place where you can unburden from feelings, thoughts, fears, insecurities and ongoing worries in a safe presence.

Yes, talking to a loved one is really helpful.
However therapy goes beyond just talking. It is a scientific approach and comes from an individual who has spent time and energy studying the human mind, relationships, cognition, behaviours and emotions attached to it.

It is quite ok to not know where to start or still feel confused.
We are happy to answer your questions, drop us an email or visit us at www.qureist.com

08/02/2025

Hello Tribe!

Most urban Indians spend significantly more time at work than anywhere else. With repeatedly ill-informed statements from certain corporate head honchos, it is time to tackle the mental health debacle in urban Indian workplaces.

One of our critical goals for 2025 is to help reframe how mental health and wellbeing are integrated in organizational and corporate spaces.

Indian urban workplaces are prone to hectic working hours, task overload and increased commuting hours.

Often workplace mental health programs only focus on peripheral areas rather than dealing the core problems that affect workers.

We want to help organizations create better mental health policies, provide counselling cells, conduct workshops and training programs in local languages and offer mental health literacy and outreach.

Whether you are a 20 members startup or a 10000 members well-oiled institution, you can't escape how important mental health is in your own environment and for your people.

It affects all of us -

"India's working hours remain among the longest globally. A significant portion of the workforce continues to work beyond the standard 48-hour workweek, exceeding the International Labour Organisation's recommended limits." (NSSO report)

"A 2022 survey revealed that a significant number of employees in India reported experiencing common mental health symptoms, including stress, anxiety, and depression." (Statinsta)

No amount of individualizing these problems can take away from the fact that it is high time Indian workplaces took mental health more seriously and created the space needed to address these challenges.

If you would like to understand our offerings or just need any other form of information about the work we do in this field, write to us - qureist@gmail.com

[ workplace mental health, burnout, mental wellness, workplace therapy, therapists, depression, anxiety ]

25/01/2025

New free resource alert!

We have uploaded the "Fill Your Cup" worksheet to our website.

Try it out & see how it helps you!

Link in the bio.

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[ mental health, emotions, self care, psychology, therapy, therapists, relationships, self awareness, emotional intelligence ]














https://www.qureist.com/our-resources

14/01/2025

And we are back!

We are open and accepting new therapy clients.

If starting therapy is on your bucket list for 2025, feel free to drop us an email - qureist@gmail.com

[ therapy mental health therapists selfcare psychology ]

06/01/2025

"Quite like in a tent of mirrors at a carnival, your self image shifts and transforms depending on the kind of mirror in which you see yourself. If my mirror was a dismissive spouse, the image shrunk, became bloodless and meager to fit his fantasies. If the mirror was a casteist boss, the image flattened itself and learned to be quiet, submissive and servile. If the mirror was an abusive stepfather, the image tried to obliterate itself until it could no more and then, swelled up into Medusa’s head."

The TV show Lucifer gives us the symbolism of "hell loops" to better understand the stuckedness of chronic depression.

How the show "Lucifer" provided me with a unique way to look at my depressive spirals.

21/12/2024

Community building is the only antidote to our current epidemic of loneliness.

We are starting an online (and maybe even offline) mental wellness support group for women over the age of 30.
Come, talk, listen, be a part of something organic and uhurried.

If you want more information, write to us - qureist@gmail.com

05/12/2024

Write to us and we will be happy to help - qureist@gmail.com

Having a hard time dealing with psychological and/or emotional challenges ? Stuck at a crossroads in your career or relationship and all of decision making is in limbo? Perhaps just want to decompress and unpack difficulties that have in a lock?

Perhaps speaking to a trained psychologist might be useful for you. A study found out that 45-60% of people who seek and get the right kind of therapy experience an overall improvement in life satisfaction and well-being/

Write to us and we will be happy to help - qureist@gmail.com

[ mental health therapy therapists psychology healing]

26/11/2024

When the autonomic nervous system (ANS) is dysregulated, the sympathetic branch (responsible for "fight or flight") or the parasympathetic branch (responsible for "freeze" or shutdown) can dominate.

What is the way forward?

Take stock of your environment and relationship. Is there something that needs repair or removal?

Maybe you don’t have a lot of power over everything around you but can you find some distance between that and yourself. Slowly set boundaries & allow time for them to be recognized and respected. Change is rarely ever achieved overnight. Clarify your boundaries as an act of self-kindness.

Seek community. Connections provides catharsis. No one can bear every burden by themselves. One of the greatest myths etched in our understanding of mental wellness is that we must brave every impact with "resilience". Not true. Sometimes, you need social structures and support systems to help pull you out from those choppy waters.

Rewrite your script. Reflect on your own agency, reclaim your personal maps for self-soothing. What does feeling good look like? Imagine the space, the experiences, the exchange, the weather; mark it down to every nuance. Create this image and enter it. Start small. Is there a place where you feel more alive. Perhaps a friend or a hobby. Reconnect.

Build a gentle friendship with yourself and just like a friend, support yourself instead of judging.

Nurture yourself to the hilt. But also invest in developing discipline that is rooted in both self-compassion & adaptability.

Don't equate gratification with contentment always. Or solitude with isolation. We must learn to be by ourselves for periods in time without need constant distractions or interruptions. This allows our nervous system to calm itself down. Sit, relax, take some time off.

20/11/2024

Depression is a state, an experience.
We don't always need to frame as some form of illness. We can also view it as a state of discomfort, stuckedness or even, a fear-based response.

It helps to recognize the feelings that power your state of depression when you experience it.

In psychosocial terms, we can slowly integrate internal and external factors for causing prolonged depressive states.
This can help us address the causes that keep us in this state.

Do you recognize any of these experiences for yourself?

[ mental health depression psychology therapists emotions ]