Desensitisation doesn't happen overnight. It happens one headline, one video, and one endless scroll at a time until what once felt shocking begins to feel routine. Today, something feels different. We read the headline, pause for a moment, and then continue scrolling. Within seconds, a tragic story is replaced by a funny reel, a travel vlog, or an advertisement, as though nothing had happened. That shift has been bothering me for a long time. I don’t believe people have beco

We often say that men don’t know how to express their emotions. I don’t think that’s entirely true. Growing up, I saw my father cry while watching movies. He never turned his face away. He never wiped his tears before anyone could notice. He would just sit there quietly, and we’d simply sit beside him as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I still remember looking at him, smiling and saying, “Papaaaaa…” Today, I catch myself crying at those same tiny moments in mov

A friend called me last night. Nothing was wrong, not in the way that usually makes a phone ring late. She just wanted to talk. Somewhere between the small things, she started talking about her closest friends. The ones she’d known for years. Then, almost as an afterthought, she asked, “Have you ever lost a friendship and still somehow kept it?” I asked her what she meant. She went quiet for a second, then told me about the friend. The one who used to know every version of he

Today, every personality trait is seen as a problem to be solved. Anything too human, every habit, every quirk, every feeling that runs a little deeper than usual, has to be labeled and explained. I run an organisation that offers therapy and counseling. And I say this not from the outside looking in. I see this every single day from the inside. The language itself isn't the problem. In the right setting, it helps people make sense of trauma, recognize unhealthy patterns, and

The Performance of Being Unbothered You saw the message. You left it on read anyway. Not because you were busy. Because replying too fast felt like too much. Like it would show that you were waiting. That you cared. So you stared at it, put your phone down, picked it back up, and eventually typed something casual like you had barely even noticed they texted. We do this. All of us. Every day. Someone asks how you are doing. “You say “good, just busy.” You are not good. You are

I've always been more interested in the person in front of me than whatever else was happening. The way someone's voice shifts when they talk about something they haven't said out loud before. The thing they almost say, then swallow. I notice that stuff. Always have. At some point I turned that same attention on myself. Which is less comfortable. But more useful. The question I kept avoiding, which probably means it was the right one, was just this: In what ways am I betrayin

The first time I watched Fleabag, I loved it the way you love something you recognise as brilliant without yet knowing why it belongs to you. I laughed. I felt the pull of it. I thought about it after. I told people to watch it with the kind of quiet insistence that means this matters, I’m not sure how to explain it yet. It was already my favourite show. I didn’t know what it was holding for me. The line found me long before I was ready for it, the way these things always do

I have a friend. The kind of person everyone around them would describe as sorted. Capable. The one who shows up for others without fail but somehow never seems to need anything in return. In all the years I’ve known them, they’ve never once called me to say they were struggling. Not because life has been easy. But because asking for help stopped feeling like an option somewhere along the way. They handle everything themselves. If something breaks, they fix it. If something h