mental health

Fifty Coffees: Why Black & White?

by Esha Kode

The other day, coffee date #25 asked me “Why do you only use black and white pictures for your coffee dates?” I actually put a lot of thought into this before beginning my Fifty Coffees project. Lindsay Ratowksy, the woman who inspired this project, uses black and white pictures for only a few of her dates. But I decided to use black and white for all of my dates. Here’s why:

  • The black and white filter is mysterious.

My main goal of going on these coffee dates with people is to understand the depth and dimensionality of human beings. My coffee dates are with varying people, from those I’ve grown up with to people I’ve connected with randomly on social media. The common theme, though, of every date is learning that every single one of them has so many different layers. Black and white pictures convey this message of dimensionality and depth.

  • People are less self-conscious with black and white pictures.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca3O8kDhAeh/

I found this ^^^ on Instagram and it perfectly encapsulates my desire to go fully black and white with pictures.

When I whip out my phone and ask my coffee dates to post with their drinks, almost every one of them suddenly feels the need to fix their hair, straighten their backs, plump their lips, and ask for validation. This is natural; there’s nothing wrong with cleaning yourself up to look good for the pictures.

However, those same coffee dates also request me to take another picture because they look at their picture and all they see are their acne scars, bad posture, frizzy hair, tired eyes. They don’t see what I see: their rawness, warmth, kindness, wisdom, and gentle smiles. After they tear themselves apart looking at their picture, I tell them “Relax. The picture will be in black & white.” That’s when they calm down and return to their normal and raw selves.

Black & white images tend to hide whatever one believes are their imperfections because it adds that extra layer of mysteriousness (as mentioned above). Additionally, I believe black and white images also evoke some type of warmth that I don’t really know how to describe. With color photos, I feel like pictures of people are not uniform. For instance, say I have a coffee date in a super cute cafe. The color photo of my coffee date will have cute lighting, the unique background of the cafe, and anything else that can make the picture more appealing. On the other hand, if I have another coffee date in the dirty living room of my house, the color photo will have messy paperwork in the background, terrible lighting on the person, and won’t have the same aesthetic appeal.

With black and white pictures, though, every image is equal and uniform. It doesn’t matter what the lighting is or what the background looks like or what the aesthetic appeal is because every image is the same, placing every person on the same pedestal. This removes the chances of people thinking that one’s picture is better or worse than another’s. It forces them to focus on the content more than the picture itself.

Dear Diary….

by Esha Kode

You are okay. You are overwhelmed, but you are okay.

Your monotonous routine was suddenly bombarded by other factors and that has been the biggest source of anxiety for you. You have been unable to wake up at the dusk of dawn like you usually do. Your ability to work for hours on end has significantly decreased. You’re reverting back to the mindset of thinking that you are “falling behind.” It’s all of this and more that is scaring the living daylights out of you. You are okay.

Let me be your guiding light đź’ˇ

Rigid routines are just as anxiety provoking as not having a routine at all. Striking that balance is essential. You don’t regret any of your decisions when you prioritized your health and happiness. And if you do, you shouldn’t. Health and happiness should be strived for. They should never be second priority. It’s uncomfortable for you because you’re not used to it. But here you are, letting yourself try new things and feeling new feelings in 2022. Though you are now silently cursing yourself out for allowing so much work to pile up, remind yourself that this – “this” meaning the present moment – is a tiny tiny tiny drop in the vast ocean that is your life. Everything is so temporary. You are okay.

Let me also remind you that there is no such thing as “falling behind.” There are no ‘start’ and ‘finish’ lines in life. It’s just a wiggly and curvy path that only comes to an end when our biological selves decide to shut down. Up until that point, your only job is to navigate through that path at your own time and pace – free of comparison and full of an extreme amount of self-compassion.

Rooting for you always.

25 Coffee Recap!

by Esha Kode

WE FINISHED 25 COFFEE DATES IN 2021!

In a world where technology is so prevalent and social connection is no longer of utmost priority, I’m amazed that I was able to connect with 25 people to talk about our lives. 2021 was one of the most enriching and soulful years I’ve had yet solely because of this project.

Here are some of my thoughts so far:

  1. I’m actively trying to incorporate some of the lessons I’ve learned from these dates into my own life.
  2. I’ve become more spontaneous. This is in part due to coffee date #25.
  3. I learned that humans are truly three-dimensional beings. There are SO MANY authentic layers behind every single one of my coffee dates, and to think that I would not have figured that out if I hadn’t sat down with them for a date. 

Some lingering questions/future directions:

  1. Do I stop at 50 or do I keep going?
  2. Should I only do coffee dates with people I know?

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. We have one more year to go – 25 more dates to go – and I’m ecstatic to share everyone’s incredible personalities with you all!

Being “Man Enough”

by Esha Kode

It took me a couple years to dissect the phrase “be a man” because it was always subtly thrown around at my brother or to some other man in my life. Now that I have understood the true message behind this phrase, I realize that it is complete bullshit. Being and feeling “enough” should not be gendered. Everyone is entitled to having emotions AND displaying those emotions. A man should not be primed to believe that he does not have the right to show those emotions.

A big thing that I’ve tried to incorporate into my relationship with my younger brother (who is currently 13 years old!), along with the help of my amazing cousin, is demolishing the gender divide when it comes to being who we are as humans.

Arya, my brother, has big emotions. We’re similar in that way, however, I express my emotions slightly more than he does and that has to do with the way we were both raised. We were raised to suppress all emotions, except for happiness. Little did we know that we can not portray happiness without portraying all the other emotions. In the world that we’re living in, unlearning this phenomenon and learning how to feel everything is somewhat easier for women than it is for men. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that Arya was not going to enter adulthood feeling numb to all his emotions and succumbing to the ridiculous patriarchal rules attributed to “what it means to be a man.”

I felt like I had truly succeeded when one day I got a text from him saying that he just had a sob session after watching some Anime show. When I tell you I was jumping for joy, I was jumping for joy. This was a huge breakthrough because he had never expressed his feelings after watching something because again he was subtly trained to believe that “men don’t cry.” So for him to allow himself to unlearn and learn that it is completely valid, okay, and human for him to cry during an emotional time made me feel like I was on top of the freaking world.

Justin Baldoni’s podcast, The Man Enough Podcast, has been revolutionary for me and I’m in love with it. It’s making me cry, unlearn, relearn, and be compassionate. It’s making me feel and see things from a different light and I think we can also use this as we navigate through life and hopefully one day get rid of this gendered idea of our personalities.

Why the Physician Mental Health Questionnaire is Ineffective for Adolescents

by Esha Kode

Whether it be for a sick visit or an annual check-up, my doctor’s office always has me fill out a “Mental Health Questionnaire.” The questionnaire essentially consists of numerous statements with a scoring criteria. For example, one statement could be written as “feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge” and the right hand columns will have a 0 for “not at all,” 1 for “several days,” 2 for “more than half the days,” and 3 for “nearly every day.” As I circle a number for each statement, I arrive at the end where I am required to tally up the numbers and give myself a score. 

This questionnaire has been a recent requirement, which I appreciate as it shows that mental health is becoming more of a priority in medicine. However, there are a couple drawbacks to this that I feel defeats the whole purpose of having pediatric patients fill this out. 

For starters, minors are accompanied by their parents for these doctor visits. Therefore, parents are sitting next to them when children fill out these questionnaires. It can sometimes be uncomfortable and hard to honestly answer the questions because there’s a high probability that our parents are looking over our shoulders to see what we’re writing down. This automatically skews the answers and deems the questionnaire ineffective. 

The other major con of this questionnaire is that most doctors don’t even look at it or mention it during the visit. Out of all the years I’ve been required to fill this out, only one doctor took the time to send my mom out of the room and talk to me about my answers. The rest of the physicians didn’t even look at my responses.

What does this convey to pediatric patients? 

When the physicians didn’t even bother to take a few minutes to check in with how I was doing mentally, it conveyed to me that getting my ears, eyes, heart, and the rest of my body was more important to them than understanding the way I was feeling mentally. 

It also showed me that physicians may not be taught medicine from a holistic standpoint. Especially in the U.S, medicine is more about analyzing a patient’s somatic symptoms and arriving at a diagnosis for further treatment. Therefore, physicians are likely to overlook symptoms of depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, bipolar disorder, etc. because they are so focused on the issues of the physical body.  

The questionnaire was a great starting point to prioritize mental health in medicine. However, it is now time to step it up a notch. This could be done by requiring doctors to take time out of the visit to have conversations about mental health. This, not only will help children who recognize that they are mentally struggling, but will also raise awareness for the children who are not aware of mental health and mental illnesses. 

Less Anxious in Warmer Weather

by Esha Kode

This may sound trivial, but I’ve recently (meaning two days ago) realized how dependent my mood is on the weather. For the past couple of months, weather in NJ has been shitty to say the least. Spontaneous snow storms, cold nights, frosty mornings.

I remember when quarantine first started in March 2020, I was heavily dependent on my morning walks/jogs, afternoon bike rides, driveway workouts because these were the only ways for me to get out of my anxious head and focus on something else. I even slept with my windows open because feeling the energy of Nature made me feel less suffocated and more liberated. As November and December came rolling around, I was no longer able to continue those activities nor was I able to leave the windows open. That’s when, I realized, my anxiety started spiraling.

I am in awe with the fact that my anxiety is far better when I am in contact with Nature. This explains why the winter months are sometimes exhausting to get through because I have no damn escape route.

These last 2 days, Mother Nature turned around and the weather has been absolutely beautiful. I’ve gone on hour long walks and absorbed all the energy radiating not only from Nature itself (the sun, trees, wind), but also from the other families I see and their kids running around chaotically. It’s remarkable and makes me feel so wholesome. I feel so much more connected to myself and the rest of the world.

After spending simply an hour outside, I find myself more ready to attend classes and do the same amount of mentally draining work without feeling so deeply anxious all the time.