Writing
Essays on the inner life, with the receipts.
Long-form, story-led pieces by Komel, grounded in peer-reviewed research, clinical experience, and the patterns she sees most often in the room.
Indian Society
Patriarchy at the Kitchen Table: How Indian Families Pass Down Gendered Pain
The structures we inherit shape what we think is normal. For Indian women, much of what is called normal is, on closer inspection, harm.
How patriarchy operates inside ordinary Indian families — through chores, expectations, marriages, and the bodies of women — and what unlearning it actually requires.
4 min read
Trauma
The Body Keeps a Calendar: Anniversary Reactions and Trauma Memory
Why you fall apart in March every year, even before you remember why.
How implicit memory works, why trauma anniversaries hit the body before the mind, and what can ease them.
4 min read
Relationships
Attachment Wounds: Why You Pick the People You Do
Your earliest blueprint of love is doing more of the choosing than you are.
The science of attachment styles, how they get formed, and why awareness is the first half of changing them.
4 min read
Grief
Grief Doesn't Move in Stages: A Better Map
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross never said grief had five stages. The map we inherited is wrong, and it has made many grieving people feel like they are doing it badly.
What modern grief research actually shows about how loss is metabolized, and why the "stages" framework keeps failing the people inside it.
3 min read
Digital Wellbeing
Notifications Don't Sleep: Digital Stress at Work and the Always-On Mind
The cost of constant availability is paid in attention, sleep, and the part of you that used to be able to think.
Why interruptions are an underrated form of workplace harm, what they do to your attention, and how to claw back the capacity to think.
4 min read
Depression
High-Functioning Depression: When You're Doing Fine and Not Fine
It doesn't look like the textbook because the textbook is wrong about what depression has to look like.
Why some of the most depressed people you know are also the most productive, and why we keep missing it.
5 min read
Family Trauma
When the Parent is the Wound: Surviving a Narcissistic Mother or Father
The home was supposed to be the safe place. For some of us, it was the source.
Children of narcissistic parents grow up with a specific signature of self-doubt, hyper-attunement, and chronic guilt. Here's why — and how it heals.
4 min read
Burnout
The Slow Erosion: What Burnout Actually Does to Your Brain
It's not weakness. It's a measurable neurobiological injury — and it's reversible.
Burnout shrinks the prefrontal cortex, dysregulates cortisol, and rewires reward circuits. Here's the science — and what actually helps.
4 min read
Temperament
Wired Differently: The Highly Sensitive Person, Beyond the Buzzword
Sensory processing sensitivity is a real, measurable trait. It is not the same as anxiety, and it is not a flaw.
What the research actually says about high sensitivity — and why a trait found in ~20% of the population keeps getting confused with weakness.
4 min read
Digital Wellbeing
The Feed is the Mood: How Social Media Shapes What You Feel
The platforms are not neutral. They are tuned to extract attention by extracting emotion. Yours.
What the largest studies actually show about social media and mental health — and the specific patterns of use that hurt versus help.
4 min read
Sleep
Sleep is a Psychiatric Intervention
The cheapest, most effective mental health treatment available, and the one most consistently neglected.
Why sleep loss precedes nearly every psychiatric condition, and what the evidence says about how to actually get more of it.
3 min read
Relationships
He Said You Were Crazy: Recognizing Narcissistic Abuse in Romantic Relationships
By the time you start asking if it's abuse, the answer is almost always yes.
The pattern is not the explosive fights — it's the slow disappearance of you. Here's how narcissistic abuse works, and how to recognize it from the inside.
4 min read
OCD
The Tyranny of "Just in Case": Living with OCD
OCD is not about being tidy. It is a disorder of doubt — and the cost is your life narrowing one ritual at a time.
Inside the obsessive-compulsive loop, why willpower makes it worse, and why exposure and response prevention is still the gold standard treatment.
4 min read
Indian Society
Dowry Was Never About Love: The Quiet Trauma of Indian Brides
The transaction is illegal. The practice is everywhere. The cost is borne in the bodies and minds of women.
The dowry system did not end with the law that banned it in 1961. Here's what it actually does to women, in numbers and in the consulting room.
5 min read
Trauma
People-Pleasing as a Trauma Response: The Fawn Reflex
Niceness is not the same as kindness. Sometimes it is a nervous system that learned, very early, that disappearing was the safest thing to do.
Why chronic people-pleasing is better understood as a trauma response than as a personality trait — and how to begin to take up space.
3 min read
Anxiety
Anxiety vs. Worry: Why You Can't "Just Calm Down"
Worry is a thought. Anxiety is a body. Treating one as if it were the other is why most well-meaning advice doesn't land.
The neurobiology of anxiety, why CBT alone often isn't enough, and the bottom-up tools that work when top-down ones don't.
4 min read
Relationships
Returning to Yourself After a Toxic Relationship
Leaving is the first piece. Coming home to yourself is the longer work.
Why the months after leaving a harmful relationship are often harder than expected, and the arc of actual recovery.
4 min read
Substance Use
The High Cost of "Just Weed": What Daily Marijuana Use Does to Your Brain
Cannabis is not benign. The research is increasingly clear, and the cultural narrative has not caught up.
What modern, high-potency cannabis does to motivation, memory, and mental health — and why daily use deserves a serious second look.
5 min read
Indian Society
The Loneliness of the Eldest Indian Daughter
She was raised to be the responsible one. No one asked if she wanted the job.
The eldest Indian daughter occupies a specific role in the family system. The mental health cost is rarely named.
3 min read
Mental Health
Perfectionism is Not a Strength
It is one of the most reliable predictors of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide. We keep calling it a virtue.
Why perfectionism is rising, what it actually does to mental health, and the difference between healthy striving and the version that hurts.
4 min read