Adjust Disorder Counselling

Arjun was 34 and steady — or so everyone believed.

He had built his life carefully, like a house brick by brick. A stable job as a project manager in Pune's IT sector. A loving wife, Sneha. A three-year-old daughter whose laughter made even the worst Mondays bearable. And then, within the span of six months, three walls of that house came down at once.

First, the company restructured. Arjun's team was dissolved, and he was handed a letter that politely said his services were no longer required. He sat in the parking lot for forty minutes, unable to drive, unable to call Sneha, unable to understand how a Tuesday afternoon could swallow twelve years of his career.

Before he could fully process that, his father suffered a stroke. Arjun flew to Nagpur, managed hospitals, insurance forms, and a frightened mother — all while quietly shelving his own grief. He was the strong one. He was always the strong one.

Then came the relocation. Sneha's job — the one now carrying their family — required them to move to Pune. A new city, a new flat, a daughter adjusting to a new school. Arjun, without a job, was suddenly home all day. For the first time in his adult life, he had no title, no schedule, no identity beyond "Sneha's husband" and "Myra's father."

He stopped sleeping well. He would lie awake until 2 a.m., his mind replaying conversations, calculating finances, worrying about things he had no control over. He started snapping at Sneha over nothing — a misplaced charger, a delayed dinner — and then hating himself for it. He stopped going to the gym, stopped calling friends, stopped laughing at the same jokes that used to make him double over.

"I'm just stressed," he told himself. "It's temporary. It'll pass."

But months went by, and it didn't pass. It deepened.

One evening, his daughter asked him, "Papa, are you sad?" He looked at her small face and felt something crack open. He was not okay. And he hadn't been for a long time.

Sneha had noticed too. She didn't push — she had been patient, careful, walking on eggshells around a man she loved but couldn't quite reach anymore. That night, after Myra was asleep, she sat beside him and said quietly, "Let's find someone to talk to. Not because something is wrong with you — but because you deserve support."

Arjun searched online the next morning. He came across Dr. Mamta Wagle Kakade's profile — a counsellor who specialised in life transitions, stress, and emotional adjustment. He booked an online session almost impulsively, before his second-guessing mind could talk him out of it.

The first session surprised him. He had expected to be told what to do. Instead, Dr. Mamta simply helped him name what was happening — that carrying three major life stressors simultaneously, without any space to grieve or adapt, had pushed his mind and body past their limits. It wasn't weakness. It was Adjustment Disorder. And it was real.

In the sessions that followed, Dr. Mamta invited Sneha to join as well — not for couples therapy, but  Sneha could understand what Arjun was experiencing, and so Arjun could stop feeling like he was hiding something shameful. Together, they began to rebuild — not the old life, but a new, more honest one.

Today, Arjun is still in Hyderabad. He found a new role — smaller team, different pace. He still misses Pune sometimes. He still worries about his father. But he no longer carries it all alone, in silence, behind a performance of being fine.

"I didn't know what I was going through had a name," he said once. "Knowing that made it feel less like I was falling apart and more like I was going through something — and getting through it."