Two Truths Can
Exist at Once.

You've done it. I know you have.

You've walked into a room full of people, friends, colleagues, family, and smiled. Asked how everyone's doing. Laughed at the right moments. And the whole time, something inside you was quietly screaming. Something heavy, something real, something you couldn't figure out how to say out loud.

Two truths, existing at the same time. The person the world sees. And the person you actually are when the door closes. Most of us have been there. Some of us live there.

My daughter lived there for years.

Her name was Ashna. It means "Friend and Beloved," and she lived up to every letter of it. She was a Biology student and future medical physician at Trinity University. Sharp, curious, the kind of student who would call me to explain a concept she'd just grasped, so excited she could barely get the words out. She had this sound she made, this little "oooh" whenever she had an epiphany. I'd give anything to hear that sound again.

To the world, Ashna showed warmth, humour, fierce intelligence, and a deep love for the people around her. She poured her energy into service, especially for children who were vulnerable. Everyone who knew her felt like her life was richer because she was in it.

That was her first truth.

Her second truth was that she lived with Bipolar disorder. A brain-based disease that caused her moods to swing dramatically and unbearably. She rose to the challenge and fought for years. But on December 16, 2021, at the age of 21, Ashna fell into an abyss that ended her life.

I wrote those words not to soften what happened, but to name it more honestly. Because the clinical language doesn't capture what actually occurs when someone who loves deeply, fights relentlessly, and shows up for others every day reaches a moment where the darkness is louder than everything else. That moment does not define who she was. Twenty-one years of light defined who she was.

Here's what I've learnt since losing Ashna.

She was not alone in carrying two truths. Not even close. One in five adults in America lives with a mental health condition. Among young adults aged 18 to 30, the people Ashna walked beside every day, the numbers are even higher. And the vast majority of them are doing exactly what she did: showing up beautifully on the outside while struggling in silence within.

That silence is not a personal failure. It is a cultural one. We live in a world that still treats mental illness as something to whisper about. Something to manage privately. Something that makes people uncomfortable at dinner tables and in boardrooms and in families who love each other deeply but don't know how to start the conversation.

The Ashna Project exists because silence should never be the only option.

My wife Rekha, our daughter Sarina, and I founded TAP as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with one conviction: that when a person speaks their truth and someone truly listens, something shifts. Stigma softens. Isolation cracks open. Healing becomes possible.

We built TAP around three pillars:

Connect. Because community is the antidote to isolation. When you share your story with someone who truly hears you, you stop carrying it alone.

Learn. Because understanding what mental illness actually is, not what stigma tells us it is, changes everything. Ashna didn't lack strength. She had a brain-based disease. Knowing the difference saves lives.

Heal. Because healing is not a straight line. It is not a destination you arrive at. It is the slow, stubborn act of choosing to stay open even when everything in you wants to shut down. Ashna wrote in her journal: "Be Defiantly Happy." She was fighting to choose light, even in her hardest years. We carry those words forward.

I want to tell you something that may sound strange coming from a father who lost his daughter.

That's the other two truths. Grief and gratitude. Loss and love. They don't cancel each other out. They coexist. And if I've learnt anything building The Ashna Project, it's that the people who understand this, who have lived it, are the ones most capable of reaching someone else who is silently drowning.

Your story has that power. Whether you've battled your own mental health, loved someone who has, or simply shown up smiling when you were falling apart, your truth matters. Both of them.

This is the first of many conversations. In the posts ahead, we'll talk about grief, about healing, about what it actually looks like to support someone who is struggling. We'll share stories from our community. We'll say the things that usually go unsaid.

Because that's what Ashna would have wanted. Not silence. Not sadness.

Light.

A light in the darkness, shining still.