Hi I’m Radhika and here is my story of survival.
It was a regular winter morning. The winters in Chennai are surprisingly cold and misty just like my mood at the time. At around 5 in the morning I scrambled out of my tiny hostel bed with heavy insomnia affected eyes and ran to the terrace to call my dad and cry. I was 19 and this was my ‘fresh’ life. Weirdly enough even after 6 months of moving to Chennai for my degree nothing felt fresh except the morning air!
Survivor Series: Radhika
I was the child that most families would label ‘troubled’ or ‘not raised properly’. On the contrary I was a perfectly raised child with the perfect parents and the only problem I had was being exposed to different cultures. Raised abroad I was used to the freedom that I had. Nobody to question my choices of expressing myself and there was nothing my parents thought was wrong with me. I was a free bird who was promised loving grandparents, a whole family of cousins, uncles, aunts and everything, but nothing felt right. As soon as I landed in Kerala to settle down nothing was to compromise for a 10 year old’s choices. Crossed legs? How rude! Short skirt? Cultureless. A shake hand? You can’t touch boys! I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong but somehow everything I did was wrong! Now this might be silly in a grown man’s world but for a child who just left her best friends, her school, her favourite teachers and her loving home this was unwelcoming and huge! My adjustment problems and depression started there.
I started becoming a rebel. Aggression was my tool for defending myself. At the age of 11 a very known family friend mistreated me and everyone was convinced that he was only showing his affection towards a child! At 22 years now I still know that my body was violated. The aggressive behaviour increased and my parents couldn’t handle the pressure by then as they had a new born child to look after too. So I became the ultimate loose thread in the family. I made a lot of friends in my high school. Both girls and boys. With all my frustrations, I trusted each one of them blindly until most of them stripped me of my money and used me for my physical appearance. I was slut shamed and humiliated for my difference in opinion and for the fact that I was raised abroad. I changed 4 schools and the last one, a very famous all girls convent school in Trivandrum called me a druggie and attention seeker for riding back home on a bike with my cousin brother! Apparently that was my boyfriend but since my parents denied the school’s accusations and asked them to leave me alone they labeled me a druggie! There was a time in my life where I had gained a lot of weight from the stress and anti-depressants I was taking but this had people ridicule me and calling me pregnant publicly! My will to live was lost. I self-harmed, I over dosed myself all I could think was suicide.
Survivor Series: Radhika
For my college I finally managed to escape my terrible life and start fresh in Chennai, but the past kept haunting me. I was restless , sleepless and on the verge of giving up everything. I had made up my mind on that one early morning when my dad told me over the phone “Radhu the whole world might have given up on you, but I have never stopped believing in you and I never will. If you could survive through all these demons in person then your thoughts are just their shadows which will soon fade away. You’re stronger than you think you are so don’t give up on yourself when we are here to hold you up” at that moment I knew exactly what I had to do. A pang of guilt rippled through my body and I kept apologising for all the mistakes that I have done brainlessly. My father never questioned me, my mother never stopped holding my hand as we took our long morning walks, my sister never stopped calling me her hero and my fiancé never stopped loving despite the whole unthinkable past. Yes 3 years since that cold winter morning I am a Social work graduate from a prestigious college with amazing scores. I have the best, most trustworthy loving friends anyone could ask for. I fell in love and got engaged to the man who held my hand and helped me fight through the darkness while I was in Chennai, I sleep 8 hours a day or even more and I’m a huge adventure scout! My parents are my strength and I am definitely not the ‘trouble maker’. Everything is fresh, clear and pure.
Mental Illness is not a joke. I had my share of psychologists and helpers who helped me through the struggle and there is nothing to be ashamed of. I fought my way through and trust me at the end of the tunnel there is always hope and if you are going through a tough time it’s just too far to see right now and you have to hold on a little more to see it, but it’s definitely there. Hold on, get help, believe in yourself because I did and I survived only for the best to come.
— Radhika
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