For as long as I can remember, I was someone who struggled with low self-esteem.
For the first 20 years of my life, I genuinely believed that I was always going to be just mediocre. While other children in school shone academically or in extra curricular activities, I failed to see and understand what I really enjoyed. To make matters worse, I was an obese teenager at an age where you want attention from the sex you’re attracted to. This resulted in my struggle with body image and self esteem issues. These came in the way of my friendships as a teenager, and eventually in the way of my romantic relationships as I grew older. Because I did not feel “good enough”, I looked for external validation in order to soothe the constant emotional pain that I lived with.
When I looked at myself, I saw an overweight teenager with pimples and unruly curly hair (that i decided to straighten because I wanted to “fit in” and look like every other conventional “beautiful” teenager who was getting hit on by guys our age). I felt like my friends were embarrassed to hang out with me. So, I felt as if I was neither achieving anything in school or in college, nor having the ”wild” life of a teenager. When I looked at myself in the mirror, or when I didn’t meet my own (or others’?) expectations at something personally or in school/college, the first word that came to my mind was “loser.” I felt like I was failing at these.
Binge eating and a terrible lifestyle to suppress the pain that I always lived with resulted in me developing PCOS. What we don’t realise is the fact that when you feel so emotionally and mentally sick, your physical health also gets affected. I still deal with these issues at times, but today, I’m able to stop myself and talk to myself with compassion instead of disgust. AND three years ago I decided to embrace my curls instead of straightening them, and today, that’s the best part about the way I look.
I will always be grateful to Ms. Deepika Padukone for speaking up about her struggle with depression. She gave me hope at a time when everything felt like it was falling apart.
I had just turned 20 years old, I was coming to the end of an emotionally, and at times physically abusive relationship. (Both my then partner and I were equally unhappy and abusive towards each other.) I was completing my B.com Accounting & Finance degree (a degree that I had NO interest in), when I first watched Ms. Deepika Padukone’s interview on her struggle with depression. She was being interviewed by Ms. Barkha Dutt on an evening in 2015.
It was the first time I had heard the term, “depression”.
Everything she described she had gone through sounded so familiar to me. She said something about how people told her that she had “everything” in life. What did she have to be depressed about? That question really resonated with me. I had a loving family, most often I was given everything I needed and wanted materially, my parents were doing everything they could to support my education, and “I was told” that I was just going through the usual issues for a girl of my age with her boyfriend. So then why did I feel so “ungrateful and depressed”? The fact that she made me realise that a person could be hit with depression and anxiety in spite of having “everything” made me feel like my pain and my trauma mattered.
I went to my parents and told them that I wanted to meet a mental health professional. Even though this concept of “mental health” was foreign to them, they helped me get an appointment with a well-known psychiatrist who diagnosed me with depression.
That previous year, all through 2014, I had struggled to get out of bed, my attendance in college was very poor, I would have moments where I would break down, and I experienced suicidal thoughts and I felt extremely lonely even when I was surrounded by a bunch of people who loved me. Just knowing that what I was going through was a legitimate struggle, when I met the psychiatrist, made me feel a lot better. But, my meeting with the psychiatrist was hidden from all my family and friends because the stigma attached to it was so severe.
At this point, I decided that life definitely had to have more in store for me than just pain and mediocrity.
I was just about scraping through my exams in school and in college in spite of the many tuition classes I attended, and no one was going to give me a job with those grades, Most importantly, I think I reached my breaking point after living with so much pain throughout my childhood and teenage years that I began to realise I really wanted to add some “meaning” to my life.
I got a job with Jet Airways which was the first significant turning point in my life. My role involved interacting throughout the day with VIP clients of the airline, and for the first time in my life I woke up every morning feeling excited about what the day had to offer. I felt seen and heard and validated for something that I was really good at. This job had at least allowed me to brush aside the pain that I felt for all those years, it was still there but it wasn’t visible on the surface anymore.
In mid 2018, I decided to do an MSc in Psychology with HR from Christ University. By then, I had developed an inclination towards psychology (at least organizational psychology) and while tumbling around and trying to fit into my new life of having to move away from home for the first time, what kept coming back to me was my battle with just not feeling, “good enough”. This journey was accompanied with me falling for another guy and then a few months later another.
The men I saw were different but what struck me and remained constant was the freakishly similar pattern of emotions that I was experiencing with each one of them. I realized there was a huge void of not feeling good enough and every time I felt like I could get intimate with someone, I was attracting guys who were scared of getting intimate with me, and the anxiety of chasing them was what kept me going. Every time they left me and dated another girl, the voice telling me that I wasn’t good enough kept growing louder.
The more pain and confusion I experienced, the more I started delving deeper into learning psychology. It became evident to me that my romantic relationships had been a complete reflection of my childhood. Most often, I felt on the edge because of the constant anxiety I had experienced at home and in my school environment. It was the only way of being I knew, and I applied it even to my intimate relationships with men.
Life doesn’t seem scary anymore.
Life doesn’t feel as scary as it did back then because I am surrounded by people like my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my best friend and all my other close friends who have all worked on educating themselves about the importance of mental health. My friends and I talk about meeting our therapists just like we talk about meeting any other doctor. It’s so important to surround yourself with people who constantly want to learn and grow. Life also doesn’t feel as scary because today I know I have a purpose. Even if I go through a hard time in the future, I know I will always have ME and my calling of becoming a mental health practitioner, and most importantly doing something that I really love and I am good at that I can always fall back on. Feeling like I was not good at anything for almost 20 years has made me value what I am currently pursuing so much more.
Today I’m learning to forgive myself and I’m learning to forgive the people who hurt me. I’ve realized that I’m not going to let my pain go to waste. This is the story of many other average young people who believe that they are never going to be enough. My career choice of becoming a mental health practitioner is only going to help me help others with healing from past traumas that they accept and live with.
I know my family and I have come a long way from hiding the fact that I met a therapist back then, to today, encouraging me to meet with my therapist once a week for personal and professional growth.
Sharing my progress and encouraging others.
I have a small Instagram page where I talk about my experiences with mental health, self-esteem, romantic relationships and body image. I want to let people know that:
- Depression and anxiety are not sadness, they are legitimate mental health concerns that should be treated by a trained professional, just like a physical ailment is treated by a trained doctor.
- There is professional support available for mental health problems, just like a physical ailment is treated by a trained doctor.
- We as a society are changing, but we have a long way to go when it comes to realizing the impact our mental and our emotional health have on our physical health and on our relationships with ourselves and with others.
My life’s experiences are what have led me to who I am today and I wouldn’t change them for anything in the world. I’m fortunate to have been around people and to have found resources that are helping me heal. My message to everyone would be that life might seem hopeless right now, but the good news is that YOU have the choice of changing your story. It’s easier said than done, but IT IS POSSIBLE!
