TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual abuse is mentioned in this post and can be triggered in some people.
“I stopped at a café on the way. All around me, normal, everyday city types went about their normal, everyday affairs … Still – or rather because – here I was sitting in this cafe, drinking my coffee and feeling a desperate loneliness. I alone was the outsider. I had no place here … I had no connection with anyone here. The fact is, I would come to win myself back. "~ Haruki Murakami
"You have no goals."
"I was wondering why someone your age and with your qualifications didn't do more."
Simple statements for those who did not lead my life. Twelve years of childhood sexual abuse silenced to stop it, people I trusted denied it had happened. Thirty three long years of battling depression, failure, and finding the constant way out by giving up on myself, my dreams, and my life.
And yet I went on and pushed my way through bouts of depression. I had lost all sense of childhood because I had experienced something traumatic at a very young age.
I forced myself to fall in love with boys at school to feel normal, but I didn't really feel anything. I couldn't fall in love like my friends at university. I've tried to like men, but I've pulled back from a mere touch.
In my late thirties, when I woke up to a life that I had carved out for myself, I was dating erratically and thinking I had found love in a six month relationship. Ten years later I'm still alone and all I can hear is a little girl crying as she tries to find her childhood and lost youth. A woman who hopes to find love but has been held back by self-doubt.
Some days are better than others when I think about how much I have achieved in my career despite my handicap, but other days there is only loneliness. Even with therapy, Buddhism, a PhD, a well-rounded career, and a family that loves me without admitting the greatest truth in my life.
Some say that there is not much to complain about and that it is cultural and generational that my family does not understand. Others worry when I'm in one of my "bad moods" and ask for help.
It is neither help that I am looking for, nor attention or approval – I have sought all of that before. I just want to have a life that I can find love in. But I think love wants me to find myself first
If, like me, you are looking for yourself and / or love, maybe what I shared below could help.
Don't be afraid of your feelings.
They will come in waves, leaving you weak and crying. Let yourself cry Your tears are precious as they express what you feel without words and without judgment. Your pain, your sorrow is yours; don't turn your back on him. Hear it, listen to it
I've spent countless hours and still crying because the anger, the disbelief that this was my life, and now the grief of having had a difficult childhood makes me cry. I cry for my five-year-old self – the little girl with the eyes that said a lot but that no one paid attention to; the child whose feelings were labeled a tantrum and ignored.
Don't ignore your tears or those of others.
Never silence your thoughts.
Your thoughts can be both your strength and your weakness. Don't judge them like your feelings. Find a way to express yourself.
I write as a researcher and as a means of expression. It was my writing that helped me overcome a crippling state of depression in my life. My words on paper brought to light many hidden, silenced aspects of my abuse for me. I was able to write down things I couldn't talk about, which helped me make peace with them.
Get it all out, whether you share it with someone else or keep it to yourself. Free the shame by sharing your story.
Many people patronized me or took pity on me when I told them about my past. I appreciate that you hear me, but I'm not opening up because I want pity. I do it for myself – because it gives me strength to talk about my past.
Don't give up hope.
I'm sitting here and crying as I write this and I don't feel like I have hope in me, but life, our breath, is resilient. And even though my mind tries to convince me that I am hopeless, I know that while I am still breathing, there is always hope. Same goes for you.
Turn your gratitude inward.
There is a higher feeling of gratitude than what we feel for our friends, family, a good permanent job or a house: a feeling of gratitude to ourselves that we have come so far on our life's journey that we have so much pain has prevailed us that we can look into each other's eyes in the mirror and say: "I deserve love."
Reaffirm that you deserve love and so much more.
I have compared my life with others and went through phases of feeling as if my life was changed for a moment and others have everything. We all know that we shouldn't compare ourselves to others, but it is not the comparison that hurts. It's the fear that we can't get what other people have.
We lack trust and confidence because years of abuse led to low self-esteem and self-doubt. The best way out to ourselves is to accept ourselves for who we are, regardless of our past, our grief, the years we have lost, our tears. Everything shapes who we are and it has made us strong people who deserve love and respect.
Having dreams.
I don't give up on finding love. My abuse took the typical path in my life, but in the last ten years I have reconnected with different parts and sides of myself – for example with my youthful self, the young, depressed girl who wanted to fall in love, but was afraid too trust.
My career took precedence in my twenties and most of thirties because work was a safe place. But now I realize that love doesn't have to be insecure, so I dream of one day finding love – having a family and a dog.
Not only was my youth taken away, but my dreams too, as I did not believe that I was worthy of love or that I could ever find it. For everyone who feels like me, I have only one thing to say: to achieve and regain those dreams.
Get your life back because it is precious and you deserve to live a life full of hopes and dreams.
About Vidhu Gandhi
Vidhu Gandhi is a practitioner, researcher, and academic. She works on projects and teaches about history, heritage, cultures and places that combine the old and the new. Spirituality and a sense of connectedness with others are integral to their ethos. She hopes to give others, especially young people, the opportunity to move beyond the silence of their pain and suffering to paths of empathy and compassion.
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