Rebuilding Life After A Scarred Childhood

Traumatic experiences from childhood can have lifelong impact in trusting and creating new relationships. The search for someone to rely upon is a never-ending journey.

I don’t know where to begin with as I couldn’t recall from when did it exactly start. It happened in the past and for a very long time .It was when I started to understand what is bad touch and good touch. But this person was closest to me so I couldn’t save myself from him.

I did try to tell my mother ,but she shunned me ,told not to tell anyone as that would bring bad name to me and family.  I told my brother, he cried after listening, and became really caring towards me but he did the same thing to me eventually . That scarred my ability to trust anyone forever. I was in 9th grade then as far as I can remember .

After that I tried to focus only on my studies, as I thought this was the only way to get myself out of this hell . At that time I used to see girls of my age having boyfriends, discussing valentine’s day proposals , going out with friends. But I thought I couldn’t afford to be one of them. My teachers used to praise my sincerity in studies and how disciplined I was. I wish I had enough courage to tell any  of them about what was happening with me then .

Finding freedom through education

Maybe they would’ve helped me get out of that situation somhow. But as I told you , I couldn’t trust anyone that actually someone can help me . I used to cry all by myself asking to that God above, that why is this happening with me and how do I get out of it. I just trusted myself and none other. Eventually I was able to get good grades in my 10th boards.

And luckily got admission to the best high school in town. But still I had to face such abusive situations back at home . I’ve told my mother uncountable times ,to leave this person and  house and go somewhere else,  but in vain. She had accepted this as her fate and lived with being abused in a cyclic manner , never really bothered what impact this would have on us . She had given in to patriarchy but I never wanted the same life for myself. So I studied harder,  kept myself busy in school and coaching so that I didn’t get enough time to think and lament on all these things.

I fared well in my 12th boards as well which really made me happy after a long time. I appeared for joint entrance exams. Got a decent college. I  could have given one more attempt and got a better one but I didn’t want to stay in that hellhouse anymore.  My patience has got over . I was really happy that I finally will get to fly . It was my newly found freedom which I desired for such a long time.

Learning to live independently

In college, I got to meet so many kinds of people of different backgrounds and cultures. I started getting that there’s such a big world outside to explore and learn about.  I started learning to live in the moments and make memories. For once in life, I was not concerned about achieving any goal or getting good grades only. I wanted to explore other aspects of life. Make friends, go out with them, get to know people, fall in love, have a crush, make mistakes etc ,all those things that I missed experiencing back then. I even tried trusting people again,  but then realized I couldn’t get the same trust as of a family which I was looking for. 

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People are mostly about themselves. So I also started to live on my own, learning to live more independently.  Sometimes people wondered to see that how do I manage everything on my own without actually needing anyone. I could never become that girl who used her girly whims to get things done for her. I wished I could.  That would have made things much easier for me .Instead I was becoming this brave, independent girl who knew how to take control of everything on her own. Afraid of letting the guards down infront of anyone. Again those trust issues surfaced.  I guess that used to piss of guys who actually wanted to own and control me . Hahaha.

Hope for a future filled with trust

But this really affected my ability to develop a healthy relationship . I was so emotionally exhausted that I couldn’t invest anymore in anyone else. It took 4 years to actually get into a relationship and give it a try . But that also ended in 2 years as it had no mutual future.

Now I didn’t want to get into any relationship that didn’t have any future .  All I really want now is to have someone to rely upon , share life burdens with, live a happy family life, feel alive, loved and taken care of, the way I deserve to be .

Image courtesy- Diego San on Unsplash

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