March 26, 2025 • 59 mins
In this episode, with an anonymous woman of Wayland, we dive deep into the journey of facing and understanding childhood traumas—how they shape your identity, self-worth, and the way you show up in the world. We explore how uncovering your origin story can empower you as a woman, a parent, and a professional, helping you break cycles of self-doubt, body shame, and career guilt. You’ll hear from a brave woman on how she reclaimed her narrative and stepped into her power. If you’ve ever felt held back by your past, this episode is your guide and inspiration to breaking free and thriving.
🎙️ Disclaimer - Anonymous Story is a space for personal narratives, shared with honesty and vulnerability. The experiences and perspectives shared in this episode are those of the guest and are not intended as professional advice. This podcast may discuss sensitive topics, including childhood trauma and emotional healing. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek support from a licensed therapist or a trusted professional. You are not alone, and help is available.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, may we all find the strength to own our stories.
- Want to send a message to the guest? Reach out through me - waylandpodcast@gmail.com
- Have a story to share? Submit it on our website.
- Loved this episode? Leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it.
- To get notified about what's next follow - Instagram, Facebook and Youtube.
🎙️ Disclaimer - Anonymous Story is a space for personal narratives, shared with honesty and vulnerability. The experiences and perspectives shared in this episode are those of the guest and are not intended as professional advice. This podcast may discuss sensitive topics, including childhood trauma and emotional healing. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek support from a licensed therapist or a trusted professional. You are not alone, and help is available.
Thank you for listening. Until next time, may we all find the strength to own our stories.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to Women Avail in podcast. This is
your host, Yamini, and I'm so excited and happy about
getting back to you after such a long break. Trust me,
I missed you all as you must have missed our episodes.
(00:27):
You know how there are stories we share freely, and
then there are the ones we keep betted, hidden between
moments of silence, in the spaces where words feel too
heavy to speak. But every story has a moment it
can no longer stay hidden. This is anonymous story, a
(00:51):
place where voices find their way through the dark, where
memories unfold, one whisper.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
At a time.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Some stories begin in darkness, but they don't end there.
This is a story of resilience, of finding light after
years of searching in the shadows. It's a story of survivor,
of breaking free from the past and of choosing to heal.
And today something special is happening. This is the first
(01:24):
time we are recording anonymous story inside the studio, giving
a voice a presence to the one who has carried
her truth in silence for too long. Though this guest
remains anonymous, their story is anything but distant. If you
feel moved to send a message a hog or even
(01:48):
meet this guest in person. You can reach out through me,
because sometimes healing begins with knowing that someone else understands.
This is anonymous story, and this is a story of hope. Hi, Hi,
thank you for coming to our show.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I wanted to be here. Thank you for having me
on this show.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Before we begin, I want to ask you, are you
all comfortable? Do you feel good?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm all said, thank you for having this nice chair
for me.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, this is a new edition, and I wanted my
guests to feel like, you know, for them to feel
at home and at ease and talking about their journey.
My first question would be why do you want to
say this story? Why do you want to tell this story?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The reason I want to tell this story is that
a lot of us go through a lot of personal challenges,
like a lot of us have a lot of fears
and insecurities about ourselves, about the people around us, but
we are so scared to admit it to ourselves, forget
about anybody else. And I feel the first step in
(02:56):
actually getting better or coming out of it is to
accept it. Acknowledgement is the hardest part. And for me,
the reason to share this story is not that I
want to talk about, you know, my parents or my
family in general. But the reason I'm going to tell
this is so that people can actually relate to where
(03:17):
I was, how big of fear and insecurities I have
given from where I'm coming from, and if I can
overcome them. Everybody has a hope in this world to
you know, fight or face those fears.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And then overcome that how beautifully said yes, Yes, this
is why we listen to story, to inspire, to educate.
I want to take you to a point where it
all began. I would love to share that part of
my story because I feel that is something that shaped
my entire life, even though I didn't realize it till
(03:51):
twenty twenty four when I started my therapy and I
felt like I am an accept in this world, or
maybe in a layman terms, I am like a crazy
person out there not knowing where it all began and
why I am the way I am.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And to anyone listening out there, I have a request,
Please don't focus on me as a victim or my
family who did something wrong to me. Everybody has their
own best intentions in this story. Just focus on my reality,
which is how I felt in that moment, not about
what happened, because that's their journey, that's their story. I'm
(04:32):
here to talk about my journey. So therapy actually helped
me realize that it didn't start in a day or
an year or in ten years. When I look back,
I feel it all started when I was five years old.
When I was five years old, my parents and I
(04:54):
used to live in Thailand. My brother was born there.
I was very attached to him because I remember going
back to a temple and praying that I want a brother,
I want a sibling, and he was there. And when
he was I think three months or four months, my
parents thought because their eventual goal was to move to India,
(05:19):
so they thought the best thing for me is to
start the education in India, which I agree right long
term plans. It aligned with their coats. So they decided
for me to relocate me to India in Delhi in
a boarding school, and they for continuing to stay in Thailand.
(05:41):
So I went to the boarding school just four months
after my brother was born.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And he went to boarding school at five.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, in India, in Deli. So how the drop offs
were were basically they used to come to me. They
used to come with me to the boarding school, and
they used to be like, can you go inside the
room and fed something? And by the time I used
to come out after getting whatever they asked me to,
they used to be gone. Imagine a five year old
(06:10):
standing there in the middle of people they don't know,
in they don't know the place, they don't know anything,
and not seeing their parents, not knowing if they're going
to come back, like in a minute, in an hour,
ten days, a month, nothing. Wow, that must be so scary.
I remember the feeling. It was scary. It was the fear.
(06:34):
I don't know how to put it inwards then, because
I was just five year old, and I just remembered
the feeling right in between people that you don't know.
Right now, I have a daughter of similar age. I
can see, like, you know, I can feel the emotions
that she can feel at that point if she was
in that state. But yeah, that's I feel, that's the
(06:57):
beginning of it all right. At five years when I
see my daughter playing happily and doing all these silly things,
and me putting socks on her and then feeding her
and doing everything. I was in a place where I
had nobody to take care of me. I was responsible
for myself, for getting myself ready, for doing everything by myself,
(07:22):
not knowing when the parents would come back. And yeah,
so that happened. Then eventually my parents realized that, you know,
this is not working out because I'm getting smart enough
to ask. I started asking them to hand me the
keys and so that they don't disappear. They realized it's
(07:44):
not going to work out like this, so they started
started sending me through an air hostress from Thailand. They
used to hand me over to ae Hair Rostres who
used to drop me to the daily airport, and my
grandparents used to take me to the boarding school.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Like had that young age.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But yeah, that happened, and I think at that time
it was allowed to hand out to their house tras
and everything. When parents were asked to come and visit
their kids, because my parents were in Thailand, they couldn't come.
I remember everybody's parents coming and going, and I was
just sitting right there waiting for them to come, but
nobody came. Right. Yeah, So I want you to understand
(08:24):
it's not about what my parents did. It's about a
child standing there in the middle of nowhere and what
feared that person. Would have felt of people leaving them. Yeah,
that shaped my personality right, Like you forget the incidents
that happened when you were that young, but what you
don't forget is the feeling. That feeling becomes a part
(08:48):
of your personality. All those fears, all those insecurities is
what shapes you into who you are right now. And
I was doing some research and reading about all of
this and a child. This is also something very important
for all the parents out there that a five year
old does not know how to process big emotions. So
(09:11):
what they do is, if they are left with big
emotions by themselves, they suppress it because they don't have
the bandwidth to process it right. So they grow up
knowing the coping mechanism of suppressing. Not that they intentionally
want to do it, but they don't know what else
to do. So if you see your child going through
any big emotions, sit with them, help them process it,
(09:36):
help them feel it. Because the more you run from it,
it always stays in there. It's like a beach ball, right,
the more you press it inside the water, it will
bounce back even harder. So the more you suppress your emotions,
it will come back even stronger.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Did therapy help you forgive your parents?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So when I before therapy began, I was I was
never in very you know, emotionally invested with my parents.
I didn't know why because I had forgotten all that happened.
And to my parents' point of view, they thought that
she's a five year old, she won't remember any of
It was easy for them to not see me cry
because they thought it'd be easier on me to not
(10:18):
seeing them leave. Right, They thought they're trying to help me.
But now in our generation, knowing all the emotions and everything,
that's not how it works. Forgetting is easy because you know,
at five years old, people don't really remember that much.
But what they don't realize it it actually changes their personality.
(10:38):
When a five year old is left out there nowhere scared,
they will grow up to be that same person who
was scared, right, who has this fear that people can
leave at any point, the people who love you the most,
they will actually start fearing them the most, that what
will happen and when will they leave? So they start
pushing away people from the beginning as soon as somebody
(10:59):
starts getting closer to them. They have this boundary that
they have this boundary, this war that they push them
away because they're so scared of being in that pain
that no matter what, they want to just avoid that pain.
And if somebody was there with that five year old
to help them process that pain, they will not be
(11:21):
scared of this pain. True, in reality, we are not
scared of abandonment. We are scared of the feeling the
pain that will come from that abandonment because we don't
know how to process it. So for kids, don't try
to distract them. If they are feeling sad, or they're
feeling angry, or they're feeling disappointed, don't distract them from that.
(11:44):
Don't punish them from that. Because as humans, all of
us have that feelings and feelings are not wrong, feelings
are valid. So help them process these big feelings, help
them build up healthy coping mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Did you feel anger and resentment towards your parents when
you grew up? And did you recall all of this
whild in therapy?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Or I remembered these incidences? So when I was growing up,
I kept hearing that you know they had good intentions,
so why are you feeling bad about it? But what
we don't realize is intentions are different than reality. You
can always admit that your parents have good intentions, but
at the same time you have to accept the reality
that even though they have good intentions, you can feel hurt.
(12:31):
It's okay to feel sad, it's okay to feel disappointed.
Validate yourself and most of the times we try to
look for that validation outside. Yeah, but validation world, Yes,
validation you can, and that's the problem. We are giving
our power to the world to help us feel safe,
help us feel validated. But the only person you need
(12:54):
validation from is yourself. Yeah. And so for the parents here,
I want to requit as do you too, Never invalidate
your kids feelings. We are humans, we are meant to feel.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
But in our culture, in South Asian culture, you know,
it's the awareness level of the parents to you know,
they don't come from a place where feelings are processed. Yeah,
it's mostly ignored, mostly you know, avoided. Yeah, and a
lot of important topics are you know, they're not discussed.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yes, I agree to because of that, and that's why
I am. I want to be here to bring that awareness.
Our parents could not, but we can. We have that
bandwid to make that change now, Yeah, right, Like I
understand our parents were at a stage where they were struggling.
We're just settling themselves. Forget about the emotional bandwidth like
(13:50):
they had to provide. They were trying to financially settle themselves.
So everything that they did was valid, But we have
the power to take it one step ahead. That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
At the same time, do you not think this is
more like giving them a justification that you know, because
you had to provide for us, because you had to
go out and deal with the worldly affairs. You know,
you're given a leaway with how you behave and do
things with your own family member.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I understand what you're saying, and I have done that
for quite some time in my therapy process that you know,
they should have could have done this or done that.
But what I have realized it that what it does
is it keeps you stuck in the cycle why didn't
they do it? Why it could have been different? Right,
(14:37):
And that cycle keeps you in the loop of resentment, right,
like it could have been different. But what is done
is done. Yeah, you can't change that.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Can you describe me that scene where you were handed
over to a hostess and you know you're boarding the plane.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
How was it like?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
What were you thinking? I mean, do you remember thinking anything?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Now? I cried all the time. Yeah, more so because
I was very attached to my brother and I felt
he got chosen over me. From a five years old
point of view, Your parents, I'm not relocating to India.
My mom wasn't working at that point, and the reason
she gave me that she can't move to India is
because my brother was very small and he needed both parents.
(15:23):
I was small too, Like I was five. I wasn't
like a big grown up girl. So that led to
the other fear, or you know, the subconsciousness that I
am not good enough. And I can bet you ninety
percent of the people out there feel the same for
one reason or the other. They feel we are not
good enough.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, and that's where it started. It's not like I
didn't actively think at that point, oh, I am not
good enough. I was five years old to actually think
of those in words. But I remember that feeling right,
not being chosen. Everybody wants to be chosen. School for you,
it was scary and we used to share, you know,
(16:06):
bunk beds, fifteen kids staying in the same room, and
I remember I was very afraid of the dark because
when light used to go. In India, electricity going is
a very common thing, and when we used to lose electricity,
it was like really dark. And that's how I grew up.
I every time I sleep at night, I have my
lights open. I don't sleep with lights closed. And I
(16:29):
didn't know why until recently I realized, Okay, that's the
reason where it all started. So every fear or insecurity
that you have has a reason behind it. We keep
blaming ourselves for being the way we are because we
don't know where it originated. So anyone who's dealing with
these things out there, take a step to look back.
(16:53):
I know it's going to be very hard, very painful,
and very scary, but take a moment to look back
where it all began. Because once you know the source, right,
then you can accept yourself. Okay, it's not me, it's
the environment. It's the circumstance that shaped me into this.
Nobody wants to grow up feeling you know, feeling the
(17:13):
fear of being abandoned, or you know, growing up with
the listening to people. Okay, they are an attention seeker
and for all the people who gives labels as attention seeker. Okay,
this person is insecure here has a lot of insecurities.
I want you to take a moment and take a
step back to feel that if you are feeling uncomfortable
(17:33):
with somebody being insecure, put your shoes in that person's
feet once. How would that person be feeling, you know,
being insecure. It's not easy to live with the feeling
of being insecure. It's not easy to live with fear.
Every time I want attention, I question myself, why do
I want this attention?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, that's not the normal state of mind.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Nobody wants that, right. Everybody wants to be a secure
person who doesn't need anything from the world. There complete
in their cells. So just don't judge those people. We
are very quick at, you know, labeling.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Them absolutely Today in the world where we don't get
seats together as a family in a plane, that itself
gives anxiety. And I always always pre booke disease, like
I'm visualizing everything that you went through as a five
year old sitting in that plane next to the stranger.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Honestly, I don't remember the exact details. I remember how
I felt because you. You forget the details, you remember
the feeling because the big part was I was handed
over by my parents to somebody else rather than you
know who soothed me down or who didn't. That doesn't matter.
And yeah, and for most of us there, I think
(18:48):
eventually we grow up, we grow apart from you know
what happened, but we always remember how we feel. And
I feel to this point, I am much more comfortable
talking to strange then I'm talking to my clothes ones
or my family.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, And I always questioned myself why, like I should
always be comfortable or to talk or cry in front
of the people that are mine, like right, my family,
But when I am in trouble, those are the people
I run away from. I always seek that so lay
in a stranger rather than my own family. Being a parent, right,
(19:27):
I want you to have built that safe space for
your kids to come back to no matter what. I know,
my parents have my back, and you didn't have that.
I maybe I had it, maybe I didn't. I just
didn't trust myself to go back to them, right, right,
So I didn't know because I never bet on that.
(19:50):
And I remember when they came back, they relocated to India.
They came to pick me up and I saw them
in the waiting room and when they were trying to
take me away, they were like, we are taking you
out from the boarding school on the condition that you
behave gold. Otherwise we'll send you back to the boarding school.
Oh my god. So that I feel now how a
(20:12):
five year old processed was I have to behave a
certain way to be accepted, otherwise I won't be accepted.
And how do you translate it to an adult? I
have to behave how people want me to be, people pleasing,
rather than who I am authentically right, I didn't even
(20:34):
know who I was. I was basically this Plato who
used to mold into anyone's life. That how they wanted
me to be. If somebody asked me, what do you like?
I didn't know what I liked. I didn't know who
I was.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And yeah, so it's heartbreaking, it is it was. It's
for them to come to you after so long. How
many years were you in the boarding school?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I think a year and a half or maybe two years.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I'm just feeling you so much. That is somehow I
have this feeling of helplessness inside me.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
That's what it was, right, Like being a five year old,
all I knew was I had to behave a certain
way to be accepted, and I did that. The problem
is I did it so much that it followed me
throughout my life. Yeah, and then when we moved back,
and I remember my dad losing his job when I
was I think ten years old or something, and unfortunately
(21:34):
he tried a lot, but he couldn't get his job back.
And my mom, being a doctor, she was this old
bread winner in the house, and that led to a
lot of resentment from my dad because really tract society
exactly right. He was completely dependent on my mom, and
there was resentment from my mom that she's the one
(21:54):
earning and not like my dad is not doing anything.
It was like how I can describe is a completely
fractured home where the only thing was anger. They used
to scream at each other, they used to insert each other.
Even to this date the US, there was no happy
moments in the house, no respect, no respect for each other.
(22:18):
And I grew up seeing that, so my language of
communication became angry anger, right, And when I started getting angry,
I got labeled as the angry child, and that's the
second problem out there. Do not label your kid they
feel angry, they are not an angry person. There is
(22:39):
a difference because when you separate it out, you say
you feel angry, it's just the emotion that comes and goes.
But when you label then you are an angry person.
That becomes them their personality. So every time you reacted
out of anger, I'm like, okay, I'm an angry person.
They expect this from me.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So was there any kind of domestic valley? Yes, a
lot of it. I remember standing outside the door and
trying to protect my mom and listening to the you know,
yelling and all, and not being able to do anything.
And despite her leading the finances and everything, she was
still not given the suspect and not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And they were physically, yes, And I remember begging my
mom to leave my dad, that let's go somewhere else
because ten eleven something like that, And I really wish that.
That is one thing I still I feel resent her.
I shouldn't. I will get over it at some point
that she should have taken that chance and step to
(23:43):
move away, because for a child, it's it's much better
to see two happy parents rather than one couple who
was just messed up and not happy at all. So again,
anyone out there who is struggling, think about this, how
it will affect your child and what's the right step. Right,
just staying together doesn't mean you're going to give your
(24:05):
child a happy childhood. Yeah, they need to understand that
you should step up for a happiness. That's what I
want my daughter to grow up like, if you are
not happy, have that courage to step out of that
situation rather than being stick stuck in that situation because
of kids or society or any other thing. You get
one life.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
In all of this, your brother was also growing up.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
He was shielded because I was there and he didn't
have to go through all the boarding school experience. In
all rights, so his.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Childhood, his childhood was also in the same house.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
It was in the same house, but when all of
this yelling and the hitting was going on, I was
there with him, right Like, they didn't hit in They
did hit in front of me, but not my brother.
And most of the time he used to stay with
the grandparents or go out somewhere. And again, everybody is different, right,
like you are wired genetically differently. Maybe I was more emotional,
(25:03):
and the boarding school incident added on to it that
fear and that insecure.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Or maybe you don't know, he hasn't looked into his past.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Maybe he hasn't.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, yeah, but I'm so glad you were there to
shield him from to whatever extent you could.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, And that's when it started. Everybody started saying, I
am like a mom to my brother. Yeah. I wanted
to be an elder sister having fun with her brother,
not like a mother.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I want you to tell me about your schooling after
you were taking away from the boarding school in this
day school. How is it?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
So? It was hard in the beginning to get settled
back into the home and then started schooling. And you know,
because everything came up with expectations that I have to
perform a certain way, and if I didn't, then I
always had that fear of being sent back. Right. So
I remember once that I didn't get good grades in
(26:03):
my exam and I was very scared to go back
and show my parents the mark sheet. And what I
did was I kept it in my bag for a
week ten days. Time kept going on and on and on,
and I was so scared of just bringing it up
to my parents. And then one day my mom shows
up in the school and then she was like, she
(26:25):
didn't get her grades back yet, and the teacher was like, no,
I gave her the grades a month back. And then
when they called me and I showed them the grades,
I remember being so scared and then I went home
and then I was, of course like punished for two reasons,
one for not getting good trades and the second for
hiding it from them. Was there a physical punishment, Oh,
(26:48):
there was, Laura.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
In India, I think, yeah, we've normalized it. Yeah, it's
should not be normalized, but it was. It's a normal
thing for it. It was pretty normal for parents to
hit their kids. So yeah, there was a lot of
punishments like that. But again, if you have to take
a lesson from there, is not that I didn't get
good trades, that you should force your kids to perform
(27:10):
good But the lesson to take from there is that
the child was so scared of the parents she did
not that she thought of lying instead of, you know,
just being open about it that I didn't get good trades. Right,
nobody wants to lie. It starts somewhere. Yeah, and more
(27:32):
often than not, that lies to protect yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I understand the pressure on your mom because she was
taking care of the finances and you know, family and
family and you know in ours in not in our society,
but I think in general, you know, most of it
falls on a woman. Yeah, but as a doctor, was
she aware of the emotional you know, emotional blank that
(28:03):
was being created or emotional sink that was being created
in you? Was she aware any time in the past.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
So we didn't talk about it, and I remember bringing
it up like a few years back, and then she
had that defense in her that Okay, we were bad parents,
you know, we were really bad parents, and this and that,
like how like she felt attacked, which I understand.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean that's what happens when you are not accepting
or yeah, any and when you feel when you're subjected
to reality and you're being asked.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, I mean, no offense. I have been defensive a
lot of my life because I didn't even know why
I'm that way. So it was my way of either
running from myself or protecting myself. Right, That's the only
reason you have that defense mechanism. Either you are trying
to run away or you're trying to protect right, but
from her point of view, I I feel she was
(29:03):
in a point like financially providing and then education and
then family taking care of the family with her husband
who is not very supportive. I don't think emotional stability
was even on her radar anywhere with all of these
things that were involved, right, yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I mean looking at all that she had to manage
along with being a domestic violence victim, yeah, you know,
expecting her to even understand other people's I'm sure she's carred, yeah,
you know, and in India it's very, very difficult to
seek help mentally.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, so it must be really Yeah, it's still a stigma,
still a stigma. Oh yeah. Even now when I tell
my mom that I go for therapy and then you're like,
why do you need therapy? You know, you're all fine.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Their instant reaction is, no, you're fine, you just take
a you know that they want to fix it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah. So the thing is that therapy is equal to
mentally unstable person in a lot of people's minds, right, yes,
But therapy is not mentally unstable person. It's you finding
who yourself are. Yes, And we have thousands of thoughts
going in our head, and we don't know what to
make out of it, because when you are in that zone,
(30:24):
it's almost impossible to look out. You know that, Okay,
there can be a different perspective or different way to
see things.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
This all was happening, and you were in school, and
you navigated through it all where you bullied in all
of this in school?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, school, I don't think I was bullied, but I
was definitely running behind people, trying to please everybody to
be my friend or to stay with me, doing anything
in my power, going above and beyond for them to
just not leave me. I always had that mask on
me that everything is perfect with me and I am
(31:01):
always there, rather than you know, being myself, right, And
that's the reason I had a lot of friends growing up.
So you can say I was extravert, but I didn't
connect to anybody out there, right. I just had so
many friends because I was scared what if one person
leaves me? So it was like a shield. Okay, even
(31:22):
if this person leaves me, I had so many other
people to rely on because I was so scared of
being alone that I had a protective mechanism for me
that I don't care if I can be vulnerable. I
don't care if I can be open to you. All
I want is for you to be there. That was
a fear, level of fear in me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So you graduated from high school and then went on
to college. Did you do it in the locally orred
it locally?
Speaker 2 (31:52):
My college was ten minutes from my house, but I
took admission in that college on one condition and that
my parents will never come and visit me. And I
wanted to stay in the board in the hostel by
my choice then because I wanted to move out. Yeah,
which led to a series of like really bad decisions.
(32:13):
When I was in college because I had so low
self worth and you know, people pleasing tendencies, I entered
into a completely unhealthy relationship that you know. I dated
a guy who was supposedly my best friend at that point,
and he somehow, I think people pick up on the
energies and had I had a vibe or the energy
(32:34):
that I'll do whatever you want me to be as
long as you stay in my life. And he dated
me on the you know, on a condition that I'm
not going to tell anybody that we are in a relationship.
I'm like, perfect, If that's the only thing you want
me to be, and you're willing to stay with me,
I'm going to do that. But no healthy person would
(32:57):
want to be Why would anybody want to be somebody's secret, right?
I wanted to be flawed that like anybody else in
the open, you know, I am with her. It should
be a moment of proudness rather than you know, a shame.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But I'm like, okay, that's a red flag. Of course,
that's a red flag. But for me, boundaries red flags
men nothing if you're there, right, And I felt like
I am a person who can relate to anybody's miseries,
and you know, I'm always there for people, and people
still keep leaving me. So the thing was they didn't
come to me to be with me. They needed something
(33:33):
because nobody knew who I am right right things I'm
telling you right now about my family till ninety nine
percent of my life, not even one person knew what happened,
even like my husband. He just got to know recently
about what actually happened, Like what kind of a family
I grew up in? You were always guarded, and I, yeah,
(33:56):
I felt that if I opened that up. I didn't.
First of all, I did want them to judge my
family because no matter what, it's family. Yes, like how
people pick up on the energies. They just felt that
I am a very empathetic person and I will understand them.
And everybody wants one person to listen to them, absolutely right,
And I was that person who hurt them, who felt
(34:19):
their pain, who felt what they're going through, and when
they lived, I was very disappointed, you know, I was.
I always felt that I always go above and beyond
for people, and this is what they do to me,
this is what But another lesson to learn from there
is that empathy and people pleasing have a very fine
(34:41):
line of difference. Yeah right, yeah, I thought I'm an
empathetic person. But if you see, in a way I
merged that line between people pleasing and empathy, because what
is true empathy? You are there for people, You put
yourself in their shoes, but you don't have any expectations
(35:03):
from them. You do that because you're genuinely that person
who just wants to be there for the person and
you are feeling their pain. It doesn't come with the
expectation that the people will stay or they won't. Right.
But when it turns to people pleasing. You are doing
the exact same thing for them, but you have a
hidden agenda, yes, that you want them to stay. And
(35:24):
that's the part that hurts.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
That is so beautifully said, because I feel like all
my life I've been very sympathetic, but I realized that
I was also people pleasing. Yes, the realizations that you've had,
it's amazing, Like you know, these are your life experiences,
which is why women are valent podcasts. Is not solely
based on what professional achievement or personal achievement you've done.
(35:48):
It's the journey. It's the mix of everything you've gone through.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
And that's the reason I'm very happy to be here
so that I can at least reach out to some people.
Even if it is me makes impact to one person,
I will feel that it's all worth it. Yeah, I
don't want to let all of this go to waste.
Like I have done so much work on myself, I
want to.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Share it out and it's easier if there are people
who've gone through experiences and they have realized something. This
is why we listen to coaches, life coaches exactly, you know,
Mel Robbins and whatnot, just to learn from their experiences.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You know, and you only relate to the people who
have gone through something rather than just people who are
coming up and saying things. And that's the reason I
want to say a story. That's another thing that is
happening a lot in this world. Yeah, like people who
come from their personal experiences have a lot to teach.
And all of these are pekenings that I'm talking about.
Empathy people. It's not something I read in a book
(36:45):
or the therapist told me. It's all something that when
I'm looking inwards, I am getting the answers. There are
no answers to be seen outside. Everything is inside of you.
You are an observer of your own soul exactly. You
need to know yourself, don't. The first part is acknowledging
you have things that you don't like about yourself, because
(37:08):
most people run away from the things that they don't like. Don't.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
What were the rippercussions that happened next? What change in you?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So at that point I, instead of rising up from
those experiences, I went down.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Let me take you to the point where all of
this started affecting you physically.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes, I'm very glad you brought that up. So the
thing is that we all try we are all afraid
of the unknown. That's why we try to control something,
because if we have control over something, we can control
our life. Okay, so I had the fear of not
being good enough. What I did was I remember once
going back to my home, surprising my mom from Bangalore,
(37:52):
and then instead of being happy, she said, how much
weight have you put on?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Oh? Right?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And I was on in the healthy BMI range, but
on the higher side. And I love food. I was
a big foodie. Coming back to whom I was like, okay,
people pleasing kicked in. Okay, she's not happy to see
me or my VisiC. What can I do? What can
I do is hit the gym. I hited the gym.
(38:20):
I went and I started exercising. I saw my first
pound lost, and that was like a victory. I'm like, okay,
it's all paying back. My trainer kept, you know, praising
my dedication. Two hours, three hours of working out, and
then my mom got happy. And then it just spiraled
down into something in my head that Okay, this is
something that's making people happy and making them accept me.
(38:43):
So that means if I do this, I'll be good
enough for people to accept me.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I didn't connect the dots at that point. But I
just felt that this is something I can control, and
this is something that makes people happy about me. That's
all I knew. So I started looking out, kept going
on and on, and you know, after a point, weight
gets flattered and it gets very hard to lose that
last weight. And then I was like, okay, how about
(39:11):
that control. It's maths, You eat and you lose. It's
all about how much is going in versus coming out.
So I was exercising a lot, and then I was
restricting my eating, but it just went so far that
my BMI went down to thirteen, which we know that
(39:31):
the healthy BMI is eighteen point five to twenty two.
You know, I felt that that's the only thing I
can control, and it was the only thing that was
familiar to me that was that I had seen recently.
For people to accept me, I was having less than
four hundred or five hundred calories a day. Oh my god, exactly.
(39:52):
So at that point when I came to the US
and I was going through my physicals here physical is
a thing for every year, which having India, and the
doctor said, like, she's very unhealthy and I have to
be admitted to, you know, because they had to monitor
my electrolytes just to make sure if I start eating,
(40:12):
because when you're restricting so much and you start eating
like even like a normal person, you can actually die
from electrolyte imbalance. So they wanted me to be in
a facility so that they can monitor my intake and
make sure I'm not controlling and everything. But the fear
was not that I'm going to die of this. The
fear was I will lose my control. I see, because
that was the only thing that was familiar to me
(40:33):
to be accepted. Which year was this twenty fifteen? I
would say, yeah so, and the hint case and how.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Many years of marriage?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
One or two years of marriage? Yeah, And so that's
the reason I turned down the inpatient treatment. I was like,
I will do it myself because I knew I can
control outside of the facility. And then came the baby season, right,
all of my friends were having babies. And at that point,
I mean, I was so unhealthy to a point that
I stopped having my periods because yeah so, and I realized, okay,
(41:13):
if I want to have a baby, because again, that
was the way I could fit in because everybody was
having babies, so the way for me to fit in
was to have a baby. You always want to fit in,
you always want everybody wants to fit in. So coming
back to the anuxia face, I was to a point
that I am okay dying with this rather than losing
the control. That's how powerful it was. That that was
(41:35):
the power of, you know, wanting to be accepted any
kind of these things. You know, hypochondria, Everything is the
fear of being accepted. I see, you just want control
over something. My husband used to pack breakfast for me
in the morning. I used to just trash it when
I used to go to the office. I felt really
(41:55):
bad because he was working so hard to, you know,
help me gain weight, and my needing for that control
was so strong nothing else mattered. So when I wanted
to have a baby, I realized, okay, I have to
get into normal BMI so that I can at least conceive.
(42:16):
I tried a lot. I tried eating, and to anyone
out there, it was like, it's eating. How can it
be so hard? The only thing you have to do
is put the food in your mouth. And everybody loves
poond And that's the problem of a mental battle because
they have not lived it. They don't understand it. It's
not just taking food and putting in your mouth. It's
(42:38):
the control that you have to let go of. And
it's not easy to let go of control. And that's
how it is, right, Like, stop judging people. Nobody wants
to be in that space for anybody outside it's very
easy to comment on that. But if they are a
certain way, there is a story behind it. The only
thing is they might not be aware of it, right
(43:01):
and just have some compassion for the other person. Yeah, absolutely,
The perfect ball is not a world where everybody is healed.
The perfect world is a world where everybody is non
judgmental and have compassion for the other person. That's all.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah. Yeah, So coming back to you trying to conceive.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, so when I tried to conceive, I tried a
lot to eat. I couldn't. Like, I gave up. I'm like, okay,
this is not meant for me. I cannot eat. Then
I saw my friend having a baby, and when I
held that baby, I was like, Okay, this is something
I really want, right, Like, I wanted that feeling and
I felt that that's the only thing that will make
(43:41):
me feel complete. I tried to eat, it didn't help,
and I so that is the thing in me once
I set my mind on too. It takes me a
lot of time to set my mind onto something, but
once I decide, there is no going back from there.
So at that point I was like, I have to
get better. I left my job, I joined a lot
(44:01):
of anorexia groups. I read any number of books that
are out there. I looked at all the documentaries and
I was like, Okay, the only thing that I can
do to get over is is to control what I eat.
Rather than having the control of not eating, I can
just switch the control to what I eat at least
if I know what I'm putting in my body, and
(44:23):
if it is all healthy, at least that will really
some pressure that I'm eating. But I'm eating healthy, right,
So the problem was control. I just had to find
that control to go to a healthier place than something
that was harming me. So I felt, okay, moving the
control to healthy eating is something that I can do.
It took me a year and a half to get
(44:44):
back to you a regular BMI, but once I decided
that I did it, so I was there. I got
back to healthier BMI, I got a job back, I
had a baby, and things went upwards from there, at
least not mental health wise, but at least I was
better health wise. Then in twenty twenty four, I I
(45:11):
was just tired of living the way I am, right,
and I thought I am at a point where I'm
no amount of therapy can help me. I was beyond repair,
if you want to say, in like the robots, But
I'm like, okay, if I'm beyond repair, what's the harm
in giving it a shot? Right? Right? There's no harm
in trying. And the problem with therapy is a lot
(45:35):
of people quit, even I decided to quit a lot
of times because before it gets easy, it gets very hard.
Because when you start therapy, you have to relive everything
that you have put in a box and put it
out somewhere. And that's the thing that you're It's like
(45:55):
a bomb. You've buried it. You have buried it, and
if you touch it, you don't know what's going to
come out of it. Yeah, right, And I that's the
part that I hated myself about the most. It was
there in that box. So and you have to admit
everything that's inside of you out loud. I have fears,
(46:18):
I have insecurities. I'm a possessive person. I do not
like myself. I don't like all of these things you
have to say out loud, you don't even say to yourself. Yeah,
so I went to therapy. My first therapist was nice,
but again, the learning point here was every therapist is
not a good fit for you.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
It's like trying to find a person.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
To date, exactly. That's exactly hard. Yeah, to see who's
the right from you. So yeah, coming back to therapy,
my first therapist was very nice. She was very kind, compassionate,
and she used to feel my pain. But at the
same time, she kept circling back into you know, I'm
really sorry what her parents did. I'm really sorry. So
it kept me in the loop of being a victim.
(47:03):
I was at a point that I know what happened. Yeah,
I already accept that. I just want to know how
to change myself or how to become a better human
being from here. Right, Because if you are not healed,
you even subconsciously or unknowingly, hurt the people around you.
(47:24):
It's not just about you, it's the people who love you, right,
They get hurt because of your unhealed things, and once
you bring it up to the light and you accept it,
next time in the same situation, you will respond out
of the awareness rather than reacting out of impulsiveness, which
is a big difference. Right, So that therapy is I
(47:47):
left her because and I felt that Okay, I tried
therapy not working out. Chapter is over, it's time to
move on. But then I we was like, let me
give it another shot, and then I went online. I
found therapist and then.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
She changed my life.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
She never took me like a victim every situation I
put in front of her, and she pinpointed, this is
where it's coming from, because we as humans unknowingly want
to fall back into the familiar pattern. Yeah, because that's
our comfort, right, even if it's fear of abandonment, that's
(48:25):
our comfort. Our comfort is to stay in all the
healthy relationships. So we always fall back into that pattern
because we know we know if people leave, how will
it feel what? We don't know what happens if people
truly love us and they stay. That makes us uncomfortable
because we don't know, and that's why we keep pushing
people away because that's what we know. But if you
(48:48):
really so it's like you want one thing, but then
you can't have that thing because you're pushing it away.
It's push and pull that keeps happening. So she helped
me under I was when all of these things came up.
I started talking about my five year old. She was
the one who brought it up, and I went into
really bad anxiety and depression. It was to the point
(49:11):
I felt I can never come out of it. Was
this postpartum it was. It was twenty twenty four, right,
so five years I had postpartum freshion too. I just
didn't know at that point because COVID and everything hit.
So I'm like, okay, just the message situation rather than
the postpartum hitting me. So yeah, coming back to my
therapy point, she's when I started realizing that all of
(49:36):
that anger for my parents kept coming out. And I
am a person who never likes to go back to
her home to India, and I always felt guilty that.
You know, I've seen people staying months with their parents
when they're here and missing them and I never do that.
I felt like a bad daughter, like why don't I
want to go back? And after therapy, I realized that
(49:59):
it's okay. To not want to go back because that
was never a safe space for me anyways. Yes, right,
it was all filled with that fears and violence and everything.
So it's natural to not want to go back. And
when I knew this, I that all guilt and everything
just lifted off of me and accepted myself It's okay
some people want to it's okay some people don't want to.
(50:22):
So I went into the spiral that I can never
come out of. I went into a huge depression reliving
all those memories. It was to a point that I
didn't even I was just lying down on the couch
and I kept crying. And my husband said, if I
leave you in the morning and come back in the evening,
I will find you in the exact same spots, not
doing anything. It takes a toll on you, and things
(50:45):
are not going. I didn't have a job. I didn't
have a job at that point. It's even tough, you know,
that's even tough, Yeah, in the West, if you don't
have army around. Yeah. So then I reached out to
a friend, right, And that's the other thing. You don't
need thousands of friends in your life like I thought
I did. You only need that one or two people
(51:07):
in your life who are not judgmental. They might not
have to accept everything that you say, but they should
be willing to understand it totally. They have to give
you that safe space for you to be yourself. If
you even have one person like that, you are blessed.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, totally. I want to take you back to that
important event in your life where you decided to get
married and went into an alliance with someone.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Tell me about it, so like I told you, I
dated somebody in college and it wasn't a very good
relationship and how it ended. That left me feeling so
negatively about myself and question my choices even more. That
I am a big romantic person, right, even love marriages
(52:01):
and all the fantasies and all the Bollywood movies that
creates out there. I wanted to have a life like
that that just movies. I still believe, I still do
believe in them, But after that experience of mine, I
felt like I cannot rest myself with this and I
wanted to get out of my house right and I
feel the marriage of my parents was in a way
(52:25):
that even slightly better than that was, Like your benchmark
was my benchmark But coming back to that point, I
just wanted to get out of my house. I kept
getting some proposals, but I met my now husband right
His family was very nice and they were all very
connected and or respecting each other, and parents had his
(52:50):
parents are amazing. Yeah, if somebody is even talking respectfully
to each other, that was like a lot for me.
And connected with my husband. We had a phone call
and I was very scared of being lonely. I think
maybe that was the reason I said yes to any marriage,
(53:11):
because I didn't want to be lonely and I wanted
to get out of my house. But luckily I found
my husband. He has supported me in every step of
the way. He understands where I came from, one by
one secrets and the dark corners of my house and
you know, letting him all in into what happened. But yeah,
(53:34):
as far as that goes, that is my.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
I know that when you were sharing your story in
the pre interview, you were not hesitant. You were this confident,
glowy self that you are right now in front of me,
and I have not recorded an anonymous story in the
studio before, so this is my first thank you for
giving me that chance. But at the same time, I
(53:59):
was amazed at how beautifully you shared your story without
ever feeling emotionally down during the story. That strength, Where
are you getting it from? Because as a listener, I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
You know, be okay listening to it. Thank you for that.
It really means a lot because I wanted to be
that person who comes out with a lot of strength.
So I always have lived in a victim mindset. Once
you take accountability for your life and your actions, things change.
Once you bring all the things and you realize it's
(54:39):
all the conditioning and it's in my hands to change that,
and you accept yourself fully, things change no matter what
anybody else says. You know yourself. Let them say whatever
they want to they want to leave, let them go.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
The hardest part is to let somebody go who you
really love.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
But I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Ultimately, if they want to leave out of what you do,
they're not going to stay.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah. You take the reins of your life in your hand.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, and I feel I don't have to feel bad
about myself if I can survive all of that I hand,
I can survive anything that life has to throw at me.
And there are only two ways. Either I can look
back and keep questioning why did this happen to me?
And always stay in the victim and said, or take
the positives out of it. This happened to me because
(55:27):
of which I am this strong, and I have all
the lessons to learn and I to become a better person.
What is life? It's all the lessons that you have
to learn. Either you can criticize or you can learn
from it. That is the word karma, right, Karma is
not punishment. It is just a series of lessons that
(55:47):
you have to learn to become your highest version of
your coming.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
To valand yes, what got you.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
To valand schooling in Valent is amazing And we wanted
our daughter to be in a good school district where
you have a lot of kids to play around and
the location is amazing. Yeah, right, And the place where
I live, it's full of kids. It's like full of life.
Like when we saw this house, we didn't even enter
(56:15):
the house. We just fell in love with the neighborhood.
Neighborhood and yeah, just seeing at all the trees and
highways close by everything Framingham, nay, take Sadbury. Everything was
closed by right and before we even decided on the house.
We decided on the location. Very nice. Yeah and yeah,
(56:36):
did you make friends here? I am starting to so
if anybody is looking out to have a new friend,
please reach out to young Minie and she can connect
you to me. Yes.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
I can see in your eyes and in the way
you tell your story, how confident, how joyous you are,
even in speaking about some of the most difficult things
that you had to speak today. That is inspiring. This,
this was fantastic. Thank you so so much.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
This last thing. Thank you all for listening to me
and my story. I would request you try not to
be so sorry for me on teaming like a victim,
because I don't. I'm very glad it all happened and
I'm here because otherwise I would not have been here.
So thank you so much for connecting with me.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
And beautifully said. And I'm sure they will not. They
will see it as a triumphant story. Thank you, AMII,
thank you for having me here. Some stories stay with
us long after they are told. This is one of them.
What you've just heard is more than a story. It's
(57:41):
a life lived, a past, carriage, and a future being rewritten.
If you found pieces of yourself in these words. If
this journey resonated with you, know that you're not alone.
Healing takes time, but every conversation, every moment of recognition,
is a step forward. So if you would like to
(58:03):
send a message, a word of support, or even connect
with our anonymous guest, you can reach out through me,
because sometimes the simplest act of being seen can make
all the difference. If you've being moved by this episode,
I urge you to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or
(58:23):
wherever you listen, leave a review, share it with someone
who might need to hear it, and help us keep
creating a space for stories that deserve to be told,
and to businesses and brands who believe in the power
of storytelling. This is an invitation. Partner with us, sponsor
an episode, help us continue bringing raw, unfiltered human experience
(58:48):
to light. If you would like to support season five,
the design of which is based on women in local governance,
reach out for sponsorship opportunities. Thank you for listening. Until
next time, May we all keep finding the strength to
tell our own stories. This is Yamini, your host, and
(59:08):
you were listening to Women Are Whalen the podcast
Hi, everyone, Welcome to Women Avail in podcast. This is
your host, Yamini, and I'm so excited and happy about
getting back to you after such a long break. Trust me,
I missed you all as you must have missed our episodes.
(00:27):
You know how there are stories we share freely, and
then there are the ones we keep betted, hidden between
moments of silence, in the spaces where words feel too
heavy to speak. But every story has a moment it
can no longer stay hidden. This is anonymous story, a
(00:51):
place where voices find their way through the dark, where
memories unfold, one whisper.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
At a time.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Some stories begin in darkness, but they don't end there.
This is a story of resilience, of finding light after
years of searching in the shadows. It's a story of survivor,
of breaking free from the past and of choosing to heal.
And today something special is happening. This is the first
(01:24):
time we are recording anonymous story inside the studio, giving
a voice a presence to the one who has carried
her truth in silence for too long. Though this guest
remains anonymous, their story is anything but distant. If you
feel moved to send a message a hog or even
(01:48):
meet this guest in person. You can reach out through me,
because sometimes healing begins with knowing that someone else understands.
This is anonymous story, and this is a story of hope. Hi, Hi,
thank you for coming to our show.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I wanted to be here. Thank you for having me
on this show.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Before we begin, I want to ask you, are you
all comfortable? Do you feel good?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm all said, thank you for having this nice chair
for me.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, this is a new edition, and I wanted my
guests to feel like, you know, for them to feel
at home and at ease and talking about their journey.
My first question would be why do you want to
say this story? Why do you want to tell this story?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The reason I want to tell this story is that
a lot of us go through a lot of personal challenges,
like a lot of us have a lot of fears
and insecurities about ourselves, about the people around us, but
we are so scared to admit it to ourselves, forget
about anybody else. And I feel the first step in
(02:56):
actually getting better or coming out of it is to
accept it. Acknowledgement is the hardest part. And for me,
the reason to share this story is not that I
want to talk about, you know, my parents or my
family in general. But the reason I'm going to tell
this is so that people can actually relate to where
(03:17):
I was, how big of fear and insecurities I have
given from where I'm coming from, and if I can
overcome them. Everybody has a hope in this world to
you know, fight or face those fears.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
And then overcome that how beautifully said yes, Yes, this
is why we listen to story, to inspire, to educate.
I want to take you to a point where it
all began. I would love to share that part of
my story because I feel that is something that shaped
my entire life, even though I didn't realize it till
(03:51):
twenty twenty four when I started my therapy and I
felt like I am an accept in this world, or
maybe in a layman terms, I am like a crazy
person out there not knowing where it all began and
why I am the way I am.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And to anyone listening out there, I have a request,
Please don't focus on me as a victim or my
family who did something wrong to me. Everybody has their
own best intentions in this story. Just focus on my reality,
which is how I felt in that moment, not about
what happened, because that's their journey, that's their story. I'm
(04:32):
here to talk about my journey. So therapy actually helped
me realize that it didn't start in a day or
an year or in ten years. When I look back,
I feel it all started when I was five years old.
When I was five years old, my parents and I
(04:54):
used to live in Thailand. My brother was born there.
I was very attached to him because I remember going
back to a temple and praying that I want a brother,
I want a sibling, and he was there. And when
he was I think three months or four months, my
parents thought because their eventual goal was to move to India,
(05:19):
so they thought the best thing for me is to
start the education in India, which I agree right long
term plans. It aligned with their coats. So they decided
for me to relocate me to India in Delhi in
a boarding school, and they for continuing to stay in Thailand.
(05:41):
So I went to the boarding school just four months
after my brother was born.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And he went to boarding school at five.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, in India, in Deli. So how the drop offs
were were basically they used to come to me. They
used to come with me to the boarding school, and
they used to be like, can you go inside the
room and fed something? And by the time I used
to come out after getting whatever they asked me to,
they used to be gone. Imagine a five year old
(06:10):
standing there in the middle of people they don't know,
in they don't know the place, they don't know anything,
and not seeing their parents, not knowing if they're going
to come back, like in a minute, in an hour,
ten days, a month, nothing. Wow, that must be so scary.
I remember the feeling. It was scary. It was the fear.
(06:34):
I don't know how to put it inwards then, because
I was just five year old, and I just remembered
the feeling right in between people that you don't know.
Right now, I have a daughter of similar age. I
can see, like, you know, I can feel the emotions
that she can feel at that point if she was
in that state. But yeah, that's I feel, that's the
(06:57):
beginning of it all right. At five years when I
see my daughter playing happily and doing all these silly things,
and me putting socks on her and then feeding her
and doing everything. I was in a place where I
had nobody to take care of me. I was responsible
for myself, for getting myself ready, for doing everything by myself,
(07:22):
not knowing when the parents would come back. And yeah,
so that happened. Then eventually my parents realized that, you know,
this is not working out because I'm getting smart enough
to ask. I started asking them to hand me the
keys and so that they don't disappear. They realized it's
(07:44):
not going to work out like this, so they started
started sending me through an air hostress from Thailand. They
used to hand me over to ae Hair Rostres who
used to drop me to the daily airport, and my
grandparents used to take me to the boarding school.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Like had that young age.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
But yeah, that happened, and I think at that time
it was allowed to hand out to their house tras
and everything. When parents were asked to come and visit
their kids, because my parents were in Thailand, they couldn't come.
I remember everybody's parents coming and going, and I was
just sitting right there waiting for them to come, but
nobody came. Right. Yeah, So I want you to understand
(08:24):
it's not about what my parents did. It's about a
child standing there in the middle of nowhere and what
feared that person. Would have felt of people leaving them. Yeah,
that shaped my personality right, Like you forget the incidents
that happened when you were that young, but what you
don't forget is the feeling. That feeling becomes a part
(08:48):
of your personality. All those fears, all those insecurities is
what shapes you into who you are right now. And
I was doing some research and reading about all of
this and a child. This is also something very important
for all the parents out there that a five year
old does not know how to process big emotions. So
(09:11):
what they do is, if they are left with big
emotions by themselves, they suppress it because they don't have
the bandwidth to process it right. So they grow up
knowing the coping mechanism of suppressing. Not that they intentionally
want to do it, but they don't know what else
to do. So if you see your child going through
any big emotions, sit with them, help them process it,
(09:36):
help them feel it. Because the more you run from it,
it always stays in there. It's like a beach ball, right,
the more you press it inside the water, it will
bounce back even harder. So the more you suppress your emotions,
it will come back even stronger.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Did therapy help you forgive your parents?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
So when I before therapy began, I was I was
never in very you know, emotionally invested with my parents.
I didn't know why because I had forgotten all that happened.
And to my parents' point of view, they thought that
she's a five year old, she won't remember any of
It was easy for them to not see me cry
because they thought it'd be easier on me to not
(10:18):
seeing them leave. Right, They thought they're trying to help me.
But now in our generation, knowing all the emotions and everything,
that's not how it works. Forgetting is easy because you know,
at five years old, people don't really remember that much.
But what they don't realize it it actually changes their personality.
(10:38):
When a five year old is left out there nowhere scared,
they will grow up to be that same person who
was scared, right, who has this fear that people can
leave at any point, the people who love you the most,
they will actually start fearing them the most, that what
will happen and when will they leave? So they start
pushing away people from the beginning as soon as somebody
(10:59):
starts getting closer to them. They have this boundary that
they have this boundary, this war that they push them
away because they're so scared of being in that pain
that no matter what, they want to just avoid that pain.
And if somebody was there with that five year old
to help them process that pain, they will not be
(11:21):
scared of this pain. True, in reality, we are not
scared of abandonment. We are scared of the feeling the
pain that will come from that abandonment because we don't
know how to process it. So for kids, don't try
to distract them. If they are feeling sad, or they're
feeling angry, or they're feeling disappointed, don't distract them from that.
(11:44):
Don't punish them from that. Because as humans, all of
us have that feelings and feelings are not wrong, feelings
are valid. So help them process these big feelings, help
them build up healthy coping mechanisms.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Did you feel anger and resentment towards your parents when
you grew up? And did you recall all of this
whild in therapy?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Or I remembered these incidences? So when I was growing up,
I kept hearing that you know they had good intentions,
so why are you feeling bad about it? But what
we don't realize is intentions are different than reality. You
can always admit that your parents have good intentions, but
at the same time you have to accept the reality
that even though they have good intentions, you can feel hurt.
(12:31):
It's okay to feel sad, it's okay to feel disappointed.
Validate yourself and most of the times we try to
look for that validation outside. Yeah, but validation world, Yes,
validation you can, and that's the problem. We are giving
our power to the world to help us feel safe,
help us feel validated. But the only person you need
(12:54):
validation from is yourself. Yeah. And so for the parents here,
I want to requit as do you too, Never invalidate
your kids feelings. We are humans, we are meant to feel.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
But in our culture, in South Asian culture, you know,
it's the awareness level of the parents to you know,
they don't come from a place where feelings are processed. Yeah,
it's mostly ignored, mostly you know, avoided. Yeah, and a
lot of important topics are you know, they're not discussed.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Yes, I agree to because of that, and that's why
I am. I want to be here to bring that awareness.
Our parents could not, but we can. We have that
bandwid to make that change now, Yeah, right, Like I
understand our parents were at a stage where they were struggling.
We're just settling themselves. Forget about the emotional bandwidth like
(13:50):
they had to provide. They were trying to financially settle themselves.
So everything that they did was valid, But we have
the power to take it one step ahead. That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
At the same time, do you not think this is
more like giving them a justification that you know, because
you had to provide for us, because you had to
go out and deal with the worldly affairs. You know,
you're given a leaway with how you behave and do
things with your own family member.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I understand what you're saying, and I have done that
for quite some time in my therapy process that you know,
they should have could have done this or done that.
But what I have realized it that what it does
is it keeps you stuck in the cycle why didn't
they do it? Why it could have been different? Right,
(14:37):
And that cycle keeps you in the loop of resentment, right,
like it could have been different. But what is done
is done. Yeah, you can't change that.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Can you describe me that scene where you were handed
over to a hostess and you know you're boarding the plane.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
How was it like?
Speaker 1 (14:59):
What were you thinking? I mean, do you remember thinking anything?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Now? I cried all the time. Yeah, more so because
I was very attached to my brother and I felt
he got chosen over me. From a five years old
point of view, Your parents, I'm not relocating to India.
My mom wasn't working at that point, and the reason
she gave me that she can't move to India is
because my brother was very small and he needed both parents.
(15:23):
I was small too, Like I was five. I wasn't
like a big grown up girl. So that led to
the other fear, or you know, the subconsciousness that I
am not good enough. And I can bet you ninety
percent of the people out there feel the same for
one reason or the other. They feel we are not
good enough.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, and that's where it started. It's not like I
didn't actively think at that point, oh, I am not
good enough. I was five years old to actually think
of those in words. But I remember that feeling right,
not being chosen. Everybody wants to be chosen. School for you,
it was scary and we used to share, you know,
(16:06):
bunk beds, fifteen kids staying in the same room, and
I remember I was very afraid of the dark because
when light used to go. In India, electricity going is
a very common thing, and when we used to lose electricity,
it was like really dark. And that's how I grew up.
I every time I sleep at night, I have my
lights open. I don't sleep with lights closed. And I
(16:29):
didn't know why until recently I realized, Okay, that's the
reason where it all started. So every fear or insecurity
that you have has a reason behind it. We keep
blaming ourselves for being the way we are because we
don't know where it originated. So anyone who's dealing with
these things out there, take a step to look back.
(16:53):
I know it's going to be very hard, very painful,
and very scary, but take a moment to look back
where it all began. Because once you know the source, right,
then you can accept yourself. Okay, it's not me, it's
the environment. It's the circumstance that shaped me into this.
Nobody wants to grow up feeling you know, feeling the
(17:13):
fear of being abandoned, or you know, growing up with
the listening to people. Okay, they are an attention seeker
and for all the people who gives labels as attention seeker. Okay,
this person is insecure here has a lot of insecurities.
I want you to take a moment and take a
step back to feel that if you are feeling uncomfortable
(17:33):
with somebody being insecure, put your shoes in that person's
feet once. How would that person be feeling, you know,
being insecure. It's not easy to live with the feeling
of being insecure. It's not easy to live with fear.
Every time I want attention, I question myself, why do
I want this attention?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, that's not the normal state of mind.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Nobody wants that, right. Everybody wants to be a secure
person who doesn't need anything from the world. There complete
in their cells. So just don't judge those people. We
are very quick at, you know, labeling.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Them absolutely Today in the world where we don't get
seats together as a family in a plane, that itself
gives anxiety. And I always always pre booke disease, like
I'm visualizing everything that you went through as a five
year old sitting in that plane next to the stranger.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Honestly, I don't remember the exact details. I remember how
I felt because you. You forget the details, you remember
the feeling because the big part was I was handed
over by my parents to somebody else rather than you
know who soothed me down or who didn't. That doesn't matter.
And yeah, and for most of us there, I think
(18:48):
eventually we grow up, we grow apart from you know
what happened, but we always remember how we feel. And
I feel to this point, I am much more comfortable
talking to strange then I'm talking to my clothes ones
or my family.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, And I always questioned myself why, like I should
always be comfortable or to talk or cry in front
of the people that are mine, like right, my family,
But when I am in trouble, those are the people
I run away from. I always seek that so lay
in a stranger rather than my own family. Being a parent, right,
(19:27):
I want you to have built that safe space for
your kids to come back to no matter what. I know,
my parents have my back, and you didn't have that.
I maybe I had it, maybe I didn't. I just
didn't trust myself to go back to them, right, right,
So I didn't know because I never bet on that.
(19:50):
And I remember when they came back, they relocated to India.
They came to pick me up and I saw them
in the waiting room and when they were trying to
take me away, they were like, we are taking you
out from the boarding school on the condition that you
behave gold. Otherwise we'll send you back to the boarding school.
Oh my god. So that I feel now how a
(20:12):
five year old processed was I have to behave a
certain way to be accepted, otherwise I won't be accepted.
And how do you translate it to an adult? I
have to behave how people want me to be, people pleasing,
rather than who I am authentically right, I didn't even
(20:34):
know who I was. I was basically this Plato who
used to mold into anyone's life. That how they wanted
me to be. If somebody asked me, what do you like?
I didn't know what I liked. I didn't know who
I was.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
And yeah, so it's heartbreaking, it is it was. It's
for them to come to you after so long. How
many years were you in the boarding school?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I think a year and a half or maybe two years.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I'm just feeling you so much. That is somehow I
have this feeling of helplessness inside me.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
That's what it was, right, Like being a five year old,
all I knew was I had to behave a certain
way to be accepted, and I did that. The problem
is I did it so much that it followed me
throughout my life. Yeah, and then when we moved back,
and I remember my dad losing his job when I
was I think ten years old or something, and unfortunately
(21:34):
he tried a lot, but he couldn't get his job back.
And my mom, being a doctor, she was this old
bread winner in the house, and that led to a
lot of resentment from my dad because really tract society
exactly right. He was completely dependent on my mom, and
there was resentment from my mom that she's the one
(21:54):
earning and not like my dad is not doing anything.
It was like how I can describe is a completely
fractured home where the only thing was anger. They used
to scream at each other, they used to insert each other.
Even to this date the US, there was no happy
moments in the house, no respect, no respect for each other.
(22:18):
And I grew up seeing that, so my language of
communication became angry anger, right, And when I started getting angry,
I got labeled as the angry child, and that's the
second problem out there. Do not label your kid they
feel angry, they are not an angry person. There is
(22:39):
a difference because when you separate it out, you say
you feel angry, it's just the emotion that comes and goes.
But when you label then you are an angry person.
That becomes them their personality. So every time you reacted
out of anger, I'm like, okay, I'm an angry person.
They expect this from me.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So was there any kind of domestic valley? Yes, a
lot of it. I remember standing outside the door and
trying to protect my mom and listening to the you know,
yelling and all, and not being able to do anything.
And despite her leading the finances and everything, she was
still not given the suspect and not at all.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
And they were physically, yes, And I remember begging my
mom to leave my dad, that let's go somewhere else
because ten eleven something like that, And I really wish that.
That is one thing I still I feel resent her.
I shouldn't. I will get over it at some point
that she should have taken that chance and step to
(23:43):
move away, because for a child, it's it's much better
to see two happy parents rather than one couple who
was just messed up and not happy at all. So again,
anyone out there who is struggling, think about this, how
it will affect your child and what's the right step. Right,
just staying together doesn't mean you're going to give your
(24:05):
child a happy childhood. Yeah, they need to understand that
you should step up for a happiness. That's what I
want my daughter to grow up like, if you are
not happy, have that courage to step out of that
situation rather than being stick stuck in that situation because
of kids or society or any other thing. You get
one life.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
In all of this, your brother was also growing up.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
He was shielded because I was there and he didn't
have to go through all the boarding school experience. In
all rights, so his.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Childhood, his childhood was also in the same house.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
It was in the same house, but when all of
this yelling and the hitting was going on, I was
there with him, right Like, they didn't hit in They
did hit in front of me, but not my brother.
And most of the time he used to stay with
the grandparents or go out somewhere. And again, everybody is different, right,
like you are wired genetically differently. Maybe I was more emotional,
(25:03):
and the boarding school incident added on to it that
fear and that insecure.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Or maybe you don't know, he hasn't looked into his past.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Maybe he hasn't.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, yeah, but I'm so glad you were there to
shield him from to whatever extent you could.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, And that's when it started. Everybody started saying, I
am like a mom to my brother. Yeah. I wanted
to be an elder sister having fun with her brother,
not like a mother.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I want you to tell me about your schooling after
you were taking away from the boarding school in this
day school. How is it?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
So? It was hard in the beginning to get settled
back into the home and then started schooling. And you know,
because everything came up with expectations that I have to
perform a certain way, and if I didn't, then I
always had that fear of being sent back. Right. So
I remember once that I didn't get good grades in
(26:03):
my exam and I was very scared to go back
and show my parents the mark sheet. And what I
did was I kept it in my bag for a
week ten days. Time kept going on and on and on,
and I was so scared of just bringing it up
to my parents. And then one day my mom shows
up in the school and then she was like, she
(26:25):
didn't get her grades back yet, and the teacher was like, no,
I gave her the grades a month back. And then
when they called me and I showed them the grades,
I remember being so scared and then I went home
and then I was, of course like punished for two reasons,
one for not getting good trades and the second for
hiding it from them. Was there a physical punishment, Oh,
(26:48):
there was, Laura.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
In India, I think, yeah, we've normalized it. Yeah, it's
should not be normalized, but it was. It's a normal
thing for it. It was pretty normal for parents to
hit their kids. So yeah, there was a lot of
punishments like that. But again, if you have to take
a lesson from there, is not that I didn't get
good trades, that you should force your kids to perform
(27:10):
good But the lesson to take from there is that
the child was so scared of the parents she did
not that she thought of lying instead of, you know,
just being open about it that I didn't get good trades. Right,
nobody wants to lie. It starts somewhere. Yeah, and more
(27:32):
often than not, that lies to protect yourself.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes. Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I understand the pressure on your mom because she was
taking care of the finances and you know, family and
family and you know in ours in not in our society,
but I think in general, you know, most of it
falls on a woman. Yeah, but as a doctor, was
she aware of the emotional you know, emotional blank that
(28:03):
was being created or emotional sink that was being created
in you? Was she aware any time in the past.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
So we didn't talk about it, and I remember bringing
it up like a few years back, and then she
had that defense in her that Okay, we were bad parents,
you know, we were really bad parents, and this and that,
like how like she felt attacked, which I understand.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean that's what happens when you are not accepting
or yeah, any and when you feel when you're subjected
to reality and you're being asked.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, I mean, no offense. I have been defensive a
lot of my life because I didn't even know why
I'm that way. So it was my way of either
running from myself or protecting myself. Right, That's the only
reason you have that defense mechanism. Either you are trying
to run away or you're trying to protect right, but
from her point of view, I I feel she was
(29:03):
in a point like financially providing and then education and
then family taking care of the family with her husband
who is not very supportive. I don't think emotional stability
was even on her radar anywhere with all of these
things that were involved, right, yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I mean looking at all that she had to manage
along with being a domestic violence victim, yeah, you know,
expecting her to even understand other people's I'm sure she's carred, yeah,
you know, and in India it's very, very difficult to
seek help mentally.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yeah, so it must be really Yeah, it's still a stigma,
still a stigma. Oh yeah. Even now when I tell
my mom that I go for therapy and then you're like,
why do you need therapy? You know, you're all fine.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Their instant reaction is, no, you're fine, you just take
a you know that they want to fix it.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah. So the thing is that therapy is equal to
mentally unstable person in a lot of people's minds, right, yes,
But therapy is not mentally unstable person. It's you finding
who yourself are. Yes, And we have thousands of thoughts
going in our head, and we don't know what to
make out of it, because when you are in that zone,
(30:24):
it's almost impossible to look out. You know that, Okay,
there can be a different perspective or different way to
see things.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
This all was happening, and you were in school, and
you navigated through it all where you bullied in all
of this in school?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, school, I don't think I was bullied, but I
was definitely running behind people, trying to please everybody to
be my friend or to stay with me, doing anything
in my power, going above and beyond for them to
just not leave me. I always had that mask on
me that everything is perfect with me and I am
(31:01):
always there, rather than you know, being myself, right, And
that's the reason I had a lot of friends growing up.
So you can say I was extravert, but I didn't
connect to anybody out there, right. I just had so
many friends because I was scared what if one person
leaves me? So it was like a shield. Okay, even
(31:22):
if this person leaves me, I had so many other
people to rely on because I was so scared of
being alone that I had a protective mechanism for me
that I don't care if I can be vulnerable. I
don't care if I can be open to you. All
I want is for you to be there. That was
a fear, level of fear in me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
So you graduated from high school and then went on
to college. Did you do it in the locally orred
it locally?
Speaker 2 (31:52):
My college was ten minutes from my house, but I
took admission in that college on one condition and that
my parents will never come and visit me. And I
wanted to stay in the board in the hostel by
my choice then because I wanted to move out. Yeah,
which led to a series of like really bad decisions.
(32:13):
When I was in college because I had so low
self worth and you know, people pleasing tendencies, I entered
into a completely unhealthy relationship that you know. I dated
a guy who was supposedly my best friend at that point,
and he somehow, I think people pick up on the
energies and had I had a vibe or the energy
(32:34):
that I'll do whatever you want me to be as
long as you stay in my life. And he dated
me on the you know, on a condition that I'm
not going to tell anybody that we are in a relationship.
I'm like, perfect, If that's the only thing you want
me to be, and you're willing to stay with me,
I'm going to do that. But no healthy person would
(32:57):
want to be Why would anybody want to be somebody's secret, right?
I wanted to be flawed that like anybody else in
the open, you know, I am with her. It should
be a moment of proudness rather than you know, a shame.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But I'm like, okay, that's a red flag. Of course,
that's a red flag. But for me, boundaries red flags
men nothing if you're there, right, And I felt like
I am a person who can relate to anybody's miseries,
and you know, I'm always there for people, and people
still keep leaving me. So the thing was they didn't
come to me to be with me. They needed something
(33:33):
because nobody knew who I am right right things I'm
telling you right now about my family till ninety nine
percent of my life, not even one person knew what happened,
even like my husband. He just got to know recently
about what actually happened, Like what kind of a family
I grew up in? You were always guarded, and I, yeah,
(33:56):
I felt that if I opened that up. I didn't.
First of all, I did want them to judge my
family because no matter what, it's family. Yes, like how
people pick up on the energies. They just felt that
I am a very empathetic person and I will understand them.
And everybody wants one person to listen to them, absolutely right,
And I was that person who hurt them, who felt
(34:19):
their pain, who felt what they're going through, and when
they lived, I was very disappointed, you know, I was.
I always felt that I always go above and beyond
for people, and this is what they do to me,
this is what But another lesson to learn from there
is that empathy and people pleasing have a very fine
(34:41):
line of difference. Yeah right, yeah, I thought I'm an
empathetic person. But if you see, in a way I
merged that line between people pleasing and empathy, because what
is true empathy? You are there for people, You put
yourself in their shoes, but you don't have any expectations
(35:03):
from them. You do that because you're genuinely that person
who just wants to be there for the person and
you are feeling their pain. It doesn't come with the
expectation that the people will stay or they won't. Right.
But when it turns to people pleasing. You are doing
the exact same thing for them, but you have a
hidden agenda, yes, that you want them to stay. And
(35:24):
that's the part that hurts.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
That is so beautifully said, because I feel like all
my life I've been very sympathetic, but I realized that
I was also people pleasing. Yes, the realizations that you've had,
it's amazing, Like you know, these are your life experiences,
which is why women are valent podcasts. Is not solely
based on what professional achievement or personal achievement you've done.
(35:48):
It's the journey. It's the mix of everything you've gone through.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
And that's the reason I'm very happy to be here
so that I can at least reach out to some people.
Even if it is me makes impact to one person,
I will feel that it's all worth it. Yeah, I
don't want to let all of this go to waste.
Like I have done so much work on myself, I
want to.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Share it out and it's easier if there are people
who've gone through experiences and they have realized something. This
is why we listen to coaches, life coaches exactly, you know,
Mel Robbins and whatnot, just to learn from their experiences.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You know, and you only relate to the people who
have gone through something rather than just people who are
coming up and saying things. And that's the reason I
want to say a story. That's another thing that is
happening a lot in this world. Yeah, like people who
come from their personal experiences have a lot to teach.
And all of these are pekenings that I'm talking about.
Empathy people. It's not something I read in a book
(36:45):
or the therapist told me. It's all something that when
I'm looking inwards, I am getting the answers. There are
no answers to be seen outside. Everything is inside of you.
You are an observer of your own soul exactly. You
need to know yourself, don't. The first part is acknowledging
you have things that you don't like about yourself, because
(37:08):
most people run away from the things that they don't like. Don't.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
What were the rippercussions that happened next? What change in you?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
So at that point I, instead of rising up from
those experiences, I went down.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Let me take you to the point where all of
this started affecting you physically.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes, I'm very glad you brought that up. So the
thing is that we all try we are all afraid
of the unknown. That's why we try to control something,
because if we have control over something, we can control
our life. Okay, so I had the fear of not
being good enough. What I did was I remember once
going back to my home, surprising my mom from Bangalore,
(37:52):
and then instead of being happy, she said, how much
weight have you put on?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Oh? Right?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And I was on in the healthy BMI range, but
on the higher side. And I love food. I was
a big foodie. Coming back to whom I was like, okay,
people pleasing kicked in. Okay, she's not happy to see
me or my VisiC. What can I do? What can
I do is hit the gym. I hited the gym.
(38:20):
I went and I started exercising. I saw my first
pound lost, and that was like a victory. I'm like, okay,
it's all paying back. My trainer kept, you know, praising
my dedication. Two hours, three hours of working out, and
then my mom got happy. And then it just spiraled
down into something in my head that Okay, this is
something that's making people happy and making them accept me.
(38:43):
So that means if I do this, I'll be good
enough for people to accept me.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I didn't connect the dots at that point. But I
just felt that this is something I can control, and
this is something that makes people happy about me. That's
all I knew. So I started looking out, kept going
on and on, and you know, after a point, weight
gets flattered and it gets very hard to lose that
last weight. And then I was like, okay, how about
(39:11):
that control. It's maths, You eat and you lose. It's
all about how much is going in versus coming out.
So I was exercising a lot, and then I was
restricting my eating, but it just went so far that
my BMI went down to thirteen, which we know that
(39:31):
the healthy BMI is eighteen point five to twenty two.
You know, I felt that that's the only thing I
can control, and it was the only thing that was
familiar to me that was that I had seen recently.
For people to accept me, I was having less than
four hundred or five hundred calories a day. Oh my god, exactly.
(39:52):
So at that point when I came to the US
and I was going through my physicals here physical is
a thing for every year, which having India, and the
doctor said, like, she's very unhealthy and I have to
be admitted to, you know, because they had to monitor
my electrolytes just to make sure if I start eating,
(40:12):
because when you're restricting so much and you start eating
like even like a normal person, you can actually die
from electrolyte imbalance. So they wanted me to be in
a facility so that they can monitor my intake and
make sure I'm not controlling and everything. But the fear
was not that I'm going to die of this. The
fear was I will lose my control. I see, because
that was the only thing that was familiar to me
(40:33):
to be accepted. Which year was this twenty fifteen? I
would say, yeah so, and the hint case and how.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Many years of marriage?
Speaker 2 (40:47):
One or two years of marriage? Yeah, And so that's
the reason I turned down the inpatient treatment. I was like,
I will do it myself because I knew I can
control outside of the facility. And then came the baby season, right,
all of my friends were having babies. And at that point,
I mean, I was so unhealthy to a point that
I stopped having my periods because yeah so, and I realized, okay,
(41:13):
if I want to have a baby, because again, that
was the way I could fit in because everybody was
having babies, so the way for me to fit in
was to have a baby. You always want to fit in,
you always want everybody wants to fit in. So coming
back to the anuxia face, I was to a point
that I am okay dying with this rather than losing
the control. That's how powerful it was. That that was
(41:35):
the power of, you know, wanting to be accepted any
kind of these things. You know, hypochondria, Everything is the
fear of being accepted. I see, you just want control
over something. My husband used to pack breakfast for me
in the morning. I used to just trash it when
I used to go to the office. I felt really
(41:55):
bad because he was working so hard to, you know,
help me gain weight, and my needing for that control
was so strong nothing else mattered. So when I wanted
to have a baby, I realized, okay, I have to
get into normal BMI so that I can at least conceive.
(42:16):
I tried a lot. I tried eating, and to anyone
out there, it was like, it's eating. How can it
be so hard? The only thing you have to do
is put the food in your mouth. And everybody loves
poond And that's the problem of a mental battle because
they have not lived it. They don't understand it. It's
not just taking food and putting in your mouth. It's
(42:38):
the control that you have to let go of. And
it's not easy to let go of control. And that's
how it is, right, Like, stop judging people. Nobody wants
to be in that space for anybody outside it's very
easy to comment on that. But if they are a
certain way, there is a story behind it. The only
thing is they might not be aware of it, right
(43:01):
and just have some compassion for the other person. Yeah, absolutely,
The perfect ball is not a world where everybody is healed.
The perfect world is a world where everybody is non
judgmental and have compassion for the other person. That's all.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Yeah. Yeah, So coming back to you trying to conceive.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, so when I tried to conceive, I tried a
lot to eat. I couldn't. Like, I gave up. I'm like, okay,
this is not meant for me. I cannot eat. Then
I saw my friend having a baby, and when I
held that baby, I was like, Okay, this is something
I really want, right, Like, I wanted that feeling and
I felt that that's the only thing that will make
(43:41):
me feel complete. I tried to eat, it didn't help,
and I so that is the thing in me once
I set my mind on too. It takes me a
lot of time to set my mind onto something, but
once I decide, there is no going back from there.
So at that point I was like, I have to
get better. I left my job, I joined a lot
(44:01):
of anorexia groups. I read any number of books that
are out there. I looked at all the documentaries and
I was like, Okay, the only thing that I can
do to get over is is to control what I eat.
Rather than having the control of not eating, I can
just switch the control to what I eat at least
if I know what I'm putting in my body, and
(44:23):
if it is all healthy, at least that will really
some pressure that I'm eating. But I'm eating healthy, right,
So the problem was control. I just had to find
that control to go to a healthier place than something
that was harming me. So I felt, okay, moving the
control to healthy eating is something that I can do.
It took me a year and a half to get
(44:44):
back to you a regular BMI, but once I decided
that I did it, so I was there. I got
back to healthier BMI, I got a job back, I
had a baby, and things went upwards from there, at
least not mental health wise, but at least I was
better health wise. Then in twenty twenty four, I I
(45:11):
was just tired of living the way I am, right,
and I thought I am at a point where I'm
no amount of therapy can help me. I was beyond repair,
if you want to say, in like the robots, But
I'm like, okay, if I'm beyond repair, what's the harm
in giving it a shot? Right? Right? There's no harm
in trying. And the problem with therapy is a lot
(45:35):
of people quit, even I decided to quit a lot
of times because before it gets easy, it gets very hard.
Because when you start therapy, you have to relive everything
that you have put in a box and put it
out somewhere. And that's the thing that you're It's like
(45:55):
a bomb. You've buried it. You have buried it, and
if you touch it, you don't know what's going to
come out of it. Yeah, right, And I that's the
part that I hated myself about the most. It was
there in that box. So and you have to admit
everything that's inside of you out loud. I have fears,
(46:18):
I have insecurities. I'm a possessive person. I do not
like myself. I don't like all of these things you
have to say out loud, you don't even say to yourself. Yeah,
so I went to therapy. My first therapist was nice,
but again, the learning point here was every therapist is
not a good fit for you.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
It's like trying to find a person.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
To date, exactly. That's exactly hard. Yeah, to see who's
the right from you. So yeah, coming back to therapy,
my first therapist was very nice. She was very kind, compassionate,
and she used to feel my pain. But at the
same time, she kept circling back into you know, I'm
really sorry what her parents did. I'm really sorry. So
it kept me in the loop of being a victim.
(47:03):
I was at a point that I know what happened. Yeah,
I already accept that. I just want to know how
to change myself or how to become a better human
being from here. Right, Because if you are not healed,
you even subconsciously or unknowingly, hurt the people around you.
(47:24):
It's not just about you, it's the people who love you, right,
They get hurt because of your unhealed things, and once
you bring it up to the light and you accept it,
next time in the same situation, you will respond out
of the awareness rather than reacting out of impulsiveness, which
is a big difference. Right, So that therapy is I
(47:47):
left her because and I felt that Okay, I tried
therapy not working out. Chapter is over, it's time to
move on. But then I we was like, let me
give it another shot, and then I went online. I
found therapist and then.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
She changed my life.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
She never took me like a victim every situation I
put in front of her, and she pinpointed, this is
where it's coming from, because we as humans unknowingly want
to fall back into the familiar pattern. Yeah, because that's
our comfort, right, even if it's fear of abandonment, that's
(48:25):
our comfort. Our comfort is to stay in all the
healthy relationships. So we always fall back into that pattern
because we know we know if people leave, how will
it feel what? We don't know what happens if people
truly love us and they stay. That makes us uncomfortable
because we don't know, and that's why we keep pushing
people away because that's what we know. But if you
(48:48):
really so it's like you want one thing, but then
you can't have that thing because you're pushing it away.
It's push and pull that keeps happening. So she helped
me under I was when all of these things came up.
I started talking about my five year old. She was
the one who brought it up, and I went into
really bad anxiety and depression. It was to the point
(49:11):
I felt I can never come out of it. Was
this postpartum it was. It was twenty twenty four, right,
so five years I had postpartum freshion too. I just
didn't know at that point because COVID and everything hit.
So I'm like, okay, just the message situation rather than
the postpartum hitting me. So yeah, coming back to my
therapy point, she's when I started realizing that all of
(49:36):
that anger for my parents kept coming out. And I
am a person who never likes to go back to
her home to India, and I always felt guilty that.
You know, I've seen people staying months with their parents
when they're here and missing them and I never do that.
I felt like a bad daughter, like why don't I
want to go back? And after therapy, I realized that
(49:59):
it's okay. To not want to go back because that
was never a safe space for me anyways. Yes, right,
it was all filled with that fears and violence and everything.
So it's natural to not want to go back. And
when I knew this, I that all guilt and everything
just lifted off of me and accepted myself It's okay
some people want to it's okay some people don't want to.
(50:22):
So I went into the spiral that I can never
come out of. I went into a huge depression reliving
all those memories. It was to a point that I
didn't even I was just lying down on the couch
and I kept crying. And my husband said, if I
leave you in the morning and come back in the evening,
I will find you in the exact same spots, not
doing anything. It takes a toll on you, and things
(50:45):
are not going. I didn't have a job. I didn't
have a job at that point. It's even tough, you know,
that's even tough, Yeah, in the West, if you don't
have army around. Yeah. So then I reached out to
a friend, right, And that's the other thing. You don't
need thousands of friends in your life like I thought
I did. You only need that one or two people
(51:07):
in your life who are not judgmental. They might not
have to accept everything that you say, but they should
be willing to understand it totally. They have to give
you that safe space for you to be yourself. If
you even have one person like that, you are blessed.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, totally. I want to take you back to that
important event in your life where you decided to get
married and went into an alliance with someone.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Tell me about it, so like I told you, I
dated somebody in college and it wasn't a very good
relationship and how it ended. That left me feeling so
negatively about myself and question my choices even more. That
I am a big romantic person, right, even love marriages
(52:01):
and all the fantasies and all the Bollywood movies that
creates out there. I wanted to have a life like
that that just movies. I still believe, I still do
believe in them, But after that experience of mine, I
felt like I cannot rest myself with this and I
wanted to get out of my house right and I
feel the marriage of my parents was in a way
(52:25):
that even slightly better than that was, Like your benchmark
was my benchmark But coming back to that point, I
just wanted to get out of my house. I kept
getting some proposals, but I met my now husband right
His family was very nice and they were all very
connected and or respecting each other, and parents had his
(52:50):
parents are amazing. Yeah, if somebody is even talking respectfully
to each other, that was like a lot for me.
And connected with my husband. We had a phone call
and I was very scared of being lonely. I think
maybe that was the reason I said yes to any marriage,
(53:11):
because I didn't want to be lonely and I wanted
to get out of my house. But luckily I found
my husband. He has supported me in every step of
the way. He understands where I came from, one by
one secrets and the dark corners of my house and
you know, letting him all in into what happened. But yeah,
(53:34):
as far as that goes, that is my.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
I know that when you were sharing your story in
the pre interview, you were not hesitant. You were this confident,
glowy self that you are right now in front of me,
and I have not recorded an anonymous story in the
studio before, so this is my first thank you for
giving me that chance. But at the same time, I
(53:59):
was amazed at how beautifully you shared your story without
ever feeling emotionally down during the story. That strength, Where
are you getting it from? Because as a listener, I couldn't.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
You know, be okay listening to it. Thank you for that.
It really means a lot because I wanted to be
that person who comes out with a lot of strength.
So I always have lived in a victim mindset. Once
you take accountability for your life and your actions, things change.
Once you bring all the things and you realize it's
(54:39):
all the conditioning and it's in my hands to change that,
and you accept yourself fully, things change no matter what
anybody else says. You know yourself. Let them say whatever
they want to they want to leave, let them go.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
The hardest part is to let somebody go who you
really love.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
But I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
Ultimately, if they want to leave out of what you do,
they're not going to stay.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah. You take the reins of your life in your hand.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, and I feel I don't have to feel bad
about myself if I can survive all of that I hand,
I can survive anything that life has to throw at me.
And there are only two ways. Either I can look
back and keep questioning why did this happen to me?
And always stay in the victim and said, or take
the positives out of it. This happened to me because
(55:27):
of which I am this strong, and I have all
the lessons to learn and I to become a better person.
What is life? It's all the lessons that you have
to learn. Either you can criticize or you can learn
from it. That is the word karma, right, Karma is
not punishment. It is just a series of lessons that
(55:47):
you have to learn to become your highest version of
your coming.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
To valand yes, what got you.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
To valand schooling in Valent is amazing And we wanted
our daughter to be in a good school district where
you have a lot of kids to play around and
the location is amazing. Yeah, right, And the place where
I live, it's full of kids. It's like full of life.
Like when we saw this house, we didn't even enter
(56:15):
the house. We just fell in love with the neighborhood.
Neighborhood and yeah, just seeing at all the trees and
highways close by everything Framingham, nay, take Sadbury. Everything was
closed by right and before we even decided on the house.
We decided on the location. Very nice. Yeah and yeah,
(56:36):
did you make friends here? I am starting to so
if anybody is looking out to have a new friend,
please reach out to young Minie and she can connect
you to me. Yes.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
I can see in your eyes and in the way
you tell your story, how confident, how joyous you are,
even in speaking about some of the most difficult things
that you had to speak today. That is inspiring. This,
this was fantastic. Thank you so so much.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
This last thing. Thank you all for listening to me
and my story. I would request you try not to
be so sorry for me on teaming like a victim,
because I don't. I'm very glad it all happened and
I'm here because otherwise I would not have been here.
So thank you so much for connecting with me.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
And beautifully said. And I'm sure they will not. They
will see it as a triumphant story. Thank you, AMII,
thank you for having me here. Some stories stay with
us long after they are told. This is one of them.
What you've just heard is more than a story. It's
(57:41):
a life lived, a past, carriage, and a future being rewritten.
If you found pieces of yourself in these words. If
this journey resonated with you, know that you're not alone.
Healing takes time, but every conversation, every moment of recognition,
is a step forward. So if you would like to
(58:03):
send a message, a word of support, or even connect
with our anonymous guest, you can reach out through me,
because sometimes the simplest act of being seen can make
all the difference. If you've being moved by this episode,
I urge you to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or
(58:23):
wherever you listen, leave a review, share it with someone
who might need to hear it, and help us keep
creating a space for stories that deserve to be told,
and to businesses and brands who believe in the power
of storytelling. This is an invitation. Partner with us, sponsor
an episode, help us continue bringing raw, unfiltered human experience
(58:48):
to light. If you would like to support season five,
the design of which is based on women in local governance,
reach out for sponsorship opportunities. Thank you for listening. Until
next time, May we all keep finding the strength to
tell our own stories. This is Yamini, your host, and
(59:08):
you were listening to Women Are Whalen the podcast
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