Story Of A Losing Battle

This is the first time that I have begun sharing the story of my life to anyone, let alone a public platform. This also is my first time writing a blog so, I apologise in advance on the off chance that I submit any misstep, or disrespect anyone in the process of telling my story. The world is full of people who take pride in making us feel stupid should we dare to show an emotion other than elation or anger and shuns us on exposing our vulnerabilities. Letting the world have a clear view of my raw, often unhealed, the sensitive side was laden with a fair share of insecurities. Being a person with crippling social anxiety, I have never would have been able to tell my story and wouldn't have ever in my most out of this world fantasies imagined that one day, I will be a discouraged individual, simply trusting that something will turn out extremely badly with the goal that I can end my wretchedness by simply killing myself, so please don't judge.

Anyways, To tell you a bit about myself, I am a 21 year old average guy who has always been and felt like a massive failure, whether it be in academics, or life as such. If you're in school or college, I'm always that one loner guy who no one likes to interact with if they can help it. Thinking back, I can understand that nobody likes talking to a person who is quiet, likes to keep to himself, and performs averagely in every aspect of his life. The harsh truth that I have learnt in my life is that when someone who is as unpleasant to look at as me, it is very difficult to navigate through life with a real smile on your face.

Going down memory lane, I was born in Kolkata, to at that point of time, to a lower middle-class family. That time period was quite a struggle for my parents as my dad didn't have a job and they, along with my elder sister were living with my mother's parents. A few months later, my dad got a job in Visakhapatnam with the help of a recommendation from my grand dad and then we shifted there. I do not have much memory of my life there as we lived for a very brief period of time and later shifted to Hyderabad as my dad got a job offer there.

At that point of time, we were a very happy family, like the ones portrayed in numerous shows and movies.

A few years later, when I was in 5th grade, my mother expressed her desire to attend a "satsang" , or prayer group to my dad, and he, in his naive attitude allowed her to go there after which all hell broke lose. I do not know what happened there, but she slowly started behaving as if she was the only person who was good in this world, and everyone else was out to get her. This grew to such an extent that even touching her aggravated all of these thoughts she had and she used to lash out at us accusing us of molesting her for our own enjoyment. Imagine a 10 year old being accused of molestation by his own mother when he didn't even understand the word at that point. The same accusations were pointed at anyone who tried to help her including her parents, husband, or 14 year old daughter. We had to literally walk on eggshells in our own house. Due to this, till date I'm morbidly terrified of even touching a woman be it a friend or any other even by mistake in the anticipation that I will be yelled at, beaten, or accused of harassing her for doing so. This is the case as to why my interaction with them is very low and I always look to the floor because in my head, I feel like they may accuse me of looking at them weird if I make eye contact. In addition, I would like to apologise for this, because it simply is a herculean task for me to even maintain eye contact with a person I'm not familiar with and I don't ever mean to disrespect whomever I'm talked to.

Coming back to the story, everyday was a challenge, where we kids used to come back home from school and had to handle her (my mother) baseless accusations and the icing on the cake was when she forced my dad to send her on a trip to Haridwar with her prayer group. My dad, in an attempt to make her happy, sent her on this trip which would then turn out to be the biggest mistake of his life. I do not have the faintest idea of what happened there, but after coming back, she became completely paranoid as she started believing that my dad had an extra marital affair which led to unforeseen situations in the house, such as verbal abusing or sometime even physical. This went on for a long time where, in 2014, my dad and I were kicked out of the house and left to find a separate house for ourselves where we would stay, and my mother would stay in the original. By this time I had gotten fed up of all the things I had to handle all by myself as my sister by then had taken admission in a university to study law in a different city. I was in 11th grade at this point and since I had taken up science and was preparing for my entrance examinations, this mess at home as well as the pressure to perform well took a massive toll on me and I started to falter in my academics. I didn't get admission in any decent engineering college, and had to make do with attending a private deemed to be university. The silver lining during this time was that my dad was earning a lot better than he was previously and he could easily afford both his children's tuition, as well as maintain 2 separate houses.

My struggles were never ending, as I tried to keep this part of my life hidden from the outside world as I was afraid I would be judged based on it. An example of this was that whenever I used to come back from college by bus, I had a friend who used to walk with me as I used to get down at a place near my old apartment (The one which my mom lived in) and we both lived on the sane street. I used to go there and wait for my friend to leave and only then would I come out and go back to my own apartment where my dad and I lived.

In March 2018, my mother started having acute back problems and was not able to move properly. On repeated requests by us to take her to the doctor, she always blatantly refused, fought back, and said that her back would get healed by itself. In May, when her condition had deteriorated to such an extent that she wasn't even able to sit and eat, we forcibly took her to the E-R of a hospital and got her admitted where we came to know that she had tuberculosis of the spine which had spread to her lungs. Thereafter, on June 4th she passed away and I forced myself to never cry and literally started hurting myself if I wasn't able to control my emotions, as I was taught by this society to never show any weakness as I was a "man". Keeping my emotions bottled up for over a period of 7 years started to take a massive toll on me and my health and thus, I fell into a massive state of depression and lost 15 kg within a span of 1 month without ever going to the gym .

The one thing I had counted on was that at least my friends would try to understand and comfort me, but I was horribly wrong. The lack of compassion and comfort I had felt during that time made me hate myself even more as I believed that I was always unloved and detested by all of my so called "friends" which made me distance myself more from those people and extremely angry at the world for being so heartless. I have never had anyone to whom I could just tell anything and share my misery. My transformation from this happy kid even in the face of all the problems he had, to this unlovable and perpetually depressed person remained unnoticed by my family as by this time, I had figured out a way to perform slightly better in my academics by scoring around 85% in everything. However, my depression was slowly turning into hatred for everything in this world, including myself as I started self harming. In that state of rage, 2 years later, I have vowed to either make it in life without anybody's help or simply commit suicide as I have learnt that you are the only person who cares about yourself, and being nice to other people will not get you far, as you will be used and thrown like a piece of rag.

In the end, I feel that people who say that committing suicide is selfish and the person who does it leaves behind a trail of unhappiness are wrong, as life goes on and it doesn't take much time for them to get over it and move on. Again, I'm extremely sorry to anyone who has or will have been offended by my words.