Kaajal Gunputh-My story

Kaajal Gunputh Kaajal Gunputh Nov 2, 2018 1425 0

Kaajal Gunputh-My story

My story

I am not a shy and retiring type of person. I am a confident soul who knows what she wants in life, I like to help and lead others. This might make me sound like a straight and serious person, but unfortunately that’s also not who I am. Often, my owns and people in my surrounding expect me to be as strong as a pillar, confident and self-driven all the time which am not being able to! And this causes problems.

As far as I know, my problems started when I had just shifted abroad for my university. It was a new country, new environment, new people and mostly my first time staying alone and away from home. Things were up and down, I lost friends, had less enjoyable experiences of my life. But I was somehow still managing it. Deep inside, I knew I was anxious but had never been through an anxiety attack or panic attack yet. I used to starve myself, cry to sleep almost every day. As a result, I used to fall sick very frequently and the hostel’s ambulance quickly became my personal taxi.

At some point, I was locking myself inside the hostel room and bunking lectures to cry whole day. After a few days, lethargy ruled over and it was being difficult to attend classes even If I wanted too. However, I was still confident, attended my exams and got good grades. Eventually, the day came when I couldn’t afford to escape school anymore. I am someone who never failed any single class in life, I braced up myself and decided to get back on track, it was difficult but I managed.

Days went by, and I shifted from hostel to a private apartment. All was fine, I was happy, vibrant back into my jolly state; until one day; a disgusting man crossed my way. He tried to force himself on me. At that very moment, I lost my voice. I was screaming but my voice wasn’t coming out. Luckily I managed, to push him, close and lock the door on his face, the first words coming out of my mouth were “thank you god” before I break into tears. I still mustered up my courage and file a complaint against him and went up-to court, infact, the case is still going on.

I won in the eyes of many people, be it friends, relatives, lecturers, they all felicitated me for my courage. But, somewhere in that incident, I lost myself. I was now knowing what are panic attacks, what are anxiety attacks, trust issues. I cried myself to sleep, I woke up in the middle of the night trembling and sweating. I am more afraid to open the door on a knock.  

When you look at my social media profiles, you don’t see all of these. You don’t see me crying for hours, spending sleepless nights, fighting with my panic attacks or practicing breathing exercises to calm myself. Instead you see someone happy, ambitious, living a great life. Someone who seems contented, empowered, lucky. All these are real and I am very grateful for all of them but my bad day battles are just as real and not as easy to share.

I doubt if you have ever noticed these on me, after all we tend to only share stories about our very best selves on social media. Next time, while scrolling through your social media feed, remember that every smiling selfie could be a girl fighting against an anxiety disorder which she works hard to manage. But most importantly, remember that, this doesn’t stop her from smiling, doesn’t stop her from achieving her dreams and empowering other girls in the same situation as her.

Ps: Not every day is a good day, but somehow finding the courage to share what you are really feeling is winning half of the battle.

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