Letter Box

Know that you are not alone. We are all here, all of us.

Battling Body Shaming and Reclaiming Self-Love

– Puri

Hello everyone! This is Puri. At least that’s my name for you, for the sake of anonymity as I share my story of how body shaming impacted my life negatively.

I remember people commenting on my body since as early as my childhood. I was 10 years old and in school. I was not particularly doing well in life, having lost my grandfather recently, having to move places, and trying to adjust through adversities when all of this had begun. I was in anticipation of a fresh start, a new beginning but instead, was greeted with rejection and was made fun of because of the way I looked. I started taking notice of the fact that I was chubbier, and healthier than most kids in my class, and that ended up making nothing but a stock of laughter for them. Nothing changed until I was in the seventh grade.

I would like to share a particular incident that has been carved in my memory ever since. It was January 31st, my brother’s birthday. There was a small celebration at my place. But I remember feeling so broken down and upset about everything that I was facing in school, and I didn’t seem to enjoy anything. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours at a stretch. I initially had decided to keep this all to myself but later could not hold it all back from my father. He immediately changed my school. I do not know if it was helpful in the long run, but I will always be grateful for him having my back that day.

The new school was kinder to me. I made better friends, learned how to place my opinions on the table, and became a more independent person.

However, the consequential low self-esteem from a traumatic early school experience had stayed with me for a really, really long time. Unfortunately, to make things worse, I had to go back to the same school for my higher secondary education. Even though most things were fine, being observed superficially but being in the place and amongst the people where my trauma sourced itself from, my body image issues were triggered further.

It has been years, and I have worked on myself a lot, but somewhere self-doubt refused to leave my side. I still lack confidence when I walk down the road; I still wonder if my partner finds me attractive enough or if are they just being nice. I still wonder, doubt, and break down a lot, and I do not wish that upon anybody.

Body shaming is something all of us are acquainted with, but I believe we are not doing enough to make this world a safe space for every shape and size. Let me get this straight, it is your responsibility as a human being to make sure you do not say anything to anyone that would destroy their love towards themselves. It is not upon you to decide which bodies are beautiful and which ones do not fit your stereotypical definition of the same. It is not upon you to decide what one should or should not do to be healthy. Body shaming is not cool, especially when it is disguised as concern or care. It is high time that we collectively stand against body shaming and make this world a better place to dwell in.

Yours, Puri.

My Journey with Borderline Personality Disorder and Anxiety

– Muska Bun

Hi everyone! I would love for you to call me Maska Bun! I am an individual clinically diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety, and here is the story of my life.

I was always academically gifted, and to this day, I am an avid reader. Contrary to what most people would like to believe, this turned into more of a curse than a boon. The issues I faced started in school. Most people in my class thought I was the know-it-all teacher’s pet, and that I thought very highly of myself. This resulted in people boycotting me from friendship circles, and I had almost no friends at all. My communication skills were never a ten on ten, and hence, gradually things got worse, and I showed no signs of getting better at making acquaintances with my peers.

Even during my early adolescence, I had managed to get myself into some friend circles but ended up finding the process of maintaining such dynamics pretty exhausting. I could not always catch up with them over calls or texts or meet up with them impulsively for hangouts. Eventually, I became the person at fault and got blamed for being boring or pushing them away.

I was not particularly an introvert; it was just that I was not well-equipped to constantly keep myself engaged in socialization or make efforts to maintain interpersonal relationships.

Growing up, I was subject to neglectful parenting. My parents seemed to always find their work or being there for my brother more important than taking notice of my difficulties.

All the factors mentioned above had started to accumulate, and I started feeling the safest being withdrawn from socializing altogether. I started spending way too much time reading. Realms of fiction gave me more comfort than anything in my life did. At one point, I even owned a token for having finished reading every single book they had in the local library.

My withdrawal from everywhere and everything resulted in me turning into a very indecisive person. I took up things that I lost interest in very soon and kept dropping out of several courses time and again. I could sense something was wrong with me. I could not enjoy what my peers would happily partake in. I could not fit into places where I should have been, and I started feeling like an outsider in my own world.

The last straw fell when my emotional unavailability and inability to be consistent in interpersonal dynamics resulted in the breakup of my last romantic relationship. I acknowledged my need for help and sought therapy. This is when I was diagnosed with BPD. I could not make myself tell my parents my need for therapy, and hence I had to take breaks and could not be regular with my sessions. This worsened my condition as there were many loopholes in my journey with therapy.

Despite the adversities I had been going through since the conception of my awareness, I kept myself from giving up and still trying every day to work on myself and avail the resources I have. I hope everyone out there finds strength in themselves to keep going and trying to be better every day.

To the Bravehearts, yours truly, Maska Bun!

A Journey of Healing and Resilience

– Anonymous/pseudoname

Hi. Today, I am going to share the most horrifying experience I had growing up. The first thing I need to get out there is the fact that I am a rape victim/survivor, and this story is about how it impacted me in all the wrong ways and how I fought to break myself free from all of it.

This story begins when I was merely six years old. I had always been an introvert, so I would not say I grew up with a lot of friends, but I had a few who were really close to me. So you might infer that I was never very loud about myself.

Coming back to the beginning, I was six when my cousin brother raped me for the first time. He did not stop at the first time or the second. He kept doing it time and again and made sure that the word does not get out. I was a kid, and it was a piece of cake for him to convince me that if I tell anyone about it, no one would believe me or come to my rescue; rather, I would have to be the one everyone blames and isolates. He solidified the existence and concept of victim blaming way before I even got acquainted with the term. This went on for over a year until one day my younger brother saw us in questionable intimacy, and then everyone got to know.

So what do you think happened after that? I was never big on communicating in the first place, and the added gush of uncontrollable tears made it impossible for me to speak up when my mother asked me what had happened. Now that I look back, I cannot imagine a seven-year-old having to go through all of that by herself.

My rapist was scolded and beaten for only a day, and everyone hardly took any time to get over it. We were members of the same joint family, and after this incident, I had to stay under the same roof as my rapist for the next 5-6 years, and everyone kept pretending like nothing had happened. They went as far as to make me tie a rakhi on my cousin’s hand every year to put up a well-executed show of pretence.

After 5-6 years when we moved out, I had hoped things would get better, but they did not. The intensified trauma stayed with me ever since. My paranoia had taken such a serious shape that when my menstruation was delayed, I mistook it for pregnancy out of an incident that had happened years and years ago. I was so scared that I got myself checked, and it turned out I had hypothyroid. This resulted in me gaining a lot of weight and being body-shamed for the better share of my life.

I tried to take the harsh comments positively; I tried to inculcate blissful ignorance in myself but failed. I was slowly stopping doing things I previously enjoyed partaking in. I gave up dancing, yet it was one of the most dear hobbies that I had inherited while growing up.

On reaching my teens, I came to realize how imperfect my family is. I started accepting the fact that my parents were not an ideal couple and understanding why my mother cried so much. I started feeling like just another person who had nothing great about her, but I did hope to change that someday. I graduated high school with average scores but managed to get myself admitted into a good college.

When we are transitioning from one significant phase of our lives to another, we anticipate significant changes. Either positive ones or negative ones.

I feel I was being a bit too optimistic about my life in college and met with nothing but disappointment. I did not have any friends at the beginning of my session. The only acquaintances I made spoke in their native language, making me feel quite left out in certain conversations. I had to change hostels and had a hard time adjusting to the new environment.

In the first year itself, I met a guy. Being from an all-girls’ establishment, I was not very affluent in having conversations with boys. Having met that guy and forming a liking towards him is where my journey of emotional abuse began. I was blinded by my feelings towards him in the beginning. When I confessed how I felt, he asked me to meet him up the very next day. During the encounter, he had tried to kiss me, and when I refused, he got really mad and left the spot.

When I confronted him after, it turned out that he never really had any feelings for me. He would give me mixed signals, calling himself my partner at times and ghosting me for days for others. He leaves college, and I try moving on from whatever had happened, but guess what? He comes back. This time, with an apology. I couldn’t not take him back because I was too weak too.

Little did I know that this would turn into another curse. Turns out, all he wanted this time was sex, and that is exactly what he kept talking about. It made me very uncomfortable, and I asked him to stop, and he got very pissed. The next thing I know, he started blackmailing me for nudes. I was scared and for a moment felt like my past was flashing before my eyes. I had to leave him.

Things did not show any signs of getting better from here. I fell into depression, felt the need for professional help, and since I was well aware that my parents would not stand by me, I tried to reach out to therapists on my own. But somehow it did not work out well for me. I had developed a migraine as a result of the chaos at home while growing up and all of this accumulated made me stop believing in professional help altogether, being a psychology student myself.

I took a break and went back home only to find out things there had not gotten any better. I reached out for psychiatric help and was on medications for some time. My health started worsening, and one day I had to be admitted to the hospital for a case of low blood pressure. While going through the reports, my father found out about my psychiatric medication and got very aggressive about it. To the extent that he hits me.

Eventually, I had started channelizing all my frustration in inner ways. I started blaming myself for everything that I went through. I thought to myself that if I could not understand my own parents, then I would be nothing but an incompetent counselor. Unfortunately enough, I got diagnosed with asthma the very same year.

However, as time passed, I became more accepting of myself and my scars. I started believing whatever went wrong in my life was not my fault, and even though I had only been abused by all the men in my life, I developed the heart to believe not all men are trash. I still aspire to be a very good psychologist one day, and I hope to find someone who loves me in every way I desire to be loved. Nevertheless, it is my promise to myself that I will always stand strong as I do today.

Navigating through the abuse

– Rwito

Hello Readers,
It’s never easy writing about your past. Especially when it has mostly been filled with void and darkness. I’m a survivor here at Tranquil Porch; a survivor of physical abuse. It all started in Grade 1 where I misplaced books at school. I came back home scared and in tears knowing what could be the possible outcome. And I was right! Since that day till now (I’m a 22-year-old now) I still get anxious and scared about being humiliated and abused. I don’t feel comfortable enough inviting people to my own home. My father’s behavior is unpredictable. He is the most loving and disgusting human being I’ve seen at the same time. I can’t love him enough. Ever. I’m always fearful about undertaking new activities. I have been living with Clinical depression and anxiety for more than a year now. It’s difficult to make it through every day but TP has given me immense strength and here I am writing about my life. These are not words of motivation to you all. But trust me, there’s always light at the end of the dark tunnel. Earlier, I didn’t realize it too. You just need to fight it every day and you’ll get to see your ray of hope too!

A Tale of Love, Loss, and Self-Discovery

– Sharmistha

Hey, it’s Sharmistha.
Well, I was a very happy-go-lucky person, surrounded by friends and family who loved me a lot. Although my parents are divorced, and I’m in no contact with my dad, life was good. I was happy to have my mom, Nani, and my pet dog, Shiro. Well, I lost him last year. It broke me, but not much because I knew he had a good life, and I bought another dog.
I moved to Kolkata two months before my dog’s death, and the day I got the news, it was difficult. I was also missing my mother. Still, I was okay. I’ve experienced everything in my life, well, that’s what I believed before meeting ‘Him’. Before meeting him, my life was fine, and I was happy. But in November 2022, I experienced my first love. The 21st of November, the date when he proposed to me. We were friendly acquaintances and met through mutual friends. But we both fell in love with each other. He made me feel special, heard, and valued. I was completely and passionately in love with him.
But good things don’t stay long; he broke up with me in May and blamed me for everything. Maybe it was my fault, but not entirely my fault. I was destroyed as a person. I faced days when the only thing I did was cry. And only cry. I did a few internships in between, but it didn’t help me. I was getting very weak mentally and emotionally. I was eating more than I could. I was stress-eating myself.
My new college started, and I was having difficulties making friends. I was not at all in a position to interact with new people. I cried during lectures while remembering him. I begged him a lot to come back, but he didn’t come. I still miss him; I still cry sometimes for him. But I know maybe life has some other plan for me, but still, it hurts a lot. It was the most traumatic event of my life, the day he said he wanted to leave me. My mind was completely in the stage of shock and disbelief. He was the guy I fell in love with; maybe I’ll always have a soft corner for him, and maybe someday I will forgive him. I am still fighting; I’m still healing. I know one day I will move on, but for now, I’ll try to be my own sunshine.

A Visual Poem of Solitude and Longing

– Abhipsa

Hey there! It’s Abhipsa here.
I penned this down in 2021 when I was going through a full-fledged depressive episode. I hope this write-up does not trigger you in any way. If it does, please seek support from a trained mental health advocate or a professional. Here it goes!

Empty thoughts run wild,
I’m all alone,
It’s been long since I’ve sobbed,
Maybe, I’ve forgotten to.
My eyes burn,
My lips shiver.
My wrists bleed.
A lot is buried within.
It aches, sometimes it does not.
And, when it does not, it burns more.
A tight clutch might save my life,
But who shall hold me tight?
For nobody’s in sight.
Will it ever end?

Thanking you,
It feels so much better to re-write my thoughts again in 2023.
Take love,
Abhipsa Sarkar.

This will be the heading.

– Anonymous/pseudoname

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.