How My Childhood Experiences Shaped Me
In my previous article, I mentioned that I would elaborate on my life growing up in a small Indian town and how that experience shaped me. So here we go!
Our childhood experiences and society plays a huge part in what we become as grownups. Children who have difficult experiences in their childhood, attach themselves to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom. Unfortunately, escape and freedom from the trauma of childhood are not guaranteed. Our adulthood is very much a result of our childhood experiences.
‘A study that tracked 7,771 British children from when they were 7 to 50 years old found that people who were bullied as kids had worse relationships, increased depression, higher anxiety, lower educational attainment, and lower earnings.’
My childhood experiences brought no different challenges for me as a grown-up…
India is home to yoga, spirituality, curries and spices. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have had plenty of wonderful experiences with everything India has to offer. Unfortunately, India is also home to misogyny, patriarchy, inequality and colourism. In my hometown, I experienced it all!! I saw humanity at its best and also at its worst during my childhood.
I grew up in a small town in India in the 90s. The kind of town where it wasn’t normal for women to work or have ambitions. Our mums were homemakers (fucking amazing ones) and appeared, at least on the surface, to be content with this. Our dads made all the decisions for their wives and decided the destiny of their children. From where we went to school to who we are supposed to marry, everything was decided for us. (Don’t ask me why I am bad at making decisions)! Marrying their daughters off was the biggest and last responsibility every father wanted to fulfil.
I went to a normal school in my town and lived a pretty comfortable life with my family. We had servants, a driver and anything else an upper-middle-class family has in India.
Despite the comfort, as a girl, you had to fight to be allowed to do what you want, wear what you want and so on. In this sense, my case wasn’t different from the other girls in my town. You have to do everything aligned with the values of your family, extended family, neighbours and the whole community. If there were even the slightest misalignment, people started criticising or gossiping!
On top of this, you have a huge pressure put on you to be exceptional at everything (even things that are outside your control) and if you weren’t, then you weren’t good enough.
My extended family, neighbours, relatives and friends of my family started to put me down for my shortcomings. Some of the remarks I would hear on a daily basis would be; “you are too dark …you are fat… you aren’t very pretty … how will we find you a husband … you are going to fail school and bring your family shame … girls shouldn’t talk too much … don’t be stubborn … respect your elders (even if they are cruel to you)…learn to listen… don’t get too excited…” the list is never-ending!
I remember once, I went shopping with my friend in a beauty shop. The shop owner started recommending various skin lightening products to me, but not to my lighter-skinned girlfriend which made me feel very uncomfortable as I felt that was his way of calling me ugly. Fun fact about colourism in India; it doesn’t affect both women and men in the same way. People don’t worry about their dark-skinned son’s future, but a dark-skinned daughter brings parents a lot of worry and shame.
Rules were different for girls and boys. Us girls weren’t allowed to stay out after it got dark whereas my brother or male cousins could stay out for as long as they liked. If I arrived home after dark, my brother would create a huge scene and get mad at my mum for spoiling me which I never understood as he was always out late.
On another occasion, my teacher said to me “your sister is so great at studies and pretty, but you aren’t either of those things, are you real sisters??” I was 12, so wasn’t sure how to respond to this. My coping mechanism was to not be present with it and accumulate it as suppressed anger with everything else that was being said to me. Sometimes crying over criticism was my let out but I wasn’t allowed to do that either. As I grew older, these comments and unfair treatment started to affect me even more. With all this, I was trying to live the life of a positive and lively girl, only to be shut down again for being too excited or talking too much which was enough to damage my confidence for a very long time (if I had any!).
Everything around me was a constant reminder of how much I sucked at everything, and my existence was worthless. But the saddest part is that nobody (including me) knew that I needed love, support and reassurance!
My childhood experiences prevented me from building any self-confidence and made me develop some serious paranoia and insecurities about myself. Until a few years ago, I didn’t realise that I had suffered from anxiety as I didn’t have the vocabulary to understand or express any of the emotions I was going through. I would sometimes irrationally express some of my paranoia to my family, and instead of getting their sympathy, I scored another name tag from them, “complainer.”
I started to avoid complaining, mostly suppressing my feelings I spent most of my time daydreaming. I wanted to run away from my life in my hometown to feel free!
How may childhood trauma affect me in the long term?
Coming to a different country at the age of 20 and being away from constant criticism didn’t mean that I built confidence and got rid of my insecurities overnight. By this time, the critical voices of others were long gone but were replaced by critical voices in my head which I found were a lot more damaging because I could not escape them.
I suffered from anxiety, post-event rumination and mild depression. I had low self-esteem, difficulties with trusting my instincts and making decisions. When I had to make a decision, I felt like I was going to get it wrong no matter what I chose. Coming to terms with my sexuality was harder for me because of all this. I formed incredibly high expectations for myself which were for the most part, impossible to achieve!!
How I have been dealing with it all?
A few years back, I found the beautiful gift of meditation which completely changed my life! It helped me find inner peace, build self-compassion, strength and resilience. I learned to trust myself and live this beautiful life in the present.
Therapy helped differently. It opened a floodgate of different emotions that I didn’t know I had. My therapist helped me recognise the suppressed anger which had turned into extreme sadness over time, resulting in anxiety and depression. She helped me relive those countless difficult moments of my childhood but this time with a voice and space to express my emotions. However, it’s an ongoing exercise that requires a lot of patience, work and love. It takes time to heal the wounds that have been open for so long, as my therapist says!
Of course, surrounding myself with wonderful people who lift me up rather than put me down has made all the difference. Every day I am learning a new way to stand tall, love and believe in myself!
Lessons that I have learnt from it all?
I have learnt that words carry a tremendous amount of power, with the ability to crush someone’s spirit and soul if not used carefully. If used thoughtfully, they have the power to heal wounds, help someone recognise their potential and push them to aim for the stars!! I try my best to remember this every time I speak to another human being.
My Final Thoughts
I wonder if people who said those unkind things and passed judgements to me ever wonder how deeply it would affect me in the long term?? I doubt they had/have any clue!
Perhaps, I had an easier way out compared to those who can’t get out of the cycle of suppression and constant criticism, who get no opportunity to be nurtured or evolve as a person all because of the standards that we set as a society. This is the story and life of millions of women and men in India who are criticised for not being good enough or not playing by the rules of society. They have to constantly struggle for their rights and voice every day. I wonder how people from the land of religion and spirituality can spend all their life trying to do right in their journey of trying to find God and can get it so wrong when it comes to making social rules and treating other human beings.
These problems of the society didn’t start and finish with me, they have been experienced by millions before me and unfortunately will be experienced by others until there is a major shift within the human race. Unfortunately, it’s not just about India, every society presents its own challenges and issues in different parts of the world. As a country becomes more progressive the social issues change but they still exist, very much so!
So as humankind, if there is only one thing we can give each other, let it be kindness(and your ears to listen if you are generous)
As someone said, ‘People need your kindness more than they need your opinion’