A Lesson I Learnt
When I was in the seventh grade, just like every other teenager, I too was vulnerable and had just started to discover the world’s colours. When you look at someone, you do not realise what a great story that person has lived to tell. My school despite it being one of the best schools’ in my city still had a negative and dark side to it. My story began in the seventh grade. I had a group of good friends in middle school, everything was perfect, I was getting good grades, I was on the track team and I had so many more things going for me. At this point, my parents had to leave to go to different places due to work they had but they didn’t want me to move because of my studies so they let me stay in my hometown.The days went by chipper and in laughs till at one point my life took a sharp turn downhill. My best friend at the time came to me one day and said she wanted to hang out with this new girl at school- she was everything: cool, pretty, rich, and she would hang out with the senior kids and go for their parties. I didn’t pay much attention to it and continued on with my business until I noticed that the rest of my class wanted to do the same, and so they did. Everyone in their attempt to find acceptance into this new “popular” side started altering their personalities to fit what was “in” during then. Everyone except me. I do sometimes think that if I had changed too, I wouldn’t have faced what I had, but it felt very unnatural to me.By now, I had started becoming an outsider to the whole of my class and they started ganging up on me, knowing I was “different” from them, knowing I was “nothing” compared to all they had, socially. They would make fun of me and think of me as a nobody and would not pay any attention to me. I had no friends till I got to 9th grade, but I would tell myself everyday that it would not phase me. I got through everyday reminding myself that it was only a matter of a few years and I would be out of this place. I was wrong, in the 9th grade I got a wonderful opportunity to go to a language school in France to learn French and I excitedly took it up! Much to my disappointment, those mean classmates of mine came along for the trip due to other reasons than to study, throughout the trip I tried to keep minimum contact with them and would mostly talk to my juniors who had also come along for the trip. But, shit had to stir up no matter where I went. On one of the days, when we had gone to visit the beautiful Palace of Monaco, I was minding my own business when my ex- best friend came up to me angrily, shouting that I had said horrible things about her appearance and her cronies following her started to badger me with the meanest and hateful comments (I am not elaborating much because I would rather not) and they even threatened to take my life.
That was the last straw for me, when I came back I had a full-blown depression and as the days passed by I locked myself up and boiled in my own thoughts. I learnt how to hate myself more and more. Even though I had friends at that time I would push them away by saying I was just “ill” and nothing else, I tried to self harm and I completely destroyed my immune system with the negative emotions my depression harboured. Two months had passed I was nowhere to be seen, my teachers and all my friends got worried. But then one of my friends decided to come to me and dragged me out with her to go see the comic con near our house because she didn’t “want to go alone”. Till this day I think if she hadn’t pulled me out that day, I would have never met the person who changed my life forever, my best friend, S. We met each other for the first time at the comic con recognising each other as familiar faces, we occasionally saw each other around in school. I clicked with her instantly, gushing with her about boys, our favourite classes, to our favourite Kpop bands. We talked for hours even after we went home and sometimes would talk till dawn over the phone. She showed me a whole new light, a new way of seeing myself, even though I still had phases of depression and bouts of anxiety filled with self-doubt and absolute hatred of my existence, she would be there with me enduring it alongside. She never left my side and slowly I regained the confidence that I had lost. Soon we were in the 12th grade I started understanding more about myself trying to know more ways of how I could help myself, around this time I discovered the psychology class that my school had. Joining the class was one of the best decisions I have ever made, not only was my teacher the most loving and caring woman ever but she showed me how I could learn to love myself even more. She taught me how to turn my weaknesses into my strengths and how I could get a hold over my self-deprecating thoughts.
During the summer I joined a volunteer programme at an orphanage and helped out there every weekend. Not only was I learning how to love myself, I wanted to spread this feeling of love and self confidence with everyone and wanted to help people overcome their problems. Most children at the orphanage had mild to severe mental or physical disabilities. Caring and talking to these children gave me a new insight into one’s struggles in life and my feelings of wanting to help them increase. This is when I planned that I wanted to be a therapist. Iworked hard the rest of what was left of 12th grade and got one of the highest grades on my board exams. I am at university now, all the hard feelings I had in me for my classmates from earlier classes have dissolved slowly. I was over the moon when I saw that I was going off to another country to study! But just like with every good thing there is always a sacrifice to be made, I broke up with my best friend due to some major arguments that we had. This upset me immensely, I felt like I would slip black into the dark hole I had come out from.But, I didn’t. The moment I had that thought, I shook my head and looked at myself in the mirror, I was here, in this world, on my two legs with a purpose. I looked back at all the times I was happy and every event that took place in my life, at this moment it dawned on me that it was what I did that made me happy. It was not what someone else said, or what someone else did, it was me, I had the power all along to make the decision on what made me happy and what didn’t. On what could bother me and what wouldn’t, on what broke me and what made me. I can be invincible or I can choose to be vulnerable, all these decisions are all my own.
So I set out seeking out to do those things that made me happy, I watched the whole Harry Potter series again, pampered myself, talked a lot to my roommates and found a new life. The biggest decision, however, which made me the happiest was to be the bigger person and look over what those people did to me and try and acquaint myself with them even if I didn’t want to be friends with them. I forgave them for their immature actions, I chose to do so, It was my decision. I held my head up high as I talked to them showing them that they could never hurt me anymore, they could never get to me anymore. I showed them how with strength I grew from dust to a monument of confidence and happiness. I treat myself with the utmost respect and love now, as though I ammyown queen. I have made this decision that I will never EVER let anyone steal my “wind” (FRIENDS reference). Because I have learnt the most valuable lesson of my life: Self Love.
By Nikhita Azad
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