Trigger Warning: Child Sexual Abuse Survivor

“Growing up our parents always try to make sure that we are raised in a protected environment. They try to shield you from the monsters who are waiting to pounce on you whenever given an opportunity. But little does one know that these monsters do appear, and they appear at the most unexpected of times and there is no one to protect you then.

I am Sahithi and I am an Adult Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse. I have faced four monsters in four different stages of my life, and all of them have left a deep scar and have taken a huge chunk of me.

I remember my first suicidal thought, which was at the age of 13 on the way back home from my dance class a week after being abused by my dance teacher’s father.

As I walked, I remember thinking “How relieved would it be if a truck hits me now?” Immediately after that popped another thought of “What if I could help people who are feeling like me if there are any?” I caught on to that thought and struggled to live.

I was abused by 2 different men when I was 16 and 18 and these incidents made me go numb and lose every shred of hope I had towards life. I started having panic attacks and I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I started going to therapy and reconnected with the inner dream of mine – to become a psychologist and help people who went through abuse. I did my second masters in Clinical Psychology and started talking to kids about good and bad touches. I realized the stigma around the topic of mental illness and abuse, the secrecy with which the abuse happens, the secrecy maintained by people when they seek therapy all this speaks of the lack of interconnectedness of society and the lack of trust, we put on the people around us.

I believe that society needs to have these conversations, even if they are unsettling because making those topics a part of our conversation is in itself a step to bring awareness towards these topics that we as a society have been brushing under the carpet. If not with and for passion then why?

Maybe this is the question that can make most of us drift away or at least that is what has happened to me. 12 years ago, on the way back home from dance class dealing with intrusive thoughts was born an idea – I want to help others who feel like me.

I believe that it is very rare to peek into and travel the road that you have not taken and I consider myself lucky to have gotten that opportunity.

I started Sama Jeeva as an Instagram page and now finally it has turned into an NPO which I started with hope and hard work as backbones to change the way that people see ” Mental Health and Abuse ” in India. and I want to be a systemic change in which we can and do teach our children how to be safe. I as an advocate will fight until I have no breath left in my body to make things different for kids like me and millions living across the globe. Because I know every one of you who is reading this and beyond that would agree that it shouldn’t feel unsafe in the child’s own house, school, tuition, bus, in relatives place and so on. It shouldn’t hurt to be a child, and no child should go through trauma at the age where all they were supposed to do is enjoy life and be as silly, weird, funny as possible and the saddest part is that all too often it does hurt to be a child.

On the day of the launch, I took an oath in the mirror looking at myself that I will do everything in my capacity to shift “ shame and stigma ” to “ support and reinforcement”.

Living is fighting, requesting, pleasing the life that doesn’t go as we expect to walk with us in the path that we always wanted to walk. In between relapse episodes of depression, intrusive thoughts and worst nightmares, my life finally decided to walk in the same path that I wanted to live.

There are days when I struggle with coming to terms with what has happened, but then there are days when I feel like a queen who was brave enough to go through all of this.

And I am sure there will come a day when I will be able to rise above everything that has tried putting me down. Till then I will keep fighting, I will keep trying.”