My father threw a chair at me. My mother slapped me twice across the face, so hard that a scar was imprinted—so deep, it remains engraved to this day.

And I thought, That’s alright. I have my friends.

Friends who said, and I quote, “See, we love you, but it’s not gonna work out.”

With voices as unsteady as my confidence, I asked, Why?

“See, girl, we ain’t trying to be rude, but look at yourself—you have hair as puffy as an orangutan, a unibrow, freckles so dark, a double chin, braces, and let’s not even get to your waist and thighs. Maybe if you loved yourself a little, you wouldn’t be like this!”

My mouth was sealed.

Sealed with the needle of betrayal and the thread of perception—the world’s version of my truth.

Tears streamed down my face like a waterfall that wouldn’t stop—not for the first time in my world, but the first time it escaped into theirs. I felt disgusted.

Not by a foul smell, but by me.

What was I even good at?

Good at giving myself scars when nobody was watching? Good at being the clown? The extra? The Dumbo?

I felt like an impostor. The kind that scratched herself in every anxiety spiral. That slept too much or didn’t sleep at all. Ate too much or didn’t eat anything.

Laughed too much—or lived somewhere between worse and worser.

I was an urn for the ashes of neglect, abuse, and unmet need for validation.

I was smacked so hard , just for speaking out against what they called a “good life.”

A career.

A rat race.

A future that never felt like mine.

Opinions became a faded tapestry of my endurance.

Gender discrimination was my armor. I wore it as I juggled three jobs.

While my brother lived out his reality of PS5s, “creative burnout,” and “the pressure to be unique,”

I lived under romanticized pain—and parents he claimed were emotionally available.

They told me: Just climb the wall. Behind it is success, happiness, peace.

But no one mentioned the chains I was bound by.

Chains the world had the audacity to call freedom.

In Indian households, you’re not raised — you’re sculpted. Sculpted to outperform, to obey, to shrink. You are taught not to feel but to function.

If you speak too much, you’re “too outspoken.” If you’re quiet, “something’s wrong with you.” You’re told to compete with people you’ve never even met, and then shamed for not being them.

There’s a standard for success, a blueprint for worth, and if you don’t fit inside it—you’re either a failure or a phase.

Mental health isn’t spoken, it’s swallowed. Anxiety is dismissed as “too dramatic,” burnout is labelled laziness, and sadness is just a hunger tantrum.

Dreams are handed out like ration cards—fixed, limited, assigned. And if you dare to say, “this isn’t working for me,” you’re told “adjust, everyone else has.”

But we’re not everyone. And we’re not fine.

This wasn’t just my childhood—it’s the silent curriculum of an entire generation.

—

Every war waged, every crime committed, every corrupted system—it all begins in the quiet, unnoticed chambers of childhood.

A terrorist is not born violent.

A man is not born believing a woman is an object.

A leader is not born corrupt.

They are shaped—by the trauma they inherited, by the love they were denied, by the worth they were never taught.

Every insult. Every act of neglect. Every warped idea of power, gender, emotional control.

When empathy is starved, violence grows.

The greatest battlefield is not some narrow strait of land—it’s a playground.

A field of colourful swings and forgotten laughter—

a space meant to echo into every part of the person you grow to be.

And oh Lord, if the damage begins there—how does the mighty plan to help us?

__

Next Time When your child asked for a second plate—give it to them with a smile.

Next time your child says “Mom I’m gonna help you” and spills the flour all over—laugh, and make them acknowledged about the importance of food and how to respect it, let them clean up and continue!

Next time, when your child says “Do I look pretty, Dad?” you say, “You are pretty, not the prettiest,” because comparison is not meant to show a casserole feeling as complex as love—and then you say, “Tell me, what’s more important?”

And her reply—“Being as beautiful and as bright from my withins and outside.”

But you don’t have to act bright—when you feel dull, you acknowledge the feeling, find the trigger and have a deliberate discussion with your loved ones!

Next time, your child comes home with a twenty on fifty, you don’t slap or tell them that they are unworthy—you sit them down and say it is absolutely alright! The only thing that I as your guardian care about is what is affecting you and causing a derailment, please know that I am here for you, and we can have a discussion.

Next time, when you notice your child being a little less energetic, a little way more happy, or a little too normal for a while—you set them down, open your arms of warmth and ask “Hey baby, is everything alright?”

And you tell them that you’re here for them, and that their words hold weight and will be acknowledged—if they sit in your arms with tears streaming for two hours, or pour out all the misery with silence, a whole essay, or some scar discovery on their body—stay calm, listen, acknowledge, and give them a solution that aligns with a certain standard of emotional maturity that you’ll hold as an adult who had a choice to be a parent and chose to be a parent.

Don’t buy too many clothes for one, don’t let one go out at night and one be caged, don’t prepare special meals, remember their favourites and their dislikes, every essence of their life, if you’re only going to do it for one.

Remember adaptability to the society shouldn’t kill what they truly were, and that’s your responsibility and an obligation, though that’s the first word in the dictionary of conditional love.

Love them, let them be, hug them, caress their beauty and their scars, let them heal. Don’t let them handle it very well when they’re literally twelve. 

Make them feel that they are your favourite. Make them feel enough.

The only thing that should be engraved in their withins should be that you are there for them, and you always will be!

These may sound like small things—an extra plate, a kind word, a question at the right time. But in psychology, they are not small.

They are protective.

Consistent validation, safe emotional space, and responsive care are known to build secure attachment—the foundation that prevents anxiety disorders, identity confusion, and trauma repetition.

And maybe then, they won’t grow up scattered — or at least, not as scattered as the average Indian family line. But rather, as composed as a healed heart ought to be. In the long run of life, it would feel less like survival, and more like an evening walk — where healing isn’t a punishment they carry, but a quiet gift they pass on. To themselves, and to those they love.