A semi-colon is not a full stop - one girl's battle with depression

A young girl's story about her struggle with mental health issues.

"About 3 years ago, I started feeling like something just wasn’t right. It started with a few bad days at first, but quickly became a permanent state. I wasn’t sure if anyone would take me seriously —but I was sad and gloomy all the time, that I eventually tried to tell my friends and family. Because I was only 14 back then, most people dismissed it as a ‘phase’ or something ‘puberty related’, but with time, I kept getting worse.

I used to stay indoors for weeks at a time and it started getting more difficult for me to socialize. It was as if a dark cloud was constantly looming over me, and just getting up in the morning felt like an impossible task — I started getting thoughts of harming myself. In January of this year, during a particularly bad night, I snapped. I knew I couldn’t go on for even one more day feeling like that and I decided to do something about it. 

Advocating equal importance for male and female careers

A highly successful career in high finance involves constant work and long hours - there is no getting away from that. But that does not mean that women don't do it, even though its traditional male domain. In fact, they thrive. Last week, we brought out the story of Shruti Tewari, who started her career on Wall Street, before making a switch to the creative side. This week,  is an account by Manisha Girotra, one of India's best known women in finance, as covered by Humans of Bombay. She stuck to finance, and has something important to say here about gender equality.

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“I was raised in a middle class family that placed the most importance on education and being financially independent. I was one of the 50 students hired by Grindlays Bank right after graduating from DSE and I started at the bottom. My first few stints included delivering pizza to my bosses, labelling 15,000 chairs and keeping stock of stationery, but I loved it! It was a male dominated work environment, and most people thought I would get married and quit…no one really took me seriously. But I did everything to excel — I would study long hours after work, I would be the first one to enter and last one to leave. In fact, I met my husband at this company and even though I was married at the age of 24 — my passion to make it never died.

She turned her life around at 50. Her inspiring story.

Life dumped a big lemon in her lap. But she turned it into so much more than just lemonade, with a little help from fate. From someone who was happy being at home to learning new skills, making new friends and showcasing her work in the big city, she is an inspiration. Her story. 

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“I’m originally from Kutch. My husband was working on a farm and breeding sheep and goats, while I have always been a homemaker. After finishing my work at home, I was always interested in learning embroidery from others around me, but never considered it as a profession because my husband was earning well.

After the 2001 Bhuj earthquake my life changed drastically. My home was completely destroyed and even though my children helped us set up a new home, I had to start working but I didn’t enjoy even a minute of it. First I was working as domestic help from house to house and later on I started helping my husband on the field. It was around this time that I learnt that there was a centre where ladies can sit together and embroider and get paid for their products — I immediately went to this centre and enrolled. From toiling in the field, I was finally able to do what I love at the Welspun centre —and the group of five ladies I enrolled with have become my closest friends.

Caprices of Life

One minute you have it all, and the next minute it can all dissolve in a flash. Sometimes life is like that. But nothing can take away from the experience of a life of love. Today’s story is one such example.

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“I lost my father when I was 4 years old, but my mother and brothers never let me feel any kind of loss — I was always pampered and treated like a princess. I’ve never known my father, but I found a father figure in my father in law at the age of 21 when I got married. It was an arranged marriage, but there was so much love between us, it was like we had known each other for many lifetimes. I never once felt like I had entered a home that wasn’t mine — since even before we were married my in-laws made me feel like I was their daughter. 

My husband…where do I even begin? He would randomly surprise me with flowers and gifts, without any reason. Sometimes I used to think that I loved him too much — I felt silly almost. Women usually love going to their mother’s house for a few nights here and there, but I remember every single time I would go to my mother’s house I couldn’t wait to go back home because I missed him — I was beginning to think I was crazy! But this one time when I was staying at my mother’s house, he called me and said ‘I’m picking you up, I’m waiting downstairs— we’re going out on a date! And there he was waiting for me with flowers!

By 25 she was done. Then she learnt a valuable lesson.

She had a rough early start to life. But she learnt her lessons quickly. She had had enough by 25 and learnt a valuable lesson from all her experiences. She no longer allows societal tags to affect how she views herself. Her story:
 
"While growing up my parents both had government jobs. It was when my father developed alcohol addiction that as a family we began to feel the financial pinch-- very early on, I knew that I would have to contribute to the family income. I would work odd jobs and pay my college fees with whatever I saved up. Meanwhile, my father's addiction got worse and my parents were constantly having fights. He got more irritable with all of us, and he made it clear to me that he didn't think a girl could make a father proud-- her final and only goal should be to be married and that's what he wanted for me as well.

A female friendship against the odds!

That life will inevitably throw up challenges is a given. Dealing with them effectively, however, depends a lot on your own mental makeup and the people around you. There is probably no bigger blessing than having a great set of female friendships with you when the going gets tough. Today’s story is that of one such friendship. A friendship that strengthened in the face of a life changing tragic event. Because even though things might change, the test of any great relationship lies in whether it can weather them.

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“We met during our FYJC and immediately became friends. We went through the highs and lows of college life, facing the real world, getting a job…all together. When I turned 26, I got engaged to the love of my life and we were all out celebrating at a club one night when it happened. I walked up the stairs from the basement to attend to a call, and on the staircase someone brushed passed me, I lost balance and fell. I remember trying to get up to get my phone and call my friends but I just couldn’t move…there was no sensation. Within minutes she found me and as she placed my head on her lap she realised that I was profusely bleeding. It took one hour for the ambulance to get to us…and even after I reached the hospital at around 4 in the morning there weren’t a lot of doctors. All through, I knew she as hospital phobic…she would get anxiety even at the mention of a doctor but here she was, yelling at people to hurry up, call the doctors and get things moving.

Badass dealing with domestic violence

They say that there are as many ideas as there are people. So when thrown into a challenging situation, everyone would have their own ideas about how to cope with it or overcome it. Take for instance, the case of domestic violence. 

There are some women, who suffer it in silence through their lives, sometimes even maintaining an outside façade of a perfect life. Others curse their fate, cry about it and tell everyone who would lend an ear. There are yet others who decide to walk out of bad situations, no matter what the peril, and don’t look back. But there are others, who awaken their dormant badass in such a situation, ending up dealing with it with such finesse and composure, that they become stories that must be told.