Hello, world. I believe it is important to know someone’s entire story before you label them as ‘mentally disturbed’, ‘mad’ or ‘retarded’. So, here is my story.
Growing up as a child with dyslexia, I was made to believe that I was not normal. Throughout all parent-teacher meetings, my mother was told to send me to a ‘special’ school. People said I should be sent to a counsellor so that I can be ‘cured’ of my mental illness. Growing up, I fought my way up. Everyone told me that I wouldn’t be able to study beyond class 10. Today, I am working as a research assistant in a top non-governmental organisation in Kolkata.
However, the struggle is not over yet. Unfortunately, we live in a world where being emotional is seen as being mentally disturbed, curiosity is seen as attention seeking, being straightforward is seen as a threat.
All my life, I have faced the same problem. My ambition to be someone in life and my willingness to study and learn new things has made my professors label me as a trouble-maker. Male professors especially call me an attention seeker. My willingness to work for people who are deprived of the basic necessities of life has made me a ‘desperate person waiting to get recognition’. The mere will to fight up against everything I find wrong has cost me a lot in my career and relationships.
Being a loner during childhood, I would get emotionally attached to people easily and believed them when they promised to stay with me through thick and thin. I was unable to believe it when they left and would always assume that there must be something wrong with me. Mild anxiety issues have made me a ‘mentally disturbed’ person who does not belong in this world. I regret giving people the benefit of the doubt when they clearly don’t deserve it.
All my life, I fought with the society but now I ask myself as to whether people were right when they said I was not normal. Clearly, I don’t belong in a world where we don’t expect people but robots and everyone is willing to be like someone else.