Transforming suffering into strength

I am a 20 year old girl who lives in Kuala Lumpur. I have the privilege of having good education and a comfortable lifestyle. I have a family too, which seems to be perfect in the eyes of many. Considering that we are financially wealthy, they think to themselves, ‘What problems could she have?’. However, behind closed doors, I have experienced pain and suffering no other person should endure.

My father seems to be a kind and soft spoken man to many, however, he failed to be a good parent to me. My first traumatic experience was through him when I was four years old. It was then that he begin molesting me on our shared bed. Although my mother was sleeping next to me, she never seemed to care of what was happening behind her back. In fact, she neglects me and my other siblings until today. Our relationship is so distant that she seems to be a tenant renting a room in our house.

The sexual abuse continued for twelve years of my life. Throughout my childhood, I was physically and emotionally tormented too. I was utterly destroyed by everything that fell upon me. My defense system as a child, was and still is, to numb every pain that I endure. I didn’t know how else could I survive. Although my mind tried to dissociate from the pain, there were moments that it didn’t. Those moments are when I feel surges of emotions hitting me and I would run to the kitchen to grab a knife so that I could kill myself and end the pain. There were days that I would steal more than RM 100.00 from my father’s wallet in order to run away from my house someday.

Growing up, I became promiscuous and fell into the trap of online sex predators at the age of thirteen. They would order me to perform certain sexual acts through my webcam and I obediently obeyed. I became powerless and lost. When I was eighteen, I developed an addiction for drugs. I was lost in it for a year and it felt wonderful. The drugs caused me to have a connection with myself. When I was on it, I knew who I was. It was then that I realized that my life without drugs is on autopilot. Without drugs, I didn’t know who am I looking at through the mirror. Without it, I couldn’t feel my body. But it didn’t take long until I began experiencing physical pain due to the drugs.

My therapist whom I see now, is still bewildered that I didn’t experience any withdrawal from drugs. My answer to his confusion was ‘I heard a voice in me which said that “If you take that again, you cannot come out of this alive”‘. Although I got off drugs, I knew that there was something inherently wrong with my mind. I needed to do something about it, and I needed someone to help me with it. It was then that I visited a psychiatrist but he never really helped with my emotional pain. His medication helped me for a while to stabilize my mind after the drug abuse but then, I was ready for psychotherapy. The therapist whom I sought is truly my savior. Through the therapy sessions, I discovered that I was carrying a ton of weight on my back for I kept crying in pain whenever we spoke of my past.

Seeking a therapist has been the best decision that I have made. My suicidal plans are now slowly being replaced with recovery plans. I am slowly starting to understand the conditioning that I was faced with and the fear that was instilled in me since young.  I still am on autopilot and only face my trauma when I am with my therapist. Although I am taking very small steps, I am so happy and proud of myself. My purpose of sharing my story with you is to give you hope and let you know that I will transform my sufferings to something profound. What happened to me must not happen to any other child/man/women.

My recovery gives me the strength to become a therapist someday too so that I can help people who are going through trauma too. Despite being in law school, I have future plans to do a conversion course to Psychology in order to pursue a Masters and become a clinical or counselling psychologist.

Being on the verge of killing myself has taught me that if I wish to die, I should just do it. But if I wish to stay alive, I will make the best out of it. And if I can do it, you could too.