Importance of privacy

One of the things my mother has always emphasized is the importance of privacy, of keeping things within the family. In her eyes, there is no greater humiliation than the public shame brought by another’s perception of our family as unstable and unhappy. She always said that my behavior was a reflection of her parenting and that I couldn’t be seen as any less than perfect. It didn’t matter what the situation or reason; tears were always to be shed alone.

So began my journey of grieving alone. I was afraid of telling anyone, especially those closest to me, what I was feeling as I didn’t want to become “that girl”- the one who had train wreck emotional disasters that would keep people talking for weeks, or so my mind often reminded me.

The initial root of my anxiety was a desire for acceptance within my traditional Indian family and society. Growing up, life for me often felt like a game of masks. There was the one I’d wear to school painted with Western morality, a yearning for romantic love and desperation to fit into the standards of beauty. Then there was the one I wore at home that turned away from love and was silent even when her mind was racing with objection. The one I wore alone felt cracked, split between two cultural worlds. 

At school I found myself facing questions like: It’s okay to marry your brother in your culture, isn’t it? Don’t you get three hours of sleep because you only care about school?  Why does the bindi on your forehead look like a mole? Some of my classmates had taken to calling me a lesbian because of the way I dressed. It didn’t bother me all too much until junior year of high school. Up until that point, I had always liked and gossiped about boys. Never had a girl taken my breath away from the way that she did. I found myself glancing at her throughout history class. When she spoke to me, I seemed to forget what words were. Never mind that she was a popular cheerleader dating a football jock; she was kind, beautiful, and had a smile that made me confused.

Meanwhile, at home, I found myself at odds with my dad. My dad has always been ashamed of how “American” I am and tried to stamp as much out of me as he could when I was in middle school and high school. On the occasions in which I rebelled, he would sneer at my clothes and ask me if I really thought I looked beautiful. On prom, homecoming, or any sort of formal night, my dad would always lock himself in his room, unwilling to look at me. Every time, I’d hope that he’d come down, look at me with a smile on his face, and tell me how beautiful I was. His absence always stung and made me feel as if something was wrong with me as if I wasn’t good enough. However, he disagreed and felt that what he was doing was a favor in itself; it was better to avoid me than hurt me with the disgust in his eyes. Eventually, that became his go-to coping strategy with everything he disapproved of. If he didn’t see it or hear it, he could imagine how he wanted me to be. We didn’t speak much during my first two years of college; he saw my defiance as a sign that I didn’t want a relationship with him in spite of my efforts to connect with him.

During my third year of college. I had an incident with my dad in which he broke down and said, over and over, “I’ve failed as a dad. I have failed,” as he cried for what felt like hours. I felt his failure as it had been mine. I had disappointed him beyond repair. I knew, in the back of my head, that it was his fault; he had moved his family to America and expected his children to follow traditional Indian culture. However, I couldn’t help feeling that I wasn’t good enough and that I’d never been. Around the same time, I was taking 5 engineering classes and preparing for an MCAT in a few months. The pain from my relationship with my dad, confusion regarding my sexuality, the stress of maintaining facades in different situations, self-hatred of my body, and fear of ruining my future by not doing well in school, all of it was building up within me as I did what I had always been taught to do: stay silent.