Unwritten love letters to myself.

I am not a seasoned writer, so excuse me if I am not able to set the scene properly here.

I am on my couch, in my house in the south west of London with every creature comfort I could possibly need, with enough money in my bank account to keep me happy forever and after. I am definitely surrounded by people that love and care for me, not many of them, but enough to know that I am not alone in my struggles. I am one of those lucky few who has managed to make a career out of doing what I love to do. My colleagues (at least the current bunch) are really good. I can within reason take a few weeks worth of fully paid holidays and go anywhere in the world that I wish to go.

But...

Am I happy? Nope.
Am I content? Nope.
Am I relaxed? Nope.
Am I just barely holding things together? Yes.
Do I think I am clinically depressed? Oh yeah!
Am I lonely? Yes sir!

After tens of hours of therapy and multiple months of self-reflection, I think I have a clear idea of why I feel the way I feel, and this is my way of documenting it and finding a way out.

Understanding my mental health struggles requires understanding their origins. So let me give you a glimpse into my childhood without boring you to death.

I was raised by a single mom and I grew up in abject poverty, probably the worst you can imagine. I had two sets of shorts, two t-shirts, one pair of velcro sandals. I had two sets of school uniforms: a blue shirt and trouser combo with white stripes on it, and another one in all white. I had two pairs of shoes to go with those uniforms, one in black to be worn on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and another set in white to be worn with the white uniforms on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

What I lacked in material things, I gained in a mother who knew the value of a good education. I was sent to a school nearby where some of the wealthiest kids went. Although my mom's heart was in the right place, she probably didn't think her decision through.

Being around rich kids when you are incomprehensibly poor is one of the quickest ways to give a child lifelong trauma. What they considered normal was impossible for me. Expensive backpacks, pencil cases decorated with the latest Disney characters, these were everyday items for them, unattainable luxuries for me.

There was no place for a kid walking around with a massive toe hole in his shoes among those kids. I was often the butt of jokes, the go-to punching bag, both verbally and physically. It was so bad that my mind had normalized it, and I had quickly learned to equate friends with bullies.

The bullying didn't end with the school bell. Many of my classmates lived near where I lived, so the torment followed me home.

But my saving grace was that I was good at school, very good in fact. I regularly aced my exams and was always among the top three in my class. I guess I was forced to spend time with books because there was no risk of those books pushing me down a flight of stairs when the teachers weren't watching. The few kids who were nice to me, did so around the time of exams and and assignments, so that I could help them get a passing score.

Distrust and neediness

I guess this is where the first of my many issues stems from. I cannot simply accept the fact that many people want to be friends with the grown-up me. I either take years to trust that someone is genuine when they show me appreciation, or I will need constant validation and incessant interactions when someone genuinely likes me. If I don't hear that you like me about two dozen times a day, I will assume you are just using me.

I am ashamed to share this, but I have pushed genuinely good people away because they went a week without dropping me a text. And I have pushed others away by smothering them with constant attention. Either I will refuse to trust you, or if I choose to trust you, I will constantly poke you to revalidate my trust.

This need for constant validation has made me an easy mark. People have figured out that giving me the attention I crave buys my trust, which they then exploit for their own emotional or financial benefit.

The physical scars from my horrible childhood have more or less disappeared, but I guess I am carrying mental scars that I am just about learning how to heal.

When I look at myself in the mirror sometimes, I see him, the innocent young guy who for a long time did not know why everyone around him was so mean to him, who spent most of his time hiding away in the library or talking to his butterfly pea plants. I wish I could go back in time and hug him. The best I can do is write him a love letter.

Dear Giridhar,

I see you. I see you in the library with your nose buried in books that took you to galaxies far away from that schoolyard. I see you crouched beside your butterfly pea plants, talking to them in whispers, giving them the gentleness no one gave you. I see you scribbling science fiction stories in worn notebooks, creating worlds where maybe, just maybe, things made sense.

I need you to know something. You are the kindest, most gentle kid I know. The things you are going through are not your fault.

Those kids who mock your clothes, who beat you, who shove you down stairs, who call you names, who make you feel less—they are wrong. Your poverty does not define you. Your nature did, and they are too stupid to notice how wonderful you are.

I am sorry. I am sorry for what you are being put through. I am sorry that no one is coming to cheer for you on your sports day. I am sorry that you cannot afford to go on that school trip. I am sorry you have to clean your own wounds. I am sorry that your dad abandoned you, and I am sorry your mother does not have enough time at the end of the day to notice your scars. I am truly sorry, little man.

You are special. You have always been special. Keep holding onto your kindness and your interests and your gentle nature. Survive now, so you can thrive later.

Remember to be yourself. Be proud of who you are. You do not need anybody's validation and assurance. You don't need anybody's attention to validate your existence. What you need is passion and interests, which you have plenty of, more than anybody I know.

I promise you will grow up to be very successful. People will bid over you. You will end up doing what you love, and you will never be burdened with the stress of work. The books you sought comfort in will eventually lead to you becoming a well-rounded adult.

I promise things will turn out better, much better than you had ever hoped for. Good things beyond your wildest imagination will come your way, little dude. Hang in there.

Remember that when you feel alone, when you feel like breaking down and crying, and when you feel like you are this world's afterthought, that I am here for you. I have always been and I will always be.

I remember you. I always think of you, and I love you.

When I was growing up, my only source of comfort was my mom. She meant the world to me, and I saw the lengths she went to put food on the table and keep me sheltered.

Having been abandoned by my dad, she was forced to raise me as a single mom in a deeply orthodox country. While I had her to comfort me, she basically had no one. We had an old, rickety hand-me-down LG TV which was perched neatly on top of a garbage-reclaimed chest of drawers that had a missing door. My mom used to come home at around 7 PM, sometimes 9 PM, after a long day of work, and her only source of normalcy or comfort came from that TV, specifically from the 24/7 news channels. (Funnily enough, she hasn't really come out of her news fix still.)

Making a seven-year-old kid sit in front of an uncensored news channel was not the best. There was nothing else she could do, given we lived in a 30-square-foot room shared between me, my mom, and my sister. It was our living room, bedroom, dining room, and everything else.

I was (and probably still am) very impressionable, and let me tell you, I knew all the crime hotspots of 2000s Bangalore, all the major world conflicts of that time, and especially the count of lives lost to road accidents, which was a daily feature piece of the news channel at that time.

I bet you can see where some of my issues around uncertainty stem from. Each day, I was paying especially close attention to our wall clock, and when the clock hit 7 o'clock and my mom had still not made it home, an automatic panic alarm rang in my head.

Having been force-fed the worst of uncensored city news, I knew all the dangers associated with commuting home from the industrial part of the city (where my mom worked). And my mind always imagined the worst. It was a mix of fear of what would happen to me if my mom went missing and the sheer panic associated with losing my one and only loved one.

When I reached the age of 10, the corner store closest to my house got a newly introduced yellow payphone, and this was my saving grace for a long time.

I used to go to great lengths to get my hands on a one-rupee coin to ring up my mom. I had 55 seconds to talk to her before the phone hung up on me, and I used to always ask the same two questions to start off with: "Are you doing overtime today?" and "When will you get home?" I would end the conversation with "Be careful while crossing the road."

My mom did not take me seriously at all and sometimes used to ignore my calls, either due to work or because she felt that I was being annoying, further exacerbating my anxiety.

The absolute worst-case scenario was when I couldn't scrape together that single rupee to make the phone call, or those days when my sister used to steal my hard-earned rupee because she thought I was wasting my money and it was better spent on something nice for herself. I remember the days when I pleaded with her to give my money back, only to be met with a heartless "You are stupid. Of course mom will come home eventually. Where else will she go?".

Inability to tolerate uncertainty

I believe this is where my inability to tolerate any amount of uncertainty comes from. I often drive people nuts with this behavior of mine, and this also makes it so much harder to commute on the District line for me, where the trains are never on time and the departures screen never updates on time, so the next tube might be 4 minutes away or might not arrive until the end of time. (It will usually be 4 minutes away.)

I also like to be at the airport a freaking 6 hours before the takeoff time. Well, because you know, what if an asteroid hits the area between me and the airport that will cause me to miss my flight?

If you don't reply within 3 nanoseconds of me texting you, my mind will simulate any scenario between you being a victim of the newest serial killer to roam London to a full-on zombie apocalypse where you are the first victim.

I wonder why some people feel smothered by me? I may never know.

Dear Giridhar,

I see you staring at the barely functioning clock, hoping to hear your mom's footsteps as soon as the clock turns 7 PM. I see that your heart is racing, and I understand that you are going through every horrible scenario in which your mom fails to make it back home safely at the end of the day.

I want you to know this: You are brave.

You are not being "annoying" or "stupid," and you are not "just a child." You are acting with the soul of a guardian. At ten years old, you are taking it upon yourself to be the silent watchman of our little family. Those news reports, the accidents, the crime, the chaos of the city, they are too much for your young heart to hold, yet you hold them anyway because you love your mom. And you are willing to worry for the both of you.

I am sorry. I am sorry that you are not able to have a worry-free childhood. I am sorry that you are not spending your evenings playing games or watching cartoons. I am sorry that you have to struggle every day to scrape together a single rupee to reach your mom. I am sorry you are not being taken seriously, and I am sorry you are forced to sit through horrific images of primetime news. I am sorry that your sister stole your money, and I am sorry your mom did not appreciate your advice about being safe. I am sorry, little dude.

I want you to understand that I acknowledge you. I want you to know that I agree with you, and I think your heart is in the right place. You are doing the only thing you can do to bring some amount of comfort and peace to yourself.

I wish I could reach across time to hold your hand or hug you to comfort you. I wish I could help you ease your burden.

Please understand that you are doing everything you can. Please understand that if something goes wrong or if someone gets hurt, it is not your fault. It is not the duty of a ten year old to worry about the safety of his parents, but rather the duty of the parents to worry about the safety of the ten-year-old.

I appreciate everything you are doing, and it might just be the case that your mom appreciates it as well. It is just that she is not very verbal with her love and appreciation.

Thank you. Please know that there will come a time when you will find people who will appreciate you looking out for them. Until then, learn to live with a little uncertainty and gain the wisdom to know when certain things are out of your control.

I have always appreciated you, and I will always love you.