RIP To Me: Holding A Blade, Holding On | by Shivam Thakur | Oct, 2025

I am — or I was — a happy, youthful child.
A navigator in my own small world.

My childhood wasn’t easy. Being an only child meant there was no one to share things with — no one to talk to, no one to pass the chores on to. I learned early how to survive on my own. But I wasn’t lucky enough to have a happy family. I can’t even remember the last time we laughed together, or clicked a picture that looked real.

I grew up in a house filled with shouting, harsh words, and violence. That was normal for me — too normal.

At seventeen, life felt like it was turning. I landed my first job. But it didn’t last. My mom showed up at my workplace one day, creating a scene because I’d been trying to convince her to take her medication. Around that time, I was sleeping on the floor beside her just to make sure she took her meds. I got chickenpox, she wasn’t well, and everything around me fell apart. Leaving that job broke something inside me — it could’ve been my chance at something better.

Years passed. I was in my final year of college when things got worse again. My father called to say my mother had lost control. She was slipping into depression once more. That Diwali, while others were celebrating with lights and laughter, I spent mine in a psychiatric ward.

This year began with the same cycle. My mother stopped taking her meds, and despite all my efforts, things spiralled. One night, she tried to run and jumped from the first floor — she broke her leg. I admitted her to the hospital, and for a week, I lived on a small stool beside her bed. No sleep. No real food. No bath. Just waiting for her to calm down.

For two months, life was chaos. I did everything I could — every small thing — to make her comfortable. I agreed to electroshock therapy because it was the only way to quiet her storms.

Eventually, I thought taking her back to our hometown might help. Around that time, I started dreaming of studying abroad — maybe a fresh start. My father agreed to help, but it came with a price. He sold a piece of our farmland against my will. He said it was for me, but later we found out the money went to pay off debts. When we questioned him, he threw the money at us, expecting silence.

The stress broke my mother again. This time, her depression hit harder. We rushed her to the emergency ward, and once again, I sat there — waiting, watching, breaking a little more inside. She had to go through electroshock therapy again. And I wasn’t ready for it.

That’s when something inside me cracked. I started taking anxiety pills. Some nights I can’t sleep. Some mornings I can’t breathe right. It feels like I’m trapped inside a life that doesn’t belong to me.

Every day feels like a prison — the fights, the noise, the trauma. Even after surviving all this, I feel like I don’t have a home. Not really.

Every time I try to lift my mom up, I lose a part of myself. The pain doesn’t fade; it just changes shape. Today it hit me hard — I felt that rush again, that voice telling me to cut my wrist, to bleed just to feel something real.

But here I am, still holding on.
Still hoping I won’t do anything stupid this time.

#MentalHealth #Anxiety #Depression #Survival #Healing #Family #PersonalStory #Trauma #SelfCare #EmotionalHealing