Mental Torture and Health Anxiety
When I signed up for the lease with him, I did not know I was signing up for a year full of health anxiety, and that is when it got bad for me: the mental torture, the daily fights, chronic anxiety on top of what I had already been through made it so difficult for me that a point came when I wanted to end it all. You know what I’m talking about. I just wanted to escape because the symptoms that were emerging in my body, psychosomatic symptoms, my body was showing me, telling me, screaming that you are being tortured, yet I could not understand because mentally I was being convinced psychologically that I am the problem. He would lecture me for hours about how I was a failure of a person and how I did not know how to maintain relationships with others. I was too sensitive, I was exaggerating stuff, I used to pay attention to small things, I should be more of a free person and let go of things—all to tell me that I was the crazy one.
So, it got to me; it impacted a part of me because I was already prone to gaslighting. I had been raised in such an environment; this easily impacted me, but in a devastating way. Anyway, a point came when health anxiety took a toll. I remember that time of the year was crucial because I had to study for 12 tough engineering subjects, all mathematics, and calculations. You know how it is in engineering; you have to pay attention, or else you won’t be able to make it. And that is what he wanted; he wanted me to just say, “I’m done,” and I won’t be able to do it. Would you believe me? That is what I ended up saying. I kept running from one hospital to the other, trying to understand what was going on with my body, and they would give me antibiotics. They would say, “Oh, it’s all in your head.” And a doctor put me on antidepressants, which made my situation worse.
So, then I decided, I’m going home; I’m not able to take it anymore, and this ends here. I’m going to drop this semester; I’m going to get 12 backlogs, but what can I do? Simultaneously, I was struggling with the fear of my father, what he was going to do, what he was going to say, because he was paying for my tuition fees, and at the same time, academics and my performance meant a lot to him. But I took the risk and left it all behind. I had zero hope of returning that year, but God had other plans for me.
Within a couple of weeks, I recovered miraculously, and then I decided, why not go back? I still have a chance. I may or may not be able to qualify for the examinations because I had to have a certain percentage of attendance; I had to attend classes, and a lot of them I had already missed. But somehow, it worked out, and they said, fine, you can do it. I studied day and night, ignoring everything. He kept torturing me still, and he was shocked, by the way, when I came back because he hadn’t expected me to survive his narcissistic, demonic attacks.
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