I have a family history of different types of skin problems and allergies. So I was born with chronic eczema. My skin is really sensitive and a lot of environmental allergens like dust, etc, trigger my itching. Small areas of my skin can no longer produce melanin because I would scratch that area a lot. Sometimes I scratch so much that I end up with deep blisters or open wounds. You can imagine how difficult taking a shower or using wet wipes can be sometimes. I use very potent steroid creams to heal the affected areas of my skin. I remember at school, there were kids who did not want to hold my hand or touch my skin because they thought I was contagious.

Unfortunately, years of itching has resulted in my developing these strange hyper-pigmented, thick streak-like patterns on areas of my body that I scratch a lot. This is Macular Amyloidosis. The doctor told me that it is a rare skin condition that one gets from prolonged friction to their skin like continuous rubbing or itching. When I asked him if there’s a cure, he said they haven’t discovered one yet and that he cannot promise that it will ever completely go away. I remember feeling incredibly helpless and sad. He thought the reason I was upset was because I will have trouble finding a husband and assured me not to worry. I didn’t bother correcting him because although that wasn’t the primary reason I was upset, I felt he tapped into another fear of mine. He then said that I should avoid scratching at all costs and just gave me some more creams and ointments for my skin.

Now asking a person who has a history of chronic eczema, extremely dry skin and dust allergies to stop scratching is like asking a starving man not to be hungry. So, in order to stop myself from scratching and aggravating my amyloidosis, I have to avoid allergens that trigger it. Breaking this itch-scratch cycle is difficult especially if you cannot control the environment you inhabit. Unlike my own home, I cannot expect all places I visit to be extremely spotless. Like my workplace, movie theaters or even a friend’s apartment. Some of my friends are really kind and they understand and accommodate my needs while others simply assume, I’m spoilt and overly concerned with insignificant details when I ask if the bed sheets have been washed or if the room has been vacuumed. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be up all night scratching yourself to death and then try to find ways to cover up the wounds the next day? Most people have a one-dimensional frame of mind and do not take the time to consider other possibilities before jumping to conclusions.

I feel the ugliest when I wear any item of clothing that reveals my amyloidosis. Like I love my legs but I hesitate to show them because I hate the pointing and the staring and the intrusive questions. They think I don’t notice their shocked expressions and their unwillingness to look away but I do and it hurts me. They feel repulsed when they look at it and that’s when I feel that way about myself too. They assume it’s okay to ask why I have “snake skin” and offer unnecessary advice. This diminishes my confidence and makes me feel ashamed most of the time. So, I go back to covering it all up. One of the biggest dilemmas I face every single day is how the hell do I cover this up and still look good? Social gatherings are a headache because I’m thinking, “is the venue well lit? Oh no I can’t wear a skirt then.” I especially hate daytime because that’s when these patterns on my arms and legs are most prominent.

Speaking about this to loved ones hasn’t really helped me because they are not able to grasp the severity of the situation. I can’t say I blame them. But you know the irony is that my mother who has vitiligo doesn’t get it either. She thinks it’s a small road bump and that I’m making it worse than it is. Apart from a tiny handful of Youtube and Instagram accounts, I barely see my type of skin problems discussed in the open. Not sure when it will happen but I hope that one day I’ll be able to wear whatever the hell I want whenever I want, feel beautiful and not let people or this skin condition control my life.

My issues don’t stop at that though. I started pulling my hair when I was 10 years old. Whenever I feel stressed or anxious, I have this uncontrollable urge to pull my hair. Sometimes I even do it subconsciously. I could pull for hours when I’m by myself and I end up with bald spots on my head. As a child, most of my stress and anxiety came from home. I grew up having a physically and emotionally abusive father. It used to get worse when he was drunk. He would beat up my mother a lot. He was doing it even before I was born. Every day I wondered if my mother would make it alive to the next day and what I should do to protect her. I always made sure I stood in front of her whenever he came to hit her. Didn’t care about what would happen to me. Didn’t care that he was a 5’11 man and I was a tiny human being. I was confident I could handle him. Most days I was successful, and other days I’d get punched in the face or he would get to my mother before I could protect her.

When my sister was around, I remember feeling even more worried because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to protect them both from my father. But like me, my sister fought back too. We used to live in a two-bedroom apartment – my father lived in one room and my mother, my sister, before she left to college, and I lived in the other room. Our room was our sanctuary. As long as we got inside the room and locked it before he could get to us, we were safe. And I remember thinking it was my job to make sure that we do that diligently if we wanted to stay alive. When my grandparents used to visit, we would all live in that room.

No one at my school knew. None of my friends knew. I was a different person at school. I remember my fifth-grade math tutor was in the living room and we both heard my mother scream and I knew why. I immediately ran into her room without saying a word to my tutor and I found my father standing in corner of the room and my mother on the other corner. I remember threatening him to leave the room. And he did. And then I told mum to lock the door before heading back to the living room. When I sat back down, my tutor asked what happened and without hesitation I said that mum had a bad dream.

One night, I really had to pee and the toilet’s located outside the room. I was probably 11 at the time and I told my sister that I really needed to pee and when I bent down to peep through the gap between the door and the floor to check if the coast was clear, I saw that he was drunk and passed out right outside our door. So, using the toilet was obviously not an option. There was a tin bottle of Gillette shaving cream in the room. I removed the cap of the bottle and peed into it. My sister helped me place it outside the window so the smell wouldn’t spread in the room.

The hair pulling continued even after my mother, sister, housekeeper and I moved out of the apartment and lived separately. My sister wasn’t around much so it was mostly the housekeeper and me at home and my mum was always away at work. I think it was my housekeeper who informed my mother that I’d been pulling my hair and there was a big intervention. They thought I was doing this to myself because I wanted to. Because I liked doing it. They thought that by shaming me and threatening me, I would stop. They thought it’s a bad habit like nail biting. The more my mother would scream at me for doing it, the more I wanted to do it. My housekeeper once said to me in Malayalam, “atleast put your hair into a dustbin when you’re done so I don’t have to clean up after you all the time.”

My housekeeper was convinced that some evil spirit is compelling me to do this so every other morning she would take some red chilies and circle it around my head while chanting some mantra. Like my skin, I would go to extreme lengths to cover up my bald patches before I went to school. I’d have atleast 10-12 pins on my hair. My classmates found it strange but I didn’t care because it was a good cover up. I was officially diagnosed when I was around 18 years old? Mum took me to see a psychologist and psychiatrist after I started exhibiting signs of clinical depression. The psychiatrist said that it’s a compulsive hair pulling disorder called Trichotillomania and it is mainly caused by anxiety and stress. Mum didn’t register the bit about stress and anxiety because what could I possibly have anything to be stressed about? I didn’t have an abusive husband nor was I a single mother raising two kids by herself so naturally I am exempt from any kind of hardship.

Mental health is not taken seriously at my household. Maybe if I successfully took my own life, they would change their minds then or maybe not. My struggles aren’t viewed as legitimate because it is not the kind of hardship where I am not dying of cancer or missing a limb, or living in poverty so therefore I am just being weak and whiny. I don’t know about you but I don’t believe there is a permanent cure for clinical depression or anxiety. You can just try to keep them at bay. On good days, I feel fine and other days, I just want to permanently escape this life. I still pull my hair when I’m anxious. Not as much as I used to but I still do. I still deal with those “what happened to your hair” questions at the salons and my subsequent lies to cover it up. I’ve noticed the symptoms of trichotillomania many times on other women but I’ve never confronted them out of respect to their private space.

Trichotillomania affects women and men but studies find that it is more common among women. I guess because of it is an uncommon behavior, a lot of people do not openly talk about it from fear of being ridiculed. Mental health problems or behaviors that stem from mental health issues are particularly difficult to manage when your family does not understand or support you emotionally. And good therapists are almost impossible to find in the UAE and even more impossible to afford because basic insurance does not cover it. There is a clear lack of mental health awareness among many families, friends and corporate institutions. It is a part of everyone’s punchline but not a part of a serious, productive conversation. And there are people suffering in silence because of it. I suggest people start taking this seriously before someone they know and love decides to take matters into their own hands.

The moment someone finds out that I have a strained relationship with my mother, they automatically dismiss it as a typical mother-daughter squabble. You know that voice inside your head that tells you, “you will never measure up to anything valuable in life?” That voice for me is my mother. As a child up until my adulthood, she would show her affection in the only way she thought justifiable: by providing financial support. Don’t get me wrong. I am quite aware that I would not be able to pursue many opportunities in my life if it weren’t for her financially supporting me but how would you feel if she reminded you of that every step of the way? When people call me rich, I make sure to remind them that it is my mother who is and not me because my mother makes that clear distinction. When people say that I am “sorted in life” because I have my mother’s money, they have no idea that it has come to me at a heavy price. Sometimes the things she says are so hurtful that I wonder what I did to deserve this life. I see parents who are kind and gentle to their kids and have normal conversations without belittling them and I feel tremendous amounts of jealousy and sadness. What is wealth compared to a healthy parent-child relationship?

I know mum has been through a lot. She grew up in poverty to a family who didn’t treat her well. She married a man who didn’t spend a single penny on his family and was abusive to her. I know that situations were so bad at our home that we couldn’t even afford a snack box from KFC. I know that she has had to fight through adverse circumstances to get to where she is now. And I know that all this has taken a toll on her and she carries a lot of pain. But instead of finding a healthy way to navigate this pain, she releases it onto people closest to her. I remember my high school counsellor told me that the fights I have with mum are only temporary and that it will subside once I was older. I was 16 then and I am now 29 years old. Boy was she wrong. I’m not sure if it is because of the Indian culture or just society in general but we revere our elders, especially our parents. It is a rule that they must always be respected no matter how wrong and destructive they are to their children. In the eyes of society, if they feed you, clothe you and fulfill your financial needs, anything else they do or say that is negative must never be held against them. Imagine trying to explain to someone from such a school of thought that your relationship with your mother is so toxic that you’ve tried committing suicide? It’s pointless. They look at you like you’re irrational and spoilt.

Parents aren’t perfect. They make mistakes too. Why do most parents make you feel like they are doing you a huge favor by supporting you when they’re the ones who decided to bring you into this world? Once things were so bad at home, that I had had enough and made a run for the terrace and my mother managed to stop me. Let me tell you something: toxic parents do exist. They raise broken children who will inevitably carry on to be broken adults and most of the time, it is a difficult pattern to break out of. Mum does not respect me because I still depend on her but at the same time, she does not want to let me go either. It’s tough to convince yourself that you’re a good human being when the person who gave birth to you tells you otherwise. It’s tough but not impossible. I admire people who have managed to cut ties with their toxic parents because I believe it takes a special kind of courage to do so. I am not sure I ever will because I do feel I owe her a lot. But I do intend to move out and not depend on her anymore.

Alright, one more thing. Do you remember Hani Bakery? I lived two buildings away from it and I think at the time we were not financially stable. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment and my parents would sublet one room to another family. For a while though, that room would be empty. I think I was three or four at the time and someone took me into the room. It was completely dark and I remember I was lying on my back and someone was going down on me. I can’t remember who did it. I don’t know if it was a woman or a man. There are times when I used to think that it was part of a dream but I carried this with me into adulthood and I know it really happened.

I remember this other time I was 11 and I was walking to my building from the school bus. I developed physically at an early age. Got my period at the age of 10 and started having boobs at the age of 11 but mum was away at work most of the time so I never had “the talk”. I entered an elevator and there was a man inside it. As soon as the elevator door closed, he pressed himself against me and started groping me really hard. He kept saying that he loves me. I remember it hurt a lot. And I remember struggling to push him off. The elevator doors opened on an earlier floor and I managed to escape and run up to my floor through the fire exit. I remember how scared I was to look back because I thought he was chasing me. I remember feeling tremendous relief when I got home. I never told this to my family.

Then, during my first year at college, I became friends with a girl who came from a very conservative family. I enjoyed her company but I realized later that she was basically using me as an alibi to meet with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was this good looking, arrogant Indian dude whom I did not like but I didn’t say anything out of respect to my friend. My friend received a call from her parents and she had to leave so it was just me and her boyfriend. He proceeded to tell me that he likes her but he had second thoughts. I didn’t like where this was going so I told him I really needed to get back and he offered to drop me to my dorms. On the way he said that he needed to make a quick stop in his hotel room because he forgot something and he told me that waiting in his car alone would not be a good idea. I went with him to his hotel room. He pushed me to the bed and started taking off my top, when I resisted, he slapped me and asked me if I liked that. I managed to push him off completely and yelled at him. He apologized profusely and insisted that he drop me back. It was already past 10:30 pm so I considered it. And throughout the whole car ride, he begged me not to tell my friend and that it would ruin things between them. I was quiet and left the car as soon as he parked. Couple of days later I found out that he told her that something happened between him and me. He made it seem like it was consensual. She stopped talking to me.

Another incident happened later. I was invited to a very close friend’s birthday party at a club. I didn’t know anyone except for the birthday boy. The guys in his group would try to hit on me but I refused. One guy even tried to physically force me to drink. It got really late and no one was headed in the direction of my place so it was decided that I would wait at the hotel apartment with everyone. I was expecting to share an apartment with the girls but that did not happen. The birthday boy was completely shit faced so he wasn’t answering my calls and his guy friends made sure that I was put in the same hotel apartment as them. They also made sure that I wouldn’t be able to access the other apartment. Nothing happened in the beginning. One of the guys even escorted me to a large room and assured me that this was all mine and that no one else would enter it. I believed him. Later that night, two of them barged in and touched me inappropriately, took my hand and tried to make me give one of them a hand job and then tried to take off my clothes. The following morning, another guy came into the room and held me very tightly because he wanted feel my breasts against his chest apparently. After I left, I told my friend what had happened and how upset I was and instead of consoling me at the time, he was busy defending himself and we fought. I also found out later that the girls in his group thought that I willingly stayed with those guys. You know it’s not always strangers who are capable of this.

Last one. I was visiting a city and one of my ex’s invited me to stay at his place. His mum lives with him. So, I accepted the invitation. One night, we got back home pretty late and he was drunk. He made advances and I told him that I wasn’t interested. He ignored that and continued to put his hands inside my jeans. I pulled away and went inside the room. He followed me there and got on top of me and took off my clothes. I kept saying no but he didn’t listen. His mother was asleep in the next room. I burst into tears and that’s when he stopped. To this day, I am held accountable for their actions. I am told by women and men that I should have known better and that I was basically asking for it.

I haven’t completely healed from any of this. I am a work in progress. And I hope that someone will benefit from what I just shared. I hope that this helps me too.