A Letter To Myself

24 September 2020,

Hey Tamanah,

Happy birthday! I still remember the day when I met you, my alter ego. I remember why I named you Tamanah. Firstly, it means wish and I remember at that time I desperately wished that I would be pulled out from the dark storm that was about to swallow me up soon and the second being that this particular name was my other potential name. I was a depressed 11 year girl who was forced to maintain a diary. I often wonder why I don’t call you ‘dear diary’ like the other people out there. But then again I was never a part of the ‘other people bracket’. Since it has been 5 years since our journey together, I’m feeling really nostalgic and want to reflect on my past. I have changed drastically over the years. Still haven’t gotten over the past completely though, but, let’s rewind to our earlier memories on our birthday shall we?

First entry 

24 September 2015

I don’t know what to call you and I’m not going to call you diary. It’s too weird and foreign. I’m still angry about the fact that I’m being forced to maintain a diary. I mean who even writes a diary let alone a 11 year old? But then again I’m not the ‘normal’ 11 year olds who has friends who feel that they can tell them every detail of their life. Also not all kids my age are diagnosed with minor depression and eating disorders. My mom and psychologist believe that it’ll help me feel better. How long though? I’m tired of everything. I’m done. I don’t even know why this is happening to me. Why me? I mean I guess I have a rough idea of how this happened.

It started in my third grade. I have always been a person who is curious about her surroundings and loves asking questions. In my third grade, my class teacher had some sort of a grudge towards me and she used to scold me a lot. She also used to give me minor punishments. Once on a cold winter day, she made me sit on the floor for a whole day and as a result there were bruises on my back when I came from school. My parents were pretty furious upon knowing this incident. They had contacted the principal of the school immediately and told her about the incident. The complaint had fallen to deaf ears and at the end of the year I was pulled out of that school and enrolled into another. 

This school was a new school not just to me but in the city. So, I had a good chance to make new friends and since everyone was a newbie it got pretty comfortable. I was happy I had great teachers, new friends and a new environment in all. The initial months in the new school were like heaven. I traveled in a bus where I was comfortable and enjoyed myself due to the ‘commute time’ activities that took place over there. 

This was the calm before the storm. Half way through the year, I have managed to make a new enemy. He was a senior and naturally everyone on the bus was afraid of him since he was the oldest there. The incident that led to this was an activity that was being conducted that day in the bus. He thought that I had stolen his answer for some question. Can you believe it? Someone bullies their junior just because of some dumb questions and can’t believe that someone younger to them can’t be smarter that them. Dude seriously?! Anyway, he has been troubling me since then. I have two teachers on the bus. One of them has acted as my saviour this year. She discouraged the children in the bus from bullying me. Oh my God! I’m really thankful for her. I hope that this bullying ends soon. Anyway, signing out. 

Hah! How naive I was! Remember what had gone down after that entry Tamanah?

The teacher who had saved me had to leave the school for some reason and the bullying resumed. Now, the other teacher on my bus had turned a blind eye to the whole incident. I used to go to her everyday crying first thing in the morning asking her to tell those kids to stop. Do you believe what she used to tell me? ‘Maybe it’s your own fault’ and ‘I can’t help you with this’. WHAT?! How can you not help a nine year old who’s being bullied? I respect all the teachers in the world with the bottom of my heart. But, I don’t know why, I still have a sour taste in my mouth whenever I think of that teacher who walked away when I was being bullied RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER EYES! But I did have some guardian angels with me. The teacher who taught our seniors social studies and our school’s librarian. These two teachers had been my pillars since I entered the school. Our social studies teacher was somewhat intimidating and I had informed him of the bullying as a last hope. He had been quite alarmed when I informed him of this. He had taken immediate action and surprisingly the very next month my bus had been changed and the guy no longer troubled me. The teacher had also told me to speak up for myself. I still don’t know what potential he saw in me back then but he kept pushing me to give my best. 

I wasn’t an angel that year. I kept feeling agitated due to the continuous pain and being helpless has always frustrated me till no end. On one such day I was really angry and lashed out at one of my friends and ended up cursing at him. Being a nine year old, it hurt him and before I had a chance to explain myself, he had complained about me to the class teacher. She had punished me appropriately though and I was not allowed to speak to any of my classmates for the rest of the day. I had regretted the words as soon as they had come out of my mouth but it was of no use. 

The next year I felt hopeful that it would all be ok. But boy was I wrong. A new change came into my life. My long time best friend had started changing big time. And since I used to majorly rely on her in the past few years, it shook me badly. I was devastated. But, I soon managed to make friends on my own as well. We used to hang out but not as often as before. We somehow have managed to remain friends though. She certainly does hold a special place in my life. Our boat has been rocked a lot and despite the fact that we don’t talk anymore like we used to once, we can still rely on each other to vent out. Sometimes I feel bad for leaving her side during our pre teens and teens but I guess it was better for both of us. She has also been encouraging to me my whole life, is a fantastic listener and literally pushes me a lot to speak out. I often feel like she is one of my truest friends and we have been through a lot and still manage to be friends.

The consequent year, our friend circles had diverged completely and I had a new best friend. She was quite like me and we had our own introverted fun of hanging out and talking to each other. That year was like a break year for me as I went on in my life smoothly. 

Then, came the news that made my heart shatter. My best friend was no longer going to go to school with me since she had to shift to a new place. We both had hugged each other and cried. I had been quite sad to see my best friend go. 

Then came the year when I somehow fell prey to the ‘toxic friends’ of mine. They used to mock my height (I was one of the tallest people in my school). That didn’t affect me since I took pride in my height. But then they started targeting my weight and my intelligence. Being the dumb person I was,I really started to believe them. My grades plummeted down badly. I had also come to develop a minor eating disorder. I used to skip both my school lunch as well as my home lunch by somehow fooling my parents. I thought I was doing the right thing and how smart I was since I managed to fool both my real friends and family. And these were the years when I had a very hectic schedule. School and right after that I had my lawn tennis class followed by a karate class and ended with a yoga class.

This routine went on smoothly for two months and I thought that I was now a bit skinnier and somehow that made me look pretty. When in reality I looked sick I felt sad for the majority of my day. A couple of my friends noticed that I hadn’t been eating my school lunches and decided to tell my parents about the same. Oh my gosh, how panicked my mother had been. To top it off, I had once screamed at my mother that I had no will to live anymore. She had cried a lot that day. 

After these incidents, she had decided to take me to a psychologist who had suggested me to maintain a diary to vent my feelings out. 

The following two years, I kept doing better. Where we come to this day three years later and I feel so much better about myself. I feel grateful for the people who believed in me when I didn’t and pushed me to branch out. I don’t know how I have gotten this lucky to have the people in my life who kept saying that we believe in you. I’m especially thankful for my teachers and parents who catalysed my process of bettering myself. One of my most special memories that stand out is that one day a teacher had told me that I could become the school’s captain if I started expressing myself verbally and not only one paper. The eleven year old me had laughed at the very absurd idea of me doing anything like that. Oh how I wish that I could tell that girl that she was very much mistaken about her opinion and how her mentor had been right. My other very recent memories is that one of my fabulous teachers had told me to start aiming for the stars since she believes that I can achieve anything I want in life. 

All I want to say is that even if I don’t believe I will be able to do something really awesome that can help anyone on this planet, I’m taking baby steps towards living my dream and trying to achieve it. I have started to look out for opportunities to speak in front of a crowd, have started a blog and learning new languages. I have crazy amounts of dreams and I wish from the bottom of my heart that I achieve it. I’m afraid of falling on my way and stumbling in the dark but I’m very much sure that with so many people behind me showing me a torchlight and helping me up, I can definitely make it. Not only the people around me, even I have started believing in myself and I hope one day I fly higher than I could imagine. One day I hope to come back on this letter to myself and tell the sixteen year old girl that you did it. I once read somewhere: Be that someone the eight year old you would be proud of. I want to do that.

Love always,

Myself