I am not Dale Carnegie who can persuade you with a powerful piece of writing but I do have my share of stories and today I will be sharing a story; My story.
My name is Rikzah Zia. I was born in Lahore on 1 st of November, 1996. My childhood has been a beautiful one. I remember , I made my very first friend at the age of 4; Asma. We used to play , sing and I had a little swimming pool in which we’d play for hours. Life was beautiful for me because my young brain was not mature enough to read the situations around me at that time.
I was in 8 th grade when the real trouble began. My aunt who lived in Sialkot died shortly after she was successfully operated for her tonsillitis. The operation was a success but apparently due to the overdosage of anesthetic drugs, she never recovered her conciousness. Her brain had somehow suffereda severe loss of oxygen. I was 12 years old at that time.
My aunt had two children, a girl and a boy and it was very difficult for my grandmother to raise two kids on her own so my father decided that we should move to Sialkot. This news shocked me to the core. I was in a state of disbelief that how can my father make me leave my school , my friends and especially my grandfather behind, but he did that and before I could understand anything else , I was in a bus headed towards our new destination.
Grandmother’s house in Sialkot was not in the main city area so all of the schools were at great distances, so my father decided that I should be homeschooled. Those 3 years were the hardest for me. I had no school to go to, no friends and no teachers. Everyday I would watch kids my age happily chatting on their way to school.This was a bit too much for my younger self to digest so I began to shift in a state of hallucination.
In my depressing state, my first childlike effort against it was to create my own world ; an imaginary one. With every passing day my imaginary world replaced the real world bit by bit , and with this came my habit of lying. Ofcourse at that time , those lies were reality for me. With time It became so severe that I’d go around telling people that I have a twin sister , I have a lot of friends I play with and I have teachers who adore me.
Ofcourse it was all in my head so when sane people denied the facts I presented to them my anger and hatred grew more and more. People used to say offensive things like “Rikzah why dont you go to school?” “You are wasting your life.” or “You will never be able to do anything Rikzah”. With the labels of a “Loser” and a “slow learner” on me, I somehow managed to get through my Matriculation.
I swear by Allah, that if He was not there to help me, I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own. After this tormenting time period came the biggest challenge ; to defeat my depression and lying habit and return to being a normal human again. I am going to give you this heads up right now, Dealing with depression especially when you are young and lack the wisdom to deal with life, it is exceptionally hard.
Between this I was diagnosed with PCOS. If I don’t put it in scientific terms , it is a disease that makes people gain weight and lose hair; it basically makes a person ugly. My doctor told me that I can either The better you.
treat it by taking medicines or I can deal with it the natural way. For the first time in my life, I decided to go for the hard way. I started doing exercises and developed my own workout routine. I began to shift from junk foods to a healthy lifestyle.
Did this help me ? Yes and not only physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. I realized that more the effort you put in, more visible are the results. I was 13 when it all started and now I am at the age of 21. It took me 7 years to overcome my depression and the bad habits I had gained and 2 years to reform myself into becoming a better person.
I am still slow at learning new things but I never stop. My grades have improved and my exposure to the world has increased. It was not easy but let me tell you this, if a slow-learner like me can do it, so can you. Have a little faith in Allah and in yourself as well.
Allah did not create you without a purpose. All you have to do is look for it and if you stay true to yourself and others around you, you will find it one day. The better you.
Recent Comments