Lockdown Diaries Nominee#31 How the lockdown helped me find myself By Jana Shamira

This pandemic was the most unexpected thing for all of us. We spent our whole 2019 saying that 2020 will be a better year. To an extent, it is, at least for me. This lockdown gave me time to work on myself. I do not usually talk about this has it is a sensitive subject, not even my parents know but ever since middle school, 7th grade to be exact. At some point, it got so bad that I was close to taking my own life, I probably would not be here writing this if it weren’t for my cousin. I honestly no longer know what caused my depression in the first place, and I don’t want to know honestly speaking. For years, I thought I was worthless and a disappointment, it did not help that things at home were not that great. My parents and I always fought. I hate to admit this but at some point, I highly disliked my dad and I thought that hey, at least I have mom until the day she did something that made me feel so betrayed.

Imagine that, being so young and going through so much already. I distanced myself from my parents a bit and decided to pretend like I was not hurting. I believe I have been doing that ever since I was small. To forget my problems, I would always help my friends with their problems. Well that would only work during the day and at night I would be upset again, hearing voices in my head saying negative things, I even lost touch with God for a while. I started to not trust people with my true feelings and 60% of the time wore a fake smile. I just wanted to disappear and the pain to end, I ignored my feelings so much that I became numb by 10th grade. I no longer cried, I didn’t even cry when my grandfather passed away, I told myself crying was a weakness and started to believe it. In 11th grade, I got back to going to church and tried to find ways to get better without my parents knowing.

It worked for a while but it wasn’t enough since I did not have time to think for myself, not that I gave myself time anyway the beginning of the lockdown,70% of the time if not 80%, I was alone and bored, I could not focus on anything not even Netflix believe it or not. My mind started to take over, feelings from the past resurfaced so I decided to finally face them. I started to write them down, started to exercise to feel better about my body, ignored messages, and Instagram at times. I finally let myself feel. I started reading the Bible, spoke to God about my feelings, worked on my art skills, and studied more. Slowly, I started to come back to the old yet new me, even worked on my relationship with my parents, which is slowly getting better.

If it weren’t for the break lockdown is giving me, I probably would have relapsed again. I now focus on myself and my studies more. There is nothing more important to me than making a name for myself and maybe one day, make my kids proud. Thanks to this lockdown, I also learned that I am my one and true love. Now, I am more confident about myself more than ever.

ReachIvy.com organized an online blog/vlog competition to provide people the unique opportunity to share their lockdown stories using their creativity. The competition met with a fantastic response from participants across 4 continents, and our jury has handpicked the Top 50 entries from them for the Popular Choice Award 2020!

The above entry has been submitted by Jana Shamira from New Delhi. She is a 15-year-old student of GD Goenka World SChool. Kudos to Jana for this beautiful piece!

Show your support and help Niraja win the contest by liking this blog post on all ReachIvy.com’s social media platforms!