The Perfect Girl

Yes, she is a very good student" "Wow didi ( word used normally to refer to an elder girl) , you topped again". "Our daughter bagged the second position in highschool, we're so proud of her". "Oh that little girl, she's really good in academics". So, these are just a few sentences I've grown up hearing. So if you're gonna ask how has been my childhood and teenage, I'll say it's more or less a quest of marks for having a good reputation in the neighborhood and making my parents proud about it. This was ME. But.. Really? Can academics be a person's identity? What about other things, my friendships, my behaviour, my art, my thinking and my actions? In India, no one really cares. So I was that 'perfect' girl, of whose whenever the discussions happened, they were always like" whoa damn, she's so intelligent". I thought it was normal. I thought I exist because I get marks. I have friends because I top in class, parents love me because my report card is an A+. I never thought there could be something more important to my personality, something that makes me as ME. After highschool, I started feeling weird. Everything changed then. There ran an unending emptiness inside me, I was in a dark tunnel with no opening, a vast ocean with no island. I felt terrible inside. I did'nt want to talk, or eat or go to school. Getting out of bed became difficult. Make-up or shopping did'nt excite me then. Feeling this wasn't new for me. Since I was 11, there had been bouts of depression and, sudden anxiety attacks from time to time. But this time, it was consistent. It didn't go. I still wondered what's going on. For months, I supressed these feelings with immense force. "You have to study, you have to get marks. You're a topper you need to maintain that. Kill these feelings and just study", is what I told myself each night before bed. Grades went down. I was hardly getting passing marks in a subject. Others were slightly better. I felt slowly disappearing from the world. Few months later, a went through a massive breakdown. An intrusive thought struck me hard. I was unable to get out of bed for days. I didn't do my hair, and kept on ruminating about the thought. My life came to halt. Academics? Ha! Completely messed up lol. Friends and family wondered what's wrong, how couldn't I qualify such an important exam? Some blamed it on over-confidence, some said I didn't study. Indian parents, as usual, said it was all because of mobile phone! So, I was diagnosed with OCD and depression, illness I don't know I have since when. This diagnosis was a huge relief, along with lots of questions. Now, I'm no longer a student who tops, so who I am? What are the things that define me? Are there things apart from grades that make me a person? Since the pressure of performing excellent in academics was released, I got a chance to explore within me, my dreams, my thoughts, my desires, my behaviour, my likes and dislikes. A chance to know who I am and what I'm for. An opportunity to know who's actually ME. As I go through this journey of self-exploration, I realise there's something terribly wrong with Indian education system. A student is trapped in a web of formulaes, overloaded with expectations to get 100% marks. They can solve mathematics question requiring 30 formulaes but don't know what to do when they are not feeling happy. They know physics, chemistry but hardly anything about their own self. They can write a four page essay on significance of an experiment conducted centuries back, but never gave a thought to what's the significance of their feelings and their life. I'm not the only one who went through this, but there's a huge number of students handling depression and academic pressure simultaneously. The Indian education system needs a complete revolution. I'm happy that presently, people holding the ministries are concerned about it. The journey of knowing myself is a long one, and so is the treatement of depression and OCD. Its full of bumps, but its beautiful ❤. I'm in university now. For the first time in years, I have kept aside thoughts of tests and exams, dressed myself up, did my hair and went for shopping with friends💞😆