Traumatic

"Childhood is that golden period in everyone's life which should be cherished and fondly remembered. There may be few lucky people who get what they cherish for a lifetime, while on the other hand, there may be many of us who want to erase those memories and move on as remembering them will be traumatic. These were definitely not asked or done by the child or children but they get to face the after-effects of these experiences which overflow into their adulthood even. Could they be avoided or corrected? Well, maybe if the parents or caregivers would react or respond at the right time. It is not always these children belong to broken homes, orphanages or Street children. They definitely might face many such traumatic experiences in their lives and when we think about their plight it is heart-wrenching. These are beyond our control anyways. But unfortunately, many children might have been going through such horrendous experiences which may not even be heard. This is a story of a young girl who is now a grown-up adult with a family of her own. What she went through as a young girl and what happened due to what she went through is the gist of this story. The characters mentioned here are not fictitious; they are real and mean to a great extent. Zia was a beautiful girl who was well-mannered and sensitive. She was obedient, friendly, helpful and honest. She was good in studies, singing, dancing and sports as well. Most of the time she won prizes for these activities. Life was good for a young teenager. Then came the worst phase of her life in the form of her mother's distant relative who came to stay with them as he was in search of a job. Being a big city it would fetch him a job and it was Zia's place where he would stay as he would look for a job. Zia and her family were fine with it. Initially everything was fine but one day something very scary happened which was about to change the entire life of a young innocent child."

    One day when Zia returned home from school, she was welcomed inside by her uncle. Zia was informed by him that her mother was at the hospital as she had to get some medical tests done urgently. Zia understood the situation and walked towards her room to change her clothes and get ready to go to her music class after a while. Her uncle followed her up to her room and as she was about to ask him to leave the room so that she could change her uniform, he coyly walked up to her and hugged her tightly almost suffocating her breath. Zia was terrified and she started crying. As her crying became a bit louder, the uncle shouted at her asking her to shut her mouth and he left the room hurriedly. Zia was dumbstruck and stood still for some time. The doorbell rang and her mother had returned home. Zia came out of the room and found her mother looking listless and tired after getting the medical tests done. So, she did not want to tell her what her uncle had done to her a while ago. She wants to brush it off as a single incident that might not be repeated again. But what the young girl did not know was that the uncle had got a cue that the girl was scared to talk about what had happened with her and this was a good chance for him to repeat the same with her as he was confident that Zia will hesitate to talk about it to anyone. This is the most common mistake which most of the victims of such treacherous behavior do and become scapegoats to these wolves who are considered humans. The male wolf that is her so-called uncle was moving around the house casually as if he was the noblest soul around. Zia was in such a situation where she could not reveal her ordeal nor could she conceal it within herself. But what could a young girl do but keep quiet and tolerate the nonsense that was happening to her.

    Under the pretext of teaching her to play chess and carrom, her wolf uncle had got a chance to touch her inappropriately whenever he wanted. He could easily get away with any complaints if Zia gathered her sense and dared to do so. This was another device he used to satiate his beastly attitude. He might have enjoyed looking at the plight of the young girl. Zia did try to express her displeasure about the uncle in question to her mother but she was not able to articulate her ordeal properly again age was the factor. These episodes continued nonchalantly for quite some time. One night Zia had a sort of an encounter with the beast uncle, which was going to play havoc with her life well into her adulthood.

    One night when she got up from her disturbed sleep which was so since her ordeal began, she found a dark figure standing near her bed which looked naked. As the room was dark and it was midnight, Zia screamed loudly scared and shivering. As she screamed, the dark figure ran towards the door to escape from the room. As the figure got to the door, the light in the pathway showed the face of the dark figure that was running out. Yes, you guessed it right. It was none other than her uncle who had come to her room and nobody knows for how long he was there and what he did with the little girl.

    Zia's parents who came running to her room on hearing her screams consoled her. Among tears and shivering, she was showing her finger towards the door. She was not in a position to speak. Her parents understood it was a nightmare she had and took her to their room where she spent the rest of the night. Repeated questioning by her mother about the nightmare did not yield any answer from Zia. With time it was forgotten by everyone. Zia could never overcome the fear of nighttime. She could not sleep peacefully nor could she get up on time. She used to shudder and tremble suddenly in sleep and would cry frequently. Her parents were worried as to what the reason was.

      Zia developed neurotic symptoms and she needed to get counselling and medications as well. She almost started hating men. She developed obsessive-compulsive neurosis and was facing hell in her day-to-day life.          

     As she grew up and joined college her education helped her to realise that whatever had happened to her was not at all her mistake.She stopped feeling guilty and ashamed of herself.She gathered courage and revealed the issue to her parents.Her parents were shocked beyond words.By that time the wolf uncle had already left their home for another faraway place and so he could not be questioned.       

Zia and her ordeal of guilt and remorse continued. She was blaming herself for all that had happened even when she tried to convince herself that it was not her mistake at all. As an adult, she suspected every man and every person.

     If she wanted to believe her childhood experiences would spring up and she would be back to her original self. After her marriage, it took a lot of time for her side to lead a conjugal life with her husband. She was again guilty and blamed herself for troubling her husband who was unaware obviously of her childhood ordeal. What if? kept on tormenting her mind. Many times she wanted to reveal all about to her husband but she refrained from doing so for all the obvious reasons. Even today those memories haunt her and she keeps questioning herself and unknown as to why she? why she was targeted by a close relative who was not supposed to do so. What would have happened if she had told about these things to her parents, should she have revealed it or it was wise that she kept it to herself???? Readers try to understand your children's concerns if any, try to put yourself in that position, try to have a simple talk with them frequently and maintain a healthy and friendly relationship with certain restrictions with your children so that they feel free and confident to reveal any trauma they might be facing so that their life would not become hell forever.