And I think there is something strangely beautiful about that.

liles have always been my favourite flowers. I have bought them for people I loved or have loved at some point in my life, but somehow I had never bought them for myself.

I remember writing in one of my Substack notes that lilies are my favourite, and yet I had never received them, not even once, and I wish someone would remember my favourite flowers and walk into my life, placing these pretty flowers in my hand and say,

“I know you have been waiting for them; I know you’ve been yearning for them”

That was how I imagined my first lilies.

And I used to wonder how I could have loved people so deeply, told them so many times that lilies were my favourite, even bought lilies for the people I loved and yet never received them myself?

but today, when I bought them something, felt different

I didn’t think, “I wish someone had bought these for me”

I didn’t imagine someone else standing beside me

I just bought them for myself

And maybe that’s the part that surprises me the most because somewhere along the way I stopped waiting; I stopped craving to be loved by someone else.

Not because I stopped believing in love, but because I finally found a kind of love that doesn’t need to be given to me by someone else.

the love i was searching for was already inside me i just couldn’t see it before.

And now that I can, it feels peaceful, it feels beautiful, colourful, glittery, almost like a fairy tale that I finally get to live in.

Only this time, im not waiting for someone to save me from the loneliness of not being loved.

Because I love me because I am the love of my life

And maybe that’s the most beautiful thing I have ever found.

Today, I bought myself lilies and somehow, they feel even more special because this time, they came from me.

When every inch of my skin is stitched together by scar and stories I never wanted?

You see a person standing before you, but what you don’t see are the ruins beneath. the places where hope was buried. the corner of my soul that never made it out of fire.

Darling,

My skin is not skin anymore its a battlefield. My heart is not a heart anymore - it’s an open wound that never learned how to close.

Everything hurts.

The memories hurt. The silence hurts. The night hurt.

And the worst part, nobody can see the blood because it doesn’t fall from my veins, it drips from my soul.

So tell me, darling, how am I supposed to let you touch me?

How am I supposed to melt into your arms when the gentlest touch feels like salt on wounds that are still begging to heal?

My skin is burning, it’s bleeding. I’m breaking in places no one can reach.

And I’m terrified that even if your fingers brush against me, you’ll discover what I’ve spent years hiding beneath this skin. There is nothing but pain, nothing but scars, nothing but a heart that has forgotten what safety feels like.

So don’t ask me why I pull away, darling.

ask the storm that lived inside my chest, ask the ghost that never left. ask the wounds that never became scars because they are still bleeding.

Then maybe you will understand why a hug feels less like comfort and more like standing on the edge of death.

At first she was fighting it. Fighting the water, fighting her body, fighting to reach the shore. You can actually see the survival instinct inside her refusing to let go. But then something shifts. Not outside her inside her. Later, when people ask what happened, she keeps avoiding the question until eventually she admits that for one second she thought, “What’s the point?”

And that was the moment she stopped trying and started sinking.

That scene did something terrible to me.

It reopened wounds I thought had finally learned how to stay quiet. Suddenly I was no longer sitting comfortably watching a fictional character drown on a screen. I was back inside my own life, reliving the years where I was drowning too just not in water.

People think drowning is loud. That there’s screaming and chaos and someone calling for help.

But sometimes drowning is painfully silent.

Sometimes it looks like lying in bed for days because existing itself feels exhausting. Sometimes it looks like not eating, not speaking, not replying to texts, not stepping outside your room for weeks. Sometimes it looks like crying so much every single night that eventually even your tears start feeling empty.

There was a phase in my life where depression consumed me so completely that I stopped recognizing myself. I had panic attacks almost every day. I lost my appetite entirely. I isolated myself from everyone around me. I lived alone, miles away from my family, while my mind slowly turned against me in ways I didn’t even know how to explain.

And yes, I had suicidal thoughts every single day.

It still feels terrifying to admit that out loud because people romanticize survival stories once they’re over, but living through them is ugly and horrifying and lonely. There were nights when I held a knife in my hand and genuinely thought about ending everything. And when I think about what stopped me back then, the answer isn’t poetic.

At first, it wasn’t hope.

It was fear.

I was terrified that if I somehow survived, I would have to look my father in the eyes afterward. I kept thinking: what explanation would I even give him? How do you explain to someone that your own mind became too heavy to carry?

And strangely enough, that fear kept me alive long enough for love to eventually replace it.

Back then there was also someone in my life who did everything possible just to make me smile once a day. He would go beyond what anyone normally would for me, and the sad part is that I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even fully appreciate it then. Depression makes you selfish in survival-mode ways. Not intentionally cruel just emotionally numb. And now he is not even my best friend anymore, not even really a friend. But I still carry gratitude for the version of him that sat beside me while I was emotionally collapsing.

I have a habit of telling five different stories inside one story, but maybe that’s what trauma actually is fragmented memories trying to become whole.

A few months later my family found out about my depression and panic attacks because I had a full-blown two-hour panic attack in front of all of them.

They didn’t understand what was happening.

Honestly, neither did I.

I couldn’t explain the terror inside my body while it was happening. I just remember my family trying everything they possibly could to calm me down. Calling doctors. Praying. Begging God to make me okay again.

And then I saw my father crying.

I still cannot fully explain what that did to me.

That moment shattered me more than the depression itself ever had because until then, my pain only belonged to me. But suddenly I could see it reflected in the eyes of the people who loved me. I realised my suffering was not happening in isolation. The people around me were drowning with me, helplessly watching someone they loved disappear inch by inch.

And right there, in front of my eyes, was the answer to the question that Meredith asked in that water.

What’s the point?

The point was them.

The point had always been them.

I just couldn’t see it while I was sinking.

I realised that the reason I didn’t give up had always existed. At first it existed in the form of fear, and later it transformed into love. Or maybe it was always love and I was simply too broken to recognise it.

I have always been my family’s princess, and honestly there is no shame in admitting that. I was loved deeply, cared for, protected, pampered. People act like being loved is something embarrassing to confess, but I think being loved properly is one of the greatest privileges in the world.

And that day, something inside me shifted forever.

Not healed. Shifted.

Because healing is not cinematic the way movies show it. I did not wake up the next morning magically free from depression. I remained clinically depressed for almost two more years and somehow managed to discover newer lows with every passing month. But after that day, whenever I had a panic attack, I called my father.

Even now, it’s still my instinct. And honestly, I love that it is.

The way he handles me, my emotions, my fears I don’t think I will ever be able to explain my gratitude for it properly. He never once told me I was overthinking. Never once said it was “all in my head.” He never treated my emotions like they were inconveniences that needed to be silenced.

When I cried, he never told me to stop crying and “be strong.” He told me to cry as much as I needed to.

And when I once told him I felt weak for falling apart so often, he said that among all his children, I was the strongest one because I was carrying unbearable things alone and still waking up every day trying again.

He told me my emotions were not my weakness.

Maybe that sentence saved me in ways even he will never fully understand.

What makes this even more meaningful to me is that I never expected this level of understanding from him. I come from a small town. My father is 55 years old. We constantly hear people say our generation understands mental health better, but honestly most people still don’t understand the seriousness or depth of it. I’ve had people call me weak just because I experienced panic attacks.

So naturally, I assumed my father wouldn’t understand either. But instead of dismissing me, he learned. He read about my condition. Consulted doctors. Tried to educate himself. Changed whatever he could just to make life a little easier for me.

And I think that kind of love changes a person permanently.

So yes, I didn’t give up because of my family.

Even when I had every reason to.
Even when ending everything felt easier than surviving one more day.
Even when the pain, guilt, darkness, and exhaustion felt unbearable.

I stayed.

And maybe that is why that Grey’s Anatomy scene affected me so deeply. Because I understood that moment Meredith talked about. I understood what it feels like when your body is still fighting but your mind quietly asks, what’s the point anymore?

I had that moment too. More than once.

But unlike Meredith sinking into dark water, every single time I was falling apart, there was always someone standing at the shore waiting for me to come back. Sometimes it was my father answering my late-night calls during panic attacks. Sometimes it was my family praying helplessly for me in the next room. Sometimes it was simply the unbearable realization that my life belonged not only to me, but also to the people who loved me fiercely through every ugly part of it.

And maybe that is what saved me in the end.

Not strength.
Not motivation.
Not some magical moment of healing.

Just love. patient, stubborn, unwavering love.

The kind that stays beside you even when you become difficult to recognize.
The kind that learns your pain instead of dismissing it.
The kind that keeps calling your name while you’re drowning.

I still carry pieces of that darkness inside me sometimes. I still carry scars from those years. Maybe I always will.

But I also carry the memory of surviving them.

And honestly, after everything I endured, after every night I thought I wouldn’t make it to morning, after every version of myself that almost disappeared beneath the weight of my own mind

I’m fucking proud that I stayed alive long enough to finally stop sinking.

why then was I punished as though I had committed one?

You gave me wounds, and asked me to keep stitching them in silence.

You took my heart, my breath, my very life, and then smiled softly and said,

“Keep winning.”

Tell me, my love,

what victory is left for a soul that surrendered everything at your feet?

If loving you was innocent, why does my heart carry the sentence? Why do your memories burn like prayers that were never meant to be answered?

You broke me so gently that the world still believes I am whole.

And I keep living, with your name hidden inside every scar, pretending survival is the same as triumph.

You were the sweetest pain i was ever asked to endure, the most beautiful loss I was ever forced to call my destiny.

And even now, with shattered dreams trembling in my hands,

I love you so deeply that I wear my suffering like a love letter

and call this ruin devotion.

I was on depression medication and sleeping pills, having panic and anxiety attacks, dealing with chronic migraines, gaining weight, my face full of acne, hair falling out, hormones completely messed up. I didn’t even feel like myself.

And now… if I look at my life today, it feels unreal in the best way.

I’m single. I’m at peace. I’m genuinely happy. I’m not on any medication. My body feels healed. My skin is clear. My hair is healthy. I’ve found comfort in my own company. I go out alone. I do things just because they make me happy. I take care of my mental and physical health. I started writing again, reading again. I’m back on the badminton court. I’m doing well academically. And I have people around me who truly, genuinely love me.

Sometimes I still feel like I haven’t done anything extraordinary. But rebuilding yourself from rock bottom is extraordinary. And I’m so proud of myself for choosing to stay, to heal, to grow.

I’m so grateful for my family, my best friend, my guide, my Maa and Mere prabhu for holding me when I couldn’t hold myself. Because of their love and support, I’m who I am today.

For the first time in a long time, I don’t just exist.

I feel alive.

I fall apart.

Not from weakness, but from the overwhelming feeling of being seen being understood being loved.

There was a time

when silence was my only companion. No one knew the storms unraveling inside me. No arms reached. No voice softened. No presence lingered long enough to understand.

I have known the quiet devastating feeling of carrying anguish alone, of yearning for comfort and dying to be just heard and seen and finding only emptiness.

So now, when someone chooses to stay and when they love me without condition, without request, without hesitation my heart does not know how to hold it all.

It trembles.

It weeps.

It overflows.

And within those tears

lives a profound gratitude a sacred awareness that I am blessed to have them beside me, blessed to be loved so gently, blessed to no longer be alone.