I was raised as a Catholic in India where my father was a religious leader in church. He was 22 years older than my mother. After I was baptised, my whole life was mapped out for me, and I felt as though I did not have my own identity outside of my family and religion. From a young age, my father was physically and emotionally abusive to my siblings and I. He was very controlling, and as the head of the home and a man of God, his word was law. When I was born, he was very unhappy that I was a girl. I was the eldest child in my family, and I was raised as a boy for many years, which impacted upon my sense of self. It was a difficult childhood, and I received little praise for my accomplishments. If I did well in school, my father would say it was because he had prayed for my success, and he took credit for my hard work. At the age of 15, the women in my family started talking to me about marriage and preparing me for a husband, but my father still considered me to be a boy, so he delayed my marriage. During this time my mother had separated from my father and was living in a safe place.
At this time, I began expressing an interest in journalism, but my father told me I could not pursue this and forced me to read scriptures on obedience for a week. He told me I had to confess and say why I had been punished. I began distancing myself from the church and it was at this time that my mother shared with me her own experience of abuse, the memories of which I had since repressed. When I was very young, my mother was pregnant with her second child. She was taken to a priest so they could pray and perform rituals on her in order for her to give birth to a boy child. They made her perform animalistic rituals such as forcing her to sit underwater and pray upside down. I recall seeing my mother doing this and her fainting from exhaustion. The priests tried to do an exorcism on her as they thought there was a demon in her womb sending out female children. My mother miscarried her second child following one of these religious ceremonies. My second sibling born after this was also a female, and it made my father question his faith. He sought out practitioners of black magic for protection and they told him that there needed to be a sacrifice for the ritual to work. They said my mother had to make herself ugly for the ritual, and so my father physically beat her until her face was bruised and bloody. I was aged 4 at this time, and they took me to a temple in a cave where two women whipped my mother and made her beg for forgiveness for delivering girl children. After this happened, my mother was mute for six months.
After my brother was born, my father reconciled with the Catholic Church. At this time, I began asking lots of questions for which I was punished. I was made to stand at the entrance to our home and be drenched in water repeatedly to remove demons. My sister also received punishments to be ‘cleansed’, but my brother was never abused, and by age 8 or 9 he began behaving like my father and being abusive to the women in the family.
When my father was 60 years old, he experienced delirium and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was very angry at him for what he had done to me, but I felt that I was not allowed to be angry because he had an illness for which he needed treatment. I went to a priest and confessed, and he told me that God was trying to get me to realise that my father was not a bad man. I started distancing myself from family and friends and taking care of my father. Previously I had been working in therapy, but after seeing the priest I stopped my sessions. My colleague however continued to check in and eventually I decided to return, which helped me understand my experience and that I needed help.
Now, I am working in the UK and help people with issues of abuse and trauma. My father passed away in 2021 and my mother and siblings cut off his side of the family in order to protect themselves. I have now separated myself from my father’s side of the family and am living independently to stay safe. I am proud of now being able to help others and recover from the generations of abuse that happened in my family.