RESURRECTION: A Story That Found Me When I Was Lost…
🌟 This blog has been chosen as the Winning Entry of the Window Seat Stories Collaboration, featured by Magazine Unicorn × Sameeksha Reads. 🌟
RESURRECTION. What does it mean in the real world, in a time when we are all moving at an unstoppable speed with a fear of losing hope or our grip on life altogether? Imagination can take us to places where time is not the factor guiding life. Actions become pivotal in dealing with misery and creating boundaries in a world that often tells us we don’t belong. The need to belong is so intense at times that it opens a vault of loneliness within us.
In 2011, I finished my schooling and sighed in relief at leaving an environment that suppressed my voice. It took away more from me than it ever gave. And as much as I never wanted to acknowledge it, the following years of graduation made me accept this grave cruelty. As a chronic illness survivor, I became an object of assumption, misunderstanding, and dismissal by peers and teachers who even dictated terms about my existence and intelligence.
“They didn’t believe in my potential to achieve a respectable and valuable status in life,” I often concurred while browsing Facebook and coming across old peers and teachers reconnecting. They didn’t care about my existence, even though we shared the same platform. Despite having endured hostility and indifference during my school years, I couldn’t fathom their reasons for neglect.
What was so strange or bad about being sick that people despised me? I thought with light sobs escaping my lips as I hustled to move past the trauma each day.
Nights and days crawled up and down. My health worsened as stress rolled back into my life. Self-loathing enveloped me as I slept through frigid nights, hoping that one day the pain would dwindle and I’d smile like an ordinary kid. Soon I found myself bedridden, battling suicidal thoughts under the weight of societal prejudice. Silence engulfed me from morning to night. I didn’t know whether it was the unbearable pain or the isolation, but it whispered: “Turn this misery into a story when all seems lost, you still have you.”
I came awake with a jolt.
I realized I had been in a trance of depression. But as the days went by, so did that voice until I stopped writing fanfiction and began working on my first original book: My Innocent Love. The name slipped from my lips as I closed my eyes, staring at the screen, and began to type the description. The words flowed straight from my heart for all those who had been told because they were sick that they were below ambition, undeserving of a meaningful professional or personal life.
The book became my experiment in rediscovering the lost foundation of unconditional love, for true love breaks the shackles of health and sickness and conquers society’s age-old prejudices. The story became a tribute to every chronic illness survivor, further exploring the psychological impact of bullying, indifference, PTSD, and the roots of dysfunctional relationships, while also grounding deep emotional connections, friendship, and romance between the lead pair.
As I wrapped up the book on Wattpad in 2016, ratings and reviews flooded in from around the world. It became my first trending novel and, if digital rules are followed, then perhaps even an international digital bestseller. My journey didn’t end there, because the book had resurrected my soul. Whether in post-graduation or interviews, ostracization continued to follow me. Yet, the book gave me a reason to exist, to believe, and to continue on this adventurous path of writing.
The love I received from readers and fans motivated me to consider traditional publishing. After months of querying, my manuscript was accepted by a foreign publisher. This first success gave me stability until interference from my old bullies shattered everything I had built. They hacked all my business accounts, putting my entire career in peril. With no social media presence to promote my brand, my publishers and I decided to part ways.
The book is based on reviving faith in humanity, yet this incident shook my soul. My heart shattered. My dreams collapsed before my eyes because I couldn’t let go of the story that had found me when I was lost.
And so, I started my writing career from scratch. The book didn’t reach the shelves of physical stores, but whether or not it ever becomes a paperback, my wish remains the same: for it to be the story that readers find when they are lost.
“This blog is a guest post contributed as part of the Window Seat Stories collaboration by – Dr. Neha Tekwani”
She is an award-winning International Literary Laureate. She holds a Doctorate in Marketing Management and an Honoris Causa Doctorate in Creative Writing. She writes multi-genre books, poetry, lyrics, columns, and scripts, while also serving as a Digital Marketing Strategist, Content Consultant & Strategist, and Creative Executive on a freelance and remote basis for publishing and entertainment brands. A humanitarian at heart, she aspires to contribute to the evolution of humanity through writing that empowers, inspires, and entertains.