Religion
Love
Bulimia
2007
Jesus
Camp
2008
Camp
After camp
This is going to be long. Bear with me.
Writing a testimony is harder than I thought it would be. There is so much in my head, so much to say… How do I contain my whole life in a page? I’ll try.
When I was young, I used to think I lived in the most beautiful place in the universe. Everything was amazingly perfect. My family was perfect, my life was perfect. But as one grows older, one finds that things aren’t always what they seem to be. For me, heartaches started to unfold from when I was a child.
There’s always a before and after story in a testimony right?
Before I gave my life to Jesus… fully, my life was a slow steady progression to living hell. I was literally forced into my mother’s arms. My mum and dad couldn’t have children, and my mum’s sister worked as a nurse in a private clinic in Kedah, where I was born. According to my mum, the woman who bore me didn’t want me. I was an ‘accident’. She was too young to have a child.
The doctor however, had plans for me. He wanted to ‘sell’ the baby and get a good commission. So my aunty ran with the newborn, to
I think the downward spiral began when I was 5. The feeling of being rejected. People might deny it, but I’d take a bullet to my heart any day than face rejection. My mum, already fed up with her elder sisters children and their unruliness, started roughing me up. She was blunt and mean. Everything I did had a hidden meaning it seems. But my mum still loved me. She still does, but I don’t think she knows how to be a mother. I admit I was a difficult child too. Growing up without other influences of the outside world, I developed my own personality. To hide from the pain of rejection, I built a hardcore character around it. I was invisible. Nobody could break me.
But nobody saw the tears I've cried every night from when I was 5. I’d scream silently so that nobody would hear, until my head hurt so much. I’d cry out to God. Where was He when I needed Him so much?? I always convinced myself that God made me out of left over clay and that I was ugly and useless.
I attempted my first suicide when I was 12. I still remember that day. I drank a whole cup of pesticide. Nothing happened… and I begin an endless cycle of planning my deaths. I couldn’t handle the fact that my mother didn’t know how to love me. My relatives didn’t accept me. Everything was fake. For 3 years, I would at least hurt myself badly once every month. Be it an attempted suicide, or self harming. Cutting myself. I loved the pain. It was a high. Out of all my suicide attempts, my parents only knew one. They still only know one.
This continued until I met an Aussie guy online. And I felt loved, and cared for. He cared for me more than my dad ever did. I don’t wanna say much here, for now. He made me reduce my self injuries, and he helped me see the beauty that God has made me, inside, outside. Before that, I was empty, hollow. Life revolved around school, self destruction, food, TV. Death, sleep, torture..
Nothing more.
When my mum realized about me and him and that we were getting serious, she began to torment me more. 2005-2006 was crazy. It was tough to deal with, and with SPM, ugh it was hard.
After school, I wanted to move to
I've had an eating disorder since I was 10/11. Bulimia. The rush of eating food worth for 3 people and throwing up everything… It is disgusting, but it was my life. My mother’s ridicule of the embarrassment I have become. To her it was reverse psychology. To me it was slow suicide. I was sure I would die of a broken heart. But in 2007, after school, everything started going from worst to beyond hell. My cousin was in deep mess back in KL, and she and her mum moved in with us. Since Saishree was born, we have always been compared. I was always the smarter more talented one. But she was the beautiful one. And though intelligence held weight in my family, beauty came in first. My mum always told me how embarrassed she was to go out with me. So living with somebody I love (my cousin) yet being made to hate her.. was torment.
January was the month I accepted Christ. Honestly, I didn’t know what I did. I was just happy to have finally found a Saviour. Somebody who was real, and it was like my life conquest was finally over. I have been looking for God all my life!! I have been a Hindu, Buddhist, pagan, atheist, I have ventured into Islam in Form 4 (since we learnt about it) I have done, and seen everything!. Except Christianity. Because my other cousins.. made me see Christ as an…idol, as just another crappy religion.
My life did change for the better in 2007 spiritually. I tried to soak up everything I can. I went for bible study and learnt so much from Mrs Rajagopal. I was even excited about
Before camp 2007, I accepted Christ, but I didn’t let go of my past, and when I was told to let go, I couldn’t. I just let go of the string a little bit.
After camp, the Aussie guy came over..
It was hell. My family kicked me out. Reverse psychology…. Oh yes boy did it work.
That one month with someone who loved me was amazing, but I realized… it still didn’t fill my void like I thought it would. But I challenged everyone this would work so I tried my best to make it work. Even after he went back to Aussie. We tried to make it work. We even thought it was working. But I was dying inside. I was alone, I felt betrayed by God.
The circumstances after Feb 2008 was painful. It seemed like everyone had betrayed me. I started my self destructive behaviours. The first few months, it was easy to conceal the pain. After that I became a hermit. I didn’t go to church anymore. I didn’t do anything anymore. All I did was read through pro-anorexia pages, and fast for days. Fast.. as in starve myself. We called it fast. And then binge. I’d spend $50 on a binge session, only to purge it all and go back to being hungry. In the beginning it was once a day, and soon it became 5-10 times a day. That’s all I did. And cut myself. A lot. I would hurt myself .I deserved the pain, in my head. I knew I deserved it.
Then in December, when I was walking home from buying binge food… I was passing through Jusco, when my friend Vil Sern called me and asked me to go for Wednesday prayer. I had run out of excuses so I agreed. It was my first time out in months for something other than ‘buy binge food’.
I cried out everything to Mindy that night. Almost. The next morning, I came to church office and agreed to come for camp. It was the next week. But after Sunday church experience, I knew I couldn’t go. My social skills were gone, and the church, a place where I was happy, was a place of terror.
The day before camp, my heart made me clean up my room, wash my clothes get ready for camp. But my head was terrified. I contemplated suicide. I really did. I couldn’t do it. But somehow, I called Kelvin the next morning, to get to church. I hadn’t slept for 2 days and I was tired. I am a mastermind at hiding my inner feelings. Years of practice with my family.
Camp… all of you know it was amazing. But for me, it was then I was really found out God loved me. Before camp, I’d read the bible, and they were wise words. But during camp, The Word was like fire swimming through the pages of gold. Even the smallest sentence would make me tear up. Tell me about God, I would tear up. His love was too much for me to contain. His mercy was too much to bear.
After camp, it was a transition period. I stopped purging. I stopped cutting. I was happy. It was amazing. Before that, it always felt like being stuck in a blackhole, not drowning, but barely there too… How amazingly has God yanked me out of my deep hell.
And like the prodigal son, I am being blessed with more than I could ever know.
I broke up with the boy a week before camp.
Amazingly, I've never been happier.
I have to admit, there has been setbacks. My mum… food, I still have to force myself half the time, food still makes me feel dirty. But I know it is a lie. And everyday is a learning experience for me. And yes there are days where I would feel so lonely that I just wanna run all the way home, but the thought of the emotional abuse.. makes me cringe. But I know, I have a closest friend in Jesus, and nowadays I don’t feel the loneliness anymore. I just start worshiping God, and He comes so close to me it makes me cry. I can’t contain His love. I can never… even with my mum, I can manage visits now. I don’t come back home looking for my overdosing stash. I come home with the peace of God.
2008, is over. Hell is over. 2009 has come.
The devil will always want to attack us. He will always make us feel undeserving and guilty. The guilt trips are like trips to hell. He will ALWAYS make us feel worthless.
We are not worthless. God died for us. How could we be?
We wanna thank God for Priya, she's been a blessing to us all.
God bless you Priya!