The Meaning of Life: From a Girl Who Was Told to Stay Silent :Toranvichara

The Meaning of Life
From a Girl Who Was Told to Stay Silent

"What is the meaning of life?"
I have asked myself this question countless times, and I am still not sure there is an answer. Maybe it is not about finding an answer at all, maybe it is about surviving the question itself, about moving through the hours even when everything inside feels heavy and broken.

I am a girl. I have walked through rooms where no one looked at me, through streets where faces turned away, through moments that demanded endurance and gave nothing back. I was never religious, and I never sought God, though sometimes I thought that simply existing, breathing, and making it through another day might count as its own kind of prayer.

When I was young, I wanted love. I wanted warmth. I wanted to be seen and to be safe. But I cannot remember ever truly having that. I remember one evening when I ran away from home. My legs were small but I ran without really knowing where I was going. I only knew I had to escape the shouting, the punishments, and the feeling that everything I did was wrong. I didn't understand why the world treated me the way it did, and I only wanted to disappear. But after some time, I found myself returning home. Not because I was afraid of being lost, but because I thought of my mother, alone, waiting for me. Even as a child, love outweighed freedom.

There are other memories that remain with me, memories that I cannot forget. I was very young, and the world was not gentle. I learned early that people could hurt you in ways you could not protect yourself from, that sometimes even friends or strangers could be dangerous, and that there was no one always ready to catch you when you fell. I had no one to ask if I was okay, and I had no one who noticed. The forced touch of someone so big to someone so small.

As I grew older, I began to understand the gravity of some of the things that had happened to me, and the weight of it pressed harder, making me fear people and the world itself. The more I understood, the more I felt trapped, like I had been forced into a cage I could never fully leave.

Words hurt more than I could have imagined. The night grew colder when I heard my grandma whispering these words to my sister "Do you even love her?", "I wish she was never born.". I remember crying quietly that night, my face pressed into my pillow, wishing I could disappear. I hated myself for being born a girl, for having a body that others seemed to view as weak, for being someone who carried expectations she could never meet.

I tried to build strength by myself, through running, exercise, and long hours of solitude, but the emptiness inside never went away. Every night whispered that I would always remain unguarded, always alone, always vulnerable.

Not eating anything became my way of coping. It wasn't about wanting to disappear completely, but about silencing the storm inside me. When I felt suffocated by my own thoughts, I began to isolate myself even from my mind. The feeling of fading away became strangely familiar, almost comforting. My future looked blank, like something already erased. The thinner I became, the more judgments followed. The thinner, the more eyes. But those eyes didn't carry worry or care; they carried questions, "who would even want to stay with someone like you?". Funny, isn't it? How people notice your body only when it's falling apart. A powerless body seriously can't do anything. And an alone child is just as helpless.

There were people close, trusted, familiar, who were cruel beyond reason. They took away my ability to speak, to move, to be. I remember the sharp panic, the confusion of not knowing whether to cry or scream, and realizing that neither would matter. Papers stuffed inside your mouth, hands pressing against every attempt at sound, a child's voice erased before it could even form. I was teased, silenced, and beaten, not for what I did, but for existing in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in front of the wrong people. And that was when I learned something that still burns inside me, that cruelty doesn't always come from strangers. It comes from the ones close enough to know where it hurts the most. Oh, how much I hate people. Enough to never forget.

My mother is everything to me, and at the same time, she was complicated in ways I could not understand as a child. Our lives were split for a while, fractured by other people's judgments towards her. People whispered that she was "not normal," that she was dangerous, that she should be left alone. I did not understand mental illness or the weight of her struggles, and all I knew was that she loved me in her own imperfect way. When we finally lived together again, the world acted as though everything they (world) did was never ever wrong but the silence, the emptiness, and the scars remained. What about her scars? What about mine? Could love ever heal what it could not see?.

It took me years to tell someone the truth about myself. I am bisexual. I thought saying it out loud would bring relief, that it would make me feel lighter. Instead, I felt watched, scrutinized, like my identity had suddenly become a subject for others to examine. I told one friend, someone I trusted, and she smiled. She was surprised and her expression became uncomfortable, pressing, suffocating. With time her touch became too frequent and her words were too harsh. My identity felt tested, and questioned. Sometimes being yourself feels like committing a quiet crime.

Being a girl meant always being questioned, always being doubted. Being different meant being punished silently, ignored, or dismissed. I spent years wondering why the world worked this way. Why is difference seen as wrong? Why is conformity praised?. I started asking these questions too late, when anger had already settled in me, quiet and constant. People told me it was just culture, just how things were. But if culture made the world like this, why couldn't it be different? Nobody answered.

I used to believe that life's meaning could be found in prayers, in temples, or in the love of others. I no longer believe that. Meaning is in enduring the nights that feel too long and hollow, in carrying the weight of body and mind that aches even when no one notices, even when no one comforts you. I have survived, but survival is not hope. Survival is simply knowing that nothing softens completely, nothing resolves entirely, nothing compensates fully. Life may only ask that we continue existing, in darkness, in emptiness, without relief, without resolution. Perhaps that is all there is: the continuation of being, endless, unresolved, unseen, wandering through nights that never truly end.

This is not a story of hope. It is not a story of triumph. It is a record of survival. If you read this and feel unseen, unheard, unloved yourself, know that the experience itself is real.
Reality, at times, is all that matters.

The Meaning of Life: From a Girl Who Was Told to Stay Silent

The article is based upon author's personnal belief and experiences

Article Author:-Kai_arz

Added In:-03 Nov 2025 Mon

Series: Suffered

"It took me years to tell someone the truth about myself. I am bisexual"

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