I was a failure. Well you know what a "failure" means in India. I failed a year in school.

When I got to know that I had to repeat a year with my juniors I really wanted to kill myself. I knew what people thought about a student repeating a year and I didn't want to go through that. I know it was my fault, I should have studied well. I have a younger brother who failed too in the same year. We both had to repeat a year with our juniors. We were known to be the failed siblings.

My brother seemed to be okay to face it. He was a courageous kid. On the other hand, I was planning to kill myself before school started. I didn't want to face it. But the fear of dying made me face school.

First day of the year where I had to join the class with my juniors, I knew this is going to change my life forever and it did. I entered the class and I saw students staring at me with one word in their mind "FAILURE".

But the students were nice. No one tried to be rude. But obviously they've put me on their "stay-away-from" list.

I thought I'll just face it no matter how hard it gets. And then in a few minutes we were asked to go to the assembly hall to do our prayers (as usual). I just remembered we had to stand in the line next to our seniors (who were my classmates). We entered the hall and I saw my old classmates from afar, I saw one of them looking at me in shock like "did-she-fail?", asking other people to look at me.

I looked down immediately, I didn't have the courage to look up straight. My eyes were facing down the whole time I was in the hall till we entered our respective classrooms. I came home crying. I thought this was the end to my life.

In some time I got a call from a friend (who is my senior now) to ask what happened. I told her which subject I failed and that's it. I couldn't talk much and I think she understood that I wanted to be left alone. She was a good friend, nicest person I've ever met but I couldn't keep her in my failed life. Or even be tagged with a failure.

My brother and I decided to come up with a lie about our failure so that we could be accepted by our classmates. We did and used that lie till we graduated from school. We wanted friends, we didn't want to be alone. Because friends were the only ones that kept us going. And so we used that lie to make friends or at least be accepted.

It was hard. I'm sure people didn't buy it. We didn't want to be treated like criminals just for failing a subject. Now to the reason why we failed.

We lost our father when we were kids so we had to move in with his family consisting of his brothers, their wives and kids. A joint family where we were disliked for a reason I don't know. We were being insulted by them everyday!

My mom was a soft person, she couldn't talk back to anyone because she wasn't brought up that way. We were scared since we were really small. My brother was being bullied by our cousin. When we complained about it to his mother, she'd say that we deserve it and insulted us more. We couldn't concentrate on our studies and it showed on our report cards.

That same mother would throw tantrums every other week telling us to leave the house. One time it was close to our final exams, we couldn't concentrate on our studies so we fared low and ended up failing. We had to face all this even when it wasn't our fault. We weren't that good at studies, we had to work harder than normal kids. And our "failure" was another reason for them to insult us.

They insulted us at home and even at family gatherings. They told people that we failed. Other relatives would look at us like we'd committed a crime. It was really hard for us to face all this. We weren't accepted in our society and in school. We were a total outcast.
This is when we missed our father more than ever. I was getting dreams of my father coming back to life and taking us away from this misery. But we had to face this. I went into depression.

It has also affected my health and I'm still suffering. My health doesn't seem to get better. I thought once my school ends I'll be out of this "failure" stare. I entered college with new people and lied to my classmates about my age. I didn't want them to ask why I'm older than them.

I used the same lie in my degree. I was scared of ending up alone and not being accepted.

For once I wanted to experience college like a normal person. When I completed my degree we got financial aid and we were able to move out of the joint family, finally. We moved into a new house. We were so happy that we finally got to live freely, away from all the negativity. But the memories stayed.

Every time I see my schoolmate I'm reminded of my past. It's like I'm reminded about the plan of killing myself. The memories kept haunting me everyday. Made me feel like I'm a useless person. All those insults started shaping my character and my confidence. And then it took a toll on my health. I couldn't look for a job. I had to stay home and concentrate on my health.

I was really suffering, physically and mentally. I wanted to prove to everyone that I wasn't the failure they thought I was but my health didn't let me do that. I'm still struggling from depression and depression related health problems. I've been to a psychiatrist, on our first meeting she prescribed me a "confidence" tablet that I thought was pointless. I wanted to get better without medical help. That one failure has changed my life forever. The pain I had to go through will never stop haunting me.

I don't have the confidence to do anything anymore. I feel like a loser in everything. No matter what I start with a positive attitude will end up being a failure. I have no interest in doing anything because I don't see anything positive anymore. I keep thinking of ways of killing myself. I know it’s wrong but my mind is so used to getting suicidal thoughts. I still believe that I'll find a way out of this. Keeping myself alive till I find happiness. 

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