How Therapy Helped Shachi Rediscover Herself After Her Lifelong Battle with Academic & Body-Shaming

Hailing from West Bengal, 23-year-old Shachi currently studies Electronics and Electrical Engineering at VIT, Vellore. Her passion though has many forms. She not only writes inspirational abstracts but has co-authored books too.

Shachi has always been an outgoing person but her priorities always remained academics. Why shouldn’t they be when she was excellent at it? This naturally meant she aspired to follow her heart and land a seat in IIT after clearing her JEE but unfortunately that is not how things unfolded.

You see, even being exceptionally well at academics would come to be one of the obstacles in her path towards her better self.

It began in her early years. Shachi’s father was the Principal and Director of the school she attended which ideally is an arrow in the quiver but that wasn’t the case in reality.

“Since my father was the Principal and Director of the school, my hard work to achieve academic success went unnoticed.”

Shachi’s outstanding performances were attributed to her father’s position rather than her efforts. This obviously peeved her but that wasn’t all. She was body-shamed too for being on the healthier side.

Shachi was also disheartened about not being able to crack JEE in the first go. She hadn’t received any formal tuition for it so she decided to take a year drop and prepare for the JEE exams next year in Kota. However, that attempt did not yield the results she hoped for either, so she ended up opting for VIT.

Worst of all though was the fact that after her 12th, Shachi realised that the friends she thought she had were only taking advantage of her. This broke her heart and scared her too.

“So, when I entered college, I thought it would be a fresh page but it wasn’t.”

Shachi managed to make new friends but she was still in her mourning period over not having gotten into IIT. Things only snowballed from there. It not only affected her academics but also shot down her morale.

Shachi sort of gave up on her academic life and decided to let loose. However, that decision didn’t take form for long either. In the meanwhile, her old devils came back to haunt her when body-shaming started again. 

Shachi had been on the healthier side and faced immense troubles with health in general. However, others failed to see her struggles. They compared her with her roommate and taunted her every now and then about her appearances.

“Being 1500 kilometres away from my parents, I needed a home away from home but I never felt safe.”

Shachi fell sick on one of her visits home during her break and recovering from that was hard. Due to its after effects, her academic performance declined further. Scoring a lesser GPA than what she expected shattered her. Those around her rubbed salt on her wounds instead of comforting her. They started commenting snidely on her academic abilities along with body-shaming.

“I decided not to sit for placements and prepare for the MBA entrance exam instead which put me on edge so I decided to connect with YourDOST.”

Shachi connected with an expert and began the climb towards her better self. She loved the fact that her counselor was very solution oriented. Her counselor equipped her with a few techniques. The first was to write down her fears and also distance herself from people who drained her. Secondly, Shachi was also asked to follow the ‘Pomodoro technique.

Pomodoro technique is a time management strategy that involves breaking down their day into 15-minute chunks separated by 5-minute breaks.

With counseling and practising the suggested techniques, she found a breakthrough.

“I became content with myself. I realised whatever I was doing was enough and it was about my goals and achievements.”

Shachi not only managed to become more assertive and self-satisfied, but she was also even able to score a 9.86 GPA that semester. The colours in her life started brightening once she found the safe space to express her insecurities without the fear of judgement.

“Every thought that one gets is valid and not something they’re building up in their head.”

Although she had people telling her that it was all in her head, Shachi was able to bravely take a leap of faith toward bettering herself. She now feels quite a at peace and is immensely grateful to YourDOST for providing her with the support as and when she needed it.

Summarising her experience with YourDOST, Shachi expressed that she has become “More Assertive” and rated herself 3.5 out of 5 on her journey towards improvement.

For being the true mental health warrior that she is, we at YourDOST wish her the best of luck!

Shachi’s Warrior Tips:
1. You’ll never get a safer space than your counselors.
2. Just like how a doctor prescribes the right medicine for your ailments, your counselors will put you on the right track for a better you