The Gift of Loss
By: Nav Dhillon
Tags: Authenticity, Disability, Self Acceptance, South Asian, Resilience

Claiming my disability led to the self-acceptance I was never going to find from chasing perfection

After a series of setbacks, including a life changing accident that left me blind in one eye, the dream of achieving happiness seemed even further out of reach. Yet, despite this core belief, I vehemently hid it from everyone.

How does one reach this state? What are the implications of living a life with this mindset? How does one change this mindset?

These are all questions I hope to answer by sharing my story but more importantly, to also shed light on the importance of authenticity on our well-being.

Here is my wild journey to learning the value of self-acceptance:

Self-acceptance is not a belief people naturally inherit at birth but rather, it’s a value that is cultivated through early childhood and the experiences one accumulates through life. Many children develop their sense of self through parental models. Some children will adopt a healthy sense of self while others may be subjected to examples of low sense of self. A series of factors, such as social-economic, and environmental can further influence why some families may be predisposed to unhealthy conditioning.

The significant life values that shape how an individual views both themself and the world all begins in early childhood. I was raised in a household where these exact values were established by young adults who immigrated to Canada from Northern India to escape the atrocious realities their families faced through partition. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to have family members kidnapped or killed during these times. Many of these memories have been kept from, repressed or forgotten by descendants of the India-Pakastani partition. My parents were teenagers when they left Northern India and have little recollection of what unfolded in those years, but the trauma that their parents and grandparents faced was passed down to them nonetheless.

For many immigrants, the necessity to survive and provide for one’s family in their new settlement becomes the primary sense of purpose. The endeavor of migrating to a new country alone, with little financial support, can be unpredictable and traumatizing.

My parents were no different and worked very hard to provide for their children as they faced barriers in their new country. They simply did not have the time nor the tools to talk about what they endured.

As such, important values such as gender equality and healthy communication, were low on the priority list for immigrant South Asian parents. My brothers and I observed our parents struggle to build their identities in their new country, as a young couple and as entrepreneurs. What we inferred from my parents and relatives alike was that struggles were not to be discussed and that success and performance invalidated those hardships. Maintaining a good family image was the objective, even if it rendered unauthenticity.

I became a people pleaser and found myself having a hard time saying no or speaking up, even when it would have served more benefit to do so. Obtaining approval and admiration of others became the benchmark of my self-worth.

Naturally, this created inner turmoil. I would make a decision and question myself for it right after. It was almost as if I had two opposing minds which fostered a fragmented sense of self while my true authentic identity was being lost. This identity crisis would come to hurt me most when I was twenty years old.

I was the victim of a devastating accident where I was an innocent bystander in a crime that left me badly injured and hospitalized for a week. As a result of my injuries, I lost sight in my left eye but this was just the beginning of what would eventually become a decade long series of surgeries, chronic pain and mental health challenges. Six years later, my injured eye had to be removed due to complications and I was now wearing a prosthetic eye. Despite all that I suffered, I couldn’t find the capacity to show myself compassion, let alone talk about it.

My family didn’t want to talk about it because the accident happened late at night, outside of a bar. They were embarrassed and discouraged us from speaking about it. As much as this saddened me, I was not surprised and didn’t question it. As a result, I associated an incredible amount of shame and guilt with my accident, visual impairment and prosthetic eye.

So, I persevered through life as if nothing happened and pursued activities that would make my family proud. I established a good career, completed a masters degree and even bought my own place. It felt good to be in everyone’s good books again.

My mother would say to me that all that was needed now was a husband. Deep down, I died a little every time my mother said this to me but of course I complied and tried to meet my parent’s expectations.

Something that no matter how much I tried felt unnatural.

Unbeknownst to me, all of the unhealed trauma of the past was brewing trouble beneath the surface. I was still living my parents dream because that is what a good Indian daughter does after all. She is expected to put the happiness of others above her and this is perfectly modelled by her mother. I saw my mother cater to my brothers as though they were children well into their adult lives. In fact, I was always tasked with the responsibility to care for my brothers and father but never for my mothers or my own. I saw my mother do this for her brothers, but not for her own mother. Observing all of this infuriated me and I secretly revolted against my culture, but not having strong boundaries would default into me repeating these behaviours on my own. My life was a living paradox!

The concept of boundaries was so foreign to me and I struggled with them- especially when it came to others. This also created challenges in the workplace and with friends. Boundaries, first and foremost require a strong sense of self-awareness and then the empowerment to implement them. When I think back, I am amazed at how I feared boundaries growing up all the while not realizing they are so essential to having high quality relationships with others and oneself.

Personal relationships have been tricky. For example, I was never happy in a romantic relationship for too long and despite that, I would occasionally cave into the pressure to “settle down” and find myself in relationships with incompatible men. I struggled between thoughts of staying and leaving- the absolute hallmark of disorganized attachment.

One particular relationship I was in more recently was different from the others because it involved another traumatized person and that made our bond quite strong. I believe this was partly because my partner had learned to deal with his trauma in a similar way- disassociation. However, I found myself wanting to help and rescue him. It became an obsessive mission. Inevitably, this was a recipe for disaster.

All this time, I didn’t know how to face my own self-limiting beliefs about the world, but was trying to change someone else’s. As I examined this repeatedly, I struggled to comprehend why “fixing” someone became so important to me. Eventually all that overthinking started to make sense.

It was the universe’s way of nudging me to “fix” myself.

A relationship, career or lifestyle was not going to fill the apparent gap inside of me. This had become increasingly more obvious with age and soon I embarked on a journey deep inside to finally face all that I had suppressed over my lifetime.

I was now faced with questions on what was most important to me — what were my goals? What would ultimately make me happy? This was an opportunity to finally engrave my individual values and beliefs and start manifesting behaviours and actions that aligned with my purpose. This excavation of beliefs, led to truths about myself that I was neglectfully denying.

All the time I spent dismissing the affects of the condition that my accident left me in came to blowback in my face. The idea of showing vulnerability to the world was not something I thought I could do when in reality it was exactly what was going to free me victimhood.

So, what if I now had a disability? So, what if I wear a prosthetic eye? These are not losses, they are wins. They are signs of resiliency, courage and determination — three values I now strongly identify with. My family didn’t know how to deal with my injury and the fact that their only daughter wore a prosthetic eye raised their concerns about how others perceived my worth.

However, these were never my beliefs. I didn’t care what anyone thought, honestly. Others weren’t with me as I battled through a brutal attack, surgeries and years of chronic pain- and these are just the physical attributes of my injury.

I was so relieved to finally admit this. The truth is that deep down inside, I feel like a superhero. I have never let my injury define who I am or stop me from accomplishing my goals. It was just time to shift the narrative in my mind to believe my story was heroic, not shameful.

Once I was empowered enough to claim my disability, I began to share my story with the world. It began by partnering with a local agency that advocates for visual loss and disability and soon after, I was speaking publicly about it through my organization’s forums. These experiences have led to new connections and a new sense of purpose in me. People from around the world, of all different ages and background, have reached out to me to share their own stories. Since disclosing to my employer, I have become a spokesperson for disability awareness throughout my organization.

“Thank you for sharing your touching story. We are very fortunate to have you on our team. Your strength and advocacy are important enablers to making positive change for others. Thank you for all that you are doing to make a difference at our organization.” - SEVP at my organization

The takeaway I want to highlight here is this: ignoring something that has impacted you negatively has implications. It will show up and won’t go away until it is addressed. We must face and not run away. This is perhaps the most frightening part of the inward journey but also the most freeing. Once I truly accepted what I had gone through, I began appreciating myself a lot more and this has opened the door to more self-acceptance and heightened presence. It feels like a big weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.

Each of the life-changing moments I described resulted in the loss of something. I lost my self-esteem in childhood. In my young adult years, I lost half of my eyesight. And subsequently, I missed chances to build deep and meaningful connections with people because I lost my identity.

All these setbacks manifested into growth that ultimately brought me to the self-realization to confront the unproductive patterns I was reliving.

If you are someone who has gone through a similar experience, let my story prove that claiming something you once felt shame about can shift a negative self-perception to a positive one. Just because we were exposed to shame, doesn’t mean that we are obligated to carry it. And if you haven’t gone through a life-changing physical injury, you may have been injured in non-visible ways and that doesn’t minimize its impact. Below the surface, we as people all desire the same things and that is to feel accepted, safe and connected to others. We can only attract these into our lives when we can be our true authentic selves.