Neelam Chawla – there is a lot of power within ourselves, all we have to do is to challenge that power and win.
“In 2001 I moved to UK with my husband and retrained to be a teacher, I did a lot of work in education and became a trainer with a focus on how to identify disabilities which are hidden.
Five years ago, out of the blue, I had a brain stroke. I was shocked - from being a super independent individual throughout my life, I became a vegetable on the bed. I was in the hospital for several months, but I wasn’t getting better. After extensive investigations, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and required immediate surgery, it was a very hard pill to swallow to say the least. I was partially paralysed by that time; however, I did not want to go through the surgery. I actually wanted to kill myself and I wanted to die; against medical advice I got myself discharged and returned home. I was totally on the bed and had to be looked after for all my basic needs. I did not like my life at all and contemplated death all the time. I never questioned God as to why this happened to me but did question Him why I was not dying.
Two months later at 3 ‘o’ clock at night, I felt ants crawling over my body. At that time, I realised that I am neither dying nor living, I need to go for the surgery. But again, I was convinced that I will die during or after the surgery, so I went in quite prepared that I will not be returning home. The surgery was successful and the tumour was removed. Slowly, I could get out of my bed and was able to be wheel chaired but still the left side of my body wasn’t working. My friend took me on a holiday for a change of scenery, where I attempted to get off the wheel chair and had a massive fall. I had 12 fractures and had to be almost airlifted as I was not able to put my foot on the ground. That made me regress quite a lot, I became bed ridden again.
I caught Covid right at the peak and ended up in the hospital. That was the time when I thought that God had finally heard my prayers and I was finally going to die. I recovered and returned home in an extremely low mental state as I thought I wasn’t even good enough to die. The nurses were telling me that I was very lucky to have recovered but I was thinking otherwise and hated returning home to lead a dependent life.
Although I was progressing, I was not able to see it because the thought to die was a constant in my mind. Even though I could walk, but my mental state was disabling me from doing so; the fear of walking was so immense that I refused to walk. I was extremely depressed and at one point, I did not leave me bed continuously for 12 days!
Just sitting in the confines of my bed one day, I learnt to make an Instagram account with the help of my daughter. I started to connect with other people going through a similar situation. I was hoping to talk with someone and tell them what a horrible life I had. But the first person who connected with me asked for help, I automatically switched from being wanting help to want to help. It gave me courage to think that I was still worth something because all this time I was thinking I was worthless. This one conversation changed the whole game for me, I suddenly had that sense that I made a difference to this one person and therefore maybe I am not that worthless that I had myself to be.
Before I knew lots of people started connecting and I got the answer from God, - my mission became to raise awareness about mental wellbeing. I started to work a lot on myself – I started telling myself self that I was worthy and started to pat my own back for every milestone I achieved. The walking stick became my sign of ability rather than my disability and I gradually got into a much better place.
At present I have 8000 followers on Instagram and 14000 across different social media platforms, my mission is to weave conversation of mental health in the fabric of the society to the point that it reaches all ears and with that if I am able to make a difference to even one life, I would have achieved my purpose in life.
I am very proud to say that I am a success story, I am a beacon of hope for anybody who is in a dark place that I once was, there is a lot of power within ourselves, I want people to challenge that power and win.”