Written by Sharon Aneja
Nobody wakes up after a near death experience and thinks I’m going to embrace life every day. This isn’t a Hollywood film. Recovery after trauma is messy. It’s scary. It’s painful. But don’t lose hope, it can eventually be beautiful.
Where are my manners? I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Sharon Aneja and I’m a trauma-informed resilience expert and positive business psychology practitioner. I believe that the power of positivity and humanity can transform people, businesses and society to build a more successful and sustainable future for us all.
As you read my words now, you might well think, “wow this girl is really focused on what’s important”. But my life wasn’t always like this. In fact, it was the exact opposite.
In my early 30’s, like most career minded British Indian girls, I was riding the corporate career ladder, partially making my Punjabi parents proud of me (I was making good money but I didn’t know how to make aloo gobi and most shockingly of all I wasn’t married).
And then one day my whole world came crumbling down around me. On March 3rd 2014, a routine ovarian surgery went wrong when the surgeon cut my bowel by mistake and sent me home that same night. I was back in hospital on March 5th in complete agony, being told by a doctor that I had hours to live because my organs were shutting down. I had peritonitis: my bowels had leaked into my body.
I was numb with shock and paralysed by the fear of dying. As the tears streamed down my face, all I could say to my dad was: “I never even got the chance to fall in love, get married and have children. I just don’t want to die.” I was only 34 years old. I’ll never forget the sheer terror I felt being wheeled down to surgery, knowing that the odds of survival were so low. Or seeing the pain in my parents’ eyes as they said goodbye to their daughter, not knowing whether we would see each other again. No parent should have to go through that.
I did survive the surgery but an agonising road to recovery lay in front of me. I can never forget the five and half weeks I spent in hospital on a ward full of dying and sick patients. I can never forget the sheer terror of not being able to sleep at night for fear of never waking up again. I can never forget the loneliness I would feel at night once I was left to my own thoughts. I can never forget the sense of helplessness and vulnerability that I felt whenever something would go wrong in my recovery – which was sadly far too often.
I can remember being starved of food for a week – not even being able to drink liquids. It was a terrible feeling. I can remember not being able to keep anything in my stomach for long once I did start eating. Vomiting, violent diarrhoea, excruciating pain. Fluid retention, lungs full of fluid, punctured lungs. The agony was overwhelming at times. It was unbearable.
I want to be able to tell you this is the time I turned my life around. That I realised that love was the most important thing in my life. But this is where it gets even messier. I wasn’t equipped to deal with the emotional and psychological scars of trauma. So I focused on the practical like the good problem solver that I am. Don’t get me wrong. I showed incredible resilience. I got out of hospital, I recovered at home with my parents, I got a kick-ass job, hired a personal trainer and moved back into my own place. I would repeat what other people would say to me “I’m so lucky I’ve got a second chance in life”.
But what I didn’t tell anyone was that I was dying inside. This time emotionally and mentally. I didn’t sleep more than 4 hours a night for a year and a half after my surgery. I didn’t know how to express vulnerability. This was not what I was taught as a good Punjabi girl. We got on with it. We showed everyone what they wanted to see.
You see I was trying desperately to rebuild my life to be exactly what it used to be beforehand. I was trying to take the pieces of the shattered vase (my life) and glue them back together. But when we do this, the vase is likely to break because it’s not as strong as before. The weaknesses appear.
As did mine. In 2015 I was diagnosed with PTSD, the lowest point of my life. I didn’t stop crying for months. The emotional pain of what had happened finally came pouring out of me like a Bombay Monsoon downpour. I was utterly broken inside. I was back at Ground Zero again. And I didn’t know what to do to get myself out of it.
I got professional help but it felt like every step forward I took, I took 3 steps backwards. This was much messier than getting physically better. You see I had to admit some very hard things to myself. The life that I had before the surgery was based on hedonistic wellbeing, where I focused on pleasure and avoiding pain. The surgery had actually been a God send. Because it forced me to realise what was really important in life. I knew deep down that I had to build a life that was based on positivity, love and gratitude.
It was time to create a mosaic out of my shattered vase. Now there is no manual on how to rebuild your life after facing your own death. But these are 3 things that I did to achieve post traumatic growth (how to find meaning in life greatest challenges) and build my emotional resilience:
Number one: I shared my emotions with a friend at work and her kindness and compassion helped me survive that period of time. Telling someone how I felt lightened the load and it helped me actually process my emotions, which I had been running away from.
Number two: I got some good advice: My sister said to me one day “Sharon, find your silver lining in this” her intervention helped me shift my mentality from one of loss and pain to one of growth and gratitude. I get to live and start again. How many people get that chance?
Number three: I set myself small daily goals that helped me look forward and feel a sense of achievement. Those goals were like little building blocks that set the foundation for the life that I wanted to build.
For anyone who is reading this who has either suffered trauma or knows someone that has, I hope this story will give them perspective and hope that they can find their silver lining and one day go on to build their own mosaic out of their shattered life.
About the Author:
Sharon Aneja is a UK-based trauma-informed resilience expert and positive business psychology practitioner. She believes that the power of positivity and humanity can transform people, businesses and society to build a more successful and sustainable future for us all.
You can learn more at https://www.humanityworksconsultancy.com/ or message her on Instagram here
