The Secret - Interview With John Harricharan (Q7)
The Secret
Interview With John Harricharan (Q7)
Hi. I'm Jorge, and I'm a relatively new member here on The Secret.
I've been looking for this site for what seems like forever, and now that I found it, I can't stop myself from asking questions! Let's get to know one another a little bit… What is your secret number? 27. What is your biggest fear? Failure. What is your most treasured possession? My girlfriend, Grace…
Hi Jorge. So glad you found the site and that you have a question for yourself.
This is about my life story... I was raised in an extremely religious family with strict morals and no regard for anything that was taboo, including my own sexuality and lack of interest in the opposite sex. I wasn't aware of anyone being gay (for the first few years of my life at least) but knew from a very young age that I wasn't interested in women sexually or romantically either.
It wasn't until the age of about 8 that I started to realise that I was not like all other boys, and maybe it was just my own sexual orientation.
I remember wanting to be a girl for the first time ever once I realised that I was different.
I know this is a weird answer but my best way of describing what it felt like back then would be sitting in my room playing with dolls etc while everyone else was out playing football etc. I just felt an emptiness inside me and a longing to be something else, the only thing I knew that was different was the fact that I wanted to be a girl.
I know its hard to imagine, but this was an extremely difficult time for me. I didn't know how to explain it or what it meant but it took a physical and emotional toll on me daily. For years I felt this emptiness inside me, and would try and fill up the time doing any activity possible. I started drawing, playing with my dollies, reading (anything to occupy the time and make me feel like I was happy.
I remember being about 11 years old for the first pint of beer ever, I drank about 10 pints of it and passed out at a party.
Some people will say this is a relatively normal thing to do when you're underage but that is not what drinking alcohol does to you.
The second time was a few months later with my friends brother who once tried it in his early teens and went on to have a severe addiction to it. He never really got over his drinking problem even after he got into recovery for the next many years (11 years).
This time I was hooked right away and would regularly drink alcohol without even thinking about the consequences. It was like some switch had been turned on in my head and I couldn't stop myself.
By the time I was 18 years old I had moved out from home and into a 2 bedroom flat with 2 of my best friends (one of whom only lived there for 9 weeks because it wasn't working out).
Our landlord decided to put the rent up by £50 which forced me to move out that same month, and into a different flat with someone else.
I had a job in a factory making Velux window blinds, and after 2 weeks on the job I was promoted! This was huge for me because it meant I would finally be able to afford my own flat.
My new flat-mate was an amazing guy and we got along fairly well. Our main problem was that he hated going out, but I always did even if it cost me money to get in. For some reason the alcohol kept calling me back, even though I knew what its effects were doing to me.
I started to drink more and more, and started taking ecstasy (from the age of 19).
Up until this point I had been going to gym regularly in the evenings but then I met my first girlfriend (also 19) who convinced me that alcohol was much better than going to the gym every night. After a few months we lost our jobs due to lack of work at the factory, but then she got offered a job at another factory for twice as much. I was so proud of her for getting the job, but it meant that we wouldn't see each other so much any more. This is when I went into a rapid state of depression and felt like my life was over. We were about to lose our flat and we were going to become homeless. I knew that this wouldn't be the last time I would lose my flat as well, but at that moment in time it felt like it was the end of the world.
I remember being in bed crying and thinking about my life, how I'd lost all these years of my life by being a loser who didn't know how to live properly or have a true value for my own life.
This was the hardest period I had ever experienced in my life, with all these things happening at once. Days turned into weeks and I became more depressed every single day.
Then this happened one morning, I woke up with a terrible headache and couldn't move my body. It felt as though someone had poured cement over my head and filled me with concrete, my joints ached in every part of my body, I had no strength to move at all.
This is the exact moment that pushed me out of bed to go over to the kitchen table where I sat down with a cup of coffee. All the weight of everything was lifted off me for about 15 minutes until I stood up again and made it back over to bed once again.
The next morning was the same, only once I decided to step into the shower I noticed that my body was feeling a lot lighter and looser. I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had lost a lot of weight. Maybe it was just water weight but for some reason it felt like I had never seen myself before in the mirror, as if I saw my body for the first time ever.
I didn't even know who this person stood in front of me, it looked like someone who had been out in the cold for many days and nights, just not eating or sleeping properly. We always have this image in our head of what we look like but nothing can prepare you for actually looking at yourself.
Conclusion
I thought about what I had experienced up to that point and realised that I needed to tell someone. I knew it would be my parents or a friend but if I told someone it would feel like a burden on them.
I started to think more deeply about what it must be like for people who experience sexual abuse as well as what they must go through like me (regarding the abuse and shame), so eventually I decided to tell my therapist.
The truth is this, many people have different experiences, but we all start off feeling the same way and then things change, sometimes in ways you never could ever imagine.