Aninda Sidhana on Domestic Abuse, Divorce and Recovery

Dr. Aninda Sidhana is an Indian psychiatrist and mental health advocate whose work addresses domestic violence, women’s wellbeing, and social support. Raised in a family of doctors, she trained in psychiatry and contributed to research on domestic violence during lockdown. Her advocacy draws on clinical experience and experiences of abuse.

In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Dr. Aninda Sidhana discuss her childhood, medical education, experiences of domestic abuse, and recovery after divorce. They explore coercive control, grief, gender expectations, leadership, and barriers to disclosure, emphasizing how friendships, family support, and personal agency can help survivors rebuild their lives safely.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How would you describe your temperament, character, and personality as a girl? How did the people around you describe you growing up?

Dr. Aninda Sidhana: My life has been divided into stages, you could say. Pain changes people, and change is the only constant in life. I am a very different person now.

In childhood, I was a daddy’s girl. I did not want to miss even a single day of school because of my friends. Even now, I believe friendships are among the relationships that have saved my life.

My childhood was beautiful. Until I was 31, I remember having only one worry: Friday was coming, so what would we do over the weekend? I had no other stress. I would come home from school, finish my homework within two hours, and then enjoy myself.

Every day, we had a fixed time to go out with my dad. We never missed an outing. He believed in spending quality time with us and being our best friend. Sometimes, he would take us out individually for a drive so we could talk about anything we were uncomfortable discussing in front of a sister. If he thought someone in the family was stressed, whether it was my mother or one of us, he would take that person out to talk.

We always had dinner together. We were a joint family in the sense that, although we did not all live in the same house, our houses were close together. Nobody could tell whose child was whose because there was so much love.

Today, sadly, is the birthday of my Bade Baba, my father’s elder brother, who passed away last year. He was the one who took me to Kota for coaching. When I was admitted to the MBBS programme, he accompanied me and stayed with me while I settled in. He also accompanied me when I began my postgraduate studies and when I started working. He did the same for my sister because my dad could not spare that much time. As the elder brother, he took on that responsibility.

After school, we would stay with our grandparents or our uncle and aunt. My parents would come home around 9 p.m. We were surrounded by cousins, other children, and neighbours, as well as our friends at school. Social life has always been one of the most important parts of my life. I find isolation very difficult.

That is the main reason I am reluctant to move outside India. I worry that I would be lonely or live somewhere where people do not know their neighbours. That is what scares me.

We have a wonderful support system, including people who are not blood relatives. I do not believe that blood is necessarily thicker than water. Money and problems involving alcohol can disrupt relationships, regardless of family ties.

We have friends who helped save my dad’s life when he was seriously ill. My dad has also cared for others. When we need advice about important decisions, we turn to his best friend, Dr. Sharma, whom I call my uncle.

I have spoken about him so often in interviews that I have even seen him described on Google as a psychiatrist. He is actually a gastroenterologist. He has been an enormous source of support. Whenever his son has a problem, he calls my parents. Whenever I have had a problem, I have called him, sometimes even before calling my dad.

He was also involved in the Iceland trip. He accompanied me to all my divorce hearings and has supported me throughout.

That closeness is something I value in Indian family life. Now, as people move away or abroad, I miss the time when we were such a closely knit family.

My dad actually left his job with the WHO because my uncle passed away, leaving six daughters. All of them came to stay with us. We remain connected, although circumstances sometimes prevent us from meeting. When we do meet, nothing has changed. There is so much love, and I really love my family.

My brother-in-law’s parents have also moved here so they would not have to live alone. They stay nearby, and we all get together almost every evening.

Jacobsen: Festivals are a big part of life in India. What was participating in them like?

Sidhana: I am grateful to have had this life. I know many people who are not very close to their families. The advice I always give parents is to build a relationship in which their children feel comfortable with them. First, be your child’s best friend.

If you have that trust, your child can tell you what is happening, whether it involves sexual abuse, another form of abuse, bullying, or any other problem. How can children tell you these things if they are frightened that you will hit them?

That is what I always say: be your children’s best friend first, and then be their parent.

Jacobsen: How do you become their best friend while still maintaining your parental responsibilities and role?

Sidhana: My dad would have to answer that because my mom keeps scolding him about it. She says, “You have spoiled her!”

I call him “yaar,” which is an informal term for a friend. That is how we are with each other. When I got my first period, I went to tell him instead of my mom, even though he was sitting with his friends.

We were very comfortable with our parents. We received sex education and could talk about boyfriends or anything else. But we were always taught to respect our teachers and elders. Empathy was something we were taught from the beginning.

Jacobsen: Were spiritual practices, religious beliefs, or involvement in religious institutions part of your upbringing?

Sidhana: I see spirituality as something quite different from religion.

Jacobsen: Yes.

Sidhana: Spirituality was part of my upbringing. My parents meditate every day, and spirituality is an anchor that gives them hope. I am not that spiritual now. I used to be religious and spiritual, but my faith dwindled after I lost the court case.

Jacobsen: Which religion were you raised in?

Sidhana: We are Hindu. We are not heavily involved in prayers or rituals, but my parents have a regular meditation practice. At our clinic and rehabilitation centre, meditation is also a required part of the programme for clients.

Jacobsen: Some of these practices have empirical support for particular benefits when used independently of religion. You would know more about that than I would.

Sidhana: We are not strictly religious. My sister and I used to joke that there were only three religions in the world: psychiatry, neurology, and neurosurgery. That was our way of thinking even around the time I completed my MD in psychiatry and entered my first marriage.

Even when we thought about marriage, those were the categories that mattered. For my parents, caste and religion were less important than whether someone was in psychiatry, neurology, or neurosurgery.

Jacobsen: Has your family always been full of intellectuals? Did you consider yourself an intellectual at school?

Sidhana: In my family, things are different for the boys and the girls. You would not believe it; in some ways, it is the opposite of what you might expect from society. Most of us are daughters. There are only three or four sons in the family, with daughters predominating on both my mother’s and my father’s sides.

Every daughter in our family is highly educated and intellectually inclined. The sons are mostly in business rather than academic fields. There has always been strong encouragement for daughters to pursue an education.

My dad did not focus on marriage. He would say, “Why get married now? Complete your education first.” We were surrounded by doctors, so those were the careers we knew.

One of my cousins is a dermatologist. On my mother’s side, there are specialists in reproductive medicine, genetics, and cardiology. On my father’s side, there are dermatologists and other doctors. With the next generation, we started learning about other professions, such as chartered accountancy.

My sister and I never wanted to become doctors because we had seen how busy our parents were. They would leave at nine in the morning and return at nine at night. Despite that, they never neglected us. We had celebrations, parties, and everything else, even though we lived in a small town.

Still, we used to say that we would do anything other than become doctors or psychiatrists. But perhaps I was destined to become a psychiatrist. I initially chose the non-medical stream in Class 11, but I returned home because I was homesick and could not bear to be away from my parents. The condition for staying was that I had to switch to the medical stream.

Jacobsen: Did you travel much within India or internationally while growing up?

Sidhana: That is one of my biggest regrets. My dad has filled four passports, while I have visited only two countries.

Jacobsen: Why did you not travel with him to those places?

Sidhana: We were studying, and I did not want to miss school. I remember one morning when my parents overslept, so I got up late too. They said, “All right, take the day off.” I argued with them: “How could you not get up and send us to school?”

My sister was different. She would go and sleep in the bathroom to avoid going to school!

My studies were the main reason I did not travel. In 2003, I went to Pune for my MBBS. Then I went to Delhi for my internship at Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, formerly known as Willingdon Hospital. It was extremely busy.

After that, I went to Pondicherry for three years to complete my MD. During that time, I saw my parents only twice. I did not see my sister for three years because she was studying in Maharashtra while I was in Pondicherry, and our leave schedules did not coincide.

In 2013, I returned to Delhi to work at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, or IHBAS.

My dad’s travel has primarily been for professional purposes, rather than leisure. He has given talks on mental health and psychiatry in many countries. He usually visits a city for a talk and then comes home, without spending much time sightseeing.

Then I got married. Surprisingly, neither of the two men I married had a passport.

I am also someone who finds it difficult to travel alone. I have been very traditional about marriage and relationships. I would think, “I cannot go without my husband,” even when I had opportunities.

My sister is different. She studied in Singapore for three months and has visited Thailand. She takes solo trips and is ready to travel now, too. Her husband does not object.

My first husband did not object either. It was my own choice not to go.

Jacobsen: How are relationships typically portrayed in Indian popular culture?

Sidhana: Human relationships are varied, and textbooks cannot teach you everything about them. That is one thing I have learned. I have read all sorts of books about saving a marriage, including how to strengthen it before it even begins.

I thought I was an expert at that. I had written an article about premarital counselling, and that article actually helped bring about my arranged marriage. My prospective in-laws read it and encouraged my former husband to marry me. They thought, “She seems so nice, and she writes about premarital counselling.”

I had also written about the five love languages. I read extensively about relationships, including Gary Chapman’s books, father–daughter relationships, mother–son relationships, and Freud’s ideas about family dynamics.

I wrote a blog post called “Raja Beta Syndrome,” which attracted considerable attention. It describes the attitude that “my son is a king” or “my son can never do anything wrong.” I use it to describe patterns of entitlement and indulgence, rather than a formal psychiatric diagnosis.

Jacobsen: I interpret that as someone growing up with excessive indulgence and no accountability for wrongdoing. Is that fair?

Sidhana: Yes, that is what I mean. In some families in India, a woman’s status is closely tied to giving birth to a son. Her life can then begin to revolve around him.

That can reinforce entitlement and make it difficult for family members to acknowledge harmful behaviour. They may see that something wrong is happening but struggle to accept it.

I also see this in the context of intergenerational trauma. It is not simply a matter of blaming the mother. She may have grown up in a system that makes her feel her value depends on having a son. Even professional achievement, whether in the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service, or political leadership, may not free her from that expectation within her family.

Jacobsen: Would you argue that there is a great deal of intergenerational trauma in India?

Sidhana: Of course, but not only in India. It exists everywhere. Love and pain are shared human experiences, although the ways people express and report them differ.

Jacobsen: How does reporting differ across places?

Sidhana: In India, divorce used to be less visible, but that does not mean marital distress or domestic violence was absent. More women are now finding the courage and support to speak about their experiences.

LGBTQ people also experience violence, but stigma and reluctance to disclose their identities can make those experiences difficult to document.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I participated in a multicentre study on domestic violence involving institutions in different parts of India, including my hospital in Rajasthan. We used an anonymous online survey.

Willingness to disclose can differ between communities. Some people, particularly in settings where privacy is difficult to maintain, may be afraid to respond even to an anonymous survey. They worry that someone will discover their answers and retaliate.

Financial dependence can also make it difficult to seek help. Some people’s needs are ignored until the situation becomes an emergency.

Men are beginning to speak more openly about their experiences, too. It is not that men do not suffer. At a national conference in January, we discussed suicide prevention and young people seeking help through helplines. I would need to check the specific figures before quoting them.

Some men feel they have nobody to confide in and that nobody asks how they are. As more speak up, their experiences as victims are becoming more visible.

I know of Andrew Pain, who speaks publicly about surviving domestic abuse and has also written a book. Men can experience serious domestic violence, and barriers to reporting can keep their experiences hidden.

Recently, I participated in a Social Impact Lab. We were given a challenge, and my team had seven people. I was from India, and other members were from countries including Kenya, Japan, and Korea. We had to coordinate across different time zones to attend classes and work together.

The challenge was “No Peace Without Women.” We developed a questionnaire and explored different hypotheses about how culture shapes people’s understanding of peace. We asked, “What does peace mean to you?”

Jacobsen: What does peace mean to you? To me, it means more than quiet. It includes the absence of violence, a sustained ceasefire where there has been conflict, and sufficiently amicable relations to support a durable peace.

Sidhana: Yes, that is a very good description. Our first task was to gather definitions of peace from people in the countries represented and understand what they thought it meant.

I could not believe how slowly the “No Peace Without Women” petition was gaining signatures. I had circulated it to more than a thousand people, but when I checked, it had only about 3,200 signatures. It was initiated by Patricia Elias.

Signing an online petition takes very little time. Yet I struggled to persuade people to sign.

Our team encountered different opinions in different countries. In one professional discussion in India, what began as a neutral conversation about women in leadership turned into a heated argument.

Human behaviour never stops surprising me. Another team member reported that some men were afraid of women’s leadership.

Jacobsen: What reasons did they give?

Sidhana: They said that women become domineering and toxic when they enter leadership positions. Those responses were recorded in our spreadsheet.

Jacobsen: If that is what those men believe they have observed, it raises several questions. What constitutes healthy leadership? How do cultural expectations about gender influence what people consider healthy leadership in women and men?

Sidhana: Absolutely. But I would not generalize from those responses. First, my colleague had surveyed very few men. You cannot draw conclusions about an entire population from five or six people.

Still, I have encountered toxic female bosses and supportive male bosses. Anyone can be a good leader. What matters is whether the person understands the purpose of leadership and helps create more leaders.

Jacobsen: I would acknowledge accounts from both men and women about harmful behaviour in leadership. I would not want to dismiss their experiences. However, an individual observation does not establish a general difference between genders. As you say, leadership involves individual qualities, while broader patterns require evidence.

Sidhana: Yes. In my experience of workplaces in India, problems involving some male leaders have included sexual favouritism and preferential treatment based on gender.

Women can also encounter repeated doubts about their competence. Even when I am thoroughly prepared and hold a leadership position, I may feel that I have to present my case twice before a senior colleague accepts it. A man’s judgment may receive less scrutiny in the same setting.

That expectation that a woman cannot do the job can cause anxiety and self-doubt. Impostor feelings can affect anyone, but repeatedly having your competence questioned can make those feelings worse.

I have embraced the glorious mess that I am. But I have seen women put pressure on themselves to be perfect, to be “superwomen.” That pressure can contribute to anxiety and feelings of inadequacy.

I have also observed jealousy, envy, and gossip among women, both in my clinical work and in my personal life. In my experience, some women will begin speaking negatively about another woman as soon as she leaves the table.

I do not consider that true friendship. In my experience, the men around me have been less likely to gossip about their friends in that way. That is an observation from my own life and clinical work, and from what my parents have shared with me, rather than a rule about men and women.

Competition is another issue. I have seen women in leadership become intensely competitive and feel that they must be the best at everything. That pressure, combined with an unwillingness to accept criticism, can cause problems.

I believe leadership should be fair, without bias towards either men or women. I have seen male and female leaders work together to bring their field to an international level. What matters is their purpose, their commitment to helping people speak up, and their ability to develop other leaders.

Burnout is another concern. Workplace culture and deadlines can create enormous pressure. Household responsibilities can add to that. In some households, domestic work is shared, but in many Indian families, it is still treated as the woman’s responsibility.

Even when a woman has domestic help, she may be thinking about whether there is milk in the refrigerator while giving a talk. She may still be responsible for remembering whether the vegetables have run out. The men in those households may not carry the same responsibility.

That became especially apparent during the COVID-19 lockdown. Women were working from home while also doing the work of running the home.

Jacobsen: There was no separation between those responsibilities, either mentally or physically. That can be emotionally challenging.

Sidhana: Yes. Many households that could afford domestic help had relied on it for cooking, cleaning, and other tasks. During lockdown, that help was often unavailable, and women had to manage both paid work and household responsibilities.

Some men had never learned basic tasks, even boiling milk or water. These are life skills that should be taught in childhood to everyone, regardless of gender.

Jacobsen: Whether a marriage is arranged or begins as a love marriage, the relationship develops over time. In marriages involving physical, emotional, or financial abuse, how does that abuse manifest in an Indian cultural context? How is it excused in unsupportive environments, and how are victims or survivors supported in more constructive ones?

Men, women, and children who experience domestic violence have been victimized, but that experience does not have to define their entire identity. They may understand themselves as survivors and eventually reach a point where they are thriving.

Sidhana: Yes. For me, that connects with the idea that, although pain may be unavoidable, I can work towards changing how I respond to it. That does not mean the suffering caused by abuse is a choice. It means trying to reclaim some agency over my life.

On your point about love marriages and arranged marriages, I see marriage as an enormous gamble. I sometimes joke darkly that, in a love marriage, you jump into the gamble yourself, whereas in an arranged marriage, someone else pushes you into it. I have experienced both.

My first marriage was a love marriage, the kind of intensely romantic relationship you see in films. It was blind love. My second marriage was arranged.

But the distinction does not necessarily tell you how the relationship will unfold. Living with someone reveals aspects of their character that you may not have seen before. You also learn about them when they do not get what they want, when something is taken away, or when you disagree.

You also learn about people through how they behave when they are angry.

It can feel as though everyone is wearing a mask: get up, put on the mask, smile, and present yourself as the best person in the world because everyone is watching.

People often present their best selves during courtship, whether the relationship leads to a love marriage or an arranged marriage. My first husband and I were together for two years before we married. I was the first girl in my family to have a love marriage, which was a significant departure from family expectations. There can be considerable stigma surrounding that.

But he was a psychiatrist, and, as I said, psychiatry was almost our family’s religion and caste. His profession helped make the relationship acceptable.

For two years, I had not seen that anger. I believed he loved me. Then, on our wedding night, he spat in my face and slapped me. I could not understand how his behaviour could change so abruptly.

I had fought with my parents to marry him. People had warned me that he was marrying me for money, but I had refused to believe them. After that, how could I tell my parents that I wanted to come home?

That is why I say the type of marriage does not guarantee anything. My second marriage was arranged. We made inquiries and even reviewed documents from his first divorce. But documents do not necessarily tell the whole story. Those papers contained allegations about his former wife’s character.

He appeared to be an excellent doctor. He worked with my brother at a hospital, and my brother said, “We could not find a better man for you.”

He did not drink openly at parties.

His mother had been junior to my mother, and his father was my father’s friend. Their family lived only about 30 kilometres away. Yet I still experienced a profound culture shock after moving into that household.

That experience informed my contribution to Voices Across the Borders, a book about immigration. Preeti asked me how my story would fit.

I asked her, “Do we need a passport stamp or a visa to be considered a migrant?”

A woman leaves home with a suitcase containing her life and enters a household where everything can feel unfamiliar. She may feel as though she is living among strangers. For me, that displacement was deeply painful, partly because nobody recognized it as a form of migration.

Jacobsen: Yes. So many people experience that.

Sidhana: Yes. That was the first time I had thought about it in those terms.

Then, after divorce, she returns to her parents’ home and thinks, “I do not belong here anymore, but I do not belong there either. I have nowhere to call my own.”

Her parents’ home still has its own rules and routines. That is how I feel: I do not have a place I can call my own. In that sense, I am still a migrant.

Jacobsen: How do you interpret that? How do you interpret that feeling of migrating out of either a love marriage or an arranged marriage, particularly while recovering from domestic abuse?

Sidhana: First, there is no rule book for recovery, healing, or the emotions that arise during that process.

There is no universal rule book for marriage either. Gary Chapman has written extensively about relationships, but no book can account for the full complexity of human behaviour. People can behave in ways you could never have imagined.

Another thing is that everyone prepares us for marriage. But does anyone prepare us for divorce?

Jacobsen: No. We often receive very little preparation for that possibility. It is like sending a couple out of a plane without giving them parachutes.

Sidhana: Nobody prepared me for divorce. I was never ready for it.

People also rarely discuss the grief of losing a relationship when the other person is still alive. We talk about grief when someone dies, and people recognize that loss. But when the person is still breathing, that grief can be harder for others to understand.

Just a few minutes ago, I was talking about people asking, “Why were you crying if you wanted the divorce?”

How can I simply stop loving someone I loved? Sometimes, letting go is an act of love. In my case, it was an act of self-love. I realized that I needed to love myself enough to save myself.

The memories do not simply disappear.

Jacobsen: Elizabeth Loftus’s research, among others’, shows that memory is reconstructive and can change over time. But that does not mean the emotional significance of a relationship simply disappears.

Returning to grief, people process a death differently across cultures, families, and individual circumstances. Grieving a relationship with someone who is still alive can involve a different kind of loss. Even if you never see that person again, you may continue to mourn the connection and the future you imagined together. Those feelings can outlast the person’s presence in your life.

If reconciliation occurs, there may also be grief for the relationship as it once was. You are coming back together as people who have changed.

Sidhana: Once that crack appears, I find it difficult to imagine rebuilding the relationship. Can broken glass ever be the same again?

Jacobsen: I think rebuilding can be possible in some circumstances.

Sidhana: It took me a long time to reach a decision. Even then, I struggled to contemplate divorce.

Jacobsen: In some cultural settings, divorce is more accepted than in others.

On reconciliation, I would distinguish the possibility of repairing a relationship from any obligation to do so. A sincere apology and a willingness to consider it may begin that process, but an apology alone does not restore trust.

Rebuilding takes time. How long depends on the people involved, the reason for the rupture, and whether meaningful change follows. Reconciliation can also break down along the way. I would say it can be difficult, rather than assume it is either impossible or likely.

Sidhana: It is very difficult, especially when someone refuses to acknowledge the harm they have caused or take responsibility for it.

I used to wonder about his feelings. Of course I missed him. But did he miss me too? We had shared very romantic times. After the separation, he was still living in the same room we had shared. Even a single reminder could make me cry, and I wondered what he felt when he saw those things.

I came to interpret his behaviour as missing the attention and validation I provided, rather than missing me in the same way. But I cannot know exactly what he was feeling.

Jacobsen: You understood that as a search for what is sometimes called “narcissistic supply”?

Sidhana: Yes, the attention that makes someone feel valued or important. I also wondered whether he feared shame or damage to his reputation. But he already had people ready to support his version of events. Some people call those supporters “flying monkeys.”

In that version of the story, someone else always had to be the villain.

Jacobsen: A persistent refusal to take responsibility, combined with always presenting oneself as the victim, can be a warning sign of an unhealthy pattern. It does not, by itself, establish a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.

Sidhana: Yes. There can be intense affection at first, sometimes called “love bombing,” followed by a dramatic change.

I have written about those changing colours through the imagery of Holi. I used to say that I had been playing Holi all the time because the colours kept changing.

In my second marriage, after two months, I felt that I could barely recognize my husband, even physically. I wondered whether I was the only wife who felt that way. In my first marriage, too, the emotional change was so great that he seemed like a different person.

After the intense affection, the relationship can become controlling. You become dependent, your self-esteem erodes, and you may develop a powerful attachment despite the abuse.

Even without physical violence, emotional abuse can be devastating. For me, it felt as though it was killing my soul. A partner may cut your ties with other people or convince you that those people are bad for you until you feel you cannot speak to anyone.

Then, when you take a stand or try to leave, there may be intense apologies and promises. That effort to draw someone back is sometimes called “hoovering,” after a vacuum cleaner. Those apologies can pull you back into the relationship.

People may leave and return several times before separating permanently. It is not a simple matter of deciding to go.

That is why I am so grateful to my dad. After three years in my first marriage, I unintentionally blurted out that my husband was beating me. My dad contacted my friend, Shweta Raina. She was an angel to me. She arrived within five minutes, and I left the house. I never went back.

When I returned to my family, my dad kept my phone away from me because he believed that one apology would persuade me to return. Within 15 days, I had divorce papers in my hands.

During that period, arrangements were made so that we would not see each other, including at court. My family knew that seeing him could overwhelm me and make me want to go back.

At the time, I felt as though part of me had been amputated.

The grief after my first marriage was very different from what I experienced after my second. After the second, I felt emotionally numb. I wondered whether I had complex PTSD.

Perhaps the isolation was part of it. In my first marriage, there was physical abuse, but I was still working and had my friends. In my second marriage, my life felt reduced to a corner of a room.

There were 11 CCTV cameras monitoring the spaces around me. Someone was always sitting with me or watching me. I could not speak freely on the phone or do things independently.

I would hesitate even to answer calls from my parents. There was a camera in my consulting room. Imagine that in a psychiatrist’s consulting room.

Jacobsen: What advice would you give men and women recovering from experiences like these?

Sidhana: Pay attention when a partner begins cutting you off from your family or friends. Isolation can be an early warning sign of abuse. You do not have to wait for a slap to recognize that something is wrong.

I was cut off from everyone. But I am fortunate to have friends who were still there for me. Even if I had not spoken to them for three years, when I called, the connection was the same.

Some people might respond, “Why did you not talk to me?” My friends understood.

I believe a support system can be lifesaving. Human beings are social. We need connection, yet it sometimes feels as though we have moved from living in communities to living in a digital desert.

Jacobsen: Grief is the price we pay for love.

Sidhana: Yes. And you cannot always predict what will bring those feelings back. I might feel fine now, then start crying while driving half an hour later because a memory comes to me.

I have accepted that this is part of my experience. Healing does not mean the damage never occurred. For me, it means acknowledging what happened, finding a purpose, and carrying the lessons forward.

Forgiveness is something I value for myself. I see it as a gift to myself, rather than to the other person.

I always say, “Do not let your past blackmail your present and ruin your future.”

Watch movies, travel, or do whatever you enjoy. Everyone’s healing process is different. After my first marriage, I travelled extensively around India, went on trips, and socialized a great deal.

After my second marriage, I did not even want to leave my room. I was the same person, but my response was completely different.

You might find journaling helpful, or something else that allows you to express yourself. If you need to cry, cry. Have people you can turn to. If someone expresses suicidal thoughts or shows signs that they may harm themselves, take that seriously and seek immediate help.

Family members need to offer support without judgment. I was fortunate that nobody asked, “Why did you come back?” Their reaction was, “Why did you stay so long?” They wanted me home and safe.

Families need to make it possible for someone to return without feeling ashamed or rejected.

Keep your friendships. Have people who help you regain your wings. Birds and girls are not meant to be caged.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Aninda.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer and Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 2,000 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic, media, and research institution fellowships, and currently serves on numerous international boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.