A. is a beautiful 50 year old woman who contacted me for treatment in order to address the numerous gut issues she was experiencing, so that she was in constant discomfort and agony day or night. Her plight as usual in the beginning was only in regards to her physical symptoms, sending me her lab works and tests for me to assess her state of health, but for me it was more of an interest to explore her mental and emotional state which as she confessed was a mess since her husband had passed away a year ago. She had 3 grown children whom she had brought up with much dedication and care, and they had grown up into responsible adults tending to their own lives with relative ease and comfort. But since her husband’s passing away A. had not been able to recover from this setback and she would cry constantly, his absence an unbearable truth for her.

You see A. had been married since the age of 15, to a man 20 years senior to her, so he had practically taken care of her from her childhood till she became an adult. This man may have raised her like a child, but he had never trained her or prepared her to become self sufficient, because that was not her purpose in his household. Hers was a role of a caretaker, for each and every person in the home, from the man’s parents, his siblings, his children, the running of the household. All that had been required of her was to serve so she may have become an adult under his care but she had never developed a sense of selfhood under such circumstances, which had now, after the demise of the man, left her at a loss about her current situation where for the first time she had been left alone to find meaning to a life that she had previously spent only in service for others.

Although a relatively young woman, numerous women like A., are unable to move on with their lives in these circumstances because of the way they are bred and raised in our society. Although hailing from educated middle class backgrounds, these women were never made aware of what it is to realize their own self-hood and their personal needs. They were trained to believe that living a life dedicated to serving the family they will be married into, is the highest ideal for a woman, so that they are never able to give any importance to what their own needs may be, until they reach a point when the sole purpose of their life, in this case her husband of 35 years who passed away, leaves her with a gaping void that she does not know how to fill.

And this is where I question this society we live in that reveres women who were trained to live a life of sole dedication to their husbands and families in constant self-sacrifice, that how do we tend to them when they are in this state of loss and misery feeling like their life is not even worth living?

Numerous women like A. have thus suffered not only at the hands of, first their families, who never paid full heed to taking care of their responsibilities by bringing these women up to a point of self realization where they can recognize themselves as individuals with their own personal needs and wants, but also at the hands of those families where they are married off into almost like a trade to another family who can now repeat the process of simply using the woman as a means to reproduce, serve, and obey, but never helping her grow to realize her own self worth as an individual.

I question the society that idolizes such objectified women only until their service lasts, for after that they only become a burden for everyone around them because they have now lost their use, I question as to how has the idolizing of these women for their self sacrifice, benefitted them as individuals? Now that A.’s husband has passed away, children are gone living their own personal lives, yet she has a zero sense of autonomy, she often finds herself brooding upon her existence which she finds no purpose to, probably moving towards a state of looming depression and anxiety which are the natural consequence of all those unexpressed and unfulfilled desires that she never got a chance to express?

All I can do is to help dear A. with the tools that are available with me, not really knowing how will this brilliant and beautiful lady fare in the end, but I hold the hand of this idol so it will come alive by the warmth of the hope I hold for her…

“I do not feel like crying anymore and my gut feels completely fine too. I do not know what has happened to me, so that I feel fine in every way, not even missing my husband that much, has my heart turned to stone?” A. questioned me innocently.

“Crying is just like thirst and hunger my dear A., it will come to you when your body needs it, right now the remedy has helped bring a balance back inside of you so that you do not feel the need to, so do not worry about that. While I am glad that your gut issues are almost non-existent, that is superb!” I replied.

“You are right, for the first time in a long while I am not feeling that constant anguish and sadness I had been feeling after his passing away, even when someone recently paid condolences for him I did not weep, I simply accepted them somberly and then found myself not even thinking about it a few minutes later.” said A.

“This and so much more we will do together, we will fill that void with purpose and a will to live your life to the fullest, as intended by the Creator for each individual. So what if no one else thought of this for you, but you can still do so much for your own self!” was my excited response.