Inspired by an extraordinary adolescent - Aisha Chaudhary

My blog post today is inspired by Aisha Chaudhary. I first learned about Aisha through the movie "The Sky is Pink", based on her life story. Aisha left this world at 18 because of an illness that made it progressively difficult for her to breathe. Before she died, she expressed her physical and internal struggles with her disease in "My Little Epiphanies" (In the rest of the blog, I will refer to this as Epiphanies).

Aisha inspires me to think about adolescents as complete people

Aisha writes the Epiphanies when she knows she is dying sooner than later. As such, she creates a picture of adolescence that is rather unusual. Adults think of adolescence as an intermediary stage of being human because adolescents tend to grow up to become adults. But Aisha is not an adolescent waiting to be taken seriously sometime later. She is to be taken seriously now. Her Epiphanies present a picture of someone dying to live intensely, perhaps even more than some of us adults, myself included.

Adults sometimes overlook some things adolescents go through because grownups focus on the future adolescent - the grownup. Adults relate to adolescents as incomplete and unfinished human beings. But Aisha shows us how adolescents should be taken seriously and be allowed to become themselves fully, now and not later. In other words, we must accept the adolescent identity as complete, including their emerging sexuality.

I am not suggesting that adolescents do not need support from adults. They do. But this support works best when adolescents feel that they are taken seriously and are not merely being tolerated until they grow up.

Being in touch with our emotions is vital for wellbeing

Aisha's writing reveals her remarkable emotional maturity. I do not believe my emotional maturity was anywhere close to Aisha's when I was 20, not even when I was 40. I don't know about now.

Our emotional world is complex, but it is one with which we must be in touch to keep emotionally healthy. Our emotions are a means of getting to the truth about ourselves. Being in touch with our emotions helps us understand who we are. Understanding who we are is a critical step for establishing intimate relationships. This capacity to deal with our emotions and the emotions of others is emotional intelligence. It is a process we have to learn as we grow up. When emotionally stunted, we can face challenges in our relationships that do not just go away by themselves. Sometimes, our emotional world can become too challenging to handle alone. In such times, we would need a psychotherapist or counsellor to help us manage our emotions to become happy again.

Though Aisha is grappling with the reality of dying young, her writing displays advanced emotional intelligence. In the Epiphanies, Aisha asks, "why do so many emotions exist?" I was fascinated by this question because it shows that she was aware of a complex emotional world. One could say that perhaps she had googled it (like I did randomly and found an article that says there are 27 human emotions. I can believe that, even if someone says there are more of them).

But looking at her writings, I am convinced this was not just an intellectual exercise, but she describes her authentic experience of managing emotions. Below I quote some text from the Epiphanies, and I supply the emotion I believe corresponds to her text.

Sadness: "I have come to accept the sadness within me."

Anger: "I am at a place so low that if anyone does anything in the slightest way to push my buttons, I become angrier than I actually should be, and it's the scariest when it feels like you're out of control."

Romance: "And in that moment I realised, if I keep him close, I fall deeper in love, and if I let him go, I will soon not remember."

Disappointment: "To think that you don't love me is painfully disappointing"

Fear: "It's the scariest when I feel my own spark start to slip away."

Jealous: "Sometimes the jealousy really gets in the way when I want to connect with someone."

Aisha displays the skill of articulating her emotions and feelings in different shades. This is an important aspect of emotional health. We need to encourage adolescents to name and be aware of their emotions.

Adolescence and love

I now turn to the subject which I know is controversial but critical, sexuality. As I have posted in previous blogs, an important feature of adolescence is the emerging sexual identity. I cannot emphasise enough that it is normal for adolescents to be interested in sex, love and romance. It should not frighten any parent at all. Rather, parents should support their adolescents to understand themselves and to be in touch with the emotions and feelings related to sexuality.

While reading the Epiphanies, I find that Aisha is as normal as any adolescent. Somewhere she asks "What is the definition of love?" Even as she asks about the meaning of love, she uses the word 'love' to express her feelings with family members. But then elsewhere, she appears to write about a different kind of love, for instance, where she says, "I hate myself for tripping into this beautiful thing everybody calls love", or "I had love for you, but lost respect for myself". She also writes "Love struck by your presence upon me." Therefore, I would say there are different kinds of love she perceives beyond the love she expresses toward family members.

Sexual desire

However, I am most pleasantly surprised with this piece of text that appears only in a doodle. If you have not seen her Epiphanies, note that Aisha expresses herself by doodling, that is, drawing pictures and patterns about her thoughts. All the text in the Epiphanies comes from her doodles. The editor makes it easy for the reader by laying out her thoughts in the main text. However, the editor left one piece of text in the doodle without transferring it to the text. I, therefore, present to the reader Aisha's original doodle below:

I am referring to the text at the bottom of the doodle which reads:

We just made love and now my world is the warmest shade of Gold

Aisha draws a picture that unmistakably expresses it all. Wow! It just blew my mind. I am not surprised the editor let the doodle speak for itself.

I do not know about Indian culture, but I suspect it might not be too different from African culture. I think I would be speaking for most parents when I said that if I found that my (unmarried) daughter had written this about herself, I would not have happy feelings (and this is putting it mildly). But here, Aisha expresses her sexual desire openly to the world, something that many adolescents would rather hide from adults because they know adults would not like to hear this. I do not know if Aisha is writing about a physical act or if it was her imagination, but that is beside the point. The point is she expresses something that is real for her.

I appreciate Aisha for boldly expressing herself without fear. As I said above, adults must not think that early adolescent love or what is otherwise called 'puppy love' is not serious, is merely experimental, or childish. Parents can be dismissive and ignore adolescents when they express such feelings. It is disrespectful to the adolescent and a lost opportunity to help adolescents develop emotional intelligence that would help them navigate sexual relationships.

Finding the love that makes us happy

I remember that in my adolescence, I was in a situation where I was unhappy about my relationship, yet I hang on to it too long for reasons other than my happiness. Perhaps I was afraid I would never find another love. I had never reflected on why I had gotten stuck, until Aisha made me think about it when she herself asks this question:

And in that moment I realised, if I keep him close, I fall deeper in love, and if I let him go, I will soon not remember. Which of the two makes me happier? That is the question

Knowing whether one should continue with a love affair or let go is an essential part of relationship skills. It requires courage, and support from others (and especially parents) to deal with the pain of breaking up. It is not cool to continue a relationship when love has dried up, or one no longer feels happy. (Things get more complex when we marry, so I will stick to 'puppy love'). Aisha does not fear asking herself this question, and searches within herself to get the truth to guide her on what to do.

A final word and tribute to Aisha

I appreciate Aisha and express my sincere gratitude to her for the Epiphanies. It helped me to write about an otherwise difficult subject matter. As I have said, Aisha makes us realise that adolescence is not merely a stage we pass through to get to a better stage. It is a state of being human that is uniquely important in its own right. We must take adolescents seriously, including their interests in sex, love and romance.

Aisha's Epiphanies reveal her remarkable emotional intelligence. I believe adolescents and adults have something to appreciate from her deceptively simple doodles. You can learn more about Aisha on the web, and here is one of the sites.