They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us

by Prachi Gupta

The ornamental aspects of womanhood brought us together. Maybe if we could have acknowledged the pain of womanhood, too, we wouldn’t have been so burdened by its constraints.

I had once thought that I came from a line of Gods, and I had punished myself for failing to be Godlike. But we were not Gods, and I was not the avatar for our family’s unraveling. I was just another product of inherited trauma, unresolved grief, and reactive survival mechanisms, like everyone else who came before me. We were mortals who felt ashamed when we failed to appear omnipotent. Now I see that my job was to release my ancestors from this burden, to allow those who come next the freedom to be ordinary.