On Being Alekhya

I was born in San Jose and grew up in Bangalore. My time awake was divided between Masterchef Australia and swatting sunset mosquitoes on my building terrace.

 

I never studied religiously- but come Finals Season, I would be waiting by my teachers' cabins with books that were bent, used, tabbed and underlined with questions. 

 

Having come to terms with my neurodivergence only in my twenties, my younger schooling years always left me believing I was inadequate or lazy. I still describe focusing as “trying to see through frosted glass.” To want so desperately to learn and yet experience a haze of my attentive functions felt like suffocation. It spanned decades and it made me helpless.

 

In schools and workplaces that claimed to care about empathy and inclusion, I still experienced the violence of their exclusion. The worst part is that when violence is implicit, covert and silent, you’re made to feel that your isolation is your own doing.

 

Here’s what I knew to be true: 

• Invisible disabilities would be reframed as struggles that are created by you, for attention or sympathy.

• Abled people will rarely inconvenience other abled people by vouching for the rights of a disabled person. 

• Not many people will be curious about your experiences or needs.

 

It is no surprise how you will hear that I wish to live on my terms now. I desire more knowledge, more space and more air. In doing so, I would need to gamble my job and livelihood.

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What Am I Looking For?

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I am creating something that is unapologetically vulnerable, that digs deeper into therapist-experiences and exposes therapists to different niches of thought and practice. I am catering to curious people who want to understand the therapeutic process, and as a result, become more curious about engaging in deeper self-work.

 

I am privileged enough to often forget my privilege. I feel the complacency of my abundance and the pain of my lack, all at once. I sit by my lamp and bring into my words what I witness in each hour of my practice. I connect with communities that leave me in awe and admiration of their resilience.

 

This publisher serves many of my selfish interests: I want this to make you know who I am, and I want to make my own rules around the work I do. Working in an organisation makes me feel like a bull in a China shop; ugly, obstructive, unrefined and lacking in discipline. The Trade of Therapy is my creative playground. 

 

I hope to make an earnest living as a publisher and therapist. Moving away from the confines of my previous employment gives me the freedom to find a path that is meaningful to me. Yet, it leaves me with the obligation of creating my own supports-insurance, training, savings, legal aid and daily sustenance- with no predictability in income.

 

I can only imagine how there are thousands of students out there who are being churned out of colleges with no creative and independent spirit in their therapeutic practice. How frequently do they get the time, energy or resources to tap into the nuances of depth-work, when they are expected to meet an unsustainable workload? 

 

I crave a space where I’m allowed to be vulnerable, flawed, slow and yet fully accepted. If I cannot find such a space, I will make one.