Jess Jagpal
“Over my life, deep down in my heart I somehow knew that happiness was always going to be an inside job, an inner cleanse. I was in my 40s when I fully embraced myself and ever since I have been feeling liberated.”
My “eye” story begins when I was seven years old. I injured my eye in a freak accident at boarding school. The last thing I remember before waking up in a hospital was going to the washroom. They found me lying on the hallway floor with blood coming from my nose. I was rushed to the hospital and my mom was told that I might not survive. It was two days before I finally woke up and was conscious.
When I woke up, my left eye was completely shut. The hospital asked my mom to take me to a larger one that was capable of treating me. My mom was always a strong woman and had to take care of us on her own as my dad was in the army. She immediately went into mama bear mode to find the best medical care for me that she could. I spent many years in and out of hospitals. The hospital where I would eventually have many surgeries was in the capital Delhi, which was approximately 370 km from my home in Jalandhar.
Mom and I would take the long 12 hour train ride there and crash at a friend’s place for a week or for every check-up, surgery, and follow-up visit. I had multiple surgeries in India. Unfortunately, the doctors weren’t able to fix the damage to my optic nerve which prevented me from fully opening my eye or see well enough through it. I was visibly scarred for the rest of my life in my left eye.
The impact of my injury truly set in after I moved to Canada at the age of 12. As a teenager, I was trying to figure out my place in society. For me, my eye became my sole focus. I started to become extremely self-conscious about my face. As soon as I came to Canada, my parents took me to many Ophthalmologists until we found one who believed he would be able to help. I even had several cosmetic surgeries on my eye. Each time, it looked a bit better, but it was far from perfect. Unfortunately, without life’s wisdom, I was my own harshest critic.
Whenever I met someone new, I thought they were focused on my eye. It didn’t help that over the years, I’ve repeatedly heard my mom repeat the same story of my accident to guests. Each time they would look at me and tell me that they were sorry. In my mind, this only further solidified the fact that I did not look good and left me with low self-esteem. It did not matter how many times my parents told me that I looked beautiful, I felt and saw people’s judgments on their faces.
One incident that is cemented in my brain as if it happened yesterday, was during a phone call to a friend in high school. Her brother answered the phone and when I heard my friend ask him whose call it was, he replied “the girl with the one eye”. I know he did not think that I could hear him but at that moment, he validated my worst fear. It caused a lot of trauma as it told me that is how people saw me. I was so torn that I couldn’t talk to my friend and told her that I was getting another call and I hung up.
This one-eye, self-identity, haunted me for many years afterward. Whenever I met anyone new for the first time, like my mom, I’d proactively tell them my eye injury story before they even asked. As a young woman, it took an emotional toll on me, as I could never fit into the culture of beauty that is marketed and standardized everywhere I looked. Even though I was successful professionally, my self-esteem was very low, and for years I allowed people to walk all over me and take advantage of my kindness as I did not feel fully worthy of respect, simply because I was not beautiful. I had put many personal and professional limitations on myself.
It took me decades of self-learning, working on self-love, and feeling my blessings to finally accept myself. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says “ I am a soul having a human experience” There is so much more to my life than the injury to my eye. I’ve also learned that most people have their version of an “eye” problem. Knowing that my value as a human being does not rely on my looks was liberating. I know my value is determined by how I contribute to and maintain relationships with friends, family, and the world. I’ve also learned that not all things in life will follow my plan, and to accept the divine will. So dare I say that I am grateful for my eye injury and the subsequent healing, as it has grown me into the person I am proud of and happy to see when I look into the mirror. Whenever I’ve become vulnerable and shared my story with anyone, they inevitably end up telling me about their “story". It became the gateway for us to have deeper and more meaningful conversations. I’ve learned that we are all dealing with different challenges, some are simply more visible than others. I hope that wherever you are on your healing journey, know that you have the strength to heal yourself, and one day, your story will also become a beacon of hope for others. Please go ahead and share. I’d be honored to go on this healing journey with you.
