You’re Not Lost. You Were Taught Not to Trust Yourself.
Why so many South Asian women ask everyone else what to do, and how trust comes back.
There was a time when I could not make a decision on my own.
Neither a big one nor a small one. None of them.
I would ask one person what they thought. Then another. Then another. Not because I wanted their opinions, but because I was terrified of getting it wrong. If enough people agreed, then maybe, if it went badly, it wouldn’t be my fault.
I didn’t see it then, but I was handing my power to other people, because somewhere along the way I had stopped believing I had any.
If you have ever called your sister, then your mother, then a friend, about something you already knew the answer to, this letter is for you.
She asks everyone
The women who come to me are lost.
Not lost the way you might picture it, crying in a corner. Often she is high-functioning. She runs a team, a household and everyone’s calendar. From the outside, she is the capable one.
On the inside:
— She doesn’t know what she wants anymore.
— She overthinks every decision, even the tiny ones.
— She replays old conversations, looking for the moment she went wrong, because she assumes she did.
— She looks in the mirror and doesn’t quite recognise who is looking back.
— And she asks everyone else what to do.
Here is what surprises the women I work with most. When I ask, “What do you need?”, there is often a long pause. They aren’t hiding the answer. No one has asked them in years, including themselves.
For many of them, discovering that they have needs, and that those needs matter, is a revelation. They gave so much to everyone else that they forgot they were allowed to need anything at all.
It didn’t start with the marriage
For many South Asian women, the training starts long before the wedding.
We learn early what a good daughter is. She adjusts. She doesn’t make a fuss. She thinks of the family’s name before her own feelings. Later, she endures as a good wife and daughter-in-law.
Clinical psychologist Dr Jyothsna Bhat, who writes about the South Asian diaspora, describes how women in South Asian communities are expected to bear hardship quietly, and how many carry deep guilt for keeping a marriage together. When the marriage struggles, they feel defective.
Psychologist Dana Crowley Jack spent decades studying what happens when women silence their own thoughts and feelings to keep a relationship intact. The women she interviewed described how silencing their voices
"led to a loss of self and a sense of being lost in their lives." - Dana Crowley Jack, EdD
Then she makes the point I most want you to hear:
"Though this process feels personal to each woman, it is in fact deeply cultural." - Dana Crowley Jack
Gabor Maté explains why it happens. In The Myth of Normal, he describes two needs we are all born with: attachment (staying close to the people we depend on) and authenticity (staying connected to what we actually feel). When the two collide, the child chooses attachment. As Maté puts it:
"When authenticity threatens attachment, attachment trumps authenticity." - Gabor Maté
So a little girl learns to quieten her own knowing so she can stay loved and belong. That isn’t weakness. It’s survival. But it becomes the template she carries into marriage.
Then the marriage teaches her the rest
Years of “You’re too sensitive.” “You’re overreacting.” “That’s not what happened.”
Sociologist Paige Sweet interviewed 43 women who had left abusive relationships. Every one of them described some degree of gaslighting. Her research found it works by leaning on an old stereotype that women are emotional and irrational. You don’t have to call what happened to you abuse for this to feel familiar.
Little by little, she stops trusting what she sees. Then what she feels. Then what she knows.
Her instincts were never broken. They were silenced.
And then the divorce, and the shame
When the marriage ends, or the moment she files, she leans on everyone else’s opinion even more. Should I tell people? Who do I tell? What do I say? Did I do the wrong thing?
In India, only about 1.1% of women are divorced, according to UN Women’s Progress of the World’s Women 2019–2020 report. When you are that rare, you don’t just lose a marriage. You become the topic of conversation.
Log kya kahenge? What will people say?
She is blamed for not making it work. Her parents struggle to tell the relatives. Some of the family quietly pulls away. And she struggles to say the word out loud herself: divorced.
Brené Brown, who has spent two decades researching shame, says:
"Shame needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgement." - Brené Brown
Divorce in South Asian communities often comes with all three.
So of course, she asks everyone. When her judgement has been questioned by her husband, her family and her community, asking others feels safer. If it goes wrong, at least she didn’t choose alone.
That makes complete sense. And it keeps her lost.
What coming back from being lost looks like
Trust doesn’t come back in one breakthrough moment. It comes back in small ones.
Psychologist Rick Hanson describes the brain as
"like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones." - Rick Hanson, PhD
That’s why every mistake she has ever made sticks, while all the times she was right slide away. Trust is rebuilt slowly and on purpose: noticing when her instinct held, and keeping one small promise to herself at a time.
I know this from my own life. It took me years. One step at a time.
I know it from the women I work with too. There is a moment I have learned to listen for: the first time she says, “I deserve…” I deserve to be heard. I deserve rest. I deserve better than that. Often, she doesn’t notice she has said it. I do, because that’s the moment the signal starts coming back.
Three questions to sit with
I’m not going to give you a five-step plan this week. You have had enough people telling you what to do.
Instead, here are three questions. There are no right answers. Just notice what comes up.
1. When did I last make a decision without asking anyone first, and what happened?
2. Whose voice do I hear when I doubt myself? Is it really mine?
3. If no one else’s needs were in the room, what would I need right now?
Write them down if you can. Or carry just one of them with you this week.
You’re not lost. You were taught not to trust yourself. And what was learned can be unlearned.
With you,
Monica
P.S. If you’re ready to talk it through with someone who understands, I offer a free, confidential call. No pressure, no judgement.
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