Thinking Beyond Science

India, with its sheer diversity, is unlike any other nation. Its social structures, family systems, and cultural expectations create unique realities that deeply impact how we experience emotions, relationships, and intimacy. Nowhere else do we see three generations often living under the same roof in crowded apartments while simultaneously belonging to vastly different socio-political and moral value systems.

This context creates a distinctive urban Indian phenomenon: the silent negotiation of emotional. Emotional well-being itself is shaped by this constant act of hiding—an unsaid expectation that one’s needs must cause “minimal inconvenience” to others. This invisibilization of basic human needs is not just a quirk of urban life; it’s a cultural pattern that ripples into shame, secrecy, conflict, and longing.

Yet, even in such tension, India is witnessing a revolution. Social media, therapy awareness, dating apps, and cultural conversations are forcing us to confront old wounds and long-ignored realities of intimacy and trauma. For the first time, many Indians are actively trying to unlearn generations of shame and step into a healthier relationship with themselves and others.

The Myth of Time as a Healer
At family gatherings, it’s common to hear the phrase: “Time will heal everything, just think positive.” It’s said when someone is going through a breakup, divorce, or even after traumatic life events. While well-meaning, this phrase reveals how our culture often misinterprets healing.

Time does allow space for distance and reflection; it reduces the intensity of hurt. But therapists across the world agree: time alone cannot heal. Healing is not passive—it is active. It requires engagement with our wounds, strategies for processing pain, and often the guidance of supportive communities or therapeutic frameworks.

Healing from shame in particular is a skill. Many Indians are hungry to learn this skill because shame isn’t just a feeling—it’s a survival strategy we’ve inherited from families, communities, and broader systemic structures. Silence about sex, avoidance of conflict, burying uncomfortable emotions: these are all shame-driven patterns we repeat without realizing how they rob us of intimacy and ease.

Trauma in the Indian Context
Understanding shame and healing requires us to confront trauma—a concept still carrying stigma in Indian households.

Simply put, trauma is an emotional, psychological, or sexual wound that disrupts our sense of well-being. As physician Dr. Gabor Maté describes, trauma is not the external event itself—be it abuse, war, neglect, or betrayal—but what happens inside you as a result of those events. It is the wound you carry forward, and it shapes how you experience the world thereafter.

This framing is deeply relevant in India, where many people believe they aren’t “entitled” to feel traumatized unless their suffering was extreme. Someone who grew up with constant criticism, or who faced academic pressure that eroded their sense of worth, often minimizes their pain because “others have it worse.” But trauma is not a competition. It resides in the body and heart regardless of whether it fits society’s definition of “severe.”

• Big T Trauma includes events like sexual assault, natural disasters, hate crimes, or severe accidents.
• small t Trauma can look like bullying, divorce, parental neglect, or persistent but subtle criticism.

Both kinds affect our psyche. What matters most is not the scale of the event but how the individual body and mind experienced it, and what support the person had at that time.

Trauma Responses: How the Body Remembers
Trauma rarely remains confined to memory—it lives in our nervous system. Our body reacts instinctively to protect us even years after the original event.

A few common responses include:

1. Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn – Automatic danger responses: fight back, run away, go numb, or comply in hopes of safety.
2. Hyperarousal – Remaining constantly on guard, even in safe environments, leading to insomnia, flashbacks, or nightmares.
3. Hypoarousal – Emotional numbness, disconnection, and dissociation as a way of self-protection.
4. Avoidance – Steering clear of people, places, or relationships that remind us of trauma.
5. Dissociation – Losing track of time, feeling spaced out, or being disconnected from self and reality.

These responses may seem irrational on the surface—why would someone panic at a harmless comment or avoid an old college campus? But when seen through the trauma lens, it makes sense. The body’s wisdom is trying to shield us from re-experiencing pain.

Urban India: Silence, Shame, and Emerging Conversations
Urban Indian life often exacerbates trauma patterns. Imagine a young person exploring their sexual identity while sharing a bedroom with two siblings. Or a woman enduring a toxic marriage because her parents dismiss her distress with “adjust and compromise.” Or a man silently battling porn addiction because talking about loneliness and desire feels like a betrayal of family values.

These experiences can easily spiral into shame. Yet shame thrives only in silence. And this is where India’s cultural change begins to show hope.

Across podcasts, Instagram pages, YouTube therapy channels, and modern dating platforms, urban Indians are finally putting words to experiences they were taught to suppress. Terms like “emotional abuse,” “touch hunger,” and “trauma response” are entering mainstream vocabulary. Couples are asking new questions about marital expectations, consent, gender roles, and relational health. The conversations themselves are evidence of a society in flux.

Towards a Trauma-Informed India
This is where the concept of trauma-informed care becomes significant. Being trauma-informed means recognizing that everyone carries wounds, and that systems—from schools to hospitals, workplaces to families—must be designed with empathy and safety at their core.

Imagine classrooms where teachers understand that a student’s defiance may not be “bad behavior” but a trauma response. Or workplaces where stress management policies don’t just push yoga but also acknowledge burnout from systemic discrimination. Or couples who, instead of escalating fights, pause to ask: “Could my partner’s reaction be linked to an old wound?”

Such a lens helps us transition from judgment to compassion. It allows us to stop labeling people as “too sensitive” or “too weak” and instead understand the resilience it often takes to merely function after trauma.

The Courage of Unlearning Shame
Unlearning generations of shame is no small task. Shame was a survival mechanism—it kept families intact, reinforced societal order, and ensured compliance with tradition. But in today’s dynamic, globalized India, shame prevents authentic living. It blocks intimacy, joy, and trust.

Healing requires courage because it is, at its heart, an act of rebellion—rebellion against silence, against “adjust and compromise,” against the belief that one’s needs are less important than others. It is about reclaiming the possibility that we deserve good health, thriving relationships, and emotional satisfaction.

Good health is not an abstract luxury. It is a living, breathing right—one every human being can and must access. By integrating trauma-informed habits, embracing open conversations, and replacing shame with compassion, we open the door to a liberated, more humane future.

Final Thoughts
Urban India is standing at a cultural crossroads. On one hand, our lived realities of overcrowded homes, intergenerational conflict, and silence around intimacy continue to reinforce shame. On the other, the rise of public dialogue around sexuality, emotional well-being, and trauma signals sweeping waves of change.

Time alone will not heal us. But awareness, dialogue, professional tools, and trauma-informed practices can. The journey is not easy, but perhaps the courage to heal—individually and collectively—is the most Indian act of resilience we can embrace right now.

Source : Unashamed: Notes From the Diary of a Sex Therapist by Neha Bhat

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213289435-unashamed