For me, with Jhanvi, the journey has been a long one. If I am to be honest, her need for control, her pursuit of perfection began young and probably through no fault of her own. She was always fiercely competitive, her brain matching her beauty, and her drive to succeed only hindered by how many hours she had in her day. I loved her, not for who she had become, but for the little girl who became my sister. It wasn’t unusual for us to fight as sisters do, but our last fight was different. Instinctively I knew that something was wrong, something deep and dark was clawing at her spirit, but I couldn’t force her to speak to me. Couldn’t will her to be honest with me about her addiction. She needed to do that on her own, and it tore me apart, knowing that she was at home, probably lost in a sea of imagined commitments that she couldn’t say no to.

When I saw her posts, saw what those women had to say about her, my sister, saw the pain in her bloodshot eyes, my gut stirred. It told me she needed me, told me that the thread that bound us would be broken, perhaps forever, if I didn’t reach out.

She was stubborn, too stubborn to admit that she was out of her depth. The Jhanvi I knew, that competitive, driven little girl, would rather drown than reach out her hand. And then it happened; I found her clinging to life, her heart frantically trying to keep up with the pace she had set for herself. Fear ripped through me when I found her on the floor. Her apartment echoed the chaos that was inside her, bottles and promotional items were scattered everywhere, and the smell of unwashed dishes and rotting food assaulted my senses. When she awoke in hospital, seemingly no worse-off for what had happened to her, I knew better. Knew that her recovery would be a long, hard process; but if her determination was redirected, it could be done. I saw the pain in her parents’ eyes, but more importantly, I saw something in her. Something that I had never seen before: an urgent need that said she needed help. That she needed to know that she was loved unconditionally.