Beating the odds: Jenithaa conducting a training programme.
KLANG: She was at the height of her career when the inevitable struck, leaving her physically and financially devastated.
However, years later, Jenithaa Santhirasekaran, 56, believes that the stroke she suffered in 2011 was a blessing in disguise.
Jenithaa, who was then a country director for the Malaysian AIDS Council overseeing an externally funded programme on community action and harm reduction, recalled: “The stroke and the physical disability that followed made me look at myself, and life in general, from a different perspective.
“I was doing very well before it happened, but I was proud, arrogant and self-centred, believing I had the best career, as well as wealth and glamour.”
The mother of three daughters aged 33, 22 and 17, and grandmother of a six-year-old girl, had also served as the executive director of outreach organisation PT Foundation before joining the Malaysian Aids Council.
Jenithaa recalled how the turning point in her life came after she was injured in a snatch theft incident that resulted in her suffering injuries to her head, face and neck.
“I was on medical leave for two weeks and suffered from nausea and headaches and felt faint all the time long after my medical leave ended.
“Two months later, when attending a meeting in Bali, I suffered a stroke in my hotel room,” said Jenithaa.
The stroke rendered her unable to walk and talk, and also affected her right eye.
After being hospitalised in Bali for two weeks, she was allowed to return home to Malaysia and was readmitted here two weeks later after suffering fits.
Wheelchair-bound but able to speak by then, Jenithaa said she went for everything she believed could help her, such as ayurvedic treatment, massages and acupuncture.
“I was jobless, broke and an OKU (orang kurang upaya – a person with disabilities) and after a while I had no money left in my bank account.
“There came a time when there wasn’t even any food in the house to feed my children and that truly devastated me and made me feel useless,’’ said Jenithaa, adding that it was then that she decided to take her own life.
Desiring to spend one final day with her three daughters, then aged 19, eight and four, Jenithaa emerged from her room, where she had been isolating herself, to be with them.
However, when she saw how much her children loved her and their happiness upon seeing her, Jenithaa chose to fight back and refused to let the stroke control her life.
“I stopped using my wheelchair and held on to walls and objects while teaching myself to walk again.
“I also literally begged, borrowed and stole to raise my children in the condition that I was in.
“I made myself ‘thick-skinned’ and asked for help but unfortunately lost so many ‘friends’ during this time after I approached them to seek financial help,” said Jenithaa, who became a single mother when her youngest daughter was born.
She also called up friends and acquaintances and started going out to let people see her in her post-stroke condition.
Jenithaa added that she started taking any job that came her way as well as pursued courses and developed herself into a speaker, forum panellist and advocate for the differently-abled.
“I am now a certified neuro-linguistic master practitioner and trainer, clinical hypnotherapist, disability equality training trainer, non-governmental organisation management trainer, environment social and governance trainer and a diversity, equity and inclusion trainer.”
She added that she has also developed and run modules on emotional well-being, climate change and innovative parenting and has conducted over 100 workshops to date.
Jenithaa said she is currently completing a diploma in integrated psychotherapy specialising in childhood and adulthood abuse, trauma, grief health and past life regression therapy.
Despite sight not yet fully returning to her right eye, her right leg completely numb, her right hand disabled and her speech sometimes impaired, Jenithaa added that she has finally found herself.
“I am happy that I am now a better person than I was before the stroke happened.”
She can be contacted at jenithaa69@gmail.com
