The Flute Taught Me to Believe in Me Again

Hello, I'm Ritwik from Mumbai. I was hesitating to share this story, wondering if it's right to speak about my struggles with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) amidst the stigma surrounding mental health, which trauma creates. Yet, I realize this platform, infused with the purity of music, might be the perfect space to share my journey and create more awareness. I'm grateful for this platform, where stories are shared, and fighters find inspiration. Cptsd, a lifelong process of healing, is often fought in silence. Having lived in social isolation for 15 years due to chronic social anxiety, I had lost connection with the universe. Cptsd isn't like getting ill and recovering, it's a continuous struggle lifelong healing. The complexities of c-ptsd are vast, and attempting to put them into a few words here would be an injustice to many, that's a story for a book. But what importantly I can share is how music, specifically the flute, has been my anchor and guided my journey towards healing. My days look very different now. For a long time, after I graduated with my engineering degree, my life was built around deadlines and titles. I worked in a corporate job, and a good day was measured by how much I produced, how many tasks I checked off a list. Now, a good day is about how calm I feel inside. I don’t have that job anymore. I left it to focus on healing from cptsd.. These days, I wake up and my schedule is my own. I practice my flute, I read, I take long walks. I give myself time to just be. I’m not chasing anything impressive anymore. I’m just chasing a little bit of peace. Before all of this, my mind was incredibly loud. It was a constant hum of thoughts and worries that never seemed to stop. The silence around me only made the noise inside worse. I felt like I had so much to say, so much to sort through, but words felt too heavy. Trying to talk about what was going on inside of me felt like it would break me. I just didn’t have the strength for it. I needed something that could speak for me, a voice that wouldn’t crack under the pressure.

That’s what the flute became. It wasn’t a decision to learn an instrument, not really. It was more like an answer to a question I didn’t know how to ask. I saw it and thought, maybe that could be my voice. Maybe that could say the things I couldn’t.

When I started, I didn't set any grand goals. My only focus was to be consistent. Just show up every day. I thought it would be a huge struggle, but the process has been surprisingly gentle. It feels a lot like the sound that slowly comes out of the flute itself—it starts as just breath, then a faint whistle, and finally, a note begins to form.

The biggest challenge for me has been physical. Getting my fingers to be flexible enough, to move gracefully from one hole to another, takes a lot of patience. There are days when they feel clumsy and slow, and the notes don't connect the way I want them to. But I don’t get frustrated. I just accept that this is part of it. It needs more practice, more time. Flute, has been a pivotal part of my healing and restoration, a reminder that healing is lifelong, and so is my love for music.

The real joy, the thing that keeps me coming back, is the feeling of being able to play on my own. In the beginning, I was just following instructions, trying to make a sound. But then a moment came when I was sitting by myself, and I wasn't trying to practice a lesson. I just brought the flute to my lips and played. A simple melody, something just for me. In that moment, the music spoke. It said all the things that words couldn't. That independence is the most healing part of this whole journey. When my mind gets loud or the words feel heavy again, I don’t have to struggle. I can just sit with my flute and let it translate the noise into something quiet and clear.

That’s what keeps me going. The feeling is hard to describe, but when I play, even if I’m the only one who hears it, I feel lighter. It’s like the flute takes the silence that used to feel so empty and turns it into something beautiful. Once you feel that lightness, you want to feel it again. So I kept showing up. My reason for practicing was never to become a master flutist or to perform for anyone. It was, and still is, simply to heal.

This simple, daily act has quietly changed everything. It’s changed how I spend my time. It’s the way I center myself each morning. It’s changed my mindset about what a successful day looks like. But the biggest change, the one I truly didn’t expect, was learning to trust myself.

For years, I doubted every decision I made, big or small. I would second-guess my work, my conversations, my own feelings. There was always a part of me that believed I would probably get it wrong. But showing up for my flute practice every single day, without fail, started to build a new kind of foundation. It was a simple promise I made to myself, and I kept it. Day after day, I was there. I was the one putting in the work. I was the one making the notes happen.

Slowly, that consistency taught me that I can count on myself. That I am reliable. That trust began to spill over into the rest of my life. I started to trust my own decisions more, in music and outside of it. I stopped questioning my own instincts so much. The flute didn’t just give me a new voice; it helped me learn to trust my own.

If you’re reading this and thinking it’s too late to start something, or that you’re not “musical” enough, I understand. I had those same thoughts. I thought I had missed my chance to learn an instrument, that those years were behind me.

But the wonderful thing about the flute is that it doesn’t ask how old you are. It doesn't care if you have a musical background or how much time you have in your day. It only asks for one breath. Then one note. You don’t need to be some kind of prodigy. You just need to be willing to sit down and breathe. The rest will come with practice. You just start. And trust me, the feeling you get after you create that first clear note all on your own—that feeling is worth everything and Learning under Harsh sir is an experience in itself. His energy and enthusiasm are contagious. He doesn’t just teach you flute. He makes you fall in love with learning.

— Ritwik Kukreja