Long before she reopened her career, Dr. Debolina first had to find herself again. Her journey isn’t just about rebuilding a profession—it’s about rediscovering identity after grief, motherhood, and years of putting everyone else first.
There are some stories of success that begin with ambition.
Others begin with survival.
For Dr. Debolina, life changed almost overnight. A gold medal-winning endodontist, academic achiever, and passionate young professional, she had built an identity around learning, healing, and chasing her dreams. She loved travelling solo, music, sports, and the excitement of creating a meaningful career.
Then the pandemic changed everything.
While pregnant with her first child, she lost her father—a loss so sudden and heartbreaking that she couldn’t even see him one last time. Just a week later, she underwent an emergency C-section and welcomed her son into the world.
In the span of a few days, joy and grief became inseparable.
Her world shifted from lectures and clinics to sleepless nights, feeding schedules, recovery, and responsibilities. Slowly, the woman once known as “Dr. Debolina” faded into the background, replaced by a role millions of women know all too well—being everything for everyone else.
When You Stop Recognising Yourself
Many assume the hardest part was stepping away from her career.
It wasn’t.
She had rebuilt her professional life before—first after completing her education, then after moving from Kolkata to Gurgaon, and later once again. She knew careers could be rebuilt. What felt far more difficult was losing the connection with herself. The confident, ambitious woman who had always embraced new challenges suddenly wondered where she had gone. Looking back today, she realises something she couldn’t see then. She hadn’t disappeared. She was quietly becoming stronger.
Motherhood didn’t erase her identity—it reshaped it.
The Loneliness Hidden Behind Motherhood
Motherhood is celebrated everywhere. Its loneliness rarely is. There were nights when her newborn cried in the early hours of the morning. There were nights when she cried with him. She was grieving her father, recovering from major surgery, learning motherhood without experience, and carrying responsibilities largely on her own.
There were moments she questioned herself. Not because she loved her son any less, but because she was mourning the life she had lost. Everything changed when she stopped asking herself, “Why is this happening to me?”
Instead, she asked,
“What does my son need from me today?”
The answer was simple. He didn’t need perfection. He simply needed his mother. That became enough to keep moving forward, one day at a time.
The Guilt Women Know Too Well
Like countless women, guilt followed her everywhere.
She felt guilty for pausing her career. Later, she felt guilty for wanting it back. It seemed impossible to choose without disappointing someone. Then she realised something she wishes every mother could believe.
Children don’t only need mothers who sacrifice. They also need mothers who continue to dream. That realisation became the beginning of her comeback. While her son slept, she worked.
From midnight until four in the morning, with nothing more than her phone and the screen brightness turned down so she wouldn’t wake him, she quietly completed online research work.
Those silent hours became the building blocks of the life she was creating. People admire her clinic today. Few know it was built one midnight at a time.
Choosing Herself Changed Everything
Opening her own clinic wasn’t simply another professional achievement. It felt like reclaiming a part of herself she thought she had lost.
Every instrument, every chair, every wall colour reflected months of determination. Without contacts in a new city, she relied on research, persistence, and countless hours of planning. She would spend the day sourcing materials and rush home before her son returned from school because she wanted him to know she was always there.
The day her clinic finally opened, she expected pride. Instead, she felt peace. Because she had finally understood something many women spend years learning. Choosing yourself is not choosing against your family. Sometimes, choosing yourself is the greatest gift you can give them.
The Woman She Still Carries Within
Despite everything she has achieved, there is one version of herself she never wants to forget.
The woman who survived.
The woman who endured grief, surgery, sleepless nights, loneliness, and uncertainty—and still found the strength to keep going. Whenever life feels difficult today, she reminds herself that if she could survive those years, she can survive anything. Not because life became easier. But because those years taught her that she was stronger than she had ever imagined.
Why We Need to Stop Celebrating Silent Suffering
Society often praises women for their resilience. But resilience is often born from necessity, not choice.
Dr. Debolina believes we have normalised women carrying invisible emotional burdens for far too long.
Too often, people applaud women only after they have survived impossible circumstances. Support shouldn’t come after the struggle. It should exist during it. And asking for help should never be mistaken for weakness. Sometimes, the strongest women are simply the ones who kept going because they believed they had no other option.
The Legacy She Wants to Leave
Today, her greatest hope isn’t that her son remembers her only as a loving mother. She hopes he remembers her as a woman who never stopped learning, growing, and believing in herself. She wants him to grow into a man who respects not only his own dreams but the dreams of every woman around him. Because every woman deserves to be seen not only as someone’s daughter, wife, or mother—but as an individual with aspirations, purpose, and an identity of her own.
To the Woman She Once Was
If Dr. Debolina could sit beside the woman she was six years ago, she knows exactly what she would do.
She would hug her first.
Because no one had hugged her enough.
Then she would gently say:
“You’re crying because you think everything is ending.
But this is where everything begins.
You haven’t lost yourself.
You’re becoming someone stronger than you can imagine.
You don’t need to see the whole staircase.
Just take the next step.”
Perhaps that’s the reminder every woman needs.
Life may ask you to pause.
It may ask you to begin again.
But it can never take away the strength that has always been within you.
