Somy Ali, the lady who once ruled the big screen in India, is currently busy saving lives of all those who are the victims of abuse, and trafficking. She not only helps them escape but also assists them in healing and recovering from the traumas and scars. She is now trying to create awareness about Stockholm Syndrome, an emotional entrapment between a victim and an abuser. The relationship can be anything, but ultimately the abuser always wins because the victim is too attached.

“I have seen monsters wear wedding rings. I have watched women bleed behind curtains of silk. I have held the hands of trafficked teenagers trembling in the dark, whispering, ‘Maybe he still loves me.’, she shared drawing attention to the complexities of Stockholm Syndrome.

For her, it’s a reality that many victims have lived through and she has also survived it. She said, “I was in Mumbai when I first tasted it. Not the food, not the festivals, but the invisible chains that tied me to someone who hurt me repeatedly, and yet, I could not leave.”

Sharing her own trauma, which was disguised as love, she unveiled the genius of emotional abuse. She said, “My mind told me I couldn’t survive without him. He broke me, and then he convinced me only he could fix me.”

A queen of the silver screen once upon a time, she fell in love only to be left bruised later. She said, “I lived the paradox of being admired on screen and annihilated off it. My bruises weren’t always visible. The ones on my soul never healed.” But she still chose to stay, and added, “Because I was conditioned to. Because fear feels safer than the unknown. Because even trauma can become a comfort zone when you’ve been taught to find safety in chaos.”

Her NGO, No More Tears, has rescued 50,442 lives, a number that is more about the stories of terror, resilience, and rare escapes. And yet, Somy confessed that for many, the battle doesn’t end at rescue.

“Even after being rescued, many survivors return. On average, our beneficiaries go back seven times, in their abusive relationship, before they leave for good. I’m two documented cases out of 50,442, the victim returned after a restraining order had already been issued by the court. The judge had ruled in her favor. The legal system had validated her pain. And still, she went back,” she said, adding that because abuse doesn’t just live in bruises—it is in the trust, in the false memory where the abuser once played the savior.

“He was the one who dried her tears before he caused them,” Somy shared her thoughts as a woman who survived, and who now walks beside others still learning to breathe.

Somy requests not to judge or ask why the victims didn’t leave—but to ask what was done to them to make them stay.
“Do not shame. Do not say, ‘Why didn’t she just leave?’ Instead, ask, ‘What did he do to make her feel like she couldn’t?’ Or ask, ‘What did he do to gain her trust to want to  come back?’ Our job is not to question the resilience of victims. It is to question the systems that embolden abusers.”

She has met every kind of survivor – Indian, American, LGBTQ+, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Christian, atheist, rural, urban, and stated that abuse knows no borders and Stockholm Syndrome doesn’t read passports. She said, “The girl in Mumbai clinging to her actor-boyfriend’s promises. The maid in Delhi who still calls her trafficker bhaiyya. The child bride in Rajasthan who thinks her value begins and ends with obedience. They are all different shades of the same tragic canvas. And yet, they are all worthy of compassion.”

And she offers those women hope. She said, “To the women and men still stuck in cycles of violence, who read this while hiding bruises or wiping tears: I see you. I was you. And I promise you, there is life after pain. There is freedom after fear. There is love that doesn’t hurt.”

“And to those who think they’ve failed because they went back: You are not a failure. You are fighting a war no one else can see,” she added.

Somy admits that healing and acceptance takes time, but she is ready to wait for them till they finally make peace with it. She said, “It happens in heartbreaks and hesitations, in therapy and in tears, in moments when you think you’re done and then realize, no, I want to live. It happens when you choose you. And if today isn’t that day, I’ll wait. I’ll hold the door open.“

She shared that in a world that worships silence and spectacle, choosing to help someone, to really help someone broken, is the most radical kind of prayer there is. She added, “I believe in this: when a woman finally walks away from the hand that broke her, the earth shifts, the sky exhales, and somewhere, quietly, the stars rearrange themselves in her name.”

And she concluded by saying, “I believe helping her transform like a Phoenix is the ultimate gift to humanity.”