What do i do on dates | Shrink Tales

I went to therapy hoping that Ish would have a solution to my problem of not wanting to go for therapy. It was natural, she said. I had been told that we were going to touch upon the topic called eating habits and my mind was resisting it because it was a very tough area. 

It’s true. I never even thought that i would ever talk about it to anyone. After the most depressive stage of my relationship with food that happened in Kolkata, which was at least three years ago, i had come a long way. A long way down the road of making peace with my unhealthy eating habits, relationship with food and my body. But one part of me was also seeking help. It had found its way out somehow battling the other more powerful part that told me that it was okay to continue this way. 

I was comfortable talking about it. I felt it was a safe place, that nothing i said there would be used against me. Ish said that that was a good sign. 

I told her the instances of fat shaming that i had faced – the ones that had stuck to my memory. For all these years. She asked me what i felt when i narrated it. I felt sorry for me.

At this age, i know what injustice was done to a girl who was not even aware of the violence in body shaming. 

Ish asked me how i managed this conflict within me. My ideology, feminism, has long made me understand the violence in fat shaming. When i talk to people who are suffering due to this evil, i become the stronger one, i ask them to question the notion of beauty. And yet i would go back home to check my weight on two different weighing scales. I told her that i was protecting myself because if i practise what i preach, i would go back to the kind of sadness and bitterness i had in me when i was in SRFTI, battling the same problem. 

Ish thought that what i said was important, and that it indicated the depth of what had happened in SRFTI. It was true. All the harassment and violence i faced in family, high school etc. regarding my body had condensed into that period in SRFTI where i was being told by at least one person a day, that i had put on weight. One of the instances of sexual harassment was when this professor told me how it was evident when he looked from behind that i had gained weight, ‘if you know what i mean’ he added, just short of a wink to fit the typical sexual harassment shown in films. 

While thinking about the incidents that i recalled during therapy, i am also thinking if, when i write about this, i should elucidate or not. We have got used to narrations of abuse with details. So many times have police asked me where and how exactly i was touched. Does it really matter who, where or how the comments about my body were made? I’ll figure it out but yes, everyone who has been body shamed knows how some sentences stick to you. My earliest memory is from when i was nine or ten years old. 

But she was right about SRFTI. That wound has not healed. I don’t think even my break up with Jay had left me this broken. The open wound stings whenever i think of the place. 

But when i was back home, i felt relieved, that someone else knows a part of me that i have not spoken about to anyone. I don’t think my problem will be solved. I kept asking Ish what she was going to do with all the information i gave her. She told me that as always, she was not going to do anything.  The goal was to make me look at things differently. Isn’t it contradictory that i don’t speak about my problems with anyone (except my shrink and earlier with her) but am telling the whole world about my problems by blogging about it?

It’s different is all i can say. Somehow, when i make something public, i feel that it becomes very private. I assume that i will not be asked about it because it’s just what i write. Like the time when i blogged about smoking weed in RK’s village, i knew that Mother could read it, if she wanted to. But i just firmly believe that she won’t say anything to me. [Oh yes, she did. Say. A lot of things to me :D]

The session at Ish’s did not give me much hope but then the part of me that wishes to be healthy is relieved that it has at least got this done. This in itself is a big achievement for me. 

Whenever i eat above the quota i have allowed myself, i feel guilty. I think of the weighing scale that was going to show an unfavourable result. I go to the scale, always sure that i have gained weight. So in case i have lost weight, i feel relieved. 

I am ever scared about my tendencies coming back to me.

One my many ways of ‘dieting’ was surviving on biscuits. The mark that had to be achieved was till the time white mark(s) appeared on my face. Sometimes the method would be to make sure that i am constipated or have very little bowel movement. I have a mannerism of touching my collar bones because at some point i thought i could gauge if i had gained weight or not by the way they felt.

I think i started taking selfies to see myself because i understood that mirrors wouldn’t tell me enough. I could only make out my fatness in photographs, if at all. 

Ish asked me what i did when i went on dates. I was like, date? What date? I live with the guy. 

But yes, when there is a craving, i prepare for it. If there is an unexpected plan, i try to make up for it the next day, or just take small bites from whatever others are eating. I do induced vomiting albeit rarely. I think i am okay now because i have a sense of victory over my body. Yes, sometimes there is blood in my stool and sometimes i am really constipated and sometimes my tummy is upset and makes me uncomfortable but as long as i have a figure i am okay with, on the weighing scale – i am a person.