Foot in the Door : Shrink Tales

Recently, when i told someone that i was scared, they unanimously said that it was me trying to play with their emotions. I always wanted to be the victim in the story and therefore assigned myself the role of the scared, helpless woman in every situation i was in, in their opinion. And yet, the fear was real. Palpable. Amidst all the theories that people threw around me, it was in the air and i was always in the look out for a safe place.

Session after session, in therapy, i tried to find out what it was that scared me because the last time i told someone i was scared, that's what they wanted to know. 'What is it that you are scared of?' They'd asked me repeatedly - which made me even more scared. I pay - my poor sponsor does - Rs. 2000 for a session to find answers to such questions that people so casually spring on me. 'Hey, did it rain yesterday, in Calicut?' 'You got a haircut?' 'What's your fear?'. Hold on, give me Rs. 2000. I'll try and find out?

But today, i drew my fear. It was a boulder. A large one, with a stick in its hand. A lopsided mouth, shouting unintelligible sounds. Grey, like a rock. I joked about it after drawing it, saying how it was a classic phallic symbol. My therapist asked me what associations i had of my phallic symbol boulder shaped fear.

Two came to my mind, even as i drew it. One, from when the familiar scenario of me being beaten by mother for various reasons. I would hide under the cot when it got unbearable. Even as a child, i always felt that she never looked under there because she too, was tired of beating. I only ever felt compassion for her, even when i knew that my fear boulder had the lopsided mouth because she imitated me, making ugly shapes with her mouth, producing sounds that were supposedly how i talked and cried, but sounded so gross, it made me feel like shit.

The second one was that in a hotel room, it was not going well with that man. I had to get out of there. But you know what? Men are physically stronger than women. Science. A man my age and weight will be stronger than my physically. Reason why we have male - female criteria in sports for the same events. Different rules. Anyway, this man was more than double my age. He was strong. I unbolted the door and was about to flee. But he just swept in from nowhere and ever so casually put his foot at the door and that was it. I couldn't open it. However hard i tried, it wouldn't budge. And all he had to do was put his damn foot at the door. Effortless gesture. Lots of time to further beat me up, rape, if he felt like it, verbally abuse. A foot got him all that.

This was what it felt like. I was confined to spaces i didn't want to be in. Under the cot. In a pathetic hotel room. While i only felt compassion for mother, for the man and his foot, i felt pure rage. '

I was cornered. There was no help in sight and pretty soon, i would be able to hear the fear boulder spew out its opinions about me. It could be 'you sleep with older men because you like seasoned dicks' or 'all you are interested in class is how the asses of the boys sway' or, more recently, like i said, 'all you ever want to be is a helpless victim and that's why you say you are scared.' I didn't want to be under the cot or in the hotel room listening to these theories but you know, the foot.

The thing however, is that now, i am out of it. I always come out of it. The most recent episode took around two months, i suppose. It lingered till i sent a one liner mail saying what i wanted to say. Till then, i was under the cot. The others took years. But, i just want to tell everyone that you will always find a way out of under the cot, out of the stupid hotel room - if you work hard. If you are not able to get out of there, it only means that your two months or five years haven't passed. But the good thing about time is - like the bad thing about physiology is that men are stronger than women - that it can only pass. You can only grow older. The only people who are happy about aging, friends, are us, because it just takes us closer to our way out of under the cot.

Balancing the bolster before sleep

 

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Shrink Tales: Grief

What she and i had, the safety i used to feel when around her, that's gone. That's what is dead. And i need to mourn it. It died when she betrayed me. I am finally saying the words. She betrayed me. Like how when my sister betrayed me. When friends hurt me. Every time that happened, i swore i would be more guarded. I wouldn't divulge or open up. I would shut people off, scared of being betrayed. And with her, i never even had to guard myself or think of it because i was sure that day would never come. It did.

I get hurt the most when people use the things i said to them against me. Things they agreed with at the time. Or pretended was normal. The most number of heartbreaks i have had is when my mother did it with me. A sentence i said would be quoted at a later occasion to illustrate how i always had a problem. 'When you said 'can you do it faster?' that showed me what your true nature really is', she would yell at me, mimicking my voice in an ugly manner. Making an ugly expression with her face. To show my ugliness when i said it, probably. I would make a mental note that 'can you do it faster' is never to be said again. The sentences, gestures etc. varied. The list increased. Pretty soon, i was able to tell before it happened that certain things would piss my mother and would later be used against me. It was not just me. Mother did that with everyone. And that's what i hated the most.

In every single person i met, i searched for signs of this disease. If they had it, i could guard myself. For a long time, i was like that with K. I had even told her i had this problem. That my paranoia - as she called it - that everyone would use things i said against me, was based on repeated experiences from many people and that Mother was one of them. She had advised me that i should still try to be open minded. In the end, K herself did that to me. Used my own words against me.

But with her, from the time i started talking till the point she betrayed me, there was not a moment when i had to even think of such a possibility. I could always worry that she would hate me, she would stop talking to me, bitch about me to people i didn't like. But never that she would use my words against me. Use anything against me. That's what makes it a blow.

I was hit where i wasn't looking.

During the week, the hate campaign against her on Facebook gained momentum. I was worried. I sent her a mail. Asked her to stay strong. She always told me that i was the strongest. I felt it was time i said that back to her. Gan messaged me. He asked me if i could write something in support of her under the post where she was being attacked. I told him i could intervene through a collective i formed because what was happening online was a clear case of harassment of a woman at workplace. He said he would pass on the message to her. That night, she called me. 

She said her side of things. She asked me to do certain things. I agreed to do all of that but for as long as she talked, i couldn't forget how she had betrayed me so recently and how she could talk to me as if nothing had happened.  I gathered up the courage and finally asked her. Why had she sided with K and A when they were harassing me over a false claim. She then told me the following. 

1. A was right. 
2. I have always been a 'casual plagiarist'
3. I have done it with her in the past, presented her ideas as mine.
4. I copy frames and ideas in my films
5. I have said so myself in many of my Facebook posts. 
6. She unblocked me and talked to me because my family has done her enough harm that she has the right to ask that of me. 
7. I am a toxic person and that's why she blocked me. 
8. A and K were doing me a favour by 'taking me in'. No one would have me and they still 'took me in' and i messed it up like i always do. 
9. Repeated that i mess up at workplaces. 

I was shocked that she agreed with A. She, who could always see clearly. I was shocked that she used my jokes, my casual conversations against me. My blog description reads, 'Godard famously said 'Every edit is a lie'. I totally agree. Every cut is a lie. Every shot is stolen. All stories are told. I am a nasty thief. This is a film student's diary.' Now, she was telling me that because i have always written things like that, it meant that A's claim that i had plagiarised his story in one of my Facebook posts was true. 

But at the same time, it was a relief that she actually thought she was right. It just meant that she wasn't siding with A and K against me because she wanted to destroy me out of hatred. At least she was justifying herself. 

I feel numb. I know that i have not done what i am being accused of. I know that my writings do not, in any manner support plagiarism. Even then, the words that she said hurt. The fact that she is capable of thinking such things about me hurts. 

She repeated A's words. They sounded like pilot and dubbed tracks. 'You cannot always plan on being the victim' she told me, just like A had. 

Sometimes i feel angry. Because it is not fair. She kept saying i should be grateful to her that she wasn't taking any action against my family for speaking ill about her to a lot of people. But i have never done that. I have only ever confronted my family on this and earned their hatred for it. I feel broken. Like a part of me has been irreparably battered. Deformed. I feel dirty. Like all these people, including her dumped a lot of their trash on me. Now they feel empty and relieved. Their places are spic and span and i stink. It infuriates me sometimes. But there is nothing i can do. Except move ahead with my life and not die. Yes. Suicidal thoughts came twice after she spoke to me. 

Someone who thinks so about me cannot love me. She cannot love me. Contrary to what i believed all these years, she can never understand me. 

I am scared. That i won't be able to make films ever. Everything they said about me rings in my ears all the time. Constantly dreaming about it. I am scared they will define me into failure and i will end up being that. I feel everyone is ganging up against me. There is nowhere to go. No one will understand me.  

I felt like a street dog. At everyone's mercy. The way she said it, i was at her mercy, A's and K's mercy. They were the only ones who would 'take me in'. Which meant that if no one took mercy on me, i wouldn't survive. 

I felt ashamed that that's how she saw me. Now, i feel angry that she thinks that way about me. Because i am not a street dog. It's not because anyone took mercy on me that i survived. No one was doing me a favour by 'taking me in'. Everyone had something or the other to gain from it. It was either my right, or i had earned it, was fully deserving. In fact, no one was 'taking me in'. They were partnerships. I am enraged that i put myself in a position where she dared say such things to me. Not just me. I am angry that she is someone who doesn't hesitate before saying such things to a human being. In a way, that's good. When i am outraged at some behaviour, it is easier for me to handle it. Oh. She said that all people like me felt was 'rage' and that we wreaked havoc everywhere because of it without thinking of consequences. That was all my activism was, she remarked.