Food as the Abuser | Shrink Tales

Looking back, i am now wondering why it affected me. I was really small. Must have been in second or third standard. This nun, while passing, joked, are you eating all your sister's food at home? My sister was thin, i wasn't.
When i was as small as that, why did that comment hurt me so much that i stored it for years after that, till now?

In today's session, we spoke a lot about food and me. That's when i realized that food was inherently an abusive substance in my life because that's what made one fat. It makes perfect sense now. For a long time i had not connected these two. Even with that nun's comment, i was the one who actually ate less in the house. My sister ate more. Till seventeen or so, i never thought that what i ate contributed to how much i weighed. It sounds weird because i did get an education but honestly the connection was never made.

Till that time when i put on weight in two weeks after eating a different set of food for two weeks because mother was gone. In the excitement of getting to spend the money on food that i otherwise wouldn't get in that frequency, i bought a lot of stuff from confectionery shops like jam rolls and puffs. I bought a lot of chocolate. I remember the green of Cadbury Temptations. Memories associated with it. Telephone booth where i would phone Lou. Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, rehearsals, Vije, his flute and so on.

So when everyone started telling me that i had gained weight after those two weeks, i immediately connected it to the abrupt change in the food i ate. From there started the battle with it. If i had one day found out that it was air that made me fat, i would try to stop breathing.

Now i need to think where i got the idea that fat is not good. I don't think it's just me wanting to look like my sister. That was there of course, because relatives' comments would come as comparisons between her body and mine. But i am sure the popular culture also corrupted me. When it happens during formative years it stays there. That's why in retrospect i remembered that nun's comment.

Ishani told me that food was abusing me when it had control over me. She made me remember the fish story. I was at peace when i was eating by my own, when i was making the decision of putting every morsel in my mouth. But later at night, before washing dishes, when in hurried movements put all that was remaining in my mouth, i felt like a trashcan. Then, food was controlling me. It was making my hands move.

I confided in Ishani about my sexual fantasies that have a submissive me. It took me back to the time when i was getting hit by that man. I remembered him bragging about his play, the portion in which the woman who was acting, who was also the one he was sleeping with, at the time, was thrown off the stage by him, who played her husband.

Being an instrument in the man's hands, being like a child. This whole world's obsession with children as sex objects. With tremendous amount of guilt, i often played into it with my weight obsession. The weight is also about me being handled. You can't curl into the body of a man if you are fat.

I came out of that abusive relationship when i met Jay with whom i entered a relationship two weeks after we met. That is when i realised how easy it was. Like breaking a twig into two, i stepped out of those hotel rooms where i was stuck forever breathing fresh air. It was so effortless because i was drowning in another love, a new love, a different kind of love that was not hurting me. The abrupt manner in which it happened made me think, 'it was this easy?!'

That's when Ish told me that maybe it was possible for me to do that with food as well. Since food is abusing me, because of the way i think right now about my body image, maybe, i can snap out of it by changing the way i think of body image. Establish another kind of relationship with myself.

Ish leads me on a grass pathway that will make me feel less cold while inji takes me right into the cold waters, asking me to cross it. I forgot how we came to this conclusion. I know what it means but in this case, what is the grass pathway that Ish suggested? I forgot.

I have started trying to not look at people's fat when i look at them.

During the week i saw ex abuser's trailer for his feature film. He is becoming part of the industry that i will one day work in. It scares me. Inji told me that it was natural that i got scared. It's been 9 years, hasn't it? Yet, i have only started addressing it.

Talking about food, people putting on weight makes me feel good in a bad way. I like to watch them try things to lose weight and say in my mind, it's not a problem for you anymore. I noticed that i also cook less when there are people around. This week, Han, Vai Vow and later Deep were all there and i couldn't cook. Earlier in hostel i would cook and feed everyone - a period that i associate with me being 56-58 kilos. I assumed it was something to do with my cooking. Then i would cook and feed people but not eat myself. If i ate, i ate very less. But even then i felt that it made me put on weight.

This week, i think i cooked only once. That too because my partner asked me to.

Uff! i got reminded of the times when i would eat in secret, that is away from people. So that they wouldn't see me eat. I didn't want people to see me eat.

Got hurt like crazy seeing people's convocation photos. Cried etc. When i make money i will build a film school where interviews will help ascertain if people are assholes. 

The Gyanpapi Syndrome | Shrink Tales

Today's session, we spoke mostly about food and body image. It is then that i realised that apart from being a hypocrite, i am also a very nasty person. I consider people who are fat as unhappy. They might have accomplished everything, the best degrees and the best career, but when i look at them, i think that they are all secretly unhappy. Ish asked me if i mistrusted fat people. My partner is not fat but i know him personally and i know that he doesn't give a shit. But those people whom i don't know personally, i just assume that they are hiding their sadness, just like how i was at 55 or 50 kilos.

Projection fallacy of another level.
She pointed out how i felt bad when i learned that this is how i thought about others while i was okay with thinking the same about me. When it is about self, it is all right. Yes, it's always been like that for me.

I have started thinking more and more about food. In terms of helping myself that is.
Why this contradiction that i don't care what people think of me otherwise but i care what they think of me when they look at me?

Every time i feel like eating something, there is this vacillation. To eat or not to eat. To cook or not to cook. I sometimes stop walking on the road and think for some time so that i get clarity, thinking spending energy on walking might be making me go back and forth. Most of the time i decide against eating - this gives me a small relief and a small air of victory.

Whenever i meet someone after a period, my biggest fear is if they will tell me if i have put on weight. Even if the weighing scale shows that i have not, i fear it. Like when i met Amt. He did not tell me that i had put on so i was relieved. That is, my happiness depends on this. It would have been okay if it was in a smaller scale. But in my case a LARGE part of my happiness depends on other people's opinion of my weight.

Like when Ish tells me that i am not anorexic, in my mind i am disappointed. Because to look anorexic is my dream. 

So i am trying to identify my problem here. My problem is that i feel bad when i look heavy. Heavy is a number above 45 kilos now. Earlier it was 50. In college. So the goal is to not feel bad if someone tells me that i have put on weight or that i am fat. Here is the problem. Gyanpapi syndrome, i shall call, in memory of Ish.

I know that it doesn't matter. Like, i don't give a shit when people tell me i am short. There are n number of short me jokes. Complexion - nothing. Yellow teeth - nothing. I know that these things should not affect the way people think of other people. If someone thinks i should be discriminated against based on my height, i can fight with them, give them a piece of my mind. Without getting hurt. With weight, i will still give a piece of my mind, but come back and cry in my room, break my mirror etc.

Now that is the difference between the two. Why? If i find the root of this, maybe i can get rid of it? It is a very faint glimmer of hope. It pops up in my mind from time to time because of the way Ishani is confident about it. I trust women who are passionate about their work very seriously. But let me not get carried away, it is but just a glimmer.

Once a Seeker Always a Seeker | Shrink Tales

I got lost at Kandivali station in the morning. But in things like that i have improved a bit. Usually what i think is, 'it had to happen because it's me.' But this time irritating as it was, i persevered and asked around and found my way out. When i accomplish such things i feel good. Like the last time, there was a roadblock when i went to deposit my cheque at the bank. But instead of going back home, i kept going in search of the next option. Something inji has been asking me to do forever. But it's kind of happening.

We spoke about why i missed the previous session. Ish again said to me that we try to protect ourselves when we anticipate hurt. If i felt therapy was going in a direction that i am reluctant to look into, it was natural for it to happen. It could be the body image problem. I had decided to write an article on it, coming out as a feminist who has still not been able to solve this problem after i read Nisha Susan's brilliant article. That's still in my to-do list and probably because of the same reason.

All that i don't want to be - this is every person's problem. This thought is a luxury, i know. It's a privilege. I can think of what i am and what i am not and brood and be depressed because i don't have to worry about where to sleep tonight or how to eat tomorrow. Yes, depression is a privilege. So is love.

So by killing oneself, one is trying to stop being all that they are. But there is a contradiction right there, isn't there? Because killing yourself is also part of who you are and by doing it to stop being who you are, you are being yet another part of what you are.

I want to be like inji because i don't like what i am. Yes, it's time to realise that that what i am is a sum of all that i am not, a sum of all my imperfections but don't know. I am the seeker, always. I have got to strive to be something i am not, at all times. That's what keeps me going. Some of the things stick to you. Some don't. Filmmaking stuck. Basketball, violin and girl scouts didn't.

We spoke about the protective shield i build around inji all the time. It was very interesting, what Ish said about it. The first thing i assume when i speak about inji to someone is that they are going to hate her. Ish said that it sounds almost as if i want them to hate her. It could be true. Because then, i get a sense of superiority by observing that i love her in spite of all the reasons others state to hate her. Yeah, i do believe that the reasons everyone states are not valid but even then, standing with her is somewhat like how it was with sister. We are a force to reckon with and can't be touched. You touch one of us and there will be blood. This combative mode is what i am used to. I am not used to people accepting me. Same goes for inji. And maybe, inside me, that's what i am okay with. Really, i don't like it when someone likes me. I am much more comfortable knowing that they hate me.

Ish also spoke about the things other hate about inji. So i know that most people hate her for being in US and having an opinion about things in India. Of supporting movements here. They accuse her of physically being in another place while instigating other people over here. I have not felt this about her. I think that it's bullshit. But there are things i have hated her for. The way she speaks. So when someone else hates her for the way she speaks, i have this smile on my face, thinking, i know exactly what you're talking about. But i am past all that. Look where i am now, now that i have learnt better. I know better.

Don't know. Inji is a big part of my life. There is no me without her, i feel. And this might be why mother hates her. Maybe she knows i feel this way about inji and not about her. Biologically, i am here only because of mother but in a purely existential sort of way, i feel i am attached to inji by my soul. That there is a knot. And that it can't be untied.

During the week, the smiling to self continued. I am so conscious of it these days and that makes me think it is happening after a long time. Is it okay to get a surge of love, like blood rushing to the part of brain where love is from time to time. This is triggered by images, people, memories, songs. Oh god, for the first time after watching the film, i watched the song from Mayanadhi and cried from beginning till the end. And my eyes water even as a type.

Had what i call a relapse during work. That is, after the therapy i came home and slept. I was so not used to the heat. This happened yesterday and today as well and inji blasted me. Not as much as she usually does, which is even more dangerous. Silence cuts deeper. So today, i did sleep, but wrote two stories. Intend to do three tomorrow.

Missed Therapy for the First Time | Shrink Tales

Ish shifted my session to a Monday. I was not able to write soon after coming back from therapy last week. It was the session in which Ish said that she was not being able to figure me out. I was talking about being late for work, a certain thrill in defying inji's orders etc. She said that i wasn't depressed. I feel it. Been feeling it since the last time she told me that. But there is more happiness now. I have started smiling to myself like an idiot while walking alone. Something that happens when one is in love or has smoked weed. Anyone would think i had just fallen in love.

Ish asked me to ask inji to change my shift to a later one in the day. Guess what, i reached home and inji told me that she had just done that. Now my shift starts at 2 pm. I stay up till 4/5 in the morning. Sleep and get up at 12. And looks like i am more productive this way.

We spoke about Sister, again. Mother considers me to be the person who can mend it. I should apologise, if things had to be all right with Sister. Somehow i have no problem doing any of that. I don't think i did anything wrong. I hurt them, yes. They hurt me too. They keep asking me for apologies. I have tendered apologies earlier, apologies for behaving the way i behaved when i was being abused by various men, the disgrace i put them in, repeatedly apologised and they still feel it is not enough that they forget that i did it and ask me to apologise again. I am still ready to do it. To Sister, i can apologise but the problem is that she is not going to get the confession she wants out of me.

I know that she wants me to say that i am sorry for having believed other people, told mother about what the outsiders had told me and made her life hell because mother knowing things really different from me knowing things. It reminded me of all the smoking talk, covering up, breach of trust and all that happened. She wants me to say that i was completely wrong about her, that she never did anything to anyone and all my accusations were false.

There lies the problem. I can't do that. So if i were to apologise, i can only make sweeping statements like, i am sorry i hurt you so much by saying the things i said. I am sorry for hurting you like that.

This doesn't work because then she asks for details. And then it becomes evident that i stand by what i said and the remorse is only for having caused her sadness by saying it. So it means that my journey has been different. Ish told me that and i think i agree. It does look like chechi is not there yet. And i am worried about her. That she is not helping herself. But as long as she isn't there, i can't force it out of her. Maybe, my apologies might even look like me taking a higher moral ground to her. I should let it be. It makes me sad. Especially the possibility that we might never talk again.

These days, i am just worrying about my career, i think.

Convocation - SRFTI - scared. Feel bad that i can't go.

I missed the session on Monday. It was such a shock to me. I had gone to sleep late but that had never resulted in me sleeping like that and missing therapy. My absent mindedness had resulted in me getting the time wrong. But never something like this.I have no clue why that happened. I cringed when i called Ish and told her that i slept through the session and more, the feeling i get when i do something wrong and go in front of Mother or inji. I also worried about the money, that i had wasted an entire session and the guilt made me feel bad but not for as long as it usually does.

The new schedule started working really well for me. I started getting the pleasure of working. I do feel guilty when i stay up till 5 in the morning but as long as it is not making me late for work i am okay with it.

I noticed that there is a sliiiight change in my eating. It's erratic but i am cooking more often ever since i found the fish person here. Even when alone. The guilt pangs have reduced but i believe it is only because i compensate later and the weighing scale is not showing me unfavourable numbers.

Ever since my work schedule got sorted, i have been feeling a lot of love. Like giving away a lot of love. And the smiling to self while walking alone has actually increased. Is this the beginning of some problem? Because the last time i was like this was when i fell in love with my partner and that is expected of love.

What's changed? What's happening?

PS it's not like i don't get sad, i do. Like Jay, his beautiful wife, him commenting on calico post, his jumping with her photo, Sister and Mother and their hatred for inji. All this hurt me. Politically, i consume a lot of news that's horrifying and sad deliberately. Like reading the entire chargesheet in the asifa case. I did that on purpose as the least i can do for someone who died of that which i read. At nights i still wonder about the male species, gender violence and more. I remember saying the same sentence to Ish long ago but this time it's not like that. Like she said, she has her husband and kids and an ocean of love to fall back into. I don't know what i have but i feel like i have enough now with inji and calico talking to me and relationship with Mother has become better. Immediately made me think 'you're being dependent' and you will suffer and writhe in pain like last time when inji leaves abruptly.

Control | Shrink Tales

I was somehow feeling lighter than usual when i set out for therapy on Tuesday. Bombay was getting hotter. My yearning for home and rain was at the back of my mind but was not eating me like it usually does.

Ish said that it just came as a natural choice to her to pick on the subject of my fish curry from the notes from the previous session. She said that that was perhaps the first time i had mentioned food at all. It was true. In all relationships there comes a point where i decide to disclose my vulnerability regarding food and it looked as if that one line in my writing was that in my therapy sessions. That's quite an achievement, i guess, given that i told my partner about it just last year, almost three years into our relationship.

I felt good that Ish disagreed with her about pushing me towards doing something about my unhealthy support systems like smoking and not eating. It could have the opposite effect, she said and i was like 'on your face,' to her in my head. But then i also knew that in the end she would be right. 

We spoke a lot about control.I had not realised that it was an important part of my relationships with people and things. I always considered it as having something to do with sex all the time. Sexual abuse. For instance, when Ish was saying that for me, the peak point for all relationships was - i completed the sentence with sex. But she was going to say control. For me, the peak point was when i consented (or not consented to sex and it was coerced out of me) to sex. But in fact, it was not sex i was consenting to, it was control over me or my body. Because in most of my relationships, the sex part of it was abuse.

This perspective on relationships made me feel better. It is the relief that i know something  about myself so it will help me make better judgements. For me, that is the best part of therapy - these joining of dots that will give me a clearer picture. The good thing is that, unlike when she shows me the whole picture all naked in front of me, i don't feel defeated. Or figured out by Ish. It feels like figuring out for yourself and that consoles me.

She asked me to think of instances where i had lost control with substance abuse. It was then that i remembered that the first time i drank in my life, i ended up having sex with my female friend from college. That was something i had no intention of doing. Ish linked this fear of losing control with Father's alcoholism. It was true. I grew up as a child who wanted to avoid losing control like that at any cost. Father behaved differently when he was under the influence of alcohol. Even after his death, i saw that his brothers were alcoholic and they turned rude and impolite to Appan when they were drunk. They were all different people when they were drunk. I remember making a pact with my only male cousin. That he wouldn't drink or smoke when he grew up. He in turn asked me the same question. It was kind of feminist for a boy of that age and time. In the end, i do believe i started smoking and drinking before he did. The first cigarettes i stole was from his own father.

Thinking about losing control, i also remembered the humiliating experience with Aalayam, my ex editor, one of the accused in one of my complaints of sexual harassment. I felt bad for him because people, especially men considered him unworthy of my attention or love. That naturally led me to take him under my wing and openly feed him love. But as is the case with a lot of men who interact with me, he took it as permission to approach me for sex. I just couldn't think of him in that manner but he persisted despite my repeated 'no's' In the end, it was when i got drunk that i decided to let him have whatever he needed from my body. It was horrible and humiliating, is what i told Ish regarding that.

So in all relationships, that is, in all people i loved, i considered giving control to them as the epitome of love. So it was with Sister. With Appan. It's when i shook myself out of Sister's control that our problems started. I started noticing things that i couldn't agree with. My 3.5 years long relationship with Jay, of course, i agreed to have sex with him without even him approaching because i was sure that that was the relationship that was going to work for me so i might as well finish off with the initiation ceremony. He had control over my family.

Now when it comes to my partner, it changes for me. Here, i made a choice. Refraining to do things that will hurt him is one of the things i do for him. I don't see it as control. I see it as love. I would anyway do it because i loved him. He would do the same for me. Even if he doesn't, my love has to be superior in that way. Each one in the relationship should get the best possible format of love.

What about food? If i continue in this manner, did my food problem start first or abuse? Ish thinks it is food. I do too. So it could be that i identified food as the cause for the fat shaming that was done to me. So me giving control to food was me taking my relationship with it to the peak point so that food will leave me alone and treat me properly. Like when i had fish and rice and felt absolutely awesome about it, the same night, i let it control me. Gobbling up some pieces and rice before i threw it.

During the week, I read an article about quitting drinking by an alcoholic. The writer tries to find out if quitting had made any of the writers write poor writing. Then I remembered ish asking me about the fat me. :-( felt sad. Imagined fat me in school etc. The article was really good and when inji saw that I had shared it, she told me that it was keeping me in mind that she posted that in malayee feminist reading group. 

Jay called. He said he was going to have a baby. I cried. I don't think I was sad. I was amazed and overwhelmed, felt as if something was happening in my life. I was happy and worried at the same time. Worried because from the conversation I realized he hasn't changed a bit. Recently I had looked at his photos and had felt that he was smoking weed a lot. Thought about addiction genes being passed on. 

Sister said really hurting things. But because ish had told me that it was not going to work without her reciprocation, I think maybe the mind did not blame myself for it. I asked her why she hated me so much. Asked where the hatred came from. 

Covering events in Bombay is giving new experiences. I still hate the place though.

Guilty Eating Not Guilty Eating | Shrink Tales

When i spoke to Ish regarding the previous session, i was surprised that she didn't take up my fantasies regarding the cut on my foot or my relationship with her. She instead grabbed on to the very fleeting mention of my cooking and eating which made me think that was important. Professionally important, something that had to be spoken about in a therapy session where it was mentioned.

She then asked me to do something i have often asked me lovers to do. To tell a story. Not any story. Tell the story of something you did. So like i would ask these puzzled men who had no clue what was in my head when i asked them to 'tell the story of the time you slept off while talking to me on phone,' Ish asked me to tell the story of how i had bought fish, cooked and ate it. I was reluctant. Even when i told the story i did so without much sincerity. With my lovers, i did these to collect moments, to let them know that insignificant things were significant to me, that they mattered because it was about a person i loved a lot. When i narrated the fish cooking story i realised that i had already collected that as an event in my head. I was surprised that i did not feel guilty when i narrated it. That was remarkable because i have not thought about food, any kind of food, without the feeling of guilt in years.

I told how i ate my fill and did not feel guilty of having eaten it. On the other hand, at night, i had felt guilty of eating some oreos. Ish suggested that maybe my guilt was regarding the kind of food. The kind of food i could not control, over which i had not control made me feel bad. If a packet of oreos was kept on my bed, like how Han had done, it got to decide. I had no choice but to eat. My fish curry was not like that. I had chosen to eat it and ate what i wanted, it tasted exactly like the meal i had craved for and did not leave me wanting for more. But then it also had a lot to do with the fact that my weight check after two days of fish eating did not show a bad number. [Adjectives used for weight, appearance etc, in these notes will be the normalised ones used my popular culture because here i am a victim of it.)

Food like oreo was also linked to a period of weight gain for me, the time when Mother had left for Chennai and i could buy my own food for two weeks. I bought all kinds of things from confectionery shops and stuffed myself with it. At the end of two weeks, people started telling me that i had put on weight - the most dreaded sentence in my life that could instantly topple all happiness and make me feel like a garbage can.

I wonder how i would feel regarding my dal and rice meal. I really like what i make but will i be able to have it in the same way i had my fish curry meal? Will find out in the coming week i guess. In the evening the same fish and rice made me feel guilty when i gobbled up some fish pieces with a little gravy before giving it up and throwing it in the bin. I throw a lot of things in the bin if i sense that i liked eating it. Sometimes i have imagined a situation where i ate out of the trash can because i just couldn't help it and have felt completely helpless and humiliated. 

Did not feel good about eating upma in the week. I remember telling myself that whatever you do, you cannot ever eat three meals in a day. Just so that i don't forget that basic rule of my body.

As a part of trying to get me to work properly, she asked me to eat properly. I felt betrayed. She told me that my eating problem was not about food but about abuse. I felt sad, the way i feel sad when she and she alone says such things to me. Did she think i had not given these things a thought? She wanted to change all of this in a day? Did she really think that telling me that my therapist said things she had been telling me for ages, and she asking me to have a time table would solve all my problems?

I cried a lot, feeling betrayed.

And then the next day, after i submitted the video, she tried to tell me that it was not about solving things in a day. That she was trying to push me. Give me that extra push to make me want to get out of illness. I told her that i was doing that in therapy. But as usual, there was one thing that she said that struck me.

She asked me why i would not eat normal. I told her that that would result in depression, the kind i had to go through in Calcutta at one point of time. She then said that that was where the difference lay. Now, i was seeking professional help. There is a support system. So depression can be dealt with in a different way. That possibility made me a little hopeful. But i didn't dwell on it because i felt that would make me eat properly.

She also tried to talk to me about smoking. Asked me when i had started smoking. She told me that she knew i wasn't someone who thought my creative juices wouldn't flow without nicotine or marijuana or alcohol, but i definitely thought of these things - smoking, cutting body, eating poorly as support systems i could fall back on. With cigarettes, the support system concept might have waned but the addiction remained. The physicality called addiction.

We spoke about families. She agreed with me when i said that to be loved was a privilege. Broken families and other factors that resulted in a lack of support system made people like me seek smoking or abuse. We all deserve love but some of us have to work hard for it.

Ate out with Han. Guilty. 

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.

Love to Hate Eating | Shrink Tales

Content warning: Derogatory remarks about body weight have been included to portray the mental health issues related to body image etc. 

Let's talk food. I love cooking. Hate eating. Love to hate eating.

Checked weight. Saw that it hasn't changed from yesterday. Felt angry towards self. Resolved to eat less the next day.

It's always a battle. While making food for partner i feel like making for myself. But it is a battle and i have to win it. I will not make for myself. Instead i will have tea and extra points if i don't eat a piece out of his plate.

Checked weight. The number has not changed. Worried. Thinking of i should reduce the number of tea i have at home. Feel like sleeping. Let me sleep for some time and then check if weight changes.

Stopped working and slept. Weight didn't change. Disappointed but not much because i'd prepared myself for it. Checked on the other scale. Felt a little better. Not much.

Checked weight again. Number unchanging. Worried. Trying to dind out why the situation. Is it sleep? That seems to be the only difference. Imagine myself going to Delhi and Anu saying 'you put on weight.'

Felt guilty after having leftover rice from partner. Thought about what to do the next day to compensate.

Today weighing scale again showed the stagnant number despite me feeling strongly that it would've changed. I stepped down and stepped on it again and this time it showed a difference. Stepped on it again to see if the number remained the same. It did. Became happy. Felt light. Enthusiastic. At night, asked partner if we should eat out. I think i should starve for one more day before i do that.

During therapy last week, ish had asked me if there was any difference in the way I functioned when I was fat. I thought about the time I was over 56 kgs. Strangely, all that frustration didn't seem to have affected how I created. I made films that too, good films when I was fat. One of the most memorable stage performances I did was when I was fat. Oh yeah that's the one this woman beater said 'why didn't you let me have you (means fuck you) when you looked like this. 

Ish asked me what I felt when I thought of that aspect. That nothing was different when I was fact as far as my productivity was concerned. I didn't know. It could be that I was resisting the feeling of being relieved or even happy to an extent. It's perhaps good news that doesn't sound good to me. 

It could be true. But I was never at peace, was I. I did have those episodes of binge eating. Did have those breakdowns. And hiding behind a facade which said that I wanted to put on weight. Don't know. It could be that I didn't know how else to function when fat. 

Shrink Tales | Eating

After leaving therapy and reaching home, i tried to deny what had happened during therapy. I tried to forget. That i had been touched some place where it still hurts. Pain is different on different occasions, as we all know. This one was like a toothache of sorts. Once when you chew, there will come a moment when you bite hard and there is excruciating pain. It takes some time to subside. The memory of it will never leave you. To avoid that, you will start chewing with the other side of the mouth. Using that part alone will result in more cavities there later but for now, you are good. Occasionally pieces of food get stuck in the cavity of the tooth that hurt you. When you pick it, you are so careful because you know that at a point you could touch the nerve ending - which is when it will take you back to the kind of pain you experienced when you chewed when your guards were down. So i had been pricked. At one such cavity, Ish, my therapist had found the nerve ending.

I started thinking why someone would be born the way i was born. Because lack of self esteem, the root of all evil in me, is not something a baby can have, is it? That's what i meant when i drew the broken heart baby once. Something was wrong from then, i felt. Feeling not good enough.

But what puzzles me is the contradiction. I think too much of myself. I think i am good at a lot of things, i think i am above a lot of people. But everything that unravelled in therapy pointed towards the idea that i thought everyone else to be better than me and loved everyone else to bits because they are all better than me. Grandparents, sibling, lovers...

Ish warned me that she was going to utter a seriously grave sentence. She said that everything i did was suicidal.

It seemed true. In the case of my eating habits, i didn't have to worry if someone would stop me. If i were to cut myself, i would be noticed. People might talk to me. But if i ate a lot of food, losing all control, no one would even suspect that something was wrong. How many people have passed by me when i was on the fourth eatery to stuff myself with more unwanted food.

Again, there are contradictions. Sometimes i have used my masochistic tendencies of scarring myself to impress people. Open my vulnerability to others in hope that that will get them interested in me. It always worked but now i know that it wasn't because they felt that i needed help it was because they sensed the vulnerability and i was easy game in such a position. Once a man spoke truth when he said that he wondered why i never scarred my face. I went to my neck because of that line the next time but yes, it is true, i have never scarred my face. Because i think i look good.

How is that possible?

Again, when i poured wax over my foot, when it left a mark, ugly one, i wasn't bothered. The scars on my arms - yellow teeth out of smoking, these don't bother me. It's too much for me to understand.

When others always held so much power over me, when they were always kept in a position where they could hurt me with just one line 'hey you put on weight,' i was getting back at them by doing things to myself because i couldn't ever do things to them. They were too powerful. Also because, as a person, i thought deserved it? I asked myself and thought out aloud if i was such a bad person. Before Ish said it, i knew the answer. Does it really matter?

Why do we say that no one, no rapist, no murderer should be subjected to capital punishment? When i vehemently oppose capital punishment, punishment by the state on people they think are 'bad,' as always, in the most hypocritical manner, i always tried to subject myself to capital punishment.

During the week unfavourable numbers on the weighing scale scared me a bit more than usual. I started wondering if therapy was working and if i would leave my unhealthy eating habits. If that happened, i would definitely go back to what i used to feel when i was 10 kilos heavier. And that is some place i didn't want to go. As usual i started digging reasons for the unchanging number on the scale. It had to be sleep. I was sleeping less because of the new job and i quickly made up my mind to tell my boss that i was going to quit if i prove beyond doubt that the reason was the new schedule.

It is the first time that i am getting scared that therapy will work. First time i wish Ish failure.

I have managed to forget a lot that happened during therapy in an attempt of self defence. I am so scared of what is going to happen. It is making me tense.

She swore

She swore she was led there.
The ants did it all.

Some Days are Like That

and then she was taken for a ride

I remember stealing a fork from a bar. I was bored. My kitchen was a fork short anyway.
I remember living on just tea for days in a row when in college.


Dealing with a Disorder

Dealing with a Disorder

Recently i saw some amazing paintings by artist Lee Price. Every one of them made me think of myself when i was going through a terrible phase, dealing with an eating disorder which is perhaps the most common among adults. Price's paintings were all about women and food. I thought about my own relationship with food and thought of sketching some thoughts.

My problems became acute in the past couple of years. It is now under control but i know that like anybody who has ever gone through something like this i am susceptible to a relapse, any time.

There are a lot of reasons for Binge Eating Disorder. In my case i figure it was humiliation i faced as a child and teenager regarding my weight. I was not fat, not even overweight. But people somehow thought i needed to be size zero. In my late teens, i grew out of all of that and learnt that the obsession about weight was only a construct, a norm that existed only to be broken. From the age of seventeen i was never conscious of my body or anything about it. I was happy the way i looked and couldn't care less about what people thought of me. Even now i don't get happy if called beautiful or sad if called ugly. At the same time i make a point to tell people not to comment on my body when they do so. It is a practice that needs to be stopped. It has effects, i now know.

The harsh and cruel words that were hurled upon me as a child did have an effect. It did result in bizarre eating habits. Mind works in strange and mysterious ways, i realized. Food became a preoccupation and a nightmare. I stopped eating with people. Even now when things are under control i mostly eat when nobody is around. I get conscious when in a group and eating. I observe people when they are having food. I make people talk about food. I cook and feed others and not eat myself. Then i would have a private little secret eating spree, till i feel sick, pukish, unable to move. I would sometimes have purging sessions, sometimes take laxatives. I talk like a foodie, act like a foodie and even believe i am a foodie. May be i am one, but an erratic, despicable, unfaithful foodie who hates and loves food at the same time.

Rapid weight loss and gain cycle resulted in stretch marks. After i realized that my eating disorder was not my fault and that i had a genuine problem i flaunt them as a mark of my strength and ability to survive. They tell me, 'You have come past all this, you have come a long way'.

I hope to sketch more on this. It makes me happy.

2. Some Days Are Like That