Barely Surviving

I had two terrible dreams and i don't need to be Freud to decode them. 

One featured Dee, a married guy with whom I had an affair last year. In the dream, Fay, the only person i call a friend in its true sense, and i are in a beautiful cottage somewhere. She and i are by a glass window, laughing and chatting, when i glance outside and see three figures in raincoats walking on a concrete pathway. One of them looks at me. I can only see his eyes. I am almost certain it is Dee. I am scared. 

It's morning. I am just waking up. I realise i am being smothered with a pillow. It's Dee. He is sitting on top of me. Fay is nowhere in sight so i assume she is in the bathroom. I am hopeful she will come out any moment and see what Dee is doing, and finally realise what i have been trying to convey to her about him for a long time now. I also feel i might not get killed by Dee because he doesn't know i am with Fay. He hadn't seen her when he looked at me through the glass window the previous day. I struggle with all my might against him and manage to overthrow him. I pin him to me with my legs and call out for Fay so that she can see for herself what i have been talking about all this time. She comes out of the bathroom and sees me and Dee. 

I tell her how he tried to murder me. She says, 'but i just saw that you have trapped him with your legs.' The familiar fear rises in me. Of being told that i am not to be believed. I tell her he was trying to murder me just a while ago. That i overpowered him. I am now hoping Dee has escaped so that he wouldn't hear the doubt in Fay's tone. He will get to know that i have no one on my side. He will feel triumphant. Fay believes me, but only reluctantly, i feel. I can tell that she thinks i am reporting everything wrong. The dream ends. 

 

For some months now, i have been trying to get back the money i lent Dee. There was no response from him even after repeated requests. I had to send a legal notice to him after which he promptly called the lawyer and told her that the majority of the amount i was asking back was his remuneration for edit work he did with me. I had already explained to the lawyer that he had made the claim in the past too and that it was not correct. I had added his name to the credit list not because he did the work to earn it but because of my feelings for him at the time. It was an unprofessional act. Fay told me that i had sunk low in the cesspool of my actions of the time. It is true. If this particular act was unprofessional, the rest betrayed feminism. Dee's friend refused to believe me when i told him that Dee had not done the work, pointing to the fact that i never contradicted Dee when he claimed otherwise, and stating my memory issues. He said that i had agreed to pay him for the work when we were together. I told him that Dee had later told me he would return the amount. Fay told me it could be because Dee felt insulted when i later went back on my payment promise. She too, pointed out earlier instances of my memory issues.

 

The incident triggered me endlessly. It brought back every little incident in that relationship where i was humiliated and lied to by Dee and i failed to question it because i was so emotionally entwined. It was easy for everyone to state that i never contradicted him when he made claims regarding edit work. It's natural too, as i am known for calling out people and confronting them quickly. However, I avoided confronting Dee on numerous occasions in that relationship, not just regarding edit. In fact, i went to great lengths to claim that he did the edit with me so that people, especially my teammates, would respect him. He was always complaining that they didn't consider him worthy of me because of his lack of higher education and complaints of discrimination by a female teammate. I avoided confronting him regarding his lies not just in front of others but even when i was alone with him. Whenever i dared to confront him, it would result in lengthy disrespectful debates at the end of which he would withdraw love and affection for days. He was especially touchy regarding money.

 

His withdrawal of love at will was my perennial fear in that relationship. It started when he started exhibiting a pattern of showering me with love for a brief period and quickly withdrawing it for long periods (called 'love bombing' and 'bread crumbing' in today's lingo). I would cling on to the spurts of love and would be grateful for it. It's only very recently that i even broke out of my emotional attachment to him and this is when i was finally able to analyse the incidents that transpired. This does not justify my favouring him and adding his name to the credit list when he did not deserve it but i now know why i put up with his lies about it and many other things. Why i tried my best to not hurt his ego.   

 

Fay told me that i would be among the people who called my actions sexual harassment if Dee was a female and if a complaint was made. That's true too. In my case, i do think that the power he had over me, which arose from the pattern of showing and withdrawing love, overrode the power i had over him due to professional hierarchy. In fact, after the relationship and the pattern commenced, i was unable to even reprimand him on more than one occasion when he committed dereliction of duty. He would just brush it aside and not take accountability. I now even suspect that some of his love showering spurts were strategically placed to coincide with other personal events in my life. If, despite this, it really is sexual harassment, i do think Dee should file a complaint. After all, at the point when the relationship started, the only power equation that existed was the professional one. It's only when it progressed that the emotional equations emerged. The law now permits men to make complaints. I was, in fact, one of the people who lauded the amendment. 

It will take much more time for me to get over the fact that he has 'chosen' not to return me my money. That he 'chose' not to respond when i asked it back. Even without the amount he now claims is his remuneration, he owes me. People have asked me to let go of it as it is a small amount. It was not a small amount when he borrowed it. Neither for me nor for him. The fact that i was not respected in that relationship makes it worse for me. 

The second dream featured an ex-professor of SRFTI. Following complaints of sexual harassment from female students including me, this professor was found guilty by the ICC and was dismissed from service. He and another professor who received the same punishment challenged the order in Calcutta High Court. The court ruled in their favour recently. We appealed against the order but don't have the emotional energy to follow the case up and have lost hope. They might return to teaching any day. During our fight against these professors, we were hounded by the administration and fellow students both. The students especially were very violent. 

I was recently contacted by some students there regarding ongoing cases of sexual harassment. The current ICC is treating complainants with utmost contempt and functioning illegally. 

In the dream, this professor is teaching us. It's an outdoor class. We are all going to be tested. I am excited. I want to be the topper. One of my classmates is a male student who turned out to be a gigantic hypocrite during my time there and whom me and my roommate used to call 'fuckrum.' I badly want to beat him in the test. 

The professor and i get along very well. I am enamored by him. I see that he is slightly flirting with me with his glances. I don't object. When the test is explained, two of the male students, including the hypocrite try out a video game which is somehow related to the test. They already know how to play it. I see that i don't. 

The test begins. It is not a video game but something like a pinball game. I have to use hand controls to bounce six or so balls into their places on pegs - all inside a glass case. Not only do i win, i beat others by a huge margin. I am ecstatic. Some of my classmates also celebrate with me. I look at the professor. He looks happy, eager and proud. I feel a butterflies in my stomach. 

It's night. We students have a bonfire in the lawn behind the old hostel. The professor comes up to me and says 'i love you.' I am disappointed. I didn't want him to hit on me. I think of making a complaint but feel that no one will believe me because I was openly in awe of him earlier. I am guilty of having butterflies in my stomach when i looked at him. This is what Fay talks about, isn't it? She would say that i initiated it? And if she says so, it would mean it's true? The dream ends. 

'I love you' was the professor's words to me all those years ago while i was a student. He said it over the phone, after saying, 'it is what it is.' He made repeated advances at me even after i told him on that call that i wasn't interested in him. Once at a party, he laid his hands on my waist, slapped me when i commented on a salad he had prepared. When i protested, he apologised and said i should go straight to the police for the mistake he made. He made comments on my body. 

I had been in awe of him when he started teaching. I knew he was slightly flirtatious with me with his glances. I had tried to impress him. Had tried to get him to notice me. From childhood, I always tried to impress my teachers, especially if i liked them. I used to pluck flowers from the garden and take it to my favourite teachers every day. 

I am constantly accused of forgetting things. I do have memory issues - a little more than most people. Someone could tell me their name and i would forget it in less than a minute. I don't remember faces. My brain subconsciously deletes entire episodes that it deems irrelevant. Certain memories associated with trauma are deleted. I believe this happens in a lot of people. Are we not to believe them at all? It really hurts when i am not believed even when i recall something vividly, when i am certain of what happened. 

 

I hit my lowest low this year. Depressed, constantly considering suicide, i am certain that my future is doomed. The weight of my terrible mistakes pull me down into dark and unknown depths of despair. 

Why Men Should Not Shout At Women

Mannequins at a store in Kolkata. Free to use and share with accreditation

I think i can call the week that went by the 'guilt week.' I felt i had lied at therapy the previous week. Not lied, per se but had withheld information from my therapist, Ish. So the entire week i kind of spent in feeling guilty about it.

I had smoked at the wrong time that day. Ish got the smell of cigarette and asked me how many i smoked in a day. I told her that Inji had also been asking about my smoking of late. In fact on one of the days following the session, i got reprimanded by another lovely woman too in a WhatsApp group. Inji blasted me for spending so much money on cigarettes. It's interesting how people who know me use feminism to make me stop doing bad things.

The damn problem is that they are always right.

You see, i would like to tell you how it is. I am an addict. I have been smoking for 8 years now, if not more. In all those 8+ years, there has not been a single day i haven't smoked except for the time i spent at hospitals - a total of two weeks, at the most. I was in hospital both the times for attempting to kill myself. The second time, the withdrawal symptoms made me realize how bad my addiction had become. I texted a man who had raped me asking if he could let me know how i could smoke inside the hospital. One of my classmates smuggled cigarettes for me and i took one or two puffs in the bathroom with a smoke alarm and it felt like oxygen. Smoking is not on the agenda in my therapy sessions with Ish, as she kind of regretfully repeats every time the topic comes up. I have no reason to write about it in here - when these notes are read out to her in every session. Yet, i write so that i can tell you how horrible it is to have an addiction, especially smoking.

I am someone who does not like getting a cold because i feel that my body is gaining control over me. I hate diseases, disorders etc. I hate it that Calico gets migraine attacks and that he has found no cure for it. My body is the place where i exercise a lot of control, sometimes punishing it - something that is on the agenda and we have talked about it earlier too. I think humans are all powerful because they have absolute control over themselves and can make decisions and all that. Yeah and yet, i let a substance - nicotine - control my life. That's how pathetic an addiction can be.

Now how is this a feminist thought?
How is it not?

Women taking care of themselves is the primary condition for feminism. With that decision comes everything else. For this, you need to be completely independent. This does not mean that like how i do, you should refrain from asking for help or take help at all. It means that you should be self sufficient and your body should be self sufficient to fight because yes, we will have to fight. So when you punish your body with such things as cigarettes and unhealthy eating habits and all those things we women constantly do or don't do saying 'it's okay,' you are letting patriarchy win.

The only problem here? I know all of this and still smoke like a chimney. I know all of this and have unhealthy eating habits. I don't care about myself at all. The least of all my physical health.

I keep telling myself that i will die (kill myself) at 40 or something and that none of this matters.

So yeah, this rant was to say that smoking is the shittiest thing that can happen to anyone.

During therapy i noticed how Ish used a technique that Inji often uses on me. She tried to slip in the topic of my eating while discussing something else - smoking, i guess.

Ish said that she didn't know where the session was going. Nor did i. I never think of it, actually because i expect Ish to guide me through the path she decides. Anyway we discussed the incident with Deep that i had written about. When Deep got pissed with me, because i threw his shoes out because he refused to clean up after himself, i had got scared. Ish asked me questions about anger that made me reflect. I had not thought about it. But before that i understood something. A man is not just a man. Every man is patriarchy.

Allow me to indulge. I asked Ish repeatedly why i got scared when Deep got angry even when he had absolutely no power over me. He was staying as a guest at my place in Bombay. He wasn't paying rent and the only thing that let him stay here is the fact that he, me and Vai Vow are acquaintances. Not even close friends. So what was the big deal!

Ish told me that i had got scared because he was, after all, a man. He was bigger and stronger than me. He had patriarchy on his side. This answered a lot of questions for me. It was magical and exhilarating. My fear was not personal. It was very socio-political.

Of course i would be scared of being alone with a man twice my size and god knows how many times my strength. Am i not aware of this, as a woman? Yes, of course. The fear that most women have that they are going to be pinched in the breast when a man passes close to them on the road - i know that. I know the fear when i think someone is behind me and i slow down to let him pass so that he won't attack me from behind. Of course the culture and social location would affect the way your mind protected your body from harm. This is exactly why as a response to what Deep did, i went to my room - the only room that can be locked from inside in my house, and sat there. I typed a long message on the group that i had created to make both the men in the house and especially Deep clean up after themselves. After doing that i stayed like that for some time and then felt a little better and went out and made Deep and myself tea.

This is why men, if they really want to embrace feminism and get rid of the patriarchy in them, should realize that their body language is important, that if you're even shouting at a woman, it is building a power equation right there - one that's not right at all.

But during therapy, i felt so good. When there is just you saying your opinion and the world is telling you that you're wrong, there will be one tiny voice somewhere saying 'i think she has a point.' That's how it felt. After coming back from therapy, i told Deep that we spoke about him. Told him that his days were numbered. He joked around but i felt he had got the point. Later, i spoke with my partner too, about the same. I felt so much better, i can't describe it.

He told me that he was surprised when he saw that Deep was walking topless in the house after taking bath. Anyone who knows me would be surprised. I hate seeing topless men. In fact Cheta and i have said this many a times right in front of Deep. And you know when else this had happened? In Trivandrum. When i was with Sal. He had taken off his shirt and i had not objected. When Inji heard this, she said 'ugh'. 'Ugh kunji, ugh' she had said. I felt so happy that i had spoken to my partner about this problem. In detail. Isn't it amazing when people love and care for you! I wish i could be like that to Mother. Alas! She pushes me away mercilessly.

So the guilt part -

I have flashes of having sex during certain time of every month. Most of the time i only see my partner but sometimes, even acquaintances turn up. I fucking hate it. It applies to people whom i am just okay talking with. It doesn't take much for me to dream about them kissing me or something. Physical attraction was a thing in my life and i feel guilty about it all the time.

Ish asked me if i got angry with people, often. She reminded me of the assignment i never managed to complete. The picture postcard to people i was angry with or had hatred for. Me getting angry was common, i thought. People getting angry with me - yes, over political differences. But i do know that i fear anger very much. From my sister and Mother. A lot. Oh when Mother calls me in a certain tone, i immediately get that she is going to get angry with me and then get the feeling that i get - the one where a fireball starts swimming in my heart or stomach.

Ish had noticed my nail biting and had asked me when i had started it. I told her that i have been an arduous nail biter from ever since i can remember. It had never even occurred to me that i deliberately bit my nails (even toe nails) till the point they bled and that it was self harm. No, really, it had not occurred that i was harming myself. Just saw it as a habit.

Ish also asked me if my partner and i had gone to a doctor. I told her that we hadn't. She asked me if there was any change in the way we had sex after he and i had spoken about going to a doctor etc. I said no. I told her that 'What did Ish say' had become a goodnight kiss kind of thing as seen in Hollywood films. We laughed. I also told her that with the new job i had taken, i would have to travel a lot but i had made sure that i would be back in Bombay for at least one day a week, for therapy.  'And your partner,' she added. It was hilarious. I have a feeling that spouses of patients and therapists never get along. Yet,

when i told him that i had reported to Ish that nothing had changed in sex, he hesitated for a while and confessed that something had. He said that he now stopped himself from trying to penetrate me. I just told him that it looked as if Ish could read his mind. 'I am never going to see her,' he said, and i laughed again.

Extremely excited about the shoot coming up.

Scared of a Relapse, Sex Talks Continue | Shrink Tales

I was anxious when i left for therapy. I was not sure of what had happened the previous week, with me bunking office and cancelling train tickets. I was scared it was a relapse and that Ish, my therapist would confirm my fear. 

When i read the aftermath [what Ish calls these writings], Ish told me that i had got the postcard idea wrong. It was not necessary that the postcard had to be to people whom i hated. [I had failed to come up with results for this definition.] It could be people i was angry with or people who hurt me a lot. That was easy, i thought. I was to do it on the Saturday before the therapy Sunday. 

It was a relief when she said that my sleeping and cancelling plans and not working were not signs of relapse, but of a sense of relief. When i had gone to the psychiatrist, she had reduced the dosage of one of my pills – Lithium. When she gave me the feeling that i had gained weight, it didn’t not affect me as much as it usually does. These were positive signs and proof that i was improving. May be my mind wanted to relish those moments by not doing anything. 

Sex still continues to be a problem. When i think of it i think of a tortoise. I feel that it is a part of me that cannot be penetrated – [the choice of word is intentional because i am a genius. No, it was accidental.] There is a difference in the way that therapy has become ever since i started discussing this problem of mine. As always, i shall try to express the feeling in words so that i get more clarity myself. 

Up until now, whenever Ish told me what she thought of what i thought, i had been able to distance myself from myself and think of it and see that it was true. Even her suggestions like asking me to try to talk to Mother about her – gave me hope. Here, however, like a tortoise, i felt that i had this thick shell on me that even Ish would not be able to crack. It was something only LJ could crack, i felt. But then again, LJ too was a victim and an asexual being. So speaking to her about sex would just make me feel even worse. I mean my life’s goal is to be asexual like her.

The problem is that i don’t think the way i feel about sex is something that came to me naturally. Like me being sexually attracted to women – it came naturally and it was not introduced to me by anyone. But penile penetration was ‘introduced’ [read rape] though violence. It was common that through such experiences of violence you started to get pleasure out of the act itself. 

Me thinking that my partner only wanted my body, constantly checking what he would do if i didn’t have sex with him. Perhaps it was related to LJ. She, when she said that her husband loved her, also spoke about how he waited for her at night, a man who is used to sleeping early. About how much he loved her even though they had sex maybe just once a year. Yes, in previous therapy sessions i had realized that there was no point in seeking a perfect kind of love but still i yearn for that, i feel.

Ish told me about trust. Like a litmus test, i used sex as a test where i would be able to tell if the man is right for me or not. Where i was most vulnerable. This made a lot of sense to me. It really looked as if i used sex for the said purpose. May be this was why LJ once hurt me so much by telling me that i slept with people at the drop of a hat.

Inji told me that i sounded tired. Went to the bank to open an account only to see that the bank had shut for the day. I had forgotten to check it online before leaving. Absent mindedness was creeping in.

I liked it when Ish said that she took care to constantly remind me that i was doing good. I realized how that had actually helped me. I would come back home and squeak to my partner that Ish had said that i was making progress. To see the smile on his face. I wish Mother was able to see me too, going through this process of healing. She would also then be able to understand, looking at me, that healing is possible. I know! I should tell her whenever i see that she is making progress! Wow! Why didn’t i think of this earlier! 

Han asked me something: Why don’t you ask for things? Why don’t you ever ask for help? With luggage, internet, everything – i don’t know when this started. 

Me getting startled when people call me, touch has always been a problem – but when a co-worker always answers to your call with a start, it looks awkward. It just struck me because i am interacting with more people and so more occasions of them calling me are arising. I do have one memory of this happening in degree and how Athulya had said that i was making it up.

Good thing – resumed reading. 

I have started seeing Mother everywhere. Like on the road, i would think that Mother was walking when i saw someone with hair plaited, wearing salwar kameez. 

I am having a great time talking to Mother now. But i realised that she is a broken human being. May be more than me. 

She wants to do things to people who abused me. It is not  just about them having done things to me. It is that she holds them responsible for ruining the family life she and her husband had envisaged for us. It might be her way of running away from taking responsibility, something i do too, by blaming these men. She wouldn’t blame her husband whom she loved and lost. It was better channelizing her anger to these men who in any case deserved to be punished. 

I told her how i had, through therapy, gotten over abuse. How i look at those periods differently now. I didn’t want to hang the abusers or ruin their lives. It was the victim’s prerogative after all. Mother didn’t seem convinced. She has, in the past created ruckus in places in public where she had spotted some of these men. It was highly probable, with Mallu land being an even smaller world than the already small world.

How can she be healed, i thought. And i felt that it was up to me. 

However easy i thought it would be for me to draw a picture postcard to person or people who hurt me, i drew a blank on Saturday when i sat in front of the book. I drew a copy of a photo from long ago, in which Mother and baby me were there. She was carrying me on her shoulder and looking at me with so much love in her eyes that the whole photo was about that love. I just wrote ‘aren’t we both awesome’ in the message part. 

Did i just realize that i have nothing to say to those people who hurt me? I’ll find out soon, i guess.

When I Met Mother | Shrink Tales

I had slept very late the previous night. I woke up at 11 in spite of the alarms. I think my partner couldn’t wake me up because he too had slept late. Both of us were trying to convince a common friend that he had to get out of his abusive relationship with another common friend, one whom i loved very much. It was really painful. 

Once again, Ish, my therapist, and i were running late together. I was irredeemably late though and we had to have the therapy on phone. It was a little uncomfortable in the beginning but when i realized that Ish was the same as she is when we interact face to face, i eased up. 

We started talking about my weight and eating issues. She asked me a question. You know how it is? If you are up to something you know you are up to something. A question is all it takes to make you figure out something you’ve known all along. And when that happens with me, i feel like i am alone in a cave that is pitch dark and that some light seeped in through a narrow crack. When i follow that light i realize that i see more details. Say the carvings on the walls. 

Edakkal caves, Wayanad. The rocks in a perpetual kiss.

So Ish asked me about a contradiction in my life – one that i had not thought about or seen. She asked me why it was that i considered my body as something to hurt when i was in pain and at the same time went to extreme means to reach the goal called the perfect body. The answer emerged as i thought, formulated the words and articulated them.

‘Because by trying to make my body look perfect i am doing the same thing – hurting it – like how i punish my body to relieve my pain on other occasions.’

There. That was something i had never thought of. I don’t know what that realization implies. But it is nevertheless a realization that felt very meaningful when i had it. Like the very satisfying sound of a lock clicking open.

Mother – the only thing Ish asked me was if i had ever spoken to her about herself. 

Yeah, i guess, i thought. Stories about her childhood, poverty, her love story with Father. But no. I had not done that in a long time. Somehow, over the years, i had come to resent those stories. When Ish asked me to give it a try, i somehow felt that half my job was done. There was hope. And guess what? I have discovered a new Mother. 

I cry, and feel with her. I imagine myself as her. I even found out that we used to think the same way about love, at the same age. Like how i thought that my love could change the other person. She thought that her love could change Father’s alcoholism. I felt so sad, listening to her speak about how she began her life with Father. 

Over the week we spoke more and more and i felt closer to her than ever. It was a miracle. The most saddening part was that she was just waiting for me to ask her. It was i who had not shown any mercy. One question and Mother was opening up. I felt guilty. But then i realized that there is a reason why i am being able to do this now. It is because my own pain has disappeared, to a large extent. Otherwise, selfish as i am, i was always hunting down my pain and trying ways to deal with it. Mother’s or no other person’s emotions had place there. Now maybe there is some room because a big chunk of pain has just vacated the room. 

Every conversation i had with her made me closer to her. I took care not to say anything about me unless she asked. Pity that phone stopped working. [I didn’t get up on time to turn the tap off. Flat flooded and phone drowned.] I remember LJ educating me on love letters. That it is all about them. Not about us. I never imagined that would make a difference. Here Ish said 'Who is this LJ? I want to meet her.' I rolled my eyes and smiled to myself.

Was shocked to see the wonder that human mind is when Mother started responding kindly to me. The tenderness that i had not felt in years while talking to her came back. At an incredible rate that too. Brings back the memory of me rushing to her and hugging her after reading the screenplay of ‘The Sixth Sense.’ And that was maybe 9 years ago! 

Why do i feel that Ish asked me to do something over the week and i forgot?  

Exterior/Day/Footpath on a busy Road in Mumbai

Every evening on my way back home from work, i get pissed with the bikers using the footpath and honking for pedestrians to make way for them. Every evening, at the end of the footpath, i see the same old woman holding the hand of a person, walking slowly in the opposite direction. Yesterday, i saw that she was alone. It is only when she held her hand in front of me, beckoning me to hold it, that i realized that she was being walked by different people every day, strangers to her, just like me. 

I thought of my mother. I felt really sad.