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.

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.  

Shrink Tales: No One Understands my Pact

It is a pact I have with her. A bond that says that we will be together always. No matter what. In that, it is similar to what I have with my mother. She will be my side no matter what. That's what mothers are there for. 

I take pride in her. That no one can understand what we have between us. Irrational. Inexplicable. When I think of what she and I have, excitement mounts. Like in new found love. 

I still remember missing her call, waiting for her call, how my heart skipped a beat when I see the + sign before a number. That's how calls from her looked like. If that's not love, what is? 

I know that there is a connection. I know that she is the only person who will be able to understand me. Like during the keyboard stealing. She was the ONLY person who understood. That's the faith I have in her. 

The feeling is of warmth. The picture I once drew in therapy. It was that of my mother with me like i remember from an old photo of mine. When i shared it on Facebook, she made it her cover picture or something. It's things like that that i understand that she understands. How else did she understand by seeing that picture that it defined a hell of a lot of things for me? 

Going through my old therapy notes, i found a drawing that had come as a surprise to me during one of the sessions. The one that i drew when Ish asked me to talk about my relationship with my sister. It was that of a sinking boat. When i thought of her in the light of what happened between us, i felt i should draw it again, this time, about us. This time, she was the sinking person. Unlike in the picture of my sister, there is a treasure trove under the water that is enticing her. 

Us

With great difficulty, i have come to accept the fact that she can be enticed by things i don't understand. Things she might choose over me. Like in the picture, i don't understand what can be more valuable than getting saved by me, taking my extended arm. But for her, it is a magic world and it is beautiful.  

I was talking to Calico about her and told him how the only thing i couldn't believe was that if it was her child, she would have done the same thing. So this only proves me wrong in one way. I used to think that she would behave with me the way she behaved with her own child. But it is too big a thing to ask of a person. And i was wrong to believe it possible. 

There is a primary condition for stages of grief to happen. Something has to cease existing. For me, it's never ceasing to exist. I gave it a thought when Ish asked me, exasperated,'what is this thing?' I know. I take pride in the fact that she and i are a force to reckon with. Someone i have great respect for is taking a bow and saying she wants to run away from Us. I consider that a victory and a testimony to the fact that it hasn't ceased. 

As to what it is, all i know is that it is love. It is my kind of love. I tasted it once and live in its memory. The memory is enough for me to sustain myself for years. Till it is not alright. 

But i feel lost. In all this pride i take in our relationship, i do feel lost. Like i don't know what i am defending or fighting for anymore. Like Ish said, i am fighting for an idea of her i have. The idea of a relationship i claim we have. Sometimes it tires me. It reminds me of the times when i had to defend abusive lovers at home. Abuse metaphors come easily to me, like she pointed out in the scathing mail she wrote me. Saying how good i am in understanding nuances of sexual harassment but not anything else. 

I don't understand her and that makes me sad. It makes me frustrated but more sad. I think how come she has me all figured out and i haven't understood parts of her. 

All i want is one day with her, the children so that i can live the rest of my life in its memory. When i go to mallu land i will request her to give me that in exactly the same way. I am crying as i write this. Ish would ask me what my tears would say if they could talk. They would probably say, why can't she be kind to me. She who always asks others to be kind. Why am i not worth any kindness? Why am i worthless to her?

 

Hey you... | Shrink Tales

Hey you...

Why have you stabbed your own soul in the heart, spilling your own precious blood everywhere? Did it not hurt? Why did you do that to yourself? One day, i would really like to know.

Suicidal thoughts abound. I want to kill myself because i am angry at people who hurt me and i cannot do anything to them. I can do whatever i want to myself. My body is the shit sack that can be cut up anywhere and i don't need to answer to anyone about that. My death is the retribution i want to give those who hurt me. The only way i can win and feel powerful.

Completely broken. Feel shattered to pieces. Like i have to limp and pick myself up the floor to make myself  a whole person. I feel dirty. All over smeared with dirt.

I have been told by her in the past that i am abusive and manipulative. There are times when i have thought it to be true about me. This is not one of them. I do believe i have the ability to look at myself objectively and decide if i am doing something or not. In this situation, i am certain i did not manipulate anyone or abuse anyone.

This time, i am being told by a different set of people that i am some kind of maniac whose only goal in life is to escape from situations unscathed - as the good person, as the one who is powerless, helpless, scared. And that scared me because it was in connection with my relationship with these same people that i was sharing with my therapist the fear that i am being abused. Through talking, i realised i am not. I am just working in ways i absolutely don't like because by getting the work done, i will be closer to my bigger goal of making a film. I would naturally have a tendency to think i am being abused because that way i will be rid of responsibility. I agreed. I understood. Now they are saying the same thing about a situation that i absolutely know they have misunderstood. Misinterpreted. And they are saying that i want to feel helpless and scared here to appear to be the good person and escape unscathed out of this situation. It is my worst nightmare.

Now let me consider the possibility that i am denying something because i want to feel helpless. Emerge as the victim in this. It is not making any sense to me. I was accused of something. Now i am going to be in a position to accept responsibility only if i am guilty of something right? The only thing i am guilty of is causing them pain. The same thing they caused me by this whole paranoid act.

Quitter | Shrink Tales

My comfort zone is failing. I decide on something, as soon as that responsibility is bestowed upon me by someone, i start failing, saying, i can't do it. I won't do it. It has been a pattern. Hasn't it.

When i started playing chess and it became imperative that i won, i gave that up. I still tell myself i did it so that my sister didn't feel bad. But i felt i wasn't as good as others. I didn't want to prove that again by being in the game longer.

I took up painting, never completed any kind of training.
I joined the girl scouts. Quit.
I learned the violin for a year. Quit.
Basketball. Quit.
I decided i wanted to a be a doctor, saw the syllabus and the books at the entrance coaching centre and quit.
Inji's job - said i didn't like it. Quit.
Work under A and K almost quit at least three times. My mail still has saved drafts of quitting letters.

My instinct is to run away from the pain. It hurts so much. Why doesn't anyone understand that? The failure hurts so much i want to put an end to it by not trying. What is the problem in doing that after i have tried my best?

It's true that when people say bad things about my work, they don't mean to say that i am a bad person. But i know people. They are all harbouring feelings of hatred inside for the person as soon as they find a mistake in the work they do. And what good is it being that person about whom people say 'her work sucks but she is an awfully sweet person'? I despise it. Benevolence of love and likeability.

So what if i am angry horrible? Adichie rightly points out that historically anger has resulted in positive change. I am scared i will always have to defend myself in front of powerful others.

These days every session is giving me a picture. Last time it was mimosa, which is on my table wall now. This time it's an apple cart, a structure of building blocks so unstable - it's ready to tumble anytime. I am angry that everything is so tumble ready but the truth is that they are tumble ready because they long for stability. They are more stable when their centre of gravity is closer to the ground. After they fall. That's so sad. That things are not happy in their natural habitat with me.

Mimosa

I hate it that my life revolves around K now. Anxious when she messages, worried if she will scold me. Scared of A scolding me. All the time. In dreams, i have fights with K, stand up to her and say that enough is enough. But in real life, i never do that. It reminds me of all the times i was like that, with men. With Alya - this bully friend i had in college. How i hated balancing her on my scooter. Giving her money. But i never said anything.  

and people ask me why i am scared of being hugged and touched

Shrink Tales: A Friday After Many

It has taken great effort to write again. Putting in a routine will help me greatly, evidence shows. So this is hoping that it will help me in some way. If it doesn't it is always good to keep writing.
Especially when it is a large part of what you do for a living.

Back to Therapy | Shrink Tales

I go to that dark place over and over again in my mind. It was after i booked the session at Dr. Vani's that Kan called me and said those horrible things which in the end made me cut myself up after a long time. Maybe those weren't horrible things. Maybe i am just a horrible person.

Ish is going to ask me what i feel so

I feel like a failure because i am back to therapy - i cut myself up after a long time

Feel like a failure with no redemption in sight because two people told me the same thing. The first being inji.

Abandoned. Inji being absent from my life makes me feel abandoned.

Always when she is not there, i feel like i am standing at the end of a cliff staring into a dark abyss.

I feel inconsequential. I don't matter to anyone. I matter only to inji and even she doesn't want me anymore.

The Underdog Syndrome | Shrink Tales

We spoke about football.

I'd never thought about the 'rooting for the underdog' syndrome. My philophy of football and life in general is that i will stand with the person or people who are weak. Never knew there was so much to it. By standing with the weaker team, your status gets elevated, as a person who is standing with a weaker person. If they win, it means that underdogs can win. If they lose, well, they were weaker to begin with anyway. If they win, it proves that lesser talent can win. Standing with the powerful team is not really a noble act.

The part that i liked the most is when Ish told me something inji had told me long back and i had got pissed with. My feeling insecure and unsafe when my partner earns more than me and pays the whole rent is a by product of patriarchy. Inji had told me that being independent was a disguise for a lack of support system most of the time. Independence is not being able to pay the rent. What my partner and i share is companionship. Except that when Ish said it, i got the satisfactory click inside me.  (Ishani said it was because unlike inji, i was paying her. Nobody listens to their parents because the advice is free. When you have to pay for it, if you are a person with a middle class mentality at least, you will make an effort.)

I asked her why then, knowing that my body image issue is also a product of patriarchy, i was not able to change it, she said it is because it has had a long lasting impact on me, starting from childhood.

I shared my standing with the underdog syndrome the way i experience it with my partner. He was not considered good looking. Nor was he someone on whom girls had crushes. So i felt superior because i, who was hit on by a lot of males - it was all for sex, i think but nevertheless - decided to 'settle' for him.

God it felt horrible writing that. Ish told me that it was not really superiority. It was indicative of my lack of self esteem. I forgot how that figured. I don't know about all that. I do know that he fills me with warmth whenever i even think of him. I find him too beautiful, sometimes i look at him for minutes together, like an idiot.

Today i got hurt when inji told me that she didn't want me to work during my vacation. I was going to book tickets without telling her. Because i was sure she wouldn't sanction my leave. But she said okay and rejected my offer to work for two hours every day if possible.

I don't understand her games. And i get angry when i don't understand her games. And at the end of it all, she might just have typed something while doing hundred other things or thinking hundred other thoughts. And i will try to analyse her sentence for two weeks and keep adding to my mountain of hate.  

The other major incident during the week was that i blocked inji on whatsapp. We had an argument regarding punctuation marks. I got hurt because she was dismissive. I felt she was talking about things she didn't know. It brought back her sentence 'you think you know English' cried for at least two hours. Decided to look for new jobs. Vai Vow asked me to do the same. Like always i defended inji. Later, when he was not cleaning up after himself, i threw 'this is exactly what i do to inji' at him. He became silent.

The pain was unbearable. Calico tried to help but he is also one of those who hates inji.
Today, i disagreed with her in front of other colleagues and she did not talk to me like how she talks in private chat. So i told myself that i had made the right decision.

I still can't believe i blocked her. Me, who years ago would hope against all hopes that i'd get a call from an unknown number. Because the only unknown number who called me was her.

Coming to think of it, rooting for the underdog turned into something else syndrome is something i have for inji. But she is something else entirely. Starting from the clothes she wears to every single thing she does, she is the perfect feminist for me. A feminist much like me but without the privileges i have, who FOUGHT all along and who survived and who SMIRKS at people who tried to put her down. All while making dosas and babies and leading the exact same life my mother leads. It gives me hope that my mother can also be that. And i value that hope very much. 

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.

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.

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. 

Two Women on a Boat | Shrink Tales

I felt relieved when Ish said that she had not abandoned my food problem as i had doubted in my previous session. It's so complex - this conflict that i face. I am too scared to address it but if my therapist as much as hints that she might not address it, i start panicking. The problem is very similar to the problem. Like how i know how violent fat shaming is but i will keep doing that to myself.

But what surprised me was that it would be linked to Sister. I had thought if they were related when Ish introduced Sister into the session. But she took me by surprise when she said that the whole thing had its origin in Sister. 'Oh!' i exclaimed. Ish said that it was lying bare over there, all the facts required to piece the puzzle together. I couldn't see it though. I still can't, to a large extent. That probably means i don't like the idea that it had its origin in Sister.

But it sounded true when Ish spelt it out for me, reminded me how i wanted to look like her, my first memory of fat shaming comments is from this nun who asked me if i was eating all the food Mother made and not giving Sister her share. Oh did i tell you that i get confused between Sister's and my handwriting? That's because i studied hers and copied it so that mine looks exactly like hers. I did not forsee the difficulty it would create later for myself to tell between the two. Feeling secretly happy that that was how it was.

From the previous session, what had shocked me like anything was me making an awful drawing when i was asked to make one on my relationship with Sister. (I'd drawn her slitting my wrist and had said that Sister was helping me die when Ish asked me what it was.) It's not the possible explanation that Ish gave that blew my mind. It was that action of me drawing it. I had not gone there knowing she would ask me to draw anything. And then i drew something and i was told that it possibly meant something that was relevant to me and then when i thought that i had drawn something that made Ish say that, that still kind of gives me a jolt. Well, i was in for more.

Oh i again forgot why i make the sister character die in all my films. Is it because i don't want to think of it? And why on earth do i keep forgetting this tiny piece!

Ish again asked me to draw what i felt about our relationship. And yet again, i produced a drawing that i did not even know existed in me. I really felt i was acting in a horror movie. There is no explanation to why i drew Sister and me on a boat and then the boat capsizing and me hanging on to the top of the side that's up in the air and Sister almost fully in water hanging dangerously at the sinking end of the boat.

When Ish talked looking at that picture, i was overwhelmed with a mix of joy and disbelief. This sublimated to tenderness in some time. She told me that it could indicate that i thought the broken relationship between her and me is affecting her more than it was affecting me. Truer words had not been spoken. From that point i started feeling like what i imagine mother hens feel. Or human mothers feel. Like spreading my wings so that Sister could feel safe under it. I remembered how i always felt she was so alone, how i didn't particularly like any of her friends, how she is all alone, so far away from me, with all that hatred denying her my love. As these emotions surged in my mind, a very definite answer emerged out of it. I should speak with her.

Of course, i am scared that she is going to hurt me again. But her end of the boat was sinking and i couldn't care less about my clothes getting wet if i tried to help her.

The drawing also could be displaying how i consider our relationship to be a strong balancing thing in my life and hers. (Back home, i couldn't but help resist the thought that it was again a weight thing - two people on a boat trying to keep it steady - the balance also comes from the weight of the bodies.)

I started preparing for the call and imagining possibilities while i was in therapy. I did not have any hope that we would be normal again. The relief and happiness was more from the fact that i had made up my mind to not let it be. I had seen her drowning so i will forever look for a buoy.

I called her much before i thought i would.

Said she picked up because she thought something happened to mummy and cut the call.
I felt good hearing her voice though.
I think i should use another line the next time. Who asks 'are you okay?' anyway!

Mother was really very happy when i told her that i had called Sister. She asked me what she said. I told her that she picked up because she thought something had happened to Mother. We laughed at this. It was funny, it sounded like she preferred 'something happening to Mother' than a call i made to her just to ask how she was.

During therapy, while i was imagining the possible responses that Sister would give me, i was already imagining her taking offence that i called her not because i felt it but because it came up during therapy. Ish then asked me why i would mention that at all. It was me trying to evade responsibility. Yes, that sounded true.

But i just want to know who is drawing these pictures!

Sister Shocker Picture | Shrink Tales

So in the previous session, when i read my 'reflections,' Ish observed that it was the first time i had not carried the session with me. I told her that i was trying to do what she had asked me to. Recording my feelings every time i checked weight. That was there, she said, but it was like i was refusing to think of the session during the week. That was true. Usually the week goes by with me thinking of all that was said in the previous session and consciously devoting time to it. This time, for the first time, i had not done that. That session was lost.

I sensed that it was a very difficult area - my eating and i was resisting it with all my might. Yet, when Ish asked me about my sister, before thinking of her, i thought if Ish was giving up on my eating problem. I have come to realize that there is a small part of me who is also seeking help, so that one was kind of waving at me saying 'don't abandon me!'

I comforted myself saying it could be that there were thin threads connecting my sister problem with my food problem or that Ish intended to come back to it later.

But i should say that the session that followed after i was asked to speak of my sister shocked the hell out of me. I had given up on our relationship. Repeated attempts at mending it had failed. There was absolutely no hope. Sister expected me to apologise for calling her abusive and a lot many names. I wasn't going to do that. In spite of all that, i didn't think that it was useless talking about her. She has been a big part of me. It can't be erased. It saddens me deeply that things have come to this, a break up, a thing that we had vowed to resist as children. Well, i was a child. She was a teenager. We have seven years between us - the reason why i think i am an unplanned pregnancy.

So i told Ish that i always felt that Mother loved me more than she loved Sister. I was angry with Mother for that. I wanted her to love Sister the same. I felt guilty for the things only i got to have because by the time my childhood started, the financial condition of the family had improved a bit. So Sister never got to attend painting classes or chess coaching or basketball training, violin lessons and join Guides (girl scouts - be prepared). I got to do all that and like a spoiled brat i gave up all of those things midway. I had the luxury to, when she never even had the opportunity. I still feel bad and guilty about it all.

Ish asked me how i felt about Sister now. I have always been scared of her. I am still scared of her. I told Ish that. She asked me to draw what i felt about Sister now. Some photographs from the past came to my mind. One in which we are on our haunches, looking at the camera, in that house where Father died. One in which i still had curly hair and was pinching the life out of Sister's face. I was a baby. But all that was long ago. I gave up trying to draw one of those photographs. Ish said that she would like it that i drew what i felt now, about Sister. Without thinking much, i drew a wrist that was being slit with a knife. I clarified that it Sister who was cutting my wrist to help me.

I have no idea why i drew that. It scares me shitless that that is what i drew. It was so violent. Where on earth did that come from! It wasn't that bad, Ish said. I had made clear that Sister was helping me die. It could be that, i thought that the way in which Sister was helping me wasn't very good. I don't know. No one is helping anyone now and i am still wondering why my picture turned out to be like that.

In fact, i now think that i need to take care of Sister and help her. I only wanted to be like her when i was little. Not just little. Till the time i questioned her some years ago. Now i want to help her and only want to be like inji now. Maybe that's why Sister doesn't like me or inji anymore. Sigh.

I remember recalling instances where she joined forces with mother to turn against me. The one time i opened the door for her and she slapped me out of worry. I had not been answering calls and it had led both Mother and her to believe that i was dead.

The time when Sister and Mother read my diary and found out about my not so nice relationships. That's putting it mildly. It was all abusive but my family didn't know how to deal with it. I have no anger or hard feelings against them for that. That's how bad we are, as a race in dealing with abuse and trauma. Even the best people have no clue how to handle it.

I remember that as the first time i ever found courage to hit Sister back. I had done that with Mother a lot, perhaps because the frequency was much higher, of her beating me. But with Sister i could never even imagine raising my hand on her. I never understood why she sided up with Mother in believing that i was a disgusting slut who smoked.

I have gradually come to believe that we might die - Sister and i - without talking again. I am getting used to it, like how i prepared myself for Appachan's death. I am not sad that she hates me. It's only natural given the amount of utterly disgusting opinions i shared with her about herself.

I observed that i always took care to kill the 'Sister;' in my films. From the time i was doing plays in high school to now, it has been like that. I forgot what Ish said the reason could be. 

I am, however eager to find out if i will get some insight into our relationship through therapy. As shocking as it was to draw that picture, i do hope that maybe i will be able to see things through another prism.

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.

No One Can Stop Me From Blogging Not Even Inji Pennu | Shrink Tales

I couldn't write Reflections [Ish renamed 'aftermath' to reflections. It still is what one felt before, during and after the therapy session.] for the session. It was the second time in a row that i was going to therapy without Reflections. I did wonder if it was Inji's words that were doing it to me. Subconsciously, perhaps?

From long time ago, during a period of pain. I miss film school now. [can edit and reuse with credit]

Inji had told me something about my blog when i was in Delhi that broke my heart. She told me that i was too open, i exposed my vulnerabilities as it was and people could take advantage of me anytime they wanted for the same reason. As if it was something i didn't know. She told me that she knew why i did it, how therapeutic the experience of spilling everything into a paper as words was. She said that i didn't have the talent she and Kamala Das had, to hide oneself from others even when they wrote about one's own experiences.

I felt let down. Felt she looked down upon me. Felt like a fool. I cried a lot. Of course i know how i am exposing myself to strangers. There are just 15 or so people who regularly read my blog posts. Some of it is family who are snooping around to know what i am up to. But i know that there is at least one person in there who feels a sense of relief that i exist and that i write the way i write. Nobody is holding a gun to my head, asking me to blog. That too to be honest when i blog. But i try to do it as much as i can and even feel guilty if i can't just because i think i owe it to a certain stranger someone. I think i like strangers.

It was the first time we were having a session at the new address. It looked really good. I somehow got reminded of Calcutta. I miss Calcutta. I was also late for the session. Only the previous day, my editor had reprimanded me for being late.

Ish reminded me of the previous session. I knew that there was a door that she had opened for me, last time. She said that it was about me always being a seeker in relationships. Yes! I was sick of being that. In every friendship or love affair that i ever had, i would always be this person who is seeking the other person's love, naturally putting me in a vulnerable position. Will they take offence, will they stop talking to me, will they consider me stupid so went my list of insecurities in every single relationship. Even in student-teacher relationships. I got nightmares that the teacher found out some habit of mine that they didn't like and stopped liking me. Always seeking love and always scared that the love that's once given will be taken away at any moment. The epitome of this is my relationship with her. There was perhaps just one relationship where i didn't fear that. The one with Chechi (elder sister). I have no idea why. In fact, it appeared to me that she was always scared i would stop loving her. And now, at this age, i feel she needs my help. So i feel protective. Chechi however, has no feelings towards me other than a passionate hatred.

I also always try to be like her and never succeed, making me feel inferior all the time. This makes me a perpetual seeker of success, the kind of success that she has. Now let me make clear what this success i am talking about is. Because strangely, people around me and i have very different ideas about success.

For example, a lot of people are jealous of Inji Pennu because she works and lives in US. But to tell you the truth, i have never understood why they thought that was a good thing. I always feel bad that she is in US. I feel bad whenever i go to mallu land and see all the green and Kochi and rain and everything thinking she can't see all that. I feel sad when she says that Florida is like Kerala. But what about the dampness, i think. How can Florida have the same dampness of those stairs where one gets kissed like when in love, the dark patches, the greens that glimmer in the night. I feel bad for Inji. I remember making a video called 'rain for you' for Inji, when she first left me.

So what is this 'success' i am talking about? I just want to be like her in that, i want to be a person who

blogs
loves
works (not having a domestic help, having a full time job, children to feed)
manages time like her

I want to be as clear as her in my politics, my understanding of issues.

Anyway, before going to therapy, i had realised that i would never be able to be exactly like her because i didn't have children. Nothing was going to happen if i didn't get up on time and didn't cook food. But if i had children, they would starve and it would be horrible. I can afford it. She can't and she still does it. On top of that, she deals with burdens like me.

I told Ish how, when she scolds me, i feel like Rahel in the God of Small Things. As if she loved me a little less. A giant moth settling on my heart saying she loves you a little less. Then Ish said something that made me go 'oh!'

She said that during the time she was going to have a second child, she was not sure about it. She was scared if she would love one more than the other. Then her supervisor had told her that there was nothing called loving less or more. It came as a whole. When you love someone or decide to love someone, you always love with all the love you have.

I then realized why my lovers always got pissed seeing me behave with other people i loved. They saw how i loved them others and sensed it was the same. They didn't like it that the love went as a whole and not as a lesser package custom made for friends. This was why siblings always got pissed seeing Mother love the other one. They don't like it that the other one is getting the same love they are getting.

Surprisingly, in my case it was completely different, i recalled. I always felt that Mother loved me more than she loved Chechi. And i felt guilty and sad for it. I wanted Mother to love Chechi as much as she loved me. I would think about methods to do it and even implemented some of them.

My editor scolded me again that week. I felt

abandoned
useless
angry
incompetent
it wasn't fair

and soon after that felt defeated because in the end, my editor was always right. But when i got hurt i felt like it was like asking a fish to climb a tree and then saying that it wasn't good at it. I feel that my fear of travelling, my forgetfulness and much more that come with it are all part of my depression. And whenever i get a blow like the time my editor scolded me, i go to Appachan - the safe place where i can never be hurt.

How can i find him? How can you find people who are dead? I am sad.

Oh yes, i will be continuing this exercise of exposing my vulnerabilities before strangers. Writing is not therapeutic for me, it is not to write away my sadness that i come here. The truth is that i just think of the time i will die and someone going through my vulnerabilities over here. Just to see how one lived and died, i guess.

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.