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.

What do i do on dates | Shrink Tales

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Women, Wardrobes and men who Just Don't get it | Shrink Tales

I just read the status message in which inji had tagged me. It said, 

‘I was lying. Fiercely independent is a mask to cover up lack of support system.’

Why are there so many broken souls in this place and why do they find each other? 

Reminded me of a series that i had started. ‘Broken Heart Babies’. I tend to think of myself as someone who was born with a broken heart. 

This was the first picture from the series that never saw a second picture. 

The Broken Heart Baby and Other Stories

On the day of therapy, i got up in the morning to fill water in the tank. Slept again only to be woken up by Deep. He is staying here for some time and threatens to stay for a long time every now and then. 

I had poha that he had ordered and was so happy with myself that i was being able to go for therapy even after working on the Saturday before. 
 

On train, around 1.30 p.m, i got a call from Ish and she asked me what had happened. Yes, i had one more point on my absent mindedness score sheet. I had thought that therapy was scheduled at 2 p.m. I don’t know how i managed to do that when Ish had messaged me that it was going to be at 1 and after me setting alarms based on it before going to bed the previous night.

I immediately felt defeated and angry. Defeated – I always consider it a battle. Everything. My body and mind. While i battle with my body on weight, subjecting it to strange eating habits, i battle with my mind who is forgetful and absent. The to-do lists and Google calendars are my tools. Spreadsheets for managing money and accounts. To defeat my mind that can’t remember directions, i often circle around my destination for more than an hour without asking people for directions.

When i reached my therapist with just ten minutes left of my session that i missed because my mind got the better of me, the first thing i did was to ask her if she thought i was lying. Lying that i had made a mistake in remembering or reading the time she had texted. That i was just running late and was pretending to have made a mistake so that i wouldn’t get reprimanded for it. She said ‘no’ so quickly that i felt it was true. She was even apologetic and asked me if she had made me feel that way. 'It's not you, it's me,' i said. That’s how my mind thought in such situations. I don’t know, why do i always think that people will disbelieve me?

Options:

• Because everyone disbelieved me when i said that i was raped or abused.
• Mother always thought i was lying about everything and i was lying most of the time too, i guess. So that she wouldn’t get angry with the truth. Truth being things like i was sleeping with a forty year old at 17 etc. 

Ish said a lot of things to make me feel better. About how i was doing very well till then and how people were people because they made mistakes etc. It calmed me down a bit. I don’t think it was because i believed her. Rather it was because i felt glad that she had taken the trouble to make me feel better. 

She asked me what i wanted to do with the ten or twenty minutes she could give me before the next person came. I said that i would read the ‘aftermath.’

We laughed a bit about my partner thinking that we both - my therapist and i were planning things that would affect him, me breaking up with him, for instance. ‘Why does he think so?’ she asked. I said that it could be because i did make a lot of decisions after talking to Inji and of late i had been talking very highly about Ish too. At night when he and i spoke over phone, he completely refuted my theory.

When i described my talks with my partner regarding sex, Ish asked if i thought that me missing the appointment in a bizarre manner was in any way related to the strain associated with the nature of our recent sessions. I was sure it wasn’t that. I always felt good before going to therapy. When i finish off the ‘aftermath’ for the next day, i feel like someone who is wrapping a gift for someone really special. I wonder how therapists live, with getting so many such gifts that are just nicely packed worries about our identities and existence and what not.

Ish said that it looked as if i was too much in love with my partner that she didn’t think i was anywhere near a thought of breaking up with him. She said i could be there for him. Just like how he was there for me. I felt cared for and loved by him so much so that i was willing to be vulnerable in front of him. Then it struck me that that was really something. My eating habits were probably the only vulnerability that i hadn’t exposed in front of him. It eventually became evident, but in so many other ways, i opened up my trunk of ghosts and despair in front of him in spite of having been abused and taken advantage of for the same reason by many other people.

In other words, he had helped me find my kind of love. I had to try to do the same thing for him.

I think i should try to be his mother because when he feels that i let him down, or that i might not want to be with him, that was where he planned to escape to.

I liked it when Ish said that i could leave the talks about sex with my partner there for him to go to when he felt like it, like how i had done with my wanting him to buy me new clothes.
[Note to self: people relate fast and better to metaphors made of their own experiences, speech or writing. Oh i take notes on how to change the world from all possible sources.]

I am now confused if i should drop more hints about those clothes or about renovating our sex life.

I didn’t talk about it the entire period and a day before therapy, he tried to initiate a conversation regarding that. I didn’t engage much.

The Goa trip was just weird. All those celebrities and free flowing money. Things that are capable of making me feel bad. Vai Vow being with me and Han joining us in Goa definitely helped. I shopped – bought a dress, a top and two anklets – after months of putting away my shopping needs.

Oh yeah, i blurted about the dropping of hints regarding Vai Vow buying me clothes to realize that everyone thought i had enough clothes because my cupboard was full of them. Deep joined in to make fun of women-clothes-shopping-what-do-i-wear stuff. I have no idea what men think of clothes. Apparently they don’t think enough.

I still haven’t found a job. Surprisingly, i have not got any panic attacks so far. Maybe because i have enough money to survive for another month. But i am worried that i am not worried about what is going to happen after a month. So one of the days when Mother got angry with me, i just imagined asking her for money like how it used to be till i got a job and that scared me. She would immediately take control over my life with money, i felt.

I should remind myself to write about the incident at the therapist’s during one session when i didn’t notice the woman who was cleaning up went in and out.

Sometimes i feel tired and useless and frustrated when i realize that for me to remember things is a battle. Not fair.

New Clothes are Definitely Coming. After Ten Years | Shrink Tales

I went to therapy thinking of my lethargy. Once a month comes a period of time when i know that i have a ton to do and yet all i want to and can do is sleep. Ish, my therapist, told me that i didn’t have to worry about that. Even though i didn’t have a job, there was something in my mind that told me that it was okay and that there would be a plan, eventually. It was true. There were thoughts lurking in the back of my mind regarding my career. No, not career, just ways of making money. 

When i told Ish that i had not started taking the medicines according to the new dosage prescribed by my psychiatrist, she tried her best to look angry and gave it to me. Yeah, now i will have to call the psychiatrist and get scolded by her too, probably, and start taking the new dosage but i felt that it was worth it when i saw Ish trying to put on an angry face. She told me that i was to message her after i spoke to the psychiatrist. She was ‘holding me accountable,’ she said. Like a lot of things, it sounded like a nice thing when she said it. Had it been Mother, i would probably have thrown a tantrum saying it was violation of my privacy or something such. 

[No, i did not call the psychiatrist. Started taking the new dosage.]

When i told her about Director of SRFTI, Debamitra Mitra’s letter to me congratulating me for the IFFI selection, she asked me if she (Debamitra) would have got what i meant through my reply. ‘No,’ i said, ‘because she is stupid.’ 

I just can’t stand that woman. Maybe i should write a postcard to her.

Later that week i did write to her again, when they sent the wrong disc for screening at Goa. It was not about what i wrote. I just wanted to let her know that i hated her, i guess. Here is the letter anyway. Even though she is a woman, i felt like humiliating her when i wrote that letter. In front of the Goa festival authorities – because everyone says it’s a big deal – like how she and many others had humiliated me. Below iss my letter.

This is outrageous.

Dear SRFTI,

First you make public my name, now everyone from my school, college etc can identify me as a 'rape victim' and now on top of that is this.

Please send the DCP. Copying HoD and Director, SRFTI to make a note of this. Also Vaibhav Hiwase, who faced a similar situation earlier. ICC Chairperson because of the nature of what you did.

Thanks! 

I wanted to scare her too, because that was all i had. But now after some days of writing the letter, and while writing it here for Ish to read, i kind of feel bad for her. I feel bad that i consider her stupid. Also that she is in love with or living with a complete abuser. 

I hope what LJ once told me about Jay (ex-lover) is true. When Ga told me that she was seeing Jay, i asked her to be careful. Extremely cautious about getting physical with him. When i told this to LJ, she got angry with me and asked me why i had said that. I told her that i was warning her, because of how Jay was with me. Then she said something that stuck in my head like how some of Ish’s statements do. She asked me how i knew that Jay would be abusive with everyone. He could be in love with Ga, they could be having a really good time. If it had been a mallu film, one could have easily added a bleaching of the screen to indicate an epiphany over there. LJ probably thought it was just sexual jealousy and not concern for Ga that made me say that. I no longer remember what it was. But yes, that was when i even started thinking of people who had hurt me having a completely normal life, being absolutely loving and caring to other people. 

Speaking of sexual jealousy, my partner and i again had talks. It kind of half-broke my heart. Whenever i talk to him about the problems in my sex life, i feel that he is a baby and that i am the only person who will pick him up when he is crying. Like a neglected child. I want to hold him close and smother him in an attempt to take all the sadness away. Yet, holding his cold hands, i spoke to him about us going to a doctor. 

His hands become cold whenever i talk about it. It happens when he is scared. 

I think problems in a woman's sex life, an abused woman's sex life have to be seen in the light of the social setting of the place. For most men, before they meet their first lover/wife etc. their biggest fear is if they will be able to 'perform'. It's after becoming physically intimate with respective partners that they are assuaged. Now if a woman one day tells this man, she is having problems in her sex life and she would like him to help her, the notion of maleness created by the society will make him doubt himself. That's the curse of patriarchy. It's shitty and useless.

And the woman, especially if it is one like me, waiting to feel guilty, will take it upon herself. She will feel guilty of having made the partner feel bad. I remembered how my partner had returned home upset one night after i had had the talk. Even when i asked repeatedly that day, he had just said that he had just felt like seeing his mother. 

In my paranoid mind the thought of going back to his mother probably rose from it being that one space where he wouldn’t be judged by his ‘manhood’. Rather that was the space where ‘manhood’ was to be removed at the entrance, like footwear, before entering. 

My partner asked me if my therapist had asked me to leave him if he didn't agree with us going to a doctor. I said no and buried him in my bosom, as much as i could. I then repeated the thing that brought tears to my eyes at the session. 

Ish had said that it showed that i loved him a lot because even when i feared that he would leave me once we went to a doctor, i wanted us to do it. For all the selfishness i have, i couldn’t bring myself to hide it from him that there was a solution or a possibility. True that i would also feel great if i could have a better sex life (i still don’t want to believe this). It could be selfish.

Not having a job is eating my brain in just small ways, i guess. Like i got angry thinking that i always bought Vai Vow clothes when i felt he needed some and even though he had started earning so much, he was not even thinking of buying me anything before going to Goa. Of course i am still waiting for him to figure it out himself. So i expect to get some new clothes from him after ten years. Men! 

When i pulled out a red pen to scribble something, i thought of the exercise that my earlier psychologist, Ms. Mullick had asked me to do. Scribble on pages with red ink pen when i felt like harming myself. I could also clench ice in my fist or take a cold shower. When Mother heard this, she bought me a red pen. I felt really bad thinking of Mother. She was always buying me things to get me out of my problems, i felt. Even when she gave me money to make films, she probably just saw it as a means in which her girl would be less sad.

I named her as the person who would come with me to Goa with free tickets. 

Vai Vow made fun of me saying that no one went to Goa with parents. That’s okay, she is not parents. She is Mother. She bought me pens. 

Thought for therapy today, will my partner be okay?