Alice needs to get out of the wonderland

I remember crying in the lab for a day and then coaxed by the flower woman to examine what is happening to me and what are my authority issues and went through a moment of eureka! I found it. I thought realisation of our pattern itself is enough to change it. But as the saying goes, a good beginning is half the work done, I only began that day and I am yet to finish working on the rest.

Being the fourth and last child has its own advantages and disadvantages. Since advantages become disadvantages some times I feel its a mixed bag of mints of different flavour. If I am lucky I will get rose flavoured mint or a mango flavoured one if not it might be garlic or dog shit or horse breath.

I am a pampered one and I am loved by my family and in no way I am hinting at a traumatic dramatic incident or any such thing.

What happens is when I am with my siblings, I take or am given the position of a child while he/she will be the adult. This does not happen by a conscious design. May be I push them as well to be the adults and put myself as a child.

So I end up either meekly agreeing or rebelling in my own ways. This is a lose lose situation. My rebellion is also honed to hurt the Achilles heel of each one of them. Who does this unless they are child like?

Because of this, I kept score and whined constantly in front of my partner and the constant sentences were 'nobody asks me how am I or nobody is interested in my life or no one asks for my opinion, do they know me at all?'

I need my brothers and sister to acknowledge me, approve of me and pat me on my back and be proud of me. Isn’t this very childish?

I have experienced equal footing with all of them at one or the other time. Much more with one at particular times. And I know none of this is intentional.

I need my inner child which is forever banished from going up stairs to be with the adult siblings to grow up. May be writing this helps the child to climb the ladder and see the forbidden kingdom and then jump ahead to adulthood.

Otherwise the horcrux of my childhood anguish would forever be alive.

Searching for Sylvia I found Shiva

Bell jar seems poetic
beautiful and symbolic
of a woman in turmoil
I thought ....

Looked at many and
they all seemed
Phallic

searching for one symbol
I found another!
Bell jar forever is changed
for me!

'self' arangetram

Society has a responsible role to play in the life of children. Family is the primary unit of socialisation. Though this looks like the starting lines of Sociology for dummies, I started thinking about what shapes us or the I in me? Who am I? At various life stages I have answered that question with greater clarity. Some of the answers include, 'I am a feminist, I am a dynamic and creative young woman, I am this or I am that'.
I had identity crisis as a teenager and post that I carefully shaped my self image or let others suggest and took it to shape what I call who I am. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it or the approach.

Some times our life experiences become the pegs that go deeper into the earth and the rope which is tied to it will drag us close to the peg, may be we will be sitting or standing or straining just out of that hole. With a proud grin or a sad stoic stare about who we are and the reason being the peg deep in the earth.

For major part of my professional life, I stood next to the pit of my current life experience and showed that as 'me'. Some times I hoisted a flag there to make everyone look at it and some times I decorated the pit walls with squiggles equating the significance to early human cave paintings.

I was thinking about what depression does to me and I thought if I ask myself who am I? The answer would be ' I am a woman with depression and panic disorder and I am on the road to recovery'.
When I thought the above thought, it struck me that I have this pattern of sitting next to my life experience pit and calling it me.

I am examining it right now and one thing I can say right now is, I am not my depression, I am not just the social roles I play, I am not what you think I am and I am not what I think I am from time to time as well. I will eventually understand the many facets of who I am I think and it is ok if it keeps changing, expanding or shrinking or whatever. It is a good start when I know who I am not and the list of that is enormous so whew...

Ya to go back to family and society shaping us, I think children's personality is malleable, ductile, elastic and gooey. Adults leave impressions on the minds of children like dog leaves its paws on wet cement. People say 'you are like that person', 'her this reminds me of that', 'you are afraid of everything just like so and so', 'she sings well but cant dance', etc. Extracetera through out the years and it does not stop till I don’t know when. Many of these fall off eventually and some stick like the hardened dog paw on the cement. These are suggestions promptly accepted by the self without examining.

I did not question this or confront anybody about this, but secretly this anguish of the secret me gave shape to a fantasy me – inwardly crying Meenakumari who is not understood. Meena kumari is my symbol because she is stunning while she is in anguish. Her lustrous long hair floating on her shoulder, her kohled eyes intense, her face glowing in the intensity of the pain she feels. Her gasps or sighs are melodious. (and of course from black and white film era).

Some times there is silent but potent pressure from people (who do not even realise they are doing it) on me to be different, be bubbly, to make me understand that I am strong, I am creative and I am loved, I am lucky and I am da da da and di di di di. May be I put similar pressure without my knowledge on others and may be this is how civilizations progress!

OK that’s it for today. Feel like I am rambling.

Aphrodite becomes mortal

Whether I call myself feminist, atheist, leftist or whateverist, I make up my own fairy tales as I go along. There are time tested fables I have run successfully in my life and various roles I played based on many imaginary and mythical ones. At one end, there is the burden of patriarchal guilt. I wanted to be good at my work front as well as win brownie points for home maintenance or 'taking care' of The husband, at another end there is the feminist guilt for having the patriarchal guilt and so on..

Somehow one fine day unexpected shit happens in the fables and fairy tales I have kept on running and I sit in a corner in denial for some days, I rant and rave for some days, I just lost the capacity to weave a new fairy tale for future just like that. As if someone did some black magic or did some voodoo. This temporary loss in spinning my life tale is how I think of my depression and panic disorder.

Some of the reactions of people who heard I am depressed and recovering slowly has indicated how people perceived me and how according to my approved standard of behaviour it is, based on the fabled character I think I was. I have been so freakingly nicely behaved in life for so long, banishing every so called negative thought or emotion for so long, I did not have appreciation for anger, irritation, sadness, being off mood, lethargy, jealousy, pettiness or sheer rage. They were all put under the 'bad to have' label.

I am not intending to say that by being depressed I have become enlightened about THE TRUTHS of life and now I am a saint. Far from it, I am articulating my opinions without disclaimers or trying to push it all to the relativity realm and say ' at this moment I feel like this’. No I am thinking like this right now and I am sharing it with whoever that reads this blog what I am thinking.

There are brighter days when I want to get in touch with my friends and family members and there are days I won’t even smile back.

I am thinking of blogging away what I think and feel till I break free. I cannot promise that I will do it every day as that seems very tiring to even think. But I will do as the motivation builds up.

I have seen a good Psychiatrist and I am taking medication. As comments, I do not need suggestions about how to get out of depression unless you were depressed and got out.

King of the scorpions - Happy birthday

Happy birthday my dearest annayya - may this year be fantastic and whatever you want it to be :)

I will list things that come to my mind randomly from time to time when I think of you, (some of them are secrets too)

1. I have to see you once in 4-5 days if I am in Mysore. I know when I see you we always are in JK moments – either admiring a dog or a post or a film or something. If I dont do this then I start missing you terribly

2. I like listening to you when you have femme fatal situations and love your analysis of them. I love the sharing space we have

3. Grudgingly I admit that you know which sore spot to hit to make me a raging lunatic but the saving grace is I know yours too heh heh

4. I love the parrot talks and you are very adorable when that happens

5. You are very shy and bashful and dont take compliments well at all

6. Recently I was talking to a teenager and telling her about developing articulation as a skill, I have some because of you. Bird watching, star gazing, butterfly identification, greek mythologies,poetry, films, books, authors, poets and scores of others introduced by you. I can never forget the listening exercises (I was asked to write verbatim what we spoke after we spoke remember?)

7. I know I disappoint you by not sharing the same interests from time to time and I cant help it sometimes. I miss you when you are focused on something intensely and dont pay attention to me or whats up with me as well.

8. Your acknowledgement of what I do matters hell a lot to me

9. I am amazed at your skill to argue emphatically standing from different sides of an issue

10. You do not listen much to me when we are with others but do when you and I are alone. May be that is true for me as well sometimes

11. When you are happy you are wonderful and fun to be around

12. Some times quick to lose temper but always ready to explain why


Though you are king of exaggerated mockery some times, you are also the king of analysis, king of intense focus, king of curds, king of photoshop, king of torrents, king of innovative play activities for chinnu and so on .... making you the king of November – the scorpion king as christened by your fellow November fans. Thanks for being born before me :)