Last week, I had the privilege of receiving an award from my daughters’ school as part of their 25th anniversary celebrations. It was an honour indeed being selected as one of the few parents out of so many and being recognized as a “Guardian of Character.” The event went superbly – I went on stage and accepted the award, I had my pictures taken, I spoke onstage for a couple of minutes to the high schoolers sitting in front of me about the importance of enjoying and prioritizing the little joys of life, I was interviewed separately by a member of their marketing team about my beliefs and principles as a parent, I had pleasant conversations with the school team and other parents, and I came back home delighted to be the source of pride and joy for my beaming girls.
And then, for the next three days, I tormented myself about how maybe I wasn’t worth it and how I might have made a fool of myself by how I spoke onstage and to the others I had chats with. Wondering why?
I am someone who gives out the impression of being a confident, strong, put-together person – at least, that’s what I have been told by many. And every time someone has told me that, I have laughed inside about the absolute lie that it is. Because, as far back as I can remember, I have been the exact opposite of that. The truth is that beneath this confident, cheerful exterior is another me that, for some reason, hates to see me happy for long, to such an extent that I wonder very often if that me hates the real me. And I have lived my whole life fighting against that me. (While typing this out, I can’t help laughing about how this sounds so like Swami Nithyananda’s “me in me” rubbish. High-five if you were also reminded of him reading this.)
The roots of that me go all the way back to my childhood and the 7-year-long period of sexual abuse. It was during that time that I actively started judging myself, guilting myself, and shaming myself – first, for the crime that someone else was committing when I was just a helpless child, and then, as it became a pattern and an obsession, for every small thing that I said or did. It was almost like I wasn’t ready to see myself as a child, and as my knowledge of the gravity of what had happened to me intensified, like I didn’t want to see myself as the victim but the reason it all happened.
It didn’t help that I was under constant scrutiny for who I was by those around me for decades, starting from my childhood and going well into my adult years – I looked bad, I talked too much, I was too sensitive, I overreacted and created trouble by speaking my mind, I made decisions for my life that others weren’t happy about, and later, I wouldn’t let go of my past, I was making others awkward by speaking or writing about it and demanding fairness in how I was treated compared to others who mattered more, even my sexual predators who are still welcome at my parents’ home. It was always a constant outpour of what I shouldn’t have said or done and how I should have “handled things better.”
That constant criticism and judgement, coupled with my own demons within, shaped that inner me into a highly toxic and constant presence in my mind that has never let me be happy or peaceful for long, no matter how happy and peaceful my life has been at the time. It is like this matter-of-fact and brutal being within, always telling me that what I did was wrong, what I said was wrong, and that any happiness and peace I have found can be lost any minute.
Sometimes, it is overthinking and embarrassment over things that might very well be non-existent, like having a 5-minute conversation with a neighbour and then coming home and dwelling on my words for the rest of the evening, wondering whether I should have spoken that much, whether I was being judged for something I said and probably shouldn’t have. Sometimes, it is a full-on attempt at telling myself that I am not worthy of any recognition and, at the end of the day, how I will always be looked at as someone not worth it, like after the award ceremony, when I dissected every smile, every word, every step from me, painting myself as a fool, despite knowing rationally what a huge achievement it was and wanting to savour the recognition. Sometimes, it is holding myself accountable for every wrong that has been done to me by others and making me pay for it all. I reel under the whirlpool of made-up shame and guilt of feeling that I am never enough in my own eyes, no matter how much I try to pull myself out of it.
But of all the things that the inner me tells me, nothing affects me more than the mortifying images of losing the family that I found after practically a lifetime of being an orphan, the only three people who can make me feel that I am important and special indeed. And the me within me knows that there is no way we will leave each other deliberately, as a choice we make. Which is why that me knows just where to strike, where it will hurt the most, almost killing me – the inevitable truth of death.
It can hit any time, any time at all – when I am cooking, when I am taking a bath, when I am playing with my girls, when I am in the middle of a conversation with someone, when I am listening to a song I love, when I am trying to fall asleep – any time at all. Sometimes, it is a fleeting flash of a mortifying image involving any of us four. Sometimes, it is a persistent image that I need to consciously push out of my mind by actively distracting myself with other thoughts, like a scene-by-scene moving picture of a movie I love. But sometimes, it is an overwhelming, all-encompassing wave of extreme anxiety, sorrow, and absolute heartbreak, almost as if I am living it right then, leaving me petrified and unable to do anything about it, shattered and in tears, grieving myself or the ones who are very much with me.
For years, through therapy, I have worked on so much of my childhood trauma and its long-lasting impact in every aspect of my life, as well as my boundaries and relationships. But despite all the effort, the one thing I can never seem to win against is that me who lives within me, a product of my troubled past and the continued ill-treatment by those close to me. I have lived my whole life listening to that me saying over and over and over again that I don’t deserve happiness, that I do everything wrong, that I am not worthy. And even when I am trying my best to cut off every source of toxicity from my life and focus on the positives and treasures worth holding on to, the me inside is someone I have never been able to silence or get rid of.
I still keep fighting this battle on a daily basis and through endless therapy sessions, where, with the help of my extremely supportive therapist, I try to convince myself to see that me as a part of me that has carried the burden of my life for so long – always worried that I will break down if I am not prepared for every bad scenario that I might ever come across, always worried that being happy might be a precedent to something bad and hence asking me to look at the negatives and bring myself down so that an eventual fall wouldn’t hurt me too much, always reminding me that I was essentially a loner all my life despite the extrovert facade that fooled everyone and that I need to be on guard and keep the loner alive in me just in case the family and my people who I finally found might all vanish by a cruel twist of fate and I find myself alone again, always telling me that I might be the one to go, leaving so many things unsaid and undone.
And now, finally, I am starting to see that me as a scared being within who is trying to protect me, although she ends up killing my spirit, sort of like the histamines in our body that try to protect us by triggering an allergic reaction, but sometimes end up killing us in the process. That perspective is starting to make me look at the inner me with slightly more compassion. I know that she was born because I had no one. And now, even when I have someone, she is too scared to leave because she cares. I guess accepting that slowly, no matter how painful it is, is the first baby step. It might take a lifetime to do that, and I might never completely rid myself of that me, but maybe someday, she will stop being so hard on me, and we will learn to coexist without hating or hurting each other, and that day, I will truly let myself be happy and at peace, for longer periods at least.
Also published on Medium.
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