And So I Speak…

Image by Irina L from Pixabay

And so I speak – as do many others – because we have nothing to lose but the clarity of our conscience if we do not use our voice when we have people who value what we have to share and care enough to listen to us – especially when we have a platform to speak about things that matter to us.

I speak because I have been there and that is not a nice place to be.

I speak because I have done (and continue to do) the painful work of healing from the trauma and lessening the scars of those harmful encounters over time – that remains work in progress…

I speak because I am deeply unapologetic about making guilty folks squirm and be called out if it will keep vulnerable people somewhere, somehow, a little safe.

So, some pointers – and this is just a tiny list – the exhaustive everyday extra ideas just happen…

1. When someone shares a personal experience of assault / molestation / discomfort / bad gaze, etc., believe them – better to believe them instead of disbelieving them and putting them in harm’s way and allowing for a creep to be encouraged because the ‘claim has no basis and no witnesses.’
2. Men, please remember that while you may be a ‘good & safe guy’, not everyone in your circle might be. If the women & children in your life – your daughters, sisters, spouses, partners, girlfriends, women friends, employees, etc. say that they feel odd about someone – create distance between them. Instruct them not to allow your friends into your house if you are not around.
3. While women and children are the more vulnerable population, sexual assault, harassment and on-going abuse can happen to all genders and people of all ages and abilities / disabilities.
4. There is no particular type or look for people who can be abused… or a shape or look for people who can be abusers – It is a fine balance to learn to trust and to be vigilant. It is important to teach ourselves and our children the importance of trusting our instinct and our intuition. Children as young as 5 know the creepy feeling of a hand that gropes even if they don’t know how to explain it. I say this because I was 5 myself when I ‘learnt’ that the hand wasn’t a good one – that the touch was not something I wanted.
5. Believe your children – listen to them – Keep the channel of communication open – Always – To continue the previous point, I was 5 – and I did not tell my parents. I had great parents, but I don’t think I believed I could tell them something like this. I don’t remember what I thought, but I dealt with this alone…. because the person was a relative. I was 5 – yet, I felt I was going to be blamed.
6. Do not gossip. You were not there when it happened and if you were, you witnessed a crime, an abusive incident, a power play in action. If you don’t want to get your fingers dirty by assisting with the investigation, then do not enjoy the pigfest of rolling in the mud! Give the survivor the dignity of privacy and the space and compassion to grieve and process the assault. Go watch a movie, eat a tub of ice cream instead of giving in to the urge to gossip!!
7. Don’t crucify the victim – Most times, it is the victims – the survivors – who end up facing the harsh consequences of their own terrifying experiences – whether they report it or not. They lose jobs, or are made to leave their jobs, they are gossiped about, slut-shamed, victim-blamed, etc…. while the abuser gets a mild rap on the knuckles (if at all), identities are hushed up and predators are let loose in our communities, to enjoy the benefits – social or otherwise… Do what is right, not what is popular.
8. Facilitate healing from the trauma – Scars run deep and can sometimes take decades, if at all, to heal. The pain and ugliness of the experience (and potential consequences) last for a long time affecting other relationships, even with oneself, leads to potential substance abuse, mental health disorders, sexual difficulties, physiological disorders, etc. If you can facilitate or encourage therapy and counselling, please do that.

There is so much more to talk about this… but for now, I just needed to get this out of my system.

Such issues are not essays that need an intro, body and closing statement. I don’t need to lay context to explain the gravity and deep level of disgust that we feel when we talk about this issue that women have faced for generations. The conversation just needs to go on.

If you need help to understand the vocabulary of these conversations, if you feel that such conversations are sexist, vilify all men, or do not understand the idea that survivor stories need to be centered and privilege needs to be decentered – please read this article.

I will have continue to have these conversations and do what I believe is right – no matter how strong the resistance. It is my way of modeling who I am, staying authentic, and doing my bit to leave behind a safer world for our children.

I want to set an example for my daughter – for what shit she ought to absolutely refuse to take…. and for my sons to know exactly how they should NOT behave with other women – other people. I hope I succeed in that, at the very least.

I am here to remind the people around me that there is always a way out – maybe just a millimeter of breathing space is available to us today, so…be…it… TAKE that space, we will make more space tomorrow...

Remember, always, that you are 1000% worth your existence. You matter despite the pain you may feel today. My heart hurts for the pain we feel for no fault of ours – some of us feel more than others – but, courage exists too.

Remember, you are not to blame.

Remember that it takes courage to survive despite the pain of trauma, abuse and deep-cutting betrayal from people we thought would be kind to us – and/or keep us safe.

And remember, that showing up to courage is an even bigger gift you share with the world around you.

You are loved, you are precious, and you matter.

Part 1: The Need to Talk About Women & Child Safety

Part 2: The Shared Responsibility to Protect The Vulnerable

The Shared Responsibility to Protect The Vulnerable

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Perpetrators very often go scot-free due to many reasons. Their position in society and the overall silence of the bystanders around such matters being primary. The largely deaf ear and blind eye towards quiet sufferers, scared voices, especially of children, can be excruciatingly painful. The resultant slut-shaming and self-damning guilt of survivors with questions and comments like, “They must have asked for it!” “What was she wearing?” ,”Why was I there in the first place? It’s my fault being there at that time..!!“, etc, are enough to avoid reporting the incident altogether. The victim – no, the survivor has already been judged… and continues to live chained in relentless agony.

As a community, we are taught to shy away from difficult conversations and in the process end up shielding criminals while putting more vulnerable people at risk.

We have a moral obligation and shared responsibility to care for the most vulnerable in our community and to ensure our communities are safe for everyone to live wholesome lives. We need to go above & beyond our discomfort with hard questions and actively create safe spaces instead of engaging in whataboutery with respect to a handful of mistrials and misuse of resources. We have history speaking of centuries of oppression against women and the marginalized, yet to challenge the creation of change, we want to hang on to the flimsy excuses of a handful of instances where a man was framed.

Then there is the matter of privilege of one’s gender that is simply not acknowledged and the Not-All-Men trope is announced with much gusto.

I have known some brilliant men in my life – kind, compassionate, caring, respectful, gentle – really lovely men who embody genuine masculine energy – not toxic patriarchal assholery. They also have their flaws, who doesn’t? They are not perfect – I do not claim them to be… but they acknowledge the privilege they have in the real world. And then there are those who flinch so hard at the thought of equitable spaces and the conversation of the right to safe spaces for all genders. One would think that giving someone their right would mean taking someone else’s. The classic quote of equal rights not being pie always comes to mind.

While #NotAllMen is a legit idea, what we tend to disregard is that while not all men as culpable, ALL MEN do enjoy the benefits of male privilege and patriarchal investiture. On that note it is a moral duty of ALL MEN to stand up to the creeps in society who give them a bad name instead of getting offended when we share our stories and engage in whataboutery and misplaced defensiveness with #NotAllMen. Stand up for what is right!

At the same time, it also makes me wonder if the vehement resistance is due to their culpability in similar crimes themselves! Are they scared of being outed? Are they so aware of their misdemeanors and past sins that they just worry about being caught? Or are they just scared that with more education of the society and heightened vigilance, their pool of easy prey would now start to dwindle!?

The thought is scary – but it is also a dangerous possibility.

Part 1: The Need to Talk About Women & Child Safety

Part 3: And So I Speak

Moving Through Adversity

Image from Pixabay

I hadn’t stepped out of my house for the past 2 weeks. My kids are under strict instructions not to put a toe out. We live in a row house in a gated community. No one knows the safety instructions for families like us. When we step out of our door, we are essentially outside – relatively safe, but outside. Our Lakshman Rekha is the line of horizontal tiles that mark the entry to our garage space. So we stay in.

Call it intuition, a sad understanding of human nature or a sadder observation of the lackadaisical approach of the people around me, I had somehow preempted the need to remain prepared. So I had managed to stay at home for 2 weeks.

Yesterday, I realized I needed some essentials. I heard from the community WhatsApp that the supermarket next door was open, that masks needed to be purchased, that they were allowing just 6 people in a time. I also heard that on the night before the lock down, people in there were packed to the brim, grabbing eggs from other people’s shopping baskets and milk, bread, vegetables were in short supply.

I still needed some essentials.

So I locked the kids in, and stepped out, prepared to keep an eye for a mob from a distance and prepared to turn away if there was any.

There was none.

The 2 minute walk from my house to the front gate was deserted. The pink and yellow flowers that fell from the trees were still there – some fresh, others browning away. Housekeeping was not essential. It was ok. It was nature reminding us how the cycle of life just recurs.

Still, I felt a deep sense of sadness as I walked to the gate. The beauty & silence were too soul stirring.

The walk to the supermarket was uneventful. The greengrocer across the road had one customer, the supermarket had 1 couple shopping. And then there was me. The store racks were in various states of organized disarray, the biscuit & instant noodles section was almost empty. In the midst of my sadness, my sardonic observation raised its tiny head. I remembered the ones who would preach about the wax and lead in Maggi noodles. I was left wondering, in times of crises, any food is better than no food, isn’t it?

Sigh… flexibility.

I wondered which biscuits & rusk my kids would want me to pick. I called my oldest to check, but he didn’t answer, so I picked a few of each and moved on.

I picked what I wanted. There was enough. I was picking a packet of curd when I heard the couple speak about stocking up because ‘who knows? People may come and take everything tomorrow!’ And they went on to pile their shopping cart with 8-10 packets of whatever it was they wanted to stock up on.

I looked at my shopping bag. I’d just picked one of everything I wanted to sustain us for about another week or so. I reckoned the initial panic wave had passed. I wouldn’t have to go through panic buying. I would be able to manage. I didn’t want to hoard. I wanted milk & asked if there was a limit to how many I could. He said there wasn’t.

I thought of privilege at that moment. I thought of how people overstocked. I thought of how people wasted. I remembered a conversation about how people were used to that lifestyle of seeing plenty on their table and also plenty wasted – a sign of having more than needed. I remembered those who wouldn’t even have that. The imbalance of privilege explained away with they have earned it so it is their way of coping.

All I can think of is, “The money is yours, the resources aren’t.” Resources are shared. The stories of people buying 6 loaves of bread and 36 packets of milk while their neighbors with kids couldn’t get even one loaf or 1/2 liter of milk!

Resources are shared.

I stocked for a conservative week. I reckoned I could go out again in 2 weeks to get something else. I figured we could have khichdi for a few days, rice & something else on others, soups, etc. I had already explained limitation to the kids. They were aware. They understood. They adjusted – as much as young children can, or should. Even if we, as parents, want to shield them from it.

As I was scanning the QR code to pay my bill, my oldest came running into the supermarket. He had tried returning my phone call and I hadn’t answered. My phone was on silent. I was focused on shopping & carrying the bag on my arm. He had used his spare key and come running to find me. In his own words, “Don’t ask what thoughts came to my mind when you wouldn’t answer my call! Just don’t ask!“

The fear and relief at finding me safe was evident in his 17 year old face. I was proud, I was touched, I was sad. He took the shopping bag from me. We walked back home making small talk, soaking in the quiet, taking in the missing people on the streets. Silently acknowledging our own connection.

Adversity teaches us much. Adversity teaches our children much. We learn about ourselves, how we cope, how we manage and how we improvise. It brings out our resilience and also our creativity to find solutions in the midst of that which we cannot control.

Have I really got my shit together? Well, I think I’ve got most of it OK, but sometimes it just falls flat (yes, that’s something to imagine!)… And I lose it sometimes too… These are crazy times for all of us. I have seen what I can do and I have seen us rise to the call.

Agility is what we’re called to demonstrate. Agility and empathy, compassion, understanding & humility.

We’re in this together – all of us. None of us have it all figured out. Yet, I believe that we will get through this. Some of us will make it through easier than the others, some of us may find it extremely challenging. Some of us may succumb to it. And that is a fact we cannot ignore. Yet, we will get through this.

Suicide – and Why I’m Still Alive

Yesterday marked sixteen years of the birth of the person who is responsible for me being alive today – my son.

2002 and until late 2003, I was hit with the most traumatic and lowest of low moments of my life. I came face-to-face with a shade of ‘humanity‘ that I never knew existed.  I thought Bollywood was all drama & hype and was naive enough to not consider that those Indian dramas could have been inspired by real-life stories in real-life homes with real-life families.

So, yes, I was in for the roller coaster ride – only, no restraints, no seat-belts.

The word is insidious – to me, it was the backdrop of over a decade of living in an abusive relationship – where the abuse itself slowly crept in and wrapped it’s tentacles around me even before I saw it coming. One by one, those venomous tendrils wrapped themselves around my life – restricting movement, interaction, job prospects even, stifling relationship with my family, with myself, denying money, denying books, denying purchases & clothes… and controlling the essence of who I am with the tantalizing taste of 85% bitter sweet chocolate. 70%  is the recommended minimum amount of cocoa beans to in healthy dark chocolate in the range of 65-80%, so you see, my threshold to withstand bitterness was slowly being raised (until, perhaps, such a time when I would fail recognize the sweet from the bitter, the healthy from the unhealthy, the safe from the unsafe.)

I had just moved to a new country. Back then, the Internet was limited. I wasn’t working. I was raising at baby and keeping home single handedly with no help. I had no friends and my family wasn’t around. International calls were expensive and I was answerable for any call I made because someone else was paying the bill – and that someone else was ‘not my father‘.

The isolation… phew….

Those months were the worst, most horrible, devastating months of my life – the memory of those months still brings a chill down my spine and I can vividly recall the color of the walls, the feel of the sofa covers, the harsh brightness of the fluorescent lamps because the warm-glow lamps that I would have loved, the ones that made me feel warm & nurtured, were, well, a strict no-no.

I feel my chest constrict as I type this now, I feel my breath shorten and my throat clamp – but this needs saying. I lived in a prison of fear. And living in a prison for fear for years at a stretch is not just sheer agony – it is hell. And guess what? I didn’t even know that I was courting the Devil.

Abusive narcissists have a way of fucking with your head. A head that was sharp & brilliant & fully capable of slaying an army with sheer wit and smarts, is rendered putty and slime all in the garb of a idolized version of what society feeds us in the name of love and family values and traditional concepts of marriage – (in my case Indian Catholic and all that schmaltz)

The shame associated with acknowledging a mistake – that the man you fell in love wasn’t the kind-hearted, nice, fun-loving, accepting, open-minded, genial personality you thought he was – but behind closed doors, transformed into a monster who thrived on passive aggressive humiliation, anger and control issues and carried a vengeful, spiteful, vindictive streak so thick and pulsating that it would cause palpitations at the thought of asking him, “Can we go out to dinner?”

Day by day, a piece of me was hacked away – emotionally, mentally, financially, spiritually, physically….. my sense of self, my identity, my purpose, my value, my significance, my beauty, my presence, my strength – everything was hacked and torn away, little by little (insidiously)… without logical reason (personality disorders can’t be logically explained)

….until I was left numb.

Numb.

That’s the word.

By August 2003, I was suicidal.

And I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t know who to speak with and I didn’t know how to voice and put the intangible abuse into physical sense so they would believe that I was sinking. I was dying and I truly believed that the only escape was to bring an end to the seeming madness – the incoherent shouting in my head – the disbelief and the prospect of having to live in this lock-up indefinitely was harrowing. My emails to my sister were perhaps the only way I could ease a bit of the pressure within. I can’t remember if I emailed by mother. I was too scared to tell my father, although maybe that would have been the best thing to do.

To this day, my sister remembers those years to be the most painful – she says she would never ever want to read something like those emails from me ever again because they were dripping with pain and reeking of helplessness – both qualities she had never seen  in me.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t get out, the answer is that at that time, ‘getting out’ didn’t even seem like an option! It was always there, and perhaps would have been the best and safest exit, but I didn’t even see it as a remote possibility – I wasn’t conditioned to think of life beyond ‘till death do us part‘, perhaps.

Sucks, I know…

So one day, when my head felt so heavy that it felt like a zillion wasps were buzzing in my head and I was trying to remember what it felt like to love and be loved, and randomly had images of my family, my grandmother, my uncles and aunts and friends and cousins …and looked back at 25 years of being cocooned in a family and community that raised me from infancy to adulthood…

And still the buzzing in my head overpowered all those flitting images with the heavy darkness of perpetuated abuse and isolation.

I found myself on the red, Persian rug in the living room with my baby playing on the mat in front of me – thinking, “Today I end it all.“

The irony of sitting in the living room contemplating ending my life is not lost on me.

I mentally said my goodbyes to everyone and was all set for my final do svidaniya (Russian for ’till we meet again’), when Ash crawled up into my lap and held my face in his baby hands, looked straight into my eyes and planted a drooly kiss on my numbed out face.

No words exchanged.

Nothing.

That one moment felt like an iron hook had been baited – right at the center of my soul, but it felt like I was hooked at my navel. And I was yanked out of a deep, dark abyss where I was free-falling.

And all I heard was, “You can do this! I need you and you are not all this. This is not you.”

He saved me that day.

He’s the reason I am alive today.

He’s the reason I wake up every morning thankful for adding value to my life and to those around me. He’s the reason I chose to start finding choices. I called my endocrinologist immediately and booked an appointment – he was the only one I knew – and was referred to a doctor who immediately got me on a protocol for depression.

I started looking for a job – my morale was so blast-fried, I remember looking for roles that were entry-level jobs despite my profile at my previous designation. Also, I had no support in the job-hunt, so that made it harder!

My baby came with me to interviews when no one was there to baby sit him. He came with me in his stroller after I had taken the public transport for the first time in my life in Dubai and Sharjah to walk back home because, hey, someone’s mother didn’t think I should work until the baby was 6! And because I was going back to work against everyone’s wishes, no one was going to pay for my transportation to work and no one was going to pay for a nanny.

I was on my own.

A month after that near-miss moment on the Persian rug, I got a job. I started rebuilding myself – my sense of self, confidence, self-esteem, independence, worth and value… one step at a time, one day at a time.

Abuse is fucking real. Suicide is fucking real…. and the crazy carousel that runs non-stop in one’s head without pausing, making life look like there are no options is bloody, fucking real. It is all real to the person going through it. Even if that person has perfected the art of showing everyone that she is one helluva strong woman. And even if it doesn’t ‘seem’ to everyone that it is real, it is!

That is why mental health is such an important topic to be aware of.

Truer still, when that strong woman had the only option of putting on the ‘strong woman’ cloak because no one else around her offered a hand to lift her out of it. Or the people she reached out to, refused to believe that the person they knew – their friend / colleague / son / brother – could do the heinous things she said he was doing. I mean, what does it matter if he doesn’t want her to be associated with her family/ friends anymore? She was married to him now! Right? It should only matter for her to make things work for the two of them….  for HER to make things work….

So people saw the tough and strong woman – the warrior – when in fact, they were only seeing the armor – the thick, strong, metal armor. The armor that they would bounce against when they came charging at her. Her inside, though, was still numb and very vulnerable.

The coping strategy was working, but the healing was still a long way off.

So I faked it till it could make it.

And now that I’m ready to make it, taking off the armor is hard.

But, while I work on that, the bounce back brought me to face a number of questions and fine-tune a number of things that I do – as part of my work. The understanding of the what just happened to me (and this did not happen overnight) and the why has taken years to process – I’m still unraveling the story…. but it’s allowed me to slowly start looking at my story, and try to make sense of it… and while I’m alive, and still making sense of it, helping others make sense of theirs.

So here’s my bottom line.

I’m strong today but I know what it felt like to be weak, broken, shattered, humiliated, alone and isolated once. I know what it feels like to put a mask on to benefit the rest of the world because they would rather see you happy that face the discomfort of having to pull you out of the crap, let alone see you wallowing in it. I know what it feels like to think that ending one’s life may be the best way out (and the ‘let’s deal with karma in the next life’ idea).

I also know that reaching out for help is not always easy – or responded to. But, still, I promise, reach out .. do reach out.. miracles always exist. And for the rest of us on the other side of the fence, please keep your eyes, ears and hearts open. Abuse, suicide & living the trauma behind this is not always a logical ‘if-then’ representation. It doesn’t always make sense, but there is a pattern… It is, insidious.

Believe them, open the doors to safety and help someone see outside the dark box that they are huddled in.

Because, really, there is always a possibility of life beyond the darkness – a life worth living.

The Fantasy of a Strong Woman

Let’s see, patriarchy is a crappy system for us – ALL of us! We have many women and ‘aware’ men (or so we ALL like to believe) who stand up for a world based on equity and parity. Yet, patriarchy is a bloody truth that we all are a part of.

So where does the strong woman come in? She comes in to defy the very fabric of the stereotype. She stands up, even though she has been broken, and she stands tall and steely, through blood, bruises, tears, whatever…. and guess wtf happens?

The boys club rallies together in support of the patriarchy. Yesterday I saw first hand the coming together of ‘men’ in solidarity with one of their own – a man who openly, cockily & haughtily admitted to doing what he did They steadfastly arrived to be there by HIS side but also refused to meet the eye of the woman who was standing all by herself at the other side doing what needed to be done. Men who knew this woman, interacted with her, spoke to her, apparently ‘held her in high regard’… all that BS… but when push came to shove, and despite knowing that she could have done with at least a supportive word or an unbiased “Do you need a ride home?”, they ignored her – IGNORED her like a stranger. And, gave company to an arrogant, abusive jerk – because, well, all in the name of US v/s her.

Perhaps things would have been different if she just toed the line & fit the image of a weak woman who would be the ever compassionate & forgiving picture of Indian docility and brush everything under the carpet…. then perhaps they would be happy to help an Ideal Indian Woman who they would come forward to help – allowing their chivalry an opportunity to shine.

Strong women? Nah! Weak men cannot handle strong women…

That is the reality of the people we live with. So here’s to Strong Women, may we know them, may be raise them, may we be them!