Dear Zindagi - 3

The purpose of writing all these posts is not to blame anyone or feel pity for myself. I have to understand where I come from, what I need and what I stand for. At the end of the day, I should be able to look in the mirror and feel good about myself - that I did not hurt anyone, I did not betray anyone's trust, I was there for them.....

The movie, Dear Zindagi, was not deep, and it does not have to be. The key thing for me was that it discussed something that we don't ever talk about.  There were some takeaways for me:

1. Parents are only humans. We put them on high pedestal but they are just human beings trying to live their lives as best as they know how to. As children of our parents, our whole being is a result of treatment from our parents. As children we believe they cannot be wrong - they are the ones who teach us everything - how can they be wrong? But time and time again that has been proven wrong. Parents are as human as anyone else. 
2. Why do we punish ourselves? Why do we believe there is some great prize waiting for us if we go through a lot of pain? We push ourselves to take great risks to our mental and physical life to live our life just because it will make us better, stronger and earn respect. WHY? Why don't we take the easy way? What is the problem in that? 
3. It is important to look inward from time to time, look at our relationships and just like we try to keep our body healthy, we should learn to keep our relationships healthy. They should not get rotten or get fungus on it. They need to be kept fresh and flavorful! This closest relationship of a nuclear family is mostly taken for granted. I have written about this a lot in my blogs in various places.

People don't change their behaviour unless they want to. So I don't try to change anyone or expect anyone will change for me. I also cannot change myself too much....we always remain who we are.

We have our baseline of needs and requirements in life. If those are not met then life can be very difficult. I have many things in my life that make it comfortable, but it has not been easy.  The journey has been hard.  And being alone has been the hardest thing possible for me because I never expected I would be alone. Fighting alone, dealing with emotions alone, having no one to talk to, doing all the work alone. It all gets very tiring. And I am getting very tired. I feel like I have no patience to play games anymore. I want what I want or get out of my way.

I want to enjoy the money I am earning in traveling where I want to, doing what I want to do. Find a person who enjoys life as much as I do and live my life with him. Just relax and take a day at a time. No worries ... no fights.... no competitions....nothing....just an easy going life.  Why can't it be possible?

I don't think I was made for this world. I don't know how to live in it.

Dear Zindagi - 1

So I saw this movie yesterday – “Dear Zindagi”.  It was not what I was expecting. In the movie, Alia Bhatt’s character is going through some hard times with her relationships – especially with men.  And she is shown as a strong, independent girl.  But because she is single she is kicked out of her housing and so must move in with her parents in Goa. Her emotions show that she has issues with them which has really shaped her character but we don't know what issues…. yet. By chance she is sitting in a hotel where there is a presentation on mental health going on. One of the speakers is our own very Shah Rukh Khan, a psychiatrist, speaking on what a taboo it is to seek and give mental health care.  Well, Alia starts seeking Khans’s professional help and little by little the story unravels as to why she is the way she is.

It is not a deep deep movie but it still brought up a lot of emotions for me.  I could really feel Alia’s pain since I have been there.  Most girls go through some or the other negative experience in their life – it could be eve teasing while shopping, having sexual advances made by relatives, coworkers or bosses and being abused emotionally, physically or mentally.  Lucky are the girls who have not experienced any of these! Most girls go through the negative behaviour without telling anyone – that would be a sign of weakness and/or they may end up losing a little bit of independence they might have. We suffer through it – it makes us who we are as a person and most times it will translate into how we handle our relationships.   The girls who have the most positive relationships are the ones who come from a set of parents who loved her.  These girls generally don’t know how to cook….that is how I know they were loved. If they cook they learned it on their own, not from their mothers.

Most of us like to suppress bad memories and relive the good ones for happiness sake.  We go through relationship issues but we don’t stop to think why? Everyone has issues – right? So its okay – it cannot be because of some childhood or growing up pain.  We would rather blame others or circumstances but never look inwards to think about why something happens to us, even if it might be a pattern.

Some of us talk to our friends and if we are feeling the same thing then our feelings are validated. But not always, in which case we might feel superior for suffering or inferior for not being able to handle things.  And in several cases, we don’t talk about everything – some things are too private to share.

We could talk to someone else…..someone who could give us objective advice and keep our secrets a secret but…..then see a psychologist? A psychiatrist?

Mental health is a taboo – everywhere.  At least now in America people know there is a problem so there are professionals to help. I know when I was going through my divorce, my friend, happened to be a counselor, really helped me balance my emotions.  And for the last 20 years I have seen a real openness about talking and dealing with mental health issues in USA.  Women go through it a lot more than men, maybe because our brains are wired to constantly keep thinking and we are by nature more emotional (hormones?).  But men are also susceptible to it – but again that is a taboo…

Mental weakness is a general sign of weakness in a person. Everyone needs counseling: career, medical, law, spiritual – then why feel guilty about mental counseling?

Of course, I don’t know the answers – but I do know that I have been thinking of getting counselling for the past two years but have not done it.  There are things we can talk about to our friends or parents or boss to try to get feedback, but there are so many things that we are just not ready to share with anyone.  For me I feel that I cannot even talk to myself about certain things because I will start to rationalize them….or justify them. And since it is only my brain giving all the answers – I will never get another perspective.

At this time I am left thinking more about what happened in my life that makes me behave the way I do.....

When to call it Quits?

Having been through some issues in life, I have learned to know my limits and be ready to call it quits when I cannot handle things anymore.  What is the right time to call quits? For me it is simple - when it seems that life is unbearable in that situation (for whatever reason). The sad thing is that it has happened to me a few times.

For me, my work is important. It is one thing that keeps me engaged in life. It's not a burden, I enjoy it.  So if I am not enjoying it anymore, then what is the point of it all? I have had to change jobs because of this. It is a big decision: to take my life I had built for so many years and move. Pack up home and office. Ending one social life and starting over is the hardest part. It is hard to call it quits, especially for me - living alone means having to do a lot on my own. And then getting to a new location, starting all over again! It takes time to know where everything is where to get everything done. As I am getting older, its getting only harder to move. 

The same thing happened with supposed to be my life partner. Some marriages are not made in heaven. They are made on earth and come with an expiration date. As much as you want to make this kind of partnership work, sometimes its just not meant to be. Again this was a tough decision. But my health told me that if I did not take care of this situation, someone will have to take care of my health for the rest of my life. That is not how I wanted to spend my life. I wanted to believe that my life was something more than a big compromise. I wanted to live for something, some hope that there is happiness for me in a relationship. I knew I would be alone in my decision to call it quits, but I was willing to bear that rather than spend my life with someone who had no interest in me. 

Friendships are also a delicate balance. A good friendship is a hard to find. This is one area I have been quite lucky. I have always had good friends everywhere I went. Some may have taken little advantage of my generous nature but for most part I have not suffered much. So far there has been only one friendship that I just had to give up on. There was nothing I could do....there was just no communication and no justification for my friend's behaviour. The sad part is that even when the friendship was revived, there was that trust issue that nagged me somewhere in the heart. As they say....once bitten twice shy.

I don't know why people test each other so much that the other person has to think about quitting. I believe there is strength in unity and love. Life is so much more fun with people in it - otherwise one might as well be a hermit. Whatever time we have to spend on this earth should be spent enjoying each other's company, supporting each other and helping everyone to get to a higher goal - to make life more comfortable and bearable.

Ultimately, for me, it comes down to trust. If I don't trust my situation, my job, my friend, my relationship - that is it for me. I quit. It is not worth it for me any more. Trust is a big issue for me. When I trust someone I give them everything and I will do anything for them; but once that trust is broken, I cannot go back. It's just not the same anymore.  

So that is when I call it quits!

Long Distance Relationship

The hardest of all relationships - this long distance relationship!

Most of my relationships have been the long distance kind. I left home when I was 11 to study 8th grade in Vanasthali Vidyapeeth. It was a very tough time for me, I was only 11 years old and all the schooling was in Hindi medium when I was brought up in an English medium environment. But I had no choice. I left all my friends in Nigeria for one year and I could never get them back. Had to start all over again. At that time my only communication was with my parents - and that too through letters only.

My second and then on to more long distance relationships...came when I was sent to India again to do my BSc. and MSc. Both were challenging in their own ways. For four years I was separated from my parents and brother and some really good friends.

At that time I did not think much of it, because I just did what my parents told me to do. But when I look back and think about it, I realized that it did make me come closer to my brother. We used to fight a lot about a lot of things - it was a lot of three years of fighting!! So for me, it was a relief to go to India. During those days, letters were the common ways to communicate. And my brother wrote to me. He wrote pages and pages to me about his friends and events etc. that were going on in Nigeria. It was nice. And then when I would go back to Nigeria, we would get along just fine. I don't know if it was the distance or the fact that we were growing up that made us get along. But it turned out to be positive. It did not bring me closer to my parents....My friends...I lost them. Letters do not have the same continuity as meeting every day or every week.

After I left India and went back to Africa, I tried so hard to keep in touch with my friends in India but it was just not possible. Girls get married and they move. One has to be in the same city to keep in touch. I was too far away. So I lost a lot of friends. While I was in India, I lost my friends in Nigeria. When there is no constant communication between friends there is a gap which sometimes can bridge if you were good friends to begin with, but sometimes it just widens. For me, it widened. Letter communication is not so easy to keep up. But the constant going back and forth for me from Nigeria to India was not healthy for my friendships anywhere.

Then came USA. My generation moved a lot. The generation before had a different job ideal and market - loyalty was something. But in the 1990-2000s things changed and one became stagnant if one did not move, especially in the hi-tech field, which is where majority of my friends were. There are not that many Indian professors in small universities; and if they are - they are all women following their husband around.

So in USA it became very common for people to keep moving. It got really tiring for me, as soon as I would make a friend, I would find out they were moving. All my investment in time and emotions was wasted. People make new friends in new locations - obviously - that is the social norm. I also moved a little bit. And even that is tiring. Packing aside, I had to learn the city, overcome my shyness about making friends and become more extroverted. It is all very draining for me. And then either I would move or my friends would move. We would keep in touch for about a year and then things would fizzle out. That has been the story of my life.

I have not lived with family also. My parents live with my brother or by themselves. So essentially a lot of my relationships, even close family ones, have been long distant relationships. I have never lived with anyone after I was 23, even for even a month, to know what it is like to share a house.

These days it is becoming a little easier to maintain contact because of all the social media, but to me that all seems fake. Real relationship is when someone cares about an individual, and not just like a post on facebook. Real relationships are also hard; I will have to deal with personalities, habits and moods of people. But long distance relationships, I think are even harder.

When someone is out of sight - they are also out of mind. I don't have to worry about their daily needs or even occasional needs. I just have to pick up the phone, ask how they are doing, chit chat a bit and done! So now even that seems fake to me. People pretend (or maybe they are genuine) to care and ask all the right questions, but ultimately for me the question is, "What are you doing for me?" Anyone can talk and BS their way in any conversation. Real test of relationship is when you do something for one another.

I have seen in all these years of long distance that people talk a lot, but my needs are not met when I need them. Even when I visit my long distance relations, there is a formality. Things just don't seem genuine to me. Or maybe they do things when I am there, but as soon as I am gone, its as if I was never there at all. Maybe I am becoming more cynical or maybe there is a degradation in relationships. I don't know. As I said, I have never lived with anyone for over 20 years. Maybe that makes me a little wary of people's behaviour.

All I can say now is that these long distance relationships are also becoming hard to maintain. There is also the family aspect. Everyone is busy in their families. I am sure there could be time, but then again, I live alone, so I have time. Maybe family people have a gazillion things to do. So then I end up not talking for weeks or months to people. And that also erodes the relationship. Soon then there is nothing to talk about....it is just about How are you and I am fine. I am not looking at their face or they mine.  And then there is the multitasking in which the attention is divided. And I don't know about others, but I would to give and have complete attention when I am discussing my personal life.

There is no conclusion for this post....I am just saying that long distance relationships are tough and it takes a genuine effort to maintain it. Otherwise there can be a loss of trust and care. And once that is gone, what is remaining in a relationship? Its a farce.

To maintain a long distance relationship, one has to keep meeting to revive those bonds and put life back in them.

Manipulative Behaviour

When someone, with an ulterior motive, tricks you into believing something, usually to serve their own purpose.

(http://www.preaching.org/manipulation/)

I think this one trait that I can live without. This also is one of those behaviors that I think people are born with. One would really have to train too much to take advantage of others, especially if one has a conscience.

I have met manipulative people in my life - and oh my God! I so wish I had not! They drained me emotionally, mentally and physically. I felt sick for years after meeting such people. I still have such people in my life. They are very hard to work with and talk to.  And they make me physically sick. I get stressed out just protecting myself from their manipulative claws.

Nothing that comes out of the mouths of these people is reliable or trustworthy. It is so tiring to try and figure out what is real and what is fake that after a while I just give up - nothing is real. Which means, what is the point of talking to such people? I don't know when they are speaking the truth and when they are trying to manipulate me into doing something that will benefit them.

What are the traits I have found of manipulative people:

• They are very charming and have a wonderful personality - I always think - Wow! this person is amazing!! What a personality!
• They can lie so smoothly that I cannot tell the difference between their truth and fib.
• They make me feel guilty if I don't agree with them or do as they want me to.
• They will bring moral and the "right thing to do" issue if I disagree with them (of course their own motives are not being questioned here!!)
• They will never do anything for me - they are too busy with their own agenda.

My advice to anyone in such relationship is to try to recognize it sooner than later. Although it is hard, but some things start become obvious quite soon. The problem is that most of us, myself included, think:

• people cannot be like this, 
• they would not do this to me, 
• I am different - this person cares about me (not realizing that such care is self-serving)
• I am smart enough to handle this kind of person - when the time comes I will back off, protect myself. But reality is - I got in too deep before I could get out.

So really - the closer one gets the harder one falls. It hits you one day and you realize- "Oh my God! I meant nothing to this person. All that sweet talk and behavior was just a sham!" And when I think back and analyze what happened, there was always something that such manipulative people wanted from me. They just played with my emotions and got what they wanted, without giving a second thought to how I would feel. They can easily walk away from such relationships as they did not have much invested to begin with - they always knew what they wanted and it was not me or my happiness.

I have seen my own family and friends get manipulated by another. It was so sad to see how one of them was speaking the tone and behaving exactly how the manipulator would. It was so obvious. And there was nothing I could do, just watch how one was the puppet and the other the puppet master - pulling the strings. Of course the puppet master holds the strings as long as they can. They have strength in numbers, they get a second voice to support their own distorted one. The poor puppet does not realize what is happening.

It is hard to break free of such manipulative people - but I have! There is a lot of grief involved. I had to be ready to give up that relationship for good. This takes a lot of strength, self confidence and independence.  There was definitely a sense of loss of a relationship for me; something that could have been pure and beautiful was now no more. Who knows if the manipulator misses the relationship? They are very focused on their targets that its possible they don't.

Despite my breaking free of the manipulators, they still try to hurt me with guilt or make me lose my cool by saying emotional things. And each and every time it takes a great strength for me to stand up for myself, and say to myself, "NO MORE! I will not not get manipulated by this person again."