On the couch.

Do you know how what you're feeling can twist things up in your mind to the extent where you end up feeling like what you thought was right, and did thinking it was the right think to do, may not have been all that right? I know that feeling - it's only too familiar. It feels like my conscience has been hammered to a level where I can hardly differentiate between right and wrong now - everything that I do seems wrong to me. Ergo, I think a million times before I do or say something to make sure that it's not a mistake, and I end up feeling like it is a mistake after I say or do it, anyway.

So, here's a transcript from my first ever session to see a shrink. I'll skip all the introductions and head straight to the core. At 600 bucks a session, I think I might as well get a couple of comments out of it. Humor apart, she's a fine lady and she can really make a mind-fucked person feel at home. So, without further ado, here it is (You do know that I'm obviously not going to put in everything that happened?):

Shrink (Who shall henceforth be referred to as "her"): Before we start talking about anything at all, I want you to be comfortable. Just remember, whatever you say to me remains only between the both of us. You can be rest assured.

Me (Who shall always be referred to as "Me", "I" or "Myself"): Um... Yeah. I was wondering whether I can actually record this? 

Her: You do understand that if you do, I wouldn't be able to guarantee confidentiality? I mean, I'm not going to mention it to anyone, but then there are people who could listen in on what you've recorded. Right?

Me: No one that I don't want to mention this to will be able to hear it. But you wouldn't have a problem if I recorded it, right?

Her: I told you. Feel comfortable. It's entirely up to you whether you want to share your conversation with others, or you want to keep it to yourself. From my side, I won't be repeating this to anyone else.

Me: I know, I know. 

Her: So, tell me. Is there anything in particular that you wanna talk about? Some particular issue that you want help with?

Me: Uh... Well, I don't really know if they're issues. I mean, I just wanted a professional opinion. There are quite a few things bothering me.

Her: Well, I'll try helping you with whatever I can. Don't worry. We can find solutions to almost anything and everything.

Me: Okay. I don't really know where to begin though. Um...

Her: Maybe we'll give you a cue to start off from? How old are you?

Me: I'm 22. 

Her: Good. I'll fish a little bit, and ask you - is it something to do with your studies? Or college? Friends at college maybe?

Me: Um.... Actually, all three.

Her: Hmmm... Okay. Why don't you start telling me about your college then?

We talked quite a bit about my college and how my studies are, and things that I hope to achieve. We then talked about my friends at college, and she came to ask me about my other friends. I mentioned a problem that had been bother me till then.

Me: I think I might be suffocating them.

Her: Why do you think that?

Me: I've had this experience till date - I get really attached to my friends, and I go to the extent of doing anything for them. But then, I don't know if something is wrong with me or if it's just because I end up giving them little or no space. Most of them start avoiding me after a while.

Her: Okay. Tell me this - you said you go to the extent of doing anything for them. Are you sure it's not something to do with trying to please them?

Me: I don't know. I mean, no. I know it's not something to do with pleasing them. I consider them family. I just want to be there for them. At any given time. 

Her: That's always a good thing. But if that's the case, why do you feel you're suffocating them?

Me: I guess I tend to get too close for comfort?

Her: Have you ever asked any of your friends about this? The ones who avoid you, at least?

Me: Yeah. I mean, not the ones who try and avoid me, but the others. The ones who're still around. 

Her: What was the general opinion?

Me: That I haven't been doing anything like that. That they don't really feel like I'm suffocating them or anything.

Her: And that doesn't reassure you?

Me: No. Well, it's still been happening despite that, hasn't it?

Her: It might not be what you think. Tell you what - do you feel you've ever done something wrong with your friends? Something to hurt them?

Me: Um... Apparently, I hurt them by not bothering to keep in touch regularly.

Her: Apparently? As in?

Me: They've never exactly told me about it. I mean, there are just these set of people from my previous college, and the only person that they mention this to is my girlfriend. She's the one who tells me.

Her: Girlfriend? You're in a relationship?

Me: Yeah.

Her: Okay. We'll get to that a little a later. But tell me this - after you've heard all this from your girlfriend, have you ever confronted the people who've told her about all this?

Me: I've done it just the once. Recently. I mean, not all of them. Just one of my friends. We were on a conference call. My friend, my girlfriend and me. 

Her: How did it go? Was there an argument? Did your friend tell you why they'd been feeling the way they did?

Me: Yeah. He did. And I explained things to him, and tried to reassure him that I wasn't doing anything that they were all imagining. That he was missing things in plain sight. That he was misunderstanding me.

Her: How did he take that?

Me: It was a long conversation, but he did understand and realize a lot of things after I talked to him.

The conversation went this way for a long time. In the last 10 minutes of the hour, she asked me about my relationship. The session lasted an hour, and I will be going back for another one this coming week. I'm trying to sort out my mind, so I'll be able to think clearly. So that I'll be able to stop hurting. I thought I could do it myself, and I probably could have. But thanks goes to one person who was patient enough to listen to me firsthand, and suggested that I see a professional before deciding anything at all.

Oh, and there was one thing that burst out of my mouth when I was about to leave the Psychologist's place.

Me: Um... Do you think I have bi-polar syndrome?

Her (Smiling): Do you think you have it?

Me: I think I might. It's a possibility.

Her (Chuckles): Then, in all probability, you don't. 

There's much more to find out, I guess.

Cross Talk

Cross-talk. It happens every single day, where I live. From where I come, I’ve heard cross-talk ever since I was old enough to decipher what people were talking about. I like calling it cross-talk. I don’t like calling it arguments. Arguments make it sound like I’ve had a bad childhood, and I still can’t really say whether my childhood has been good or bad. That’s a judgement call – one that I have no right to make, quite as yet. But still, I don’t think there could be any harm in telling people that I’ve FELT like I’ve had a bad childhood because of both the presence and the absence of money.

Suddenly, I don’t feel very uncomfortable about putting up stuff about my past on my blog. It so happens, that I’ve discovered that there aren’t too many people reading what I put up. Earlier, I used to restrict stuff like this to my journal, but suddenly, today, I feel like putting it up in here. Maybe it’s because of the convenience of my laptop sitting right next to me. Maybe it’s because someone might just understand what I’m ranting about, and empathize. I don’t really know. I do not that I’ve not had the worst of it, that I might not have even faced anything compared to what so many others might. But hey, to the average person, their own problems always do seem bigger than another’s, doesn’t it?

From 21 years of life, the one thing that I’ve learned so far, which people cannot go without is money. I wish I had loads of it. Oh. I don’t have any fancy dreams about money anymore. Those castles were razed to the ground by the sonic booms of clashes for money. If I had loads of it, I would give away enough of it to keep people’s mouth shut, and donate the rest. Maybe keep some for myself, to get my own life started. And earn whatever money I needed to keep going. Debts, and mad-rushes to make ends meet, and nasty, screaming money-mongers at our doorsteps, night-long arguments about money owed and money given, and relatives bitter from the impatience of waiting for money owed to them – people have always thought that I have paid no heed to all this, sitting in my comfort zone. It’s probably because of the way I’ve waded through life so far, giving people the impression that I’m carefree about all this.

Truth is, I have been carefree. And I wish now more than ever, that I had done something about it a long time ago. It took me this long to realize that I’ve made more mistakes that I could possibly bargain for, and that’s sunk me a long way down into a sea of problems. When I’ve come to this side of it, from where I can get a glimpse of life, I realize where I stand, and now, I can’t help but suffocate on the fear of what could happen in the morning, every single night as soon as my room fades into the darkness. There is that constant urge, that incessant temptation to fling everything that I have, and brush away my life – to run away somewhere, and start afresh, even if it spells a whole new world of difficulties. At least then, I won’t be nagged by the consequences of all my mistakes. But then again, I’d just be making a new mistake.

If there are things that have bothered me even more than these arguments, it’s the aftermath. That eerie silence – that plunge into a cold war where the lack of words spell despair and desperate attempts at striking up a conversation lead to futility. Try as I might to steer things away from the tension, the grasp at this cliff’s edge seems inadequate. Somehow, the sense of humor and curiosity seem which could once bring truckloads of laughter are always submerged beneath all that anger. And this silence clasps my head like ice cold hands, dragging me further away from everything else that I could possibly do to salvage what little good is left of the situation.

Coupled with this is the fact that somewhere down the line, I seem to have developed the knack of making mistakes even when I intend to do something good. I wish that I didn’t. Nobody could possibly hate the fact that I keep messing up more than I could. It’s not like I don’t try. I try. As far as I can. Even when I’m careful, I keep messing up over and over again, and the fact slices me like a very sharp knife. I wish that I could stop it. I wish that something, somewhere would offer me the help that I need to keep going, because as of this moment, life seems like it’s at a stand-still.

All of this did give me the perspective of who I need to be, and what I need to do in order to avoid this brutal beating that I keep taking inside. Because, the sort of person that I am, I tend to take it in quite deep, and then I forget to exhale. Maybe things will start to look up. Maybe I’ll get my chance. Maybe someone, somewhere would read all of this and not think of me as a nut-job. Maybe there's a bit of solace they could offer. Maybe.

Between the same soul.

What keeps me alive now is the fact that I knew that I never disappeared under my cloak when you were hurt. No matter how far I was out in sea, I know that I bled for you when you were in pain.

I bled for you from where I was, and I knew that it would offer company if not comfort.

I bled for you when YOU were in pain, and now when I am, you're not here to stem my wounds.

None of you are here to stem my wounds...

--The most moving lines I've ever known, by far. My heart goes out to her.--

Link: http://anothertesttest2.blogspot.com

Poker Face.

It's called my poker face. No, it's not a face which I portray by screwing up my nose and eyes to form a grotesquely funny reaction - on the contrary, it has nothing to do with making up any kind of face at all. It's the face that I like to keep when I know that my hand's good, there's only the river left, I have a good bet on the table, and I'm mocking the guys around me to try and read my expression to find out whether I'm bluffing or I have something up my sleeve - and I know they can't find shit. It's the face that I like to keep when I hide everything inside me, look down at the floor, with a melancholy soundscape only I can hear.

It's the expression I have when I ride through traffic like it doesn't exist, not knowing who's going to cut across into my lane, with heavy bass ringing in my ears and a thousand different thoughts flooding my head faster than I could ever hope to go without tearing my flesh clear off my skull. It's the face that I like to show when I know that these thoughts are rolling around inside my head like a monochrome movie on never-ending reel, showing me pictures that only I can see. It's the way I like to keep my lips pursed tight when I've got my earphones on, and I'm lost in a world when tumultuous music is camouflaging those small words and phrases that I like to listen to and relate to, and create fuzzy, technicolor visuals with in my head.

It's the way I like to close my ears and pretend the other person is just a speck, when they're frowning and trying to judge me about something which they only know a fraction of. It's the way that I like to hold back a smile when I know that I have a myriad different  reasons not to seem happy, or the way that I like to hold back a tear when I don't want to give a damn about the world and just disappear. It's the way I bite my lips without anyone ever knowing that I am, because the ghosts of the past keep swirling right in front of my eyes, reminding me of all the sins that my life's made up of.

But you know when I like my poker face the best:? It's when I look straight into the other person's eyes, and I know that they think that I'm giving away everything inside through my own, and I smile inwardly knowing that I haven't given them anything - because I can turn around and make that person disappear just by bringing another in his place.... It's the poker face that I show you before I go all in, lose everything I've got, and still smile - emptiness is a familiar feeling.

Fold.

Your smile, my old friend... It's fake.

Snake-like hands, yours are,
They'll wrap around my shoulders,
Hypnotizing me with that mystic smile,
A smile flitting in and out to savor prey,
Before you tighten and crush me slowly...

And you'll watch with your wry smile,
On your scaled, emotionless face,
You heartless trickster...
You'll watch me squirm with pain,
Waiting for the cry of anguish...

Sadism is an old friend.
She's paid me many a visit,
But even she seems tame in front of you,
And the ruthless and devious schemes you plot,
To inflict misery and draw blood...

But tonight, there will be no tears,
Nor pain,
Nor sorrow,
Nor joy,
For I'm alive from the death you brought in me..

Foggy Dreamscapes

Life's a bit blurry sometimes..

Dreams are the essence of life. They're a vibrant splash of technicolor whims; all of your fancies balled up together, a collage of the myriad flashes of life that you've already faced, or want to face, to share with the ones you want by your side. They're a palette of colorful thoughts covering the canvas at the deep recesses of your mind, waiting to burst to into life in the empty abyss that fills the dormancy of your consciousness.

Isn't it true? No matter who you are, what you do, regardless of the monotony that dominates your life, in spite of the innumerable problems that you have to face day after day, minute after minute, dreams are a part of your life. In fact, they make up all our lives - they give us reason to hope, they give us goals to achieve, and a tomorrow to look forward to. And they have an array of avatars waiting to take shape, because no matter how many of them die, our minds and our hearts still give birth to a new one. Or something comes along every now and then to resurrect the old ones from the dampest corners of your life.

It IS true. No matter when, or where, regardless of reason or logic, there are always dreams. It's a different dimension that we envision. In sickness and in health, till death do us apart. Yes, we're married to our dreams. All of us. I'd like to think so. Because it makes a lot more sense that way - a lot more sense that a lot of us spend a considerable part of our lives chasing them. I've seen people while away their time dreaming. But more often than not, I witness people chasing relentlessly after their dreams - big or small. This would probably be a good time to mention a person who is no short of a miracle in my life - a person who perseveres and constantly chases her dreams, who's a constant source of inspiration and so much more than that to me.

I'm a person who has had quite a few dreams, but I have this bizarre knack of being able to turn almost all my dreams into incomprehensible nightmares that I live through. I scrape through life, facing dreams that turn into nightmares, courtesy of my mind's very beguile attitude. They disperse even before they start taking shape - these said dreams. Come to think of it, it's like groping in my hat to pull out a rabbit that's already fled in a bid for freedom.

But things, maybe, are starting to take shape now. Or at least, they seem to be. It's my miracle worker - she's the one dream that keeps me looking forward to the tomorrow that I want so bad. I know that this far, I have been very ambiguous about these 'dreams', but hey? Haven't we occasionally had that one dream that was perhaps too blurry to make sense of? ;)

That Jar Full of Smoke

The corner is what I reach out for,
For ever the corner which is dark,
And I know this way I wasn't always.
It was the incessant nudge that you gave,
Time and time again,
That I grew in love with what you threw...

And I watch you from my corner,
Your glowing smile, your inviting laugh,
The butterfly that you become,
Shimmering in loud colors of joy,
Fluttering among those of that same shade,
I watch you in awe...

And I watch you from my corner,
The flame that you engulf yourself in,
Nodding in approval, those around you,
Watching you turn into scented smoke,
The essence of amity that wafts,
I watch you in hunger...

And I watch you from my corner,
Comfort the others,
Embrace their love,
Sympathize with sorrow,
Arm in arm, fingers together,
I watch you, aching within...

And I watch you from my corner,
With my loathing eyes,
My twisted frown,
Watch you with others I once was,
Caught in your trance,
I watch you, with disgust...

I turn to my corner,
Now full of hate,
Wishing you'd see me,
Now good as dead,
For once there was us, and you talked to me,
And now there's just me and my red diary...

I wish there was a jar with which I could catch that smoke she's become. Not to make it mine, but to shut the jar tight, hide it in a corner, and walk away sneering at the sadistic joy of making you see what it's like to be me.