To Be Seen As Strong, And Being A Coward

Imagine an attention deprived 14yo girl getting not only attention but also love and care for being sick. A girl who knew everyone in the school before her illness, a girl who was known in the entire school after. Attention, though enjoyable, can also be scary. From wanting to be seen to living in the fear of being watched, a lot can change for a teenager through her illness. For the most part, having known suffering, having seen suffering, despite her tantrum-throwing self, she learns to be grateful for a life that she earlier despised.

It doesn’t help when everyone around her, beginning from her doctors in the ICU to strangers on the road, call her strong. What has she done to survive an illness? Will power, her doctors said. She wondered, really? Maybe. She was just a kid who got her kicks from scoring 100 in Math and wanting to be 'the' topper in class 10 boards. It was the only form of recognition she knew, till she was sick. And the verdict of being strong, of never wanting to commit suicide in life, was good company in the beginning, but later all it did was haunt her.

Surviving Cancer Isn't Everything, Is It?

That she was a cancer survivor overlapped every other roadblock she had in life. She survived cancer, so the realisation that she experienced love and care as a result of being sick that eventually fucked her up isn't a huge deal, is it? Oh, but it was, terribly so. She survived cancer, so being ghosted isn’t a big deal, is it? Oh but it was, it was. She survived cancer, she surely can get through heartbreak, sexual abuse, toxic work environment, delayed pay and lack of settlement, a case in labour commission, diabetes, endometriosis, the uncertainty of dating, feeling undesirable, lack of agency to choose if she wants kids, can’t she? She can go without any medication to help her be stable through it all, can’t she?

And if she admits she can’t, then she just needs a reminder of how a positive mindset is what she needs to have, to cultivate. Her pleas that she needs to acknowledge she can’t get past it all go unheard. Her friends and even the followers on the gram try their best to be kind and compassionate. To be honest, on some days, it really helps, a surprising comment coming from someone she hasn’t interacted with in a long time. It helps when her friends give her all the space to vent on a video call. But… none of it helps her for more than an instant.

Will Someone Speak The Language of Pain?

She is alienated because nobody speaks the language of pain. She doesn’t like silence when she states that well in order to date she needs to talk about the complications of having sex, first. It happens when her friends are sharing their dating stories over drinks, the sex, the text, the communication, the complication. When it’s her turn, she says, you know I might have to discuss infertility if I match with someone looking for a long-term relationship – considering casual isn’t my cup of tea. The silence that follows as she takes a giant gulp of beer is awkward. So, she says, anyway – You need to communicate what your needs are and you need to communicate when those needs change. It won’t ensure anything but at least you’d have done your bit and can walk away without any regrets, if the need be. “She is so wise, I am so proud of her.” A senior from college says. She chuckles, all the wisdom in the world and absolutely no courage to open up her heart again to break.

She heads over to another friend’s place, now married. The three are staying overnight after seven years, since graduation. The other two discuss the woes of marriage and the scenarios before getting married. She listens silently, having learned the difficult way, that no amount of stating the fact helps when someone doesn’t want to see them. She had let go of trying to convince people to see what she sees from a distance, it helps. She tries to talk about her recently inserted hormonal IUD that is supposed to cause untimely spotting but she is terrified that she hasn’t stopped spotting in over 10 days and her body is exhausted. They suggest getting in touch with the gynaecologist but all she wants to do is have people to sit with her fear because fear is slowly engulfing her, not knowing what her body is up to, not knowing what to expect, and if anything that she does might harm her even more. But then again, she jokes about not being able to get pregnant even if she tried, and they return to discuss marriage.

In A World of Suffering, Can't We Expect Better?

She wonders what she has to do to be able to work at a job. She is trying to learn to keep her mouth shut but something about older men showcasing their egos at the tip of their noses triggers her. She doesn’t do anything about it till those men try to make her a pawn in the larger scheme of things. All that show about empowering women, having more women employees than men, without the faintest idea of what diversity and inclusion are get on her nerves. She fails to understand, but accepts, that there are people who would do anything to not teach the ones who want to learn. She is the one who wants to learn, sometimes she finds that little school-going girl within her waiting for recognition every time she scores a 100. She wants to be that girl, someone teachers love and have complete faith in, all without her knowing because she was so busy completing her homework during free periods in school.

This woman, who sought adventure in everything she did, is somewhere still haunted by the word strong. Because if it’s not the awkward silence in conversations, it’s an assurance that she can get through it all. And she wonders, what if I can’t, what if I don’t want to? She wants to say, I don’t want to be resilient anymore, I want to be treated with kindness, compassion, and most importantly, respect, even when I go silent over social media and don’t respond to texts. I want to be treated right, professionally, without having to listen that the entire world is full of shit that I have already experienced and will keep experiencing. She looks back at Salman Rushdie’s words, will all this losing actually make something of me? He says, doesn’t he? The losers are the ones who experience different things in different ways, the ones who succeed at once do not learn anything new. So, where does this difference from the people around her take her, if not to alienation?

Image Source: Pinterest

Does December Get You In The Feels Too?

Maybe it’s December. End of another year, an eventful, and mostly satisfying year. Yet her dreams are more vivid than her life. She wakes up frustrated--- to be surrounded and touched by people in her dreams, a touch that feels something when she has grown immune to her very favourite hugs in real-time. To be hugged, hugged tightly by friends and family, and to feel nothing. Sad, isn’t it? If only she could see herself beyond being this sad person, maybe if only she could be human and speak the woes of her heart with someone.

Maybe, she carries the burden of being strong while expecting people to give her the space to break down. Perhaps, she would like to send a different curriculum vitae to employers – one that could be turned into a novel, if only, if only, she would stop failing at what she should be doing and just for once, has the courage to take a leap and let the words fly her away into a future that could be.

To be seen as strong, and being a coward.

Cheers!