The Five Stages of Grief
How do you know when enough is too much? When it is time to cut the chord, to rip off the bandage?
I can't seem to make that decision. It veers into as yet unexplored paths of insecurity and trauma. So I carry on without pause, without review, without looking at what my life is becoming.
Sometimes, you wish that you could simply shrug it off and walk to the restaurant at the end of the Universe but the moment passes and you look around, see reality closing in, and continue on.
Since today is one of those days, I want to do nothing more than curl up in my bed and cry but tears seem to be lacking and thankfully so. I fear that if I start, I'm not going to stop. Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate' sums up my fears aptly-
"And so, arms around each other, Nacha and Tita wept until there were no more tears in Tita's eyes. Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more..."
I wish I had some great tragedy in my life. At least then I would have reason and sufficient cause to want to be this way. The truth is, there is nothing more tragic in my life than the absolutely staid, mundane nature of it and nothing can be worse.
Recently, I read Amitav Ghosh for the first time. Nirmal Bose has been walking around in my head ever since and I can't seem to shake him. I can imagine his glasses-wearing, jhola-carrying, intellectual self shaking his head in disappointment, urging me to try and understand him better. And the reason Nirmal sticks around is that he was a revolutionary without a cause. His idealism lay not in politics but in poetry.
I marvel at the man who always found lines to explain himself perfectly. Words that were already in existence. All you had to do, was look for them.
Where are the words that will explain me.
But then again, if I find them, what am I to do with the rest of my life.
---
I wrote these lines back in 2012. I was on the verge of graduating with a literature degree that seemed increasingly useless. I was rudderless, not knowing what to do, and content to spin my wheels. Which I did.
I don't think I realised the ominous power of words until I re-read this. To the lone reader of this blog still, you might have come across the love of my life, Iffat before. In early 2013, she committed suicide. It still shocks me to write this. To verbalise what I don't like to face, to this day. All my words about the lack of a tragedy came back to haunt me.
For the longest while, I walked in a haze. Struggling with feelings it was too late to admit to. Unwilling to address the gaping hole in my life, and the toxic effect it was having on my mental heath. Over the next 5 years, I slowly worked my way through the five stages of grief.
For the longest time, I was in denial. I moved away that year, and in my head I was only in a different state, not a different realm. The difference between life and death was roughly 2000 km. In a city full of new people, it was easy to forget the loss of life.
Slowly though, I ran out of options. I would break out in tears. I would lose my temper, break things, be vile to my family. I had all this anger building and nowhere to let it go. I was unemployed for nearly 3 years now. I sat, and ate my feelings away. It was getting to a point where I could change something, or let go of everything.
So I bargained with myself. I was allowed to unravel personally, if I succeeded professionally. I enrolled in a Masters program I didn't understand. Over the next 2 years, I worked my way through a degree that could've been in Latin. I sat on the outside and viewed the world. I slowly retreated further into my mind. I slept lesser until I slept no more. I continued to eat until someone sat me down and asked me if I was depressed.
Suddenly I knew. I had words that explained me. I was depressed and anxious and suicidal. So off I went to the land of wonder drugs and doctors who didn't understand that a tragedy could only be the trigger to more. Was I sad because Iffat died, or was I sad that I had been left alone? Did I care more about the death of a friend, or the loss of a love that I wasn't sure I'd experience again?
I moved again; back home after what could only be a misguided attempt to end my life; the third of its kind. Did I no longer want to live because I felt too much, or I felt nothing?
And so the rigmarole began again. Doctors and therapists. Smarter ones this time. They don't nod and hmm. They ask questions I can answer. Slowly I look at myself, and want to change. Do I finally want to emerge from this morass my life has become?
It seems I do.
All those years ago, young Avi couldn't have known what was coming. She couldn't have known what it would do to her, and that despite the odds she would emerge to the other side. Battered and bruised but alive.
I was finally in the 5th stage.
I can't seem to make that decision. It veers into as yet unexplored paths of insecurity and trauma. So I carry on without pause, without review, without looking at what my life is becoming.
Sometimes, you wish that you could simply shrug it off and walk to the restaurant at the end of the Universe but the moment passes and you look around, see reality closing in, and continue on.
Since today is one of those days, I want to do nothing more than curl up in my bed and cry but tears seem to be lacking and thankfully so. I fear that if I start, I'm not going to stop. Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate' sums up my fears aptly-
"And so, arms around each other, Nacha and Tita wept until there were no more tears in Tita's eyes. Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more..."
I wish I had some great tragedy in my life. At least then I would have reason and sufficient cause to want to be this way. The truth is, there is nothing more tragic in my life than the absolutely staid, mundane nature of it and nothing can be worse.
Recently, I read Amitav Ghosh for the first time. Nirmal Bose has been walking around in my head ever since and I can't seem to shake him. I can imagine his glasses-wearing, jhola-carrying, intellectual self shaking his head in disappointment, urging me to try and understand him better. And the reason Nirmal sticks around is that he was a revolutionary without a cause. His idealism lay not in politics but in poetry.
I marvel at the man who always found lines to explain himself perfectly. Words that were already in existence. All you had to do, was look for them.
Where are the words that will explain me.
But then again, if I find them, what am I to do with the rest of my life.
---
I wrote these lines back in 2012. I was on the verge of graduating with a literature degree that seemed increasingly useless. I was rudderless, not knowing what to do, and content to spin my wheels. Which I did.
I don't think I realised the ominous power of words until I re-read this. To the lone reader of this blog still, you might have come across the love of my life, Iffat before. In early 2013, she committed suicide. It still shocks me to write this. To verbalise what I don't like to face, to this day. All my words about the lack of a tragedy came back to haunt me.
For the longest while, I walked in a haze. Struggling with feelings it was too late to admit to. Unwilling to address the gaping hole in my life, and the toxic effect it was having on my mental heath. Over the next 5 years, I slowly worked my way through the five stages of grief.
For the longest time, I was in denial. I moved away that year, and in my head I was only in a different state, not a different realm. The difference between life and death was roughly 2000 km. In a city full of new people, it was easy to forget the loss of life.
Slowly though, I ran out of options. I would break out in tears. I would lose my temper, break things, be vile to my family. I had all this anger building and nowhere to let it go. I was unemployed for nearly 3 years now. I sat, and ate my feelings away. It was getting to a point where I could change something, or let go of everything.
So I bargained with myself. I was allowed to unravel personally, if I succeeded professionally. I enrolled in a Masters program I didn't understand. Over the next 2 years, I worked my way through a degree that could've been in Latin. I sat on the outside and viewed the world. I slowly retreated further into my mind. I slept lesser until I slept no more. I continued to eat until someone sat me down and asked me if I was depressed.
Suddenly I knew. I had words that explained me. I was depressed and anxious and suicidal. So off I went to the land of wonder drugs and doctors who didn't understand that a tragedy could only be the trigger to more. Was I sad because Iffat died, or was I sad that I had been left alone? Did I care more about the death of a friend, or the loss of a love that I wasn't sure I'd experience again?
I moved again; back home after what could only be a misguided attempt to end my life; the third of its kind. Did I no longer want to live because I felt too much, or I felt nothing?
And so the rigmarole began again. Doctors and therapists. Smarter ones this time. They don't nod and hmm. They ask questions I can answer. Slowly I look at myself, and want to change. Do I finally want to emerge from this morass my life has become?
It seems I do.
All those years ago, young Avi couldn't have known what was coming. She couldn't have known what it would do to her, and that despite the odds she would emerge to the other side. Battered and bruised but alive.
I was finally in the 5th stage.
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