Repressions & Remains!

With this, I have completed forty four articles published by this esteemed newspaper. I am immensely grateful for the feedback, constructive or critical, I received from the readers. No matter the topic of my pieces, from bizarre to dejecting, I kept writing. Whenever I happened to be low on my wheels, GK came as a medium through which I channeled my bitterness, sourness, and sadness. But, yes, I didn’t let my thoughts blindly mingle with my fits of emotional outbursts–I always kept broader perspectives in my mind.

Before I pause my writing for a while, I want to go back in time and compress my life into a few paragraphs. On a lighter note, I am doing this primarily for myself—a small act of catharsis. If you happen to find something meaningful in it, that would be the cherry on top.

I was born somewhere in the north of Kashmir a little over two and a half decades ago. But before I could live to the fullest decades later, my mother shuffled off this mortal coil when I was just two. Adopted by my paternal aunt back then, I was taken to Srinagar—to receive her motherly love. And I did get one. But there was something—something within a 2-3-4-year-old me—that kept thinking faintly about my family. They are the closest to me, I intensely felt.

Whenever my siblings (slightly older than me and adopted in the same way by our maternal aunt and grandmother) and father would pay me a visit, I felt like I had been stuck in the middle of the ocean before and now reached the shore. Relieving! And whenever they left again, it was as if the floor beneath me slipped away, and the sky up above devoured me whole—for days on end—until some kind of child-like agency returned. But here comes the repression aspect I helplessly clung to.

As a child, I repressed every emotion: the longing to go back home, to meet my family, and never return back to Srinagar. Helplessness tore my fragile soul to smithereens. I belonged neither here nor there. The trauma had much less to do with my mother’s untimely departure and much more to do with the constant shocks I was subjected to throughout my childhood: the back and forth between Sopore and Srinagar; the relieving atmosphere there, the somewhat suffocating one here; the cheerfulness glowing on my face as I met my brother, and the numbness sneaking in as I arrived at my aunt’s.

My paternal aunt and the family here left no stone unturned in cozying up my damaged soul, but the more I received their lovesome approaches, the more I grew insecure. From clothes, school, and food to lullabies and milk… I received everything. But what I lacked, I lacked. As Dostoevsky says in a different context, ‘Provide humans with everything so that they have nothing to do but enjoy, and still there will be something they will be ungrateful for.’ In my case, I was grateful; the rest I buried deep within me.

I remember keeping small souvenirs from Sopore and bringing them back to Srinagar. Solely for the reason of looking at them and murdering that desire to go back. Or how intensely I would cry in washrooms or closed behind doors. But I didn’t pour my heart out to anyone. I feel good about myself, as it were, that I didn’t express myself to my family here just for the reason that I didn’t want them to feel sad or worried. Just like a hill carries within its belly huge deposits of soil, I carried within me nothing but the graveyard of spoiled childhood, lost joy, tantrums, and all buried beyond.

Fast forward through years of numbness, and I found myself involved in dragging on coffin nails. It came as a much sought-after relief at first, but then it started to get worse: starting from passive use to ending up smoking several times a day. I began isolating myself and didn’t speak even as little as I used to. Much less laugh. Let alone share something of value!

Smoking habits aside, I sought anything that seemingly brought me a hint of relief. And this way I got caught in yet another unhealthy pattern.

I tried to change myself, went for counseling sessions, was on medication, read self-help books, and immersed myself in Jung, Franz, and philosophy. Spoke to people. And listened to them. Yet everything failed. Maybe the repressions have mutated into a type of monster that refuses to die, even if I try to slay it. Maybe the habits I got involved in feed nutrients to the very evil, and now it has grown beyond proportions. Facing it gives it the feeling of an ant standing in front of an elephant. No comparison….

Folks, with this (and much more left unsaid), I bring this story to a close. I am not here to play sympathy-seeking games. For how long that will even work. If I am here, it’s just for the reason that childhood matters a lot; it defines you 10-20-30 years down the line, and it shapes your personality and growth. Jung devoted a lot of time to analyzing repressed emotions, and my confessions here testify to the nagging repercussions of a tragic childhood. A major takeaway from the story.

Love your children; do anything possible to ensure they don’t repress their feelings. Because those emotions can disturb the very fabric of their psyche, force them to find unhealthy coping mechanisms, trap them in ‘bettering-themselves-and-then-back-to-those-coping-mechanism’ cycles, and, if grave enough, wreak havoc on their lives.

Unprocessed emotions can become a nightmare. 

Or they stop being one at some point of time; I am not sure...