I wrote this in the
last year and was indecisive about publishing. Going no contact with parents is a taboo, especially in an Asian culture. I read the snippet from ‘s latest post and realized that I need to release this for the other black sheep.Forgiveness!
Have I ever been wronged or violated?
Yes!
Have I ever been asked for forgiveness?
No!
As they say, forgiveness is not for those who have wronged us; it's for our inner peace. In the story of Nachiketa, the first thing he asks from Yama is peace for his father and himself. It's that important for inner peace. Whenever I hear that story, and I hear it often in Tara Brach's podcast, I ask myself - "What is it that I feel towards my parents?" My autistic brain struggles to identify and label emotions. It remains a mystery. I may have answers by trying to write this prompt. Maybe not. Nevertheless, I would like to try.
"Patient to bring a reliable family member for the detailed case study."- I read the sentence again and again amidst the chaos in the NIMHANS OPD block. For some time, I was frozen. Then the word started thumping in my head "RELIABLE!!!! RELIABLE!!! RELIABLE". I carried that psychiatric note and prescription with the same helplessness of a six-year-old self who believed that drinking kerosene would end her life.
Domestic violence was there all around me while growing up, but not in my house. So I believed my family was "normal" and it took almost 30 years to learn and accept that nothing was normal about my family. For friends who grew up in abusive families, there was an end to their misery which came out of divorce or separation. For me, it never ended and layers and layers of trauma were added with each passing year. But the world needs visible wounds, otherwise, your suffering is not valid. Just like my invisible disability, the wounds inflicted by my parents remain invisible.
As a child who was fond of stories, I learned so many well-hidden stories about the family from Achamma. I was with her all the time to escape the bullying by my mean cousins. Now I wish I had not learned all those stories. It made me see through the facade of cruelty and meanness people carried outwardly. Inwards, they were all suffering. And, I knew that, understood that. So how could I blame Amma who was abandoned by her mother at age 11 and became a mother by the age of 21 for not being the mother I needed? I was her firstborn. She didn't know what was expected of her. So I became her emotional punching bag. I had endured her every insult, mockery and rage thinking that she had it worse. But the worst thing she ever did was not allow me to express my emotions; "Don't cry! Don't laugh". Now I know my inner critic is her. But you know it was okay for me because I knew she suffered too. I wish my younger self had a bit of self-compassion too.
When you don't receive any affection or kindness from your immediate surroundings, you start believing that you are unworthy of everything good. Last year when I was deciding to go no contact, I scanned my memory desperately to see if I have any good memory of Amma from childhood. There was none. I think if there was at least one good memory, I would have held on to her even if it meant the end of me.
The relationship with Achan was different. Everybody sympathised with him - 3 girls and not enough money! But he remained cool with his parties and outings. His share in our upbringing remained the occasional disciplining and outings- waking us up with loud music at 5 AM, passing some comments on the marks we scored, taking us for onam purchase, etc. He would lose the interesting soon enough and we would go back to our old ways. He was a visitor in our lives who stayed with us. He remained irresponsible throughout his life despite the "burden" he carried as a father of three girls. For a while, it was his brother who carried the burden. Then that relationship turned sour and we became homeless. Until then a permanent address was there. I lost the count of houses I have lived in this lifetime. Then it was my turn to carry the burden and I carried it until my physical body could not take it anymore. In Achan's mind, he is still faultless. He had managed to ruin every relationship except the one with Amma and that exists because of her inability to leave.
Achan was also critical in a way that was so subtle. He would never say anything to me straight. He would pass it over through Amma. He was the one who commented that I have only bookish knowledge and don't have any "common sense". He was right. I was struggling with permutations and combinations in my head to prepare for how to behave socially. When those computations failed, I also failed miserably. I was lost and there was none to guide me. In the post-2008 world, there was only one company that came for campus recruitment. I lost it in the interview and Achan said it was because of my overexcitement. Only 50 qualified for interviews among the 160 students who attended and I was one of them. I was not expecting that because the test which primarily included reasoning and English was made for the students who came from privileged backgrounds, not for a government school product. So, I got excited and learned the lesson. It was the last option to land a job before getting out of college and I lost it.
Life became a self-improvement project in the last few years. You know, the constant voice of "There is something wrong with me. Achan and Amma were right about something". It took me a year of therapy, an autism diagnosis and many hours of loving-kindness meditation to accept that there is nothing inherently wrong with me. Forgiveness for myself was the biggest step. I was not intentionally letting people abuse me. It was my nervous system that was on overdrive. At any cost, the blame should be on the abuser, not on the victim. I had to hear it again and again from my therapist to let go of the self-blame and guilt I carried over every sexual abuse.
RELIABLE is something that I have never known in my life. I had myself until my physical body too started crumbling under the weight I had carried. Parents who were supposed to be the protectors were not even spectators in my life. They lived inside of their trauma. We children were left out to fend for ourselves and up to a point we succeeded. My younger sister who was the troublemaker in childhood was beaten up when she was young. She managed to get married and have kids and is not acting up like me or the youngest sister. My parents had concluded that we should have gotten enough beating in childhood and then we would have behaved well. My therapist was right. They are beyond recovery and all I could do was to care for myself like a parent.
My sisters are angry. At one point, I felt anger too. But then it was gone. Somehow I am unable to touch my grief. I am stuck somewhere in the middle where nothing matters. Maybe it's indifference. I no longer care about them. I know that it was not my responsibility to safeguard my parents as a child. They could have done better. I don't have to excuse their behaviour. But does it change anything in my life? All I want in this lifetime is to be adopted and taken care of. But I know that I am not a puppy and that's the saddest part.
People who do not know enough about my life say that I would regret my decision when my parents are gone. They don't know that some goodbyes are final even when it doesn't appeal to society's eyes. I am wrapping up this with a Mary Oliver verse that has stayed with me ever since I first read it
"I sweep the closet
I leave the house
I mention them now, I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry
I give them-one, two, three, four-the kiss
of courtesy,
of sweet thanks,
of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility of my life."
It takes courage to love yourself enough to make the decisions you have had to make, and even more courage to share it with the world. ❤️❤️❤️
More courage and conviction in your own self be what carries you ahead everyday of your life. And yes, those beautiful crochet creatures. 🌺🌻