15th July 2019

i feel abruptly empty at this hour in the night. its twelve am in the night and i feel tired, i want to sleep and not wake up to deal with another day of life.

everything seems so difficult, even just to breathe. i feel tired of living. i feel afraid to share this with anyone. how defeated i feel in front of everything that has become life. there has been some people, some people i was very close, to some who i am still close to, people who have found my rants, the inside of me as a pity party, as a means to gain sympathy. at times, i have found myself thinking like them, in their direction and wonder if that’s true?

is it? if someone asks me that question, i would just say that it’s life and it can happen to just anyone.

i cried today as well. i think i have been crying a lot in the past months. it feels good when i cry but i feel very scared.

my brain is running beyond its normal capacities. it always feels to be on overload mode. i am tired, i want to sleep but i dont wake up to live another day, in this helpless and defeated state of mind.

…evas em…

13th July 2019

i have not been happy in a long while, in a long long while. i don’t even know how long it has been. i fail to recollect any happy memories from my past years on planet earth.i also am thinking, that that might not really be true. not having any happy memories. if i look back, slowly and tread very slowly behind i can pick up these small small moments from the past months and years, when i currently feel and look at those moments of past as happy, happy moments of life.i don’t know what happiness is, its been a very very long time that i have thought about it. in between the rush and struggles of an ordinary life, i have let the optimist within me die silently. quietly, a slow death with all the circumstances which in the last one and a half year have seemed extraordinary to me. so overwhelming, everything that has come way.i was telling my therapist about this, how i felt like ending my life in tenth standard. it was a very strong feeling and among other ways, i acted on it in a funny fashion when i kept running my cycle continuously for kilometres, found a small bridge on the national highway and went underneath. i cried, cried and cried a lot that evening and after releasing all that was filling in. i felt good, i felt great and i felt i want to keep living and life is beautiful.(i am distracted right now, my parents have come over to the city i live in.)i am listening to across the universe by the beatles.okay, so yeah.do you remember where i was? what was i thinking?i think a lot many, a lot many things and all at the same time. sometimes my brain even speed crashes and then there is no real reboot i know, it happens slowly. the reboot.i have been crying a little, lately. feeling very very scared of random things. its real difficult for me to express this fear to anyone. like they ask me, what i am scared of. and, what i am scared of isn’t a huge monster often on the surface but when i look at it, it feels and looks like a huge huge sea monster.(i got real angry with mumma, because she turned the cooler her side and i said “hum insaan nahi hai kya?” “are we not humans”. it was a rhetorical question.) (i am just mostly disappointed in them, most of the times.) (its interesting, how i only express my anger towards those who are very close to me, willingly or unwillingly-they are close.)oh, dear.see, its just happening all the time. my brain speed crashing. slow down, why don’t you? (me to me)this overwhelming feeling right now feels like a rope inside my stomach and as if someone is trying to pull something out of me.i was telling you about huge green ugly sea monster, so the last three days i have spent in so much fear. it was very difficult. i could not get out of my bed. i felt so scared. the whole thing dint turn out to as scary as i made it out to be, in my head.you know, what i feel the most scared and hurt about is being alone. i go on days at times without any interaction at all. i cannot really even call or text anyone because well, everyone has their vessels full. and no one calls me, sometimes they do. those days are really nice.i have had a really low self esteem all my life, you know. i have been a shy kid. and i feel, inside of me that its all my fault, the way i am and the way my life. its because i lack something, because i am not good enough.i should google this. this feeling of learned helplessness. its so internal to me. (my therapist told me about the phrase “learned helplessness”.my therapist also told me that my mi i.e. mental illness is not me. that somehow makes me feel special. knowing that i am better than what i think of myself.because i feel most of the times i behave like a pushover.well,yeah.i am just glad that i am writing.xx

9th July 2019

I feel terribly lost at the moment, I am staying back in the office today as there is no water here and someone needs to stay back to fill water. Water comes here only twice a day, and at timings when two of us are not in the office.

It runs from 6-8, AM & PM. And, we mostly work from 11 AM to 5 PM.

It’s not that we are not working in the other hours of the day. We just mutually decided that we should work from 11 AM to 5PM in office and the rest of the time we are working from home. It’s fun working.

However, it gets lonely. Lonely and scary. And, to be honest, there is nothing in particular that makes me feel that way. Everything just aggravates, sort of magnifies at times for me. And especially the negative experiences which happen on a day to day basis. I think with my physical immunity, even my mental immunity has diminished to a great extent. I feel so tired within, with everything that I have dealt with in the last one and a half years. It has been a lot and I think I am still processing it. Still figuring it out. I think that’s what we all are doing but still.

To be honest, I am still proud of myself. I am grateful for where I am in a lot of ways. Yes, it is very heavy. The weight of things of the past and worries of the future together. It indeed puts me down sometimes, actually most of the times these days.

I am glad that I am writing here. It makes me feel better. It makes me feel heard.

Today, in my therapy session, I was telling my therapist how during my undergraduate years, I used to tell my friends that one should not care about the “ifs” and “buts” of life. We should just enjoy the present moment we are living in.

I know its a cliche. Sometimes the most cliched and most simple things are the most important ones to practice.

I really fail to reflect on which part of my journey in the last one and a half years I forgot living joyfully. I don’t know in which part I forgot enjoying myself, and doing things which will make me smile and also focus on them throughout the day.

This reminds me of something, when I was in high school, every evening I would take the tempo and go to Mc Donalds. I would study there, read and be inspired, be in awe of life around me. And, after everything, I would eat my chocolate ice cream. That would make me so happy, that ice cream. And talking to the kids from the slums.

Now, such little moments of joy and happiness still exist in my life. They keep appearing once and again but I fail to focus on it now. In fact, I feel afraid to rethink of those moments. As if, there is a bully next to me who will steal those moments from me. I really do feel that way, so afraid. I was about to leave from this space, shut the laptop and not think about the good that happened to me today. Because I am afraid that there is someone sitting here or someone would come who would steal everything from me.

(Reassuring myself: No one is here and no one will still anything from me)

You know, I cannot even tell this to any (few) people I consider my friends because I think that they will think and tell “Pagal hai kya?” “Are you mad?” in a teasing manner.

And, I would smile and say “Shayad”. “Maybe”.

I am stuck in such a rut. I am stigmatizing my own emotions.

They say (mostly wellwishers) that if you don’t respect your own feelings if you don’t love yourself. How will others? They are not wrong, I believe in them. But to tell you, honestly, sometimes it is extraordinarily difficult to love myself. To just breathe.

In May 2019, I was in a Goa and I attended this gathering of artists at the Beyond Nomad hostel.

After the event, as we were chatting this girl I met said something to me and she gave words to a lot of my feelings. She said, “sometimes she wishes someone could teach her how to breathe”.

Yes, it gets that bad, that suffocating, that congested inside the walls of our colourful society. It gets difficult to breathe, it is difficult to breathe right now as I have led myself back into that array of emotions and I want to Breakfree.

B R E A T H E

DEEP BREATHS

I am looking at the clock now, it’s 7:22 PM. As I told you, at the beginning of this rant – I am waiting here in the office to fill water. I am not sure if it will be filled completed. At times it takes complete two hours, you know.

And constantly imagining in a scared of mind, an encounter with the landlords who just live above the office. I really don’t want to cross their paths. See, this is what I was talking about. My fears getting magnified. Appearing monstrous in the mirror of perception of my eyes. I am not afraid of anyone. I have no reasons to be afraid of anyone.

Trust me, I do not have much believe in the last two sentences I have written above. I am not sure. I feel shit scared. For no good reason all the time.

Anyway. Actually, no. Not anyway.

My therapist also told me today that my MI (Mental Illness) is not ME. She says its anxiety. I don’t know what it is. But well, I should stop treating myself like shit. All of this is fucking natural. I am not putting myself through this. I think that someone will think, I am putting myself through all of this deliberately but I am not. I really am not.

(I will just go and check, if we have water or not)

So I went and checked and still there is no water. Now that is annoying.
I told my friend about it and also formed a stupid logic of why the water is not filling up in our tank. Well, yeah.

And, I feel constantly scared also that there is someone outside. Checking up on something or on me. (Closing my eyes and typing, argghhh)

You know, I had thought that I will go out and have pani puri. I am still very tempted to go and have it. And, I also would like to go to McDonalds and have the ice cream I mentioned. Not sure if I will go for the ice cream though, because I don’t know where McDonalds is.

Interestingly, my horoscope for today is telling me to leave work and not complete it in an obsessive-compulsive manner.

(I will go, check up on water again.)

And, the water is still not there. Should I leave now?

Or should I wait for 15 more minutes? It’s unlikely that sitting here for 15 more minutes will bring in water. But well, it is what it is. I don’t even know what I mean by that. So, don’t ask.

Did I tell you, that my friend might have to leave tomorrow to our hometown. Most likely they will. And guess, what again for days I will not have any human presence in my life. Not much of human interaction I mean. Because you know, blah blah blah.

I am going now. Enough.

3rd July 2019

Pani Da Rang Vekh Ke

I had no clue whatsoever about my life after college, not that I had a clue in college but there was a spark then, some sort of positivity. I could look at things in a way. And now, it feels my illness has and my circumstances have stolen that from me. My hands feel tied up, it’s very difficult to type the words here. My body does not want me to. There is this strong feeling within, tumbling in my flesh – telling me nothing will work out. Telling me that I cannot challenge my destiny or what the accident of birth has put it my lap, telling me that my illness will handicap me for life- physically and in spirit. For my entire fucking life?

Should I accept what this feeling is trying to tell me?

If you were in my place, would you have accepted?

Writing motivates me, in a way when I am writing, I am trying to bring out the better (positive) parts of myself out. I would not like my reader to see my vulnerabilities, my metaphorical scars and tell them where it hurts.

Actually, I don’t really mind telling – it’s just that I am confused if it will ever stop hurting or not. If things will get better or not. Of course, within I know they will. However, my horoscope keeps telling me that virgo’s are very pragmatic. So pragmatically speaking, I am unsure if I will be able to fight every damned thing that is not in my favor and be happy.

Actually, I know the answer to my question. The problem is that it has been hurting so much, for so long both physically and emotionally that I have started looking at happiness as an end, rather than it being a verb – a state of mind. I have started looking at it/ have conditioned my mind to look at it as a status quo which I will achieve only after removing certain hurdles from my life.

I would lie, life has been truly fucked up and I have been fighting bravely.

[smiling]

If you are reading this, trust me, it makes me immensely happy to share my sorrows and joys with someone. Especially when I have chosen a life of solitude in a new city. The last time I had a good conversation with someone, a conversation with a human being physically present next to me was five days back. It drives me crazy at times. I feel so strange, living by myself in a 1 BHK apartment and I don’t even go to the hall because its so hot here and there is construction going on there since months. Such is life. Et tu, life! Haha.

I miss sitting by the balcony, you know. In winters, letting the sun enter in and wake me up. I miss it. Summers are not so much fun this year. (yawning)

What should I do now?

the vessel is full

the vessel is full,
but feels empty
from within,
it almost feels
like words are screeching,
from the boiling kettle pot,
trying to
tell me, something,
but words don’t
show up, words
are ditching me,
love has lost
its way and hope
is still stuck
in traffic,
the vessel is full,
but feels empty
from within,
and my
heart has crumpled up,
with ramblings,
which are not to be heard and,
tears,
which are not be seen,

the vessel is full.

if the ceiling of my room was outter space

if the ceiling of my room was outter space

if the ceiling of my room was outter space,
i’d have stopped them, the gravity under my
bed, from pulling me,
down, again and
again,
if the ceiling of my room was outter space,
a door, a pathway to other galaxies,
i’d then take my plant
along with me, my new fried,
who sits by the balcony, quietly,
everyday,
it gives me joy, to see him grow.

if the ceiling of my room was outter space,
i’d have stopped bottling up storms of
emotions within.

if the ceiling of my room..

who am i

who am i?
i see that the
hands of the clocks,
have now,
started spinning
leftwards, and we,
you and me, tanzim,
are going back to
where we started.

from those vast empty
gardens, where you’ll
sit, with our mother
and father, around,
and look at the world,
in awe, look
at the baloonwallah’s
and the icecreamwallah’s,
and gleam in amazement
of everything, that
is around.

and, now
tanzim, we are
spinning behind
going back in
time, on a reverse
rollercoaster.

imagine, if
everything that has
happened to
you, and to me,
imagine it- only
being our imagination.

i know your chest feels
heavy now, heavy now-
mine does too,
it must be the pills.

the dogs are barking
in the gully, why do
they bark.

i am trying to forget you, tanzim
but i am forgetting myself too.

trying to forget you

do you like it now, tanzim?
now,
i wear my vulnerabilties
as my
yellow summer shirt,
with each blow of
summer wind, i
bleed, my skin
cuts and
the dried leaves
touch through
this deep empty pit
i-you have been
feeling since
the beginning of time,
flowers have become blades and
loneliness, the only meaning of time,
you-i have ever known,
i look at him, jungli,
our landlord’s dog,
lying on the floor, tired
with the summer heat,
i try to forget it all, tanzim,
i am trying to forget you,
tanzim.

my devil companion

Illustration by Sarah Mazzetti

its has been long that i have written anything here. i know on most of the days i have started writing by saying that it has been long. it has been. it is always long enough. with the number of days, that i don’t write- there are parts within which dry away like autumn leaves and die, get crushed underneath shoes of men and women who fail to notice my withering heart.

oh, tanzim, isn’t it overwhelming? Read More →

How to save yourself from heartbreaks?

I am twenty-two year old male, who has recently moved into a new city in the hope of being able to learn to be independent again, to lose the fears which have crawled up on my skin from living on one bed for almost a year and now have become tattoos which are difficult to erase.

And, today, this sunday morning, I am trying to contemplate about heartbreaks and how I can avoid them?

Read More →