Your words, not mine.
“You feel like you’re living a life filled with hypocrisy. You said you mold into a religious person when you’re around friends who are religious. But that doesn’t even fit the definition of “religious”.
So it’s a facade, it’s not true. It’s a role you play. Not a personality.
It’s not multiple personalities.
I think you are a Chameleon.
I think you haven’t accepted your true self.
I think you have a vision of what you should be.. and when you look in the mirror you are not that person you should be.
So when you’re being reckless, I think it’s just another way you hurt yourself. Given that you have physically hurt yourself in the past.
So you are a person who has either not discovered herself or a person who hasn’t accepted or come to terms with who she is.. and also has this version of who she must be.
And to satisfy all of the above, you became this Chameleon. Who keeps changing her color depending on who she’s around. Because she doesn’t think her true form is good enough to stand in-front of the people she is with.
It’s not multiple personalities. It’s a single personality that has only one “want” and that is to be good enough. But the problem is this; you are trying to look at yourself through the other person’s eyes. You need to stop looking at yourself from another person’s eyes and look at yourself from your inner eye and get rid of all the white noise. Just focus on how you want to feel.
But I think it is clear that you have a certain sense of faith in you, which is why you feel the hypocrisy and aren’t comfortable with it. Just like that, you wearing the hijab makes you feel like a hypocrite too. Because you know you’re not wearing it for what it represents or for what it is or to fulfill the purpose it is meant for.
Would you ponder on this, and consider taking it off and feeling less of a hypocrite, accept yourself and then once you’re done fixing the problem (uprooting the problems from within you), then explore religion once again when you’re ready for it, and start practicing properly and then wear the hijab for the right reasons and maintain wearing it for the right reasons.
This is why your therapist said you’re a paradox. How can you stop being a paradox when you won’t allow yourself to change the paradoxical nature of the choices you made and continue to live with? You need to weigh the pros and cons of both options.
The pros of you taking it off far outweighs the cons, in my opinion.
It’s doing a lot of damage to you from within. The hijab isn’t doing the damage. The disconnect between what the hijab stands for and your current mental state is what is doing the damage.
Don’t seek protection from a piece of fabric. Firstly, seek protection from God himself. And then secondly, seek protection from within you. Be strong enough. Build your inner strength. It would be far better for you to take it off and feel less of a hypocrite and thus allow you to give yourself a chance to fix yourself. Rather than continue to wear it, feel like a hypocrite day in and day out and never ever be able to take the necessary steps to be able to uproot the weeds from within you
Sometimes you have to pull off the band aid and let the wound breathe for it to be able to heal. Will it be difficult? Yes. Will it be painful? Yes. Will it allow better and quicker healing? Also yes.
All your dilemmas, all your problems have it’s roots inside you.
When you list down the 5 most significant men in your life, they all have one thing in common and you can’t even point it out. But I think you’d be less lost if you figure out why you put these people on the list even when they actually have no business being on it.
I’ll answer this: The thing they all have in common are that they’re all from the past that you can’t stop pondering upon. That they’re all irrelevant, all stagnant, and all people who have used and abused you in some shape or form.
Do you disagree? That makes your list of 5 most significant men, utterly insignificant.
Yet you still try to give them importance by keeping them on the list. Why? Because you’ve got deep rooted problems within you. And change is the only fix. Fixing the hypocrisy is the road to that fix.
Your problem with the notion of change is just a trend these days. The feminist ideology that a man’s suggestion for a woman to change is blasphemous
Only once you find happiness in yourself will you ever *allow* someone worthy to even come close to you. It works both ways actually. Because just as this is true.. It’s also true that you’d only attract the right kind of people once you do find that happiness in yourself. Being comfortable in your own skin and being confident and self sufficient and content about yourself are the most attractive things to the opposite gender
But those traits can only be appreciated and recognised by good people who have an innate sense of knowing what’s good and what’s not.
Only you can fix yourself. I’ve tried my best to show you the path. At the end of that path, most certainly there’s a light. Whether you want to see it or not is your choice.
Say “Good riddance” and cut off those people from your life. Stop living in the past.”
I’m stronger than a heartbreak.
I’m stronger than all the things you say I am.
When you tell me looks aren’t what define beauty, I look at my insides and see bruises and scars in parts I’ll never feel loved again.
When you say I have no conduct, I’m the girl who oversays thank you because my gratitude towards kindness is magnifying.
When you say you won’t apologize for your crude remarks, you’re forgetting I never demanded an apology.
When you shame my name with dust and dirt and tell me I just love you, remember.. I’m stronger than your narcissism. A broken heart can mend and heal but scars of your words burnt against my skin will forever show. And I just can’t do this anymore.
Maybe it’s just the way it is. You’ll continue to walk in and out of my life as you please and I will let you. I have no clear answer as to why. Looking back at my life I see so very few meaningful encounters and you are one of them. And as you’ve said that you treasure the bond we share, I do too. Maybe not on your terms but I do as well. Never before have you explained to me so clearly how you have felt about me all along. And I appreciate it so much. It’s just, as days pass your spoken words become echo’s and this distance as usual have made me think otherwise of it. Yes, I know I know, we are no regulars in each others lives and never have been, but.. I don’t know. I don’t expect anything, just don’t drop truth bombs on me and vanish into thin air maybe.
My cousin booked me with another therapist for tomorrow night. Therapy hasn’t worked so far. Not sure how this session will be any different either. I don’t get psychotherapy. Or maybe I’ve never been consistent at it. Or maybe the clinics have just been useless. I don’t know how to tell them I live in a state of uncertainty. Nothings ever certain with me. The only things that are certain in my life are my work and my family. The rest have a way of it’s own. It’s me but at the same time it’s not me because I’m not in control of it. The moment I understand how I feel towards something, I begin to feel indifferently and I move on to try and understand the new feeling. It’s a hopping mind.
Here’s why.
”I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” — Charlotte Brontë
They’ve been my world. The whole of it, but one by one each of them has left their place in my life.
Some found life more worthwhile without our friendship, others set their priorities right and we didn’t make the list. And the rest I don’t really know if it’s ignorance or their obliviousness. Can’t really say which.
Bottom line though is that it hurt. All of it.
Writing this isn’t going to be easy, this could be a phone call or a group text. But like always, some truths are harder to tell.
What was left of us was damn fine, we were closer than ever, more protective than ever, or so I thought until I absolutely needed them; like I’d never needed anyone before. I don’t know what I really expected, maybe a thoughtful ear? an understanding, or a bunch of words along the lines that I would be okay again.
Like any other night, I needed my best friends. To be around them, somehow things seemed easier with them around.
So when I was having a hard time this one night, and since they’ve said many many times before that I don’t really allow them to be there for me at my hardest times, I thought, I’d let them be there for me this time. I had a growing trust allowing myself to be that vulnerable in front of them for once. I’ve always iced people out when things got tough, I knew that these were my problems and none other should have to waste their time worrying for me. But I’d known them for over a decade and like I said, they were my world. So I went to see them, I was soon in tears crying my face off because honestly I’d been going in circles with the same problems and I felt so helpless. But most of them were too busy to even hear me out, and I soon started feeling worse. So I left and cried the whole way home. I thought they’d text me later and see if I was okay, but they never did. So in a world where I was feeling so helpless, I also started feeling abandoned and other ugly feelings. That’s one incident. I tried to let it go, make excuses for them, but my anxiety was fucking me up around them. I no longer felt okay or alright. I felt exposed for allowing myself to be that vulnerable and to receive such cold treatment.
Another day, this time it was at work. It was a gathering out in the sea, on a Dhoni. One particular person decided to ruin my entire will to live while I sat on the bow. I was too shattered to even move. I had half of my colleagues on the very same Dhoni, but most of them would probably not know what happened. But they knew something had happened. I sat there for over four hours, didn’t even move. I couldn’t. I sobbed my heart out and called my mother crying. I had thought of jumping off over a hundred times in those hours. I understand my colleagues wouldn’t intrude or even ask hey, are you okay? but honestly, I would have so appreciated that. The saddest part though is that this one best friend of mine was there too, she was there with everyone else. Laughing and having their time of fun, while I was shattering myself into a million little pieces over and over for hours and hours. The torture was indefinable. She never bothered to come and ask me, not once, if I was okay. I’d be fine with the World not caring, but I couldn’t be fine with her not caring. In a world where I kept feelings abandoned, I kept on getting lonelier and lonelier and living in a mass of ugly feelings. At that point, the world was my enemy.
They probably wonder what went wrong or what happened, I wish I could tell them, but I can’t. These were two of the most painful days I had to live through and would never recover from. I learned so much. About people, about love and trust. No matter who’s in your life, no matter where you are, you only have you. No one else, only you.
I hope my best friends that used to be, stop wondering why, because here is why. I never asked for much. I asked for so little of love, and even that seemed too much to ask for in the end.
And then I remembered how great of a person I am for surviving and reaching this far from what I used to be. And nothing will change that. I may have chosen a different path than many would but that doesn’t make me any less of the person I am.
Never again will it be you, or anyone else who will make me feel like I’m not good enough. Because I am. If you don’t see that than clearly I’m the wrong girl for you, but as a person I’m not wrong.
With every struggle, with every thing that happened I’ve managed to be here. And if life is a race I’m right alongside with people who’ve struggled less and had a better life, that makes my entire existence an achievement and I shall never forget that.
Look me in the eye and say you loved me right, look me in the eyes and say you loved me despite.
Look me in the eye and say you loved me wholly, look me in the eye and say you were fond of me entirely.
Look me in the eye and say it wasn’t my body you attracted, look me in the eye and say you loved me in-fact.
Look me in the eye and say you never did me wrong, look me in the eye and say you were right all along.
Look me in the eye and say I stabbed your heart, look me in the eye and say I let you part.
I loved you in-fact, I loved you right, despite my mistakes.
Today I weep your absence, the ghost of a lover I once knew.
Here’s an obsession I grew over a woman.
No, she wasn’t extra ordinary. No, she wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful. No, she didn’t have a kind heart or even a soul. She wasn’t a person I should be losing sleep over.
This was the woman I had implanted in my head to be out of this world. Why?
He would bring her up constantly, he would tell me she was around waiting for him, for him to give her a chance. She was ready to fight the world by his side. All he had to say was yes. This is a speech I’ve heard a hundred times and one that I didn’t like hearing. With every fall out he brings her up to seed this thought in my head that if I don’t give in now I would be losing him to her. The girl who portrayed perfection, the picture he drew was nothing less.
But she’s just another woman, one like me. No she doesn’t stand out in a crowd. But I grew insecure over the image I had built up in my mind. I obsessed over this and grew blue for days.
But then one fine day, she walks into the same cafè that I was in. I saw her and it hit me, she’s just like me. She’s ordinary as I am.
So don’t let men manipulate you into thinking you are any less good, they do this so you’ll lose yourself and your confidence and that’s only when they feel safe enough. How many men out there can handle a woman at her best? Let her fly and trust she’ll always come home to you. Do you really need to cut her wings off because you have your issues and you’d rather be certain than take a chance with this little bird you’ve fallen for? When you change who they are, they forget to fly. When you trap them, they forget all the amazing things they are.
Let them fly, let them love. Let them embrace their reality, just have faith.
To the woman who took my sleep away and broke my heart.
I won’t lie, I hate you. I hate your existence, I hate that you live in the same world that I do.
I hate that he still talks to you, I hate that he still lies to me about talking to you.
I hate that he asked you to wait, I hate that he laughs with you.
I hate everything I don’t know about you two, and from the little I know, it kills me daily too.
I hate that you had to be there from the beginning till the very end, even when I wasn’t perfect, he saw perfection in you.
I hate you live a life I envy, I hate that I put myself through this torture.
I hate that I can’t stop hating you, it must be maybe because I love him too. Maybe not as much, maybe not as dearly, but enough to keep me awake at night as the clock ticks away till another day.
She Was Sea 