Looking outside

“Write what you know,” he said, a tall lanky man, my favourite teacher by far; I was heartbroken when I heard he was married.

“Write what you know and it will be a good piece of writing.”

I took his advice and all I would write about was (is) myself. I am so good, such a professional at being myself, hating it, and writing about it, the eating disorder, I’m so good at it that I have forgotten what it means to be outside of myself.

I admitted myself into the hospital for a week, upon Dr B’s casual recommendation that I get some help while I still have (some of) my shit together. A day later I found myself in the toilet with my fingers down my throat more often than I ate, teary, shaken and lost, so I hastened the process and admitted myself sooner. I missed two classes at uni but I thought it would be worth it.

I wanted a break from my head. I needed to pause and for someone to plate my meals and tell me it was okay to stop moving. Someone to tell me I could eat and tell me when to stop. I needed a new brain, with a new set of ghrelin, leptin, cortisol hormones and the like.

As usual, we had inpatient therapy classes.

We were asked to draw three circles, one encased in the other to represent “myself,” and “things I do” and a final circle representing the “outside world.” Much like a severely imbalanced atomic arrangement, I realised how easily I could fill the middle circle- “self,” I was somewhat uncertain what to write in the middle circle and incredibly challenged by the final circle imploring what I cared about in the “outside world.” All I know is my sadness, but at least I do not fight against it any more. All I know is my eating disorder and how I can put words together to tell you about it- tell me about them. I know me, yet I don’t know me.

I do not, honestly, know where I lost the remaining parts of my life. Maybe when I decided to label cleaning as “OCD” and have since avoided it, telling myself it is the most “normal” part of me. When I started counting dancing as exercise. Or when I prioritised pacing over studying, or simply reading, or even watching a movie with the family. Or when my continuous thoughts surrounded food, exercise and if I was doing my illness properly. Or if I was recovering properly. If I was even proper.

And here I am again, writing about myself. Complaining that I have nothing else to offer the world. I used to care about feminism, history, religion, rights. I would beg my father to “tell me something interesting,” then have a vivid debate on the topic over the dinner table or walk around the block discussing our days.  

Now those activities are just labelled “calories in” and “calories out.” Food and exercise.

My family came to visit me last weekend, and we visited a small, family-owned cinema to watch Viceroy’s House. It is an historically-based film set during the British rule in India, at the time of India-Pakistan partition. This is the time my grandparents literally had to flee their villages in Punjab (now the Pakistan side) to the safety of the Indian side, a time where Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus were literally killing each other, not worried whether they were children, childbearing mothers, fit men or women or grandparents barely able to walk out of their homes let alone flee their country. It was so beautifully made that it almost sparked a physical display of emotion! It made me angry and sad, even hopeful that since it was a movie maybe there would be a happy ending; maybe the British will not leave and India would remain united with Pakistan. Maybe there would be no more bloodshed and women and young girls would not be raped and abused by the opposing religion’s men. Maybe 1947, India wouldn’t host the largest human massacre. Maybe this movie would just spark interest and awareness that India actually has a history less acknowledged than it should be.

It did, at least within me. Although Mummiji and Daddiji* would mention running away, I was too young to understand the implications this had for a family of two parents and eleven children (at least), maybe a couple of grandparents on the side. I am so happy that there is something outside me that I want, need, to know about. I have borrowed some books on Indian history, Moghul rule, British rule and I am going through them at my own pace.

I am trying to find myself by getting out of myself. Ironic, right?

* My paternal grandparents, whom I was very close to as a child. I barely met my maternal grandfather and my mother’s mother, my Naniji, passed away before I was born.