The War Of The Metas

Metathesiophobia is the irrational fear of change. Metamorphosis, on the other had, is transformation. Both essentially are derived from μετα, which is Greek for change. But what if you are forced to face them together?

I’m not a person very conducive to change. I live life in a very deliberate, planned way. Yes, sometimes plans do get derailed, but for most part, I have a situation assessed and under my control, even if seems otherwise. As I’m fond of saying, I have a priority list of priority lists. So, when faced with unexpected circumstances, people, emotions, I tend to retreat and cocoon myself in layers of apathy and loneliness. I’d like to say I did this voluntarily, but I didn’t. I hated every second of it. I preferred living a life filled with stretches of crushing hopelessness, and no perceived way out, rather than trying to change anything. Most people called it laziness, and I started believing that too.

It’s only now, when I look back at the time, that I realize it wasn’t laziness. It wasn’t lack of will to change. It was fear. There are times you get addicted to a certain sense of immobility. It’s almost thrilling, watching yourself sink into proverbial quicksand, and not doing anything about it. Imagine a disaster unfolding before your eyes, like a child walking off a ledge, and instead of reacting, you just sit there, watching, with morbid fascination. These are fairly visceral images, but they convey, to an extent, the immobility I felt. It was almost disassociation, the way I removed myself from the happenings around me. I wasn’t a participant, but an observer in my own destruction. This time affected my grades, my emotional well being, and I put on a lot of weight. I’ve always been a heavy girl, but a combination of many factors, including, but not limited to a sick wish to see how far I could stretch myself, saw me going up to 130kgs.

This phase, of course, was that of metathesiophobia. Soon after, I was unwillingly pushed into metamorphosis. A bad winter ensued, and I was given an ultimatum. Lose weight, or die by thirty. That really rankles you, being forced to evaluate your own mortality. An inspirational story should ideally follow here, with me being my own hero and saving myself. But fairytales and heroics are precisely that, fables. I whined and groaned, but somehow managed to bring myself down to a 100 kgs. Now, this isn’t about my weight loss, because that’s a tale for another day. But it’s about what forcing yourself to be better, even under external duress, does to you.

Suffering makes people kinder, and empathetic. They become better people for they have experienced things they shouldn’t have, and they understand the unfairness of a world where imperfection is isolated and castigated. Sadly, I’m not people. Pain and the wisdom it brought with it ended up being weapons. I became a caustic, bitter person. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done, but I did do them, and they’re a part of me. I shunted away people who genuinely wanted to help me, and be there for me. Hurting people is very easy when you see yourself as the victim of circumstances. It narrows your vision down. All you can see is what was denied, not what was given. Living like this is, to put in in kind terms, poisonous.

I’d like to think I’m accepting my fallacies and moving on. And, to an extent, I am. There’s only a limit to which a person can continue hating the world. Slowly, it tires you out, because there are far too many good people around and you can’t deny their existence, and the effect they have on you. I’ve been blessed with some astonishingly brilliant people in my life. Friends, who instinctively know what my weaknesses are, and where my hubris lies. People like these are the ones that pull down the walls you’ve built around yourself, brick by brick. They hold your hand and push you into using the same bricks to create a gateway to let positivity in. I know that sounds very cheesy and slightly farcical, but it’s true.

There are times when only what breaks you can build you up again. People hurt, people build. It’s a cycle as old as every one of us. But where does self-recovery figure? Am I always going to be at the mercy of someone’s whims and fancies? This would equate to my biggest strength being the biggest chink in my armor. Where does this leave a person, exactly, is what I wonder. Are you supposed to maintain a comfortable distance from people so as to make sure no one has the ability to hurt you, or are you supposed to cling to people and risk the possibility of them deserting you and leaving you stranded on a island built of insecurities and self-doubt? I can’t seem to figure out a middle ground. Is it my inherent broken-ness, or is it the story of everyone’s life? That’s a comforting thought, really, thinking of everyone simply winging it. Sometimes, I feel as though everyone got a manual to life and how to survive it, and I missed distribution day.

Coming back to the metas in my life. I think my real metamorphosis begins now. Physical attributes are fleeting, but I’m taking baby steps towards reconciling what I can be, and what I should be. I remember fighting with a friend of mine, and he asked me a simple question. ‘If you met you, could you tolerate yourself?’ That stopped me for a moment. Could I? How could anyone? Now, three years later, if someone asked me this question, it’d stop me again, but I think the fact that I can look inwards and not feel utter disgust represents some progress.

The process of evaluating yourself is one that requires a lot of courage, and I’m not a very courageous person. So, bear with me. I think I’m getting there, and even simple evaluation leads to some inherent evolution. I have a feeling it shows, if you look closely enough. Maybe one day I’ll answer the question with ‘I think I’m pretty damn awesome.’

Stay awkward

Keep learning

Harnidh xx

A Rickety New Beginning

Credits: My very talented sister (don't tell her I said that)

I’ve always been a writer. That’s what I do. I write poetry, which is probably not very good. Too many failed attempts at novels. A few mediocre short stories here and there.

I’ve never really bothered writing something about my life, or something very personal. Let me rephrase that. I’ve never really had the courage to bare my creepy little soul to strangers. But that’s me considering myself very important. I’m not getting any ‘audience’ here. Maybe this is the catharsis I need.

So, the usual ‘about me’ section. My name is Harnidh and I’m not a psychopath. Borderline sociopath, maybe. As you may have guessed, I use ‘maybe’ a lot. I’m in college, and I study history, mostly because most people are a whole lot more interesting when they’re dead. As my URL would suggest, I’m wholly, irrevocably, socially awkward. I do not understand social constructs and mores. I may live by them, but they do not really make any sense to me. A lot of what I write is based around my constant frazzled state, which is mostly caused by my lack of understanding of how human contact works.

I really do dislike writing in first person. It’s so…violating. It’s like laying bare a vulnerable part of you in front of people and watching it being trampled upon because no one quite realizes why it’s there. ‘Why would she even write if it seems like physical torture?’ I hear you ask. (Probably not, but I need some way to put my point across, yes?)

Writing has always been a ‘refuge’ from some of the horrendously taxing years of my life, both emotionally and physically. It’s been a ‘solace’ at a time when no one, literally not one single human being, could understand what I was trying to express. I put these words into inverted commas because honestly, writing was exactly the opposite. It was a cage, a trap. Since I could not escape, I embraced it, and I turned to poetry. Through my broken attempts at cheesy love stories and half-baked fantasies about a dragon-human specie called Draeken, I tried to channel all the inexplicable things floating in my head into something concrete. This was, to give you a fair comparison, a lot like self-harm to me. Some people cut, I wrote. I wrote of love, and loss, and longing. I wrote to torture myself with things and people I’d never be able have for my own. In a way, writing became my idea of penance. I punished myself by writing.

Most people around me, including family, thought I finally found a way to deal with many things they couldn’t help me with. Praise started pouring in from all corners. Silly school kids playing around, doting adults, and a mother who wrote herself all resulted in my ending up in the spotlight because I could string words together into what seemed like beautiful sentences. Soon, I started writing at a speed that scared me, just to hear those words again and again. Talented, gifted, blessed. These words made me greedy for more. Imagine an addiction that destroying you from inside out, but instead of being told to control it, you’re told to nurture it. And nurture it, I did. It became my very own Frankenstein. A product of delusions and horrors, brought to life just because I could. Bring it to life, that is. My writing soon grew to take over my life. I was ‘the’ poet, ‘the’ fat girl whose identity revolved around the fact that she was oh-so-deep.

However, soon, much too soon, this started to fall apart. Writing, poetry or anything else, is not an easy task. Whatever the reason behind someone writing, it saps something very precious out of you. My writing burned through me like a forest fire in a dry desert scrub. Soon, I was left without words. Imagine a cocaine addict not being able to buy any, but not getting proper rehabilitation either. That happened, basically. Also, alongside this, I entered a happier phase in life. College started. In having friends to talk to, and losing almost 50 kgs of weight, I found myself not needing to write as much, too. Slowly, as Pavlovian lessons would dictate, I started equating writing with scary, scary things. Every time I felt an urge to write, I quickly drowned myself in something easier, like cooking.

So, after that rambling preamble, I come to the crux of the matter. I’m trying to start writing again. Not poetry, because I’m still raw and chafed inside. I want to start putting words down and catalogue, mentally, where and how my life is moving. I need all the criticism I can get, and I need all the push to open myself up again. Hence, I’m going to work with deadlines. I want to try and upload a 800 words or more post twice a week, ideally on Tuesday and Saturday.

In trying to fix myself fast, I did a shoddy job. I’m going to have to retrace my steps and start over, because there are leaks and cracks that threaten to give in at any moment. This is going to be awkward, emotional, embarrassing and borderline torturous, but some things need to be done, irrespective of how difficult they are.

I think this should suffice as a first post to the blog no one will ever read.

Stay awkward

Keep learning

Harnidh xx