Edited by: Sakshi Bhagat
“I have heard words. Words cut deep.” she says. Back in her head for a minute she realises she does not mean it. “No, doc. I think actions leave a scar.” She somehow always catches herself in a juxtaposition with her thoughts. “You know, you can have opposing views, they still hold value. Now tell me more about these actions and words. Even if you ramble, just go ahead.” She’s sitting looking around like a dog who has just been left home alone for the first time. “Well, I…”. Pin drop silence takes over the room, the kind you can hear so loud it deafens you. “You know how people have a habit of comparing? I do too. Not people with people or myself, rather the effects things have on me. I fear I don’t have an answer to a lot of questions. If someone ever asks me what the one thing I dislike the most, I fear I won’t have an answer. But right now, sitting here, I’ll take a wild guess and say it’s remembering. Nostalgia. Memories. Why does my brain store everything? Why is that randomly on a Tuesday afternoon some horrid memory from an even more horrid phase of my life will hit my consciousness like a truck? No, a crane? And why am I subjected to the second hand embarrassment or pain of my past?
Tell me doc, do you ever find an escape? Do you ever get rid of it? Is that what true freedom tastes like?” she stares into her therapist’s soul when she asks this question without even the slightest bit of hesitation in her eyes, which was unlike her. It seems as if she is here to get answers today. “First of all, let’s chuck science out the window. Your brain stores memory and there is nothing you can quite frankly do about it unless you bash your head against a wall and it suddenly goes away (don’t try this at home). Now, tell me, what memories are we talking about first and I’ll answer all your questions”. She chuckles and goes on, “Imagine if bashing my head against a wall actually worked. Would save me years of therapy. But I guess its how helpless it makes me feel. I know everything happens for a reason and everyone is supposed to teach you a lesson and everything those emotionally intelligent people on tik tok teach, but what shakes me is the fact that I am left with memories of a time I can’t change. I have come to a point where I don’t even need them to change anymore, I can live with it but in my weakest moments it leaves me like a crumpled piece of paper tossed away in a garbage can, that too in the messy and stinky room of a teenage boy. Do you get me?” The therapist leans back, puts her notepad on her side and ponders for a minute and says,”Let’s do an exercise. Close your eyes. Imagine you find an old pair of jeans and you wear them again. As you swiftly slide your hand into the back pocket you stumble upon an old receipt of a meal you barely remember eating. Now you look at the items you ordered, the date you purchased it and the amount you paid.
You have vague memory of it and all you do is shrug and think ‘huh, that happened’. You don’t think too much of it but you notice it and go on about your day.” she pauses for a moment. “Now open your eyes. Let’s do a little comparison. Think of your memories like this old receipt. Proof that you paid the price. Proof that you walked through fire and were able to come out the other side. Maybe a little tattered, but you still managed to. You are not garbage, you are here and are the unbelievably real aftermath of experiences that have demanded something from you, and the proof is in your hands.” she looks at her therapist wide eyed, like she’d just been let in on a huge cosmic secret. She laughs and says, “That was almost poetic doc. You have transformed me from a crumpled piece of paper to a receipt. Now that I have found the receipt, what do I do with it?” She never really expects life hacks from her therapist but she feels they are onto something. “Acknowledge it. Own it. Know that you did not walk out of a stinky room empty handed. Look at it and realise it doesn’t pinch anymore. You don’t allow it to have that power over you. You simply see it as a souvenir from your experiences, even though it’s kind of a shitty one, it’s worth something.” she lets out a chuckle again. A real one this time. She feels lighter than she has in months. “You are pretty damn good at your job doc. You can make some really strange metaphors sound really wise.” She wonders if she has spent way too long mistaking proof of survival for proof of defeat. That she had spent way too long thinking she is still stuck in her suffering when she’s already left the past. No matter how many times she goes back to the past, there is no one there. The therapist’s voice breaks into her thoughts,” healing is not about burning the evidence of all our trials and tribulations, it’s all about accepting what has happened has happened. You are still here. It’s messy and complicated but it’s real.” They share a content smile knowing she’s on her way to the freedom she so dearly craves.