Downwards

I have spent hours pondering on what the next chapter of this blog should be. It would have been the easier option to just say the next ten years were traumatic ones and leave it at that. After much introspection, I decided to dig up old noxious memories and put incidents down as they happened, without going into too much sordid detail. Each event that took place had an impact in shaping the person I am today, so with that in mind it becomes necessary to put facts down as they occurred.
After leaving Ramnee my life spiralled downwards, completely out of control. I was filled with a sense of guilt at letting my parents down, who were the only people in the world whose opinion ever really mattered to me. I would spend hours locked in my room, listening to music at a deafening volume, doing nothing more than sitting and mindlessly staring into space. I became a social recluse, who only spoke when spoken to and hated leaving the house or meeting people.
 Losing a very dear family friend, RB, who was in the Air Force during the 1971 Indo-Pak conflict, followed by the sudden and untimely death of my Granny Anna, also made me realise for the first time that those around me were mortal and would not be there forever. I spent sleepless nights working myself into a frenzy, worrying how I would cope if anything ever happened to my loved ones.

Then there was rape. The gory details are immaterial -  the why, how and when don't matter. What matters is the desolate empty feeling of abuse and shame. When I was young I had infinite faith in the basic goodness of friends and family, and it came as a rude shock when that trust was cruelly betrayed. I personally believe that if one has to be put through the agony of this traumatic situation, it is better to have to go through it with an unknown entity. The sense of disbelief and outrage that a family friend could do this, was almost too much for me to handle at the age of fourteen.

In those long ago days, in a small village like Saraya, I did not have the luxury of psychiatric help and the only person I could confide in was my mother, whose expression of horror and pain tinged by disbelief I can still vividly recall. She spoke to AKB, the man involved, and forbade him to ever enter the house again and all he did was hang his head and look at his toes...no apology or explanation was given....not that it would have made any difference. We decided to keep this ugly episode from my father because I  could not bear to imagine the consequences of his knowing, and we were sure he would have killed the rapist in cold blood for what he had done to me.
Out of all the confusion  in my mind there somehow grew an even more overwhelming sense of culpability. I convinced myself that I was responsible in some way for what happened, since there was no other reasonable or logical explanation for a seemingly  good and kind person to turn into an ugly unrecognisable beast.

What followed  was a period of self loathing and complete withdrawal. I struggled to come to terms with what had taken place and endeavoured to make sense of the whys and wherefores, but never found  answers that made any sense. It was decades later that I came to the conclusion, after a lot of soul searching, that I was not to blame, and I should stop castigating myself for something that so changed my thought process and outlook on relationships. But by the time this revelation occurred I had put myself into so many complicated and unsavoury situations, that in hindsight it seemed almost like I had a death wish and needed to punish myself in harsh and diabolical ways.
I developed the strange habit of pulling out my hair. I could not curb this strange compulsion and it was years later that I found out this form of self mutilation had a name - Trichotillomania! It is an impulse control disorder sometimes affecting those with low self esteem and depressive inclinations. Today this peculiar problem is treated with psychiatry and medication but in those days I had to bumble along, yanking and pulling, on my own. I did manage to eventually wean myself off this quirky behaviour, though I find my hand still creeps to my hair in times of stress, though I  rarely actually pull out a strand any more!
Many years later my mother received a letter from my abuser apologising for what he had done. He claimed nothing had gone right in his life, and wanted to meet me to make amends. She asked if it would help to bring closure to the sordid episode to meet him face to face, but I did not feel the need, since by then I had buried my demons as deeply as the spectre of rape can ever be laid to rest.
The life lesson I took from this  repulsive incident is that no matter how much parents try and protect their progeny, bad things do happen. I believe awareness is the gift we should give our children, rather than wrapping them up in cotton wool to keep them safe. With mindfulness comes a deeper and clearer understanding of the realities of life which are intrinsic to survival, and gives the strength and ability to better cope with difficult situations.
If I knew then what I know now, I would tell the young girl desolately staring into the mirror, that life would be good and she would only be stronger, wiser and  gentler in spite of what she had been through.