Sunday, December 24, 2000		Life Ties

SABIA was a serious contemplative child who had the ability to peel off layers to see beneath the surface. At the age of four, she was acutely conscious of the tensions slicing her parents’ relationship. She was aware that of her father’s instability as he kept switching jobs and cities and her mother’s hysterical attempts to cope with emergig situations. Her sick kid brother had been deposited at her grand parents’ home. She used to wet her bed and talk in her sleep --- all manifestations of anxieties which failed to get addressed.

During those years, the only person who existed in her world was her mother. Sabia would bend backwards trying to earn her approval, win a smile or tempt her into spending extra time with her. If her mother was upset, she would instinctively snuggle up to her and regale her with new jokes she had heard at school. However, what she could not do was directly ask her mother as to what was bothering her. Even when she did know the reason, like the time her nani passed away or her father abandoned them for over an year, she she never talked to her directly though she had a million questions to ask. She wanted to comfort her mother, reassure and tell her that she loved her very much but could never bring herself to saying anything. Her eyes spoke their own language but her mother was oblivious of such subtlities.

Sabia grew up into a beautiful and desirable woman but she still hadn’t learnt to confront her most painful insecurities. Her parents had gone in for a mutual separation and though Sabia was devoted to her mother there were unbridgeable gaps in their relationship. She had learnt to suppress her craving for a physical demonstration of her mother’s love as well as her need for a presence before whom she could unburden her secrets, insecurities and expectations.

Although outwardly Sabia seemed uncomplaining, she carried her confusions in the sub conscious. It coloured most of her relationships because she could neither open up with people nor trust them completely. She always withheld a part of herself, terrified that she may expose her fears and/or get hurt. If there was a misunderstanding with a friend, she preferred opting out rather than sorting it out. If her boss reacted and pinned the blame for something that had gone wrong, she would not get him to see reason. She would allow him to come to the wrong conclusions while resenting the fact that he didn’t understand and value her contribution. She also got increasingly isolated from her peer group which felt she had too many dark moods. Besides, they couldn’t reach out and befriend her without her own consent.

One day, while at office, she found herself in the midst of a discussion on the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and cyber relationships. Her colleagues were exchanging details on how exciting and interactive the medium was. Her curiosity was aroused and that evening she stepped into her neighbourhood cyber café and opened an account. Once her initial reservations had been overcome, she became bold enough to experiment and explore. She would log on to particular sites to enter chat rooms and talk to strangers.

What appealed to her most about the medium was the feeling that she could not be tracked down. Moreover, the chats could begin or end whenever she wanted them. The sense of control she felt was what gave her a high. She found herself opening up, talking of things she had earlier shied away from, expressing feelings she thought she didn’t have but which miraculously found an outlet on the computer screen. She also got into an intimate ‘cyber affair’ and, for the first time, found herself shedding her sexual inhibitions. However, this wasn’t happening in her real world but only in virtual reality. Interestingly, she had no illusions about the relationship. She wasn’t expecting it to flower into a tangible commitment. She knew that just the way she had lied about her age,location, name and profession, the person at the other end must have also created a fictitious self. That’s why she didn’t want to meet him. She enjoyed their daily exchanges and intimate love talk and saw no reason why it couldn’t continue that way.

In the months that followed, their relationship became addictive. She felt a compulsive need to exchange long e-mails and chat for hours. The days on which she was travelling or was unable to log on, she would suffer major withdrawal symptoms like irritation, lethargy, restlessness and depression. Trouble started when she developed two vastly opposing sides to her personality. On was the reserved, conservative, withdrawn Sabia and the other was this vivacious, highly articulate, trendy and friendly cyber person. For a few months she managed to keep her virtual and real identities separate, switching from one to the other with an effortless ease and enjoying the aura of mystery, surprise and excitement that it offered.

But soon a time came when there was a perceptible overlap between her real and imagined worlds .Contradictions began to emerge. She started saying, desiring and doing things she did not mean. She had found a medium where she could for the first time unleash her fury, express her bottled up feelings and voice her unspoken needs. She now wanted the same thing to happen in her real life as well. The two vastly contradictory images kept clashing with each other making her more confused and messed up than ever before. If earlier, it was only her painful suppression of feelings and accumulated hurts; there was now the added complication of knowing that she could express herself in a manner which was more desirable and fulfilling. But she did not know how to turn her cyber self into a real self.

What made things worse was her deteriorating relationship with the few friends she had. She found herself unable to communicate with them.It was only via the e-mail route that she could talk and reveal her feelings. Face to face, she found herself inadequate and crippled. All her day’s frustrations, angst and fears were addressed when she pounded vigorously on the computer. On chatting sites she would get abusive, send hate messages and unburden herself. But for how long could she continue like this? She knew she was on the brink and her attempts at keeping a façade of normalcy were getting weaker. Her virtual world had become her escape route but had also victimised her eventually.

Had Sabia have been better adjusted right from childhood and her mother helped her confront her situations, she wouldn’t have createdthis duality in her life. She is presently undergoing therapy and the psychiatrist is confident that he would be able to reverse the damage. However, Sabia’s determination to sort out herself is heartening. Her realisation of the ‘mad dependence’ on an uncertain cyber relationship is what forced her to finally snap out of her world of dreams and seek professional help, even if it came late.