The Marilyn Syndrome

Jane gave me a book two weeks ago. Some sort of self help book, that I MUST read. I browsed through it, and pretty much realized it was the last thing that I need to fix my life. Life was okay, and self help books don’t fix your life. It’s a myth, and when you are desperate, you try everyway …why not a book.

I would have casually kept it away, but since it meant so much to her, that I read it, I started reading the first chapter. It started with the concept of lovesickness, an illness Jane was convinced we both have. I was a bit annoyed with her obsession with the book. Book and real life are different.

I took a bus to Chicago yesterday. It was a 8 hours journey. Decided it would make her happy if I read some more of the book, since I promised, I finished new few chapters. And I realized, it explains thing…a lot about me, which I have been denying. I realized things about my relationship with Sancho, my flings, my feelings. However identifying reasons is only the first step.

Ever read about Marilyn Munroe’s life? She was one of the world’s beautiful and rich woman, who suffered from the weirdest insecurities one can imagine. Lovesickness : that’s what it is called. And the root of it, is the dysfunctional family you come from.

•You come from a dysfunctional family- separated, divorced or abnormal parents, you’ve seen abuse all the time in your family. You have not felt the closeness, intimacy and the unconditional love. You have been told you are terrible the way you are, and everyone hates you. Your mother wouldn’t approve of anything about you. May be you would have a sibling who would get way more attention than you are. You constantly felt neglected, insecure. You crave for attention or go into a shell. You are no longer sure of yourself. You come from a lovesick family.
•Hence you constantly seek people to like you. You seek approval for everything. Your mom has told you how every decision you make has ruined your life…you can’t decide things anymore. You do everything to be liked..but In your heart you are terrified, that nobody really loves you. It’s fake, but then it’s better than being lonely.
• You feel responsible for everything. You think you deserve to suffer, and all bad things happen you cause you deserve it. Your mom blamed you for almost everything. For her marriage, for anything that happened to her, for any damn wrong thing in the world. You denied it, but it got injected in your subconscious mind.
• You are addicted to rejection. Hence you build all your lovesick relationships (Here in comes Sancho, in my case). You seek the same sick relation that you have with your parents. You seek for UNAVAILABLE MEN. You seek for men who will reject you, control you, and treat you in a way, that you in your tragedy expect to be treated. You are drawn to such men :
 You can’t justify your attraction: you are obsessed with him though he treats you like shit.
 He plays games with you. He makes you fall in love and then keeps you chasing, rejecting you, and not giving attention. (and hence the same feeling you had with your parents is repeated. You become desperate for his attention, to prove yourself you are lovable)
 He doesn’t call you for weeks, disappears…and when he calls, you instead of being upset, you feel somehow it’s your fault. You are not good enough.
 He does huge drama. He has issues/ physically abusive/ depressions/dodrugs. He loves drama. And the drama draws you. You have been in a drama in your family all your life.
 He insults you. He rejects you. And you are drawn to him. You hate yourself, but you can’t let go. You are addicted to sick relationships. To abuse and insult.
 You never know what to expect or where you stand.
 He is incapable of dealing with ,talking about coping with the truth. Anything that makes him uncomfortable.
 He is workaholic, drugaholic, success-holic, sportsaholic, shopaholic, overeater or gambler.
 He wont meet you on a regular basis. (and this lets you enter your insecure zone where you are terrified he might just leave you, you start doing everything, be his slave to hold on. You desperately need to know you are acceptable.)
 You are afraid of him.
 He is commitment phobic . He sees you once in a while, takes you out, probably for something fancy, and then you don’t know when you would see him again.
 He is mysterious, secretive and you don’t understand him.
 He is never really there for you. He would not go out of his way or put any effort to productively help you. He might however let you be in an illusion of that.
 He controls most of the things in the relationship. They go in his terms. You are secondary, and his controlled object.
 He never says he loves you in a way you can ever believe. You are always in doudt.
But still you are addicted to this.

MR Right is MR WRONG. And Vice Versa.

You are addicted to wrong men. Men who are actually nice to you, and wants to love you, you find them whimpy or feminine, or not your type.You do everything to repel them. You say you are attracted to manly guys : mostly what you seek subconciously is aggressive and abusive. You find a man interesting only if you are not able to get his attention, once you do...he appeals no more.

My relationship with Jesse is different, and yet the underlying philosophy is the same. Some unavailable man, someone I am desperately wanting because I know I can't have him. I was an insecured unloved teenager desperate to know that I am lovable, acceptable, when I bumped onto Jesse. And clinged to him to seek that assurance, even now.

Anything Normal?

That's difficult. I can't imagine normal relationships. I am addicted to drama, rejections. I am addicteed to flings , where I can end it at my will, and not know I could have been rejected. I am addicted to casual sex, alcohol, one night stands, risky life. I am terrified of committment, if someone is nice I repel them away. I am mostly depressed, sulking. I look at myself and feel like I am the heroine of a greek tragedy, and a failure. No matter what the world thinks.I cant see anything good about my life, and I am ready to die.

Marilyn suffered with this problems, why this book is called Marilyn Syndrome. She killed herself by overdosing with a lot of sleeping pills. Self destructive behaviour...that's what lovesickness is.

That's where I belong.

When you know what exactly you want in life, it is very difficult to move on to something else.

I am not going to settle for less, for more money, for anything different that what I always wanted. I know it's difficult,but impossble? May be almost, but there should be a way out. I don't need jobs, which pay me 100K, I don't need fancy cars, clothes...I need what I love, and have loved so long.I've been fooling around, looking at different opportunities, and realizing...I really don't want to do that. Most people lack passion for anything particular, so the choice of job is so easy for them :whoever pays more. For some : whoever lets you travel. But if I am not one of them, why should I settle for something that I won't connect to? I will have to fight to be where I wanna be. It's not easy, and really nothing is.

It's that creative world where you make, break, create. I want to be there. And only there.

Finding God

The sky has been perpetually cloudy. And it's raining all the time. I peek through my glass window, and look at the muddy alleys behind my house.It's still drizzling. And the pandora radio is playing as usual,magically understanding my mood and coming up with song's I would like.

And all of a sudden, the room is filled with a voice that shakes me; No guitars, nothing, a magically beautiful voice, so intense and painful that it jolts me from the usual trance that I am in. I listen to the song, and relistened. And relistened.

The song is called Storm by Lifehouse

I often tried in vain to find God.My religious perspective has been kind of mixed. In my early childhood, I believed deeply in God. I heard God talk to me, tell me things no one else would. I knew I was special, because I KNEW him. And somehow, from sixteen, I lost faith. I often try to think what it was, that made me so disconnected from all the faith I had. I often think it was when the dreams started to fall apart. There was a time, when everything seemed possible. When you are very young. But then, when things don't work out...you need someone to blame.For me, I suppose it was God.

I have been an atheist for most of the time. Save for the fake showy prayers not to offend my friends and people around. I don't need to tell around my about my beliefs I suppose. And yet there are times, I wonder. About faith. About God. I have tried many times to love him. When I found Akash, I thought the best thing has happened, he was religious..and I wanted to be the same. But things fell apart over and over again. Before I could pray, I would find myself in a disaster, and in too much of pain to think God can be of any good.

But this song makes me think. Think of God. There are times, I wish, I believed in something, that's ultimate. But, then I also tell..can physics and God go together? I don't know. I have tried, but I feel I don't even know how to pray. What should I say?And...more so, how will I make myself believe that he is there, listening?

But then, we are born not to go in vain. Life has probably a purpose, and that cannot be just to loose. There must be something bright, somewhere. There's a line in the song that says "If I could see you everything would be alright, If I could just see, this darkness will fade into light"I wonder, if someday I find God, all the chaos will fall into the calm, and the sun would peak out from this perpetually cloudy sky. But if you think, (and for those who are torn between science an faith)...may be, finding God is nothing but finding yourself. It's probably within. The good, the devine part of us, that is dormant...may be just need to dig in to our souls to find that God? I don't know, but I wish I knew.


Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Wake me up when September Ends

A song...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVO8sUrs-Pw