Dear anita,

First off, i wanted share something that happened, work related. I thought quite a bit over the weekend as I had to present an estimate for how long my next big task would take (i mentioned earlier that my senior asked me to come up with one) and was actually afraid that the two seniors that i had to present to would judge me if it seemed too long by their standards. However, something that i never expected happened – i was very calm in the meeting – internally – and i had mentioned that i was sensitive to changes in mood and tone – so when i noticed that they did not get my point i would simply repeat myself, slow down earlier i would just beat myself over it. And as expected from them, there were snarky remarks but maybe it was the way i presented myself that they actually gave proper inputs, advice and it was a productive meeting. At the end we agreed on a list of tasks, and i was struggling to say exactly when – this meeting happened yesterday – and one of them suggested thursday, which was aggressive considering all the bits and pieces attached. Normally I would think of all the ways i could get blocked and i would have just slipped into anxiety about how i would fail, but I split them into small tasks and tackled them one at a time. I am actually done with it. I just need to polish the work and get it to a state that it can be put out as a product but it is ready for that internal team demo we decided on for thursday, barring a few more things left to do tomorrow. Never have i ever handled something so smoothly. And normally there would be a lot of internal dialogue ruminating over possible obstacles but i applied the approach you gave me when i mentioned my imaginary visa problems. Anticipate problems and take the necessary cautions instead of feeling helpless. I have become more open to trying different ways to solve the problem until one sticks whereas earlier i would just be annoyed and waiting for the problem to solve itself. I may be wriggling out of my learned helplessness. I do not know how long it will last but it feels great.

Coming back to what we were discussing. I think I drifted away from the problem I was trying to solve. I started focussing on why I was feeling the way i was feeling, but forgot why i wanted to solve it. I was happy with getting an explanation for all these things( thank you for that) but i forgot that the whole point of this discussion was to stop feeling this way, that is what i wanted to solve for, and that it is not enough to simply know why.

I saw just yesterday a demonstration of how i will never be able to see her as an ex-roomate or an old friend.( I would easily leave an ex roomate or a friend if they harassed me with their world views.)

She came to me with another guy’s profile (warning: this may get very long, i can sense it as i type). This guy lives in the US. And i have a major problem with Indian parents marrying off their kids to strangers. But this is even worse, a stranger who lives on the other side of the world. And they do not consider the isolation they will put the girl through. And imagine how powerlessness she will be dependent on him for everything. I don’t want to do that. Most people I know who have done this seem fine but that is not enough for me. I cannot put myself through that. In all honesty one guy in Canada was really cute so I went for that and sent him a request instinctively (he did not respond so that is done) on the website but if i thought through it, it makes me feel like I would completely give my freedom away. Now the part about my mother never being someone I see just as a friend is that it was disappointing to see her willing to do this. What bothered me more, she said “we need look at those guys, we are not finding anyone here because of your height and salary”. I thought she lost her mind. As if all the tall guys in my community have decided to emigrate?! And my salary is high but not so super high that no one else makes that much. It is quite common to get this much if you are hired by a good company, there will be guys ok with this and earning just as much – but she is so restless.

I do this thing where i say “you do what you want” not in that i am letting her make decisions for me but that she can contact these people and i will say no if i want to anyways. She gets triggered when i separate myself from her, i do this because her standards are quite different from mine, so I have to think for myself. She says “it is up to you, I will not force you or move it forward unless you are sure” and yet she cannot handle me saying no, only because up until now none of the matches on the website have gone beyond the “online” phase. So it was very clear to me that i will get to say yes or no but every no triggers her. My marriage to her is a problem she  needs to solve.

Yesterday, and this was even before i read your reply so I am actually shocked you described it, she was really agitated over me saying no just by the fact that he lives in the US and needed a reason and I have surpassed the point in my life where I believed that my emotions and fears hold any weight with my mom so I simply said to her “if I call in the future saying this guy is problematic, you will just say, well you chose him, so I will actually say no when I want to”. That hurt her but that is what i saw  in my future with being ok with this – living the same life, new but same old problems, dictated by others and having no one to tell about how out of it I feel and no one who would care about it, unless by random luck, one stranger from my community living in the US is the rebel you had described was right for me. And I don’t want to take that risk. I don’t think I will be able to tell if a guy is nice without knowing him over a period of time anyways.

Sorry about how long that was! Hope you don’t have a headache 🙂

Girija