An invisible cage called Dependency

I have been wondering what to write about. And then I wondered even more, why am I wondering? So I am going to just keep writing what comes to mind and see what story I am able to create here.

Never did I have a thought in the last many years, that I would ever live on my own. It is not unusual for an Indian woman to feel this. Through my childhood, teens and adulthood I lived with my parents. And then when I got married I moved to my then husband’s home. Every woman goes through her own struggle in this society which is built to cage her. This was mine. A struggle to find a door to this cage called dependancy and let myself out.

This dependancy took me far away from knowing myself. I felt a strong disconnect with my own needs. Infact I did not even know my own needs. And I lived a life thinking I like being dependant, I like being cared for, I like having people around to rely on. Till a day when I underwent a pregnancy termination and these very likings made me claustrophobic. I could see that everyone around me treated me like I could not do crucial things on my own. Like I could not take the most important decisions of my life on my own. Like I could not face difficult situations on my own. I could not care for myself. It was that moment I realised how I have been accepting dependancy as a norm and really not identified with it all along.

There began my journey to understand how can I get out of this cage that looks like a sweet bubble from the outside, but inside is just a chaos of emotions about wanting to break free. We live in a culture that thrives on being dependant. It is quite normal in our culture for adults to still depend on their parents to provide financial and / or emotional needs. It is not at all unusual for women to be dependant on their husbands to make crucial decisions for their lives. It is very common to condition children to depend on elders for making a choice and invalidating their need to trust themselves. I grew up in this very same culture. I do not say this is good or bad. I say it does not work for everyone. It did not work for me.

It has been almost four months of living on my own. Four months of coming to a new place far away from the life I lived. Four months of struggling to know how to trust my decisions and the choices I make. Four months of learning to take care of my own needs. Four months of depending on myself for love. Four months of knowing handling finances is too over rated in the mainstream society. That what you know you love and are passionate about is far more important that meeting standards the society sets to live. I love being on my own. Even if I fail, fall, hurt myself, in the process.

I wonder if I had an opportunity to see the world where depending on yourself was given far more importance than depending on others, would my life have been different today?