'schizophrenia'---a truth scarier than fiction.....

gayatri felt all alone---once again...
she felt the four walls of her plush house closing in on her as she sat on the bedroom floor sobbing...
it was just that morning that she had woken up in the arms of her husband amit...as he played with her hair he had kissed her goodmorning and told her to stay in bed as he made breakfast...
gayatri felt she was the luckiest woman on earth to have been married to sucha loving man...
she hurridly took the breakfast tray from amit...being from a conservative background her mother had reminded her never to allow her husband in the kitchen...
"he is the breadwinner and ur supposed to take care of the house..dont try to exchange roles and ul always be happy' she remembered her mothers words at the time of her marriage...
It was only because of this that gayatri, who had persued her MA honours had suppressed her desire to work as an independent woman...
the duty of being a 'perfect housewife' had been ingrained in her ever since she could remember...
she remembered her dad bidding her goodbye on her wedding day...as expected he hardly had tears in his eyes...

in a way, gayatri was glad she was leaving...she had always felt unloved at her parents house...
and amit...he cared soo much......atleast thats what she thought till a whole 2 months of marriage...
untill that day...
gayatri was alone in the kitchen cooking when the doorbell rang...
"who's it?" she asked as she reminded herself to tell amit to get an eyehole fitted to the main door...it was dangerous where they lived...with the only neighbour moving out soon...
"OPEN THE DOOR" shouted amit...

relieved it was amit, gayatri smiled...he had forgotten to kiss her goodbye as he left for office today...
she blushed as she adjusted her hair and dusted off the dough from her hands...
but when she opeed the door, standing before her was a total stranger...there was a strange expression in his bloodshot eyes which scared gayatri...he pushed the door open and forced himself into the house...

"who are u romancing with, u bitch?" he screamed "what took u soo long to answer?"
she kept staring at him not knowing what to say...the person she saw was a total stranger...yet he looked and sounded just like..........'amit'?????
before gayatri could collect her senses, he dragged her by the hand into the bedroom, constantly abusing her on the way...
his eyes kept wandering in different corners of the house asif...he was searching...for something...for someone!!

"please stop this...ur hurting me" were the only words gayatri could utter in the shocked state of mind she was in...
her world was crashing down...bit by bit...
the one man who cared soo much about her---what had come over him???

" i KNOW ur trying to kill me...u want to run away dont u? i saw u smiling at anand the other day...
and i know u tell everyone im crazy...u think im mad dont u...u b***h"
he flung her on the bed...
"whats wrong with u?" trembled gayatri..."what are u saying? who is anand?"
his words were spinning in her mind...she couldent comprehend what he was saying...
the next thing she knew was he was groping her all over as he ripped her clothes open and raped her for the next 45 minutes...

paying a deaf ear to gayatris screams, he continued raping her mercilessly...
it was only when the neighbour got back, that he heard gayatri screaming and got help...
gayatri lay almost lifeless on the bed as 4 health personneles physically restrained amit who was still violently screaming abuses...her marriage had turned into that one big disaster she had never imagined it could turn into....



amit is an old case of paranoid schizophrenia and has been receiving treatment since the last 20 years...he keeps suffering from delusions and auditary hallucinations...
'anand' does not exist at all...he is just a permanent entity in amits mind...and is the basis for all the delusions of infidelity he suffers from...
gayatri was badly traumatised by this incident and it took her a very long time to recover..both physically as well as emotionally...

the mistake on his part (apart from the one that he kept it a secret from the girl he was marrying) is that he thought he was improving and stopped all medication since the last 2 months...
the mistake on her part is that inspite of knowing that it can still happen again and again, she has still chosen to live with him...
its been 8 years for their marriage now...
and 15 relapses so far...thankfully none as severe as the blow gayatri experienced the first time...but she still ends up being brutally beaten and forced upon sometimes!

ECT and antipsychotics havent shown much improvement in his case...
and no amount of counselling has helped in her case...she just refuses to understand...to give up on the marriage!
she has accepted this bitter reality as a part of her life and tries to keep busy at work...she has taken up teaching as a career--much to the reluctance of her family who still think she should stay at home and take care of her husband...the rigid mindset some people seem to have just refuses to bend even in the worst of circumstances...
gayatri still feels that she will never be welcome in her parents house if she breaks off from this marriage...

i couldent help but awe at the brave risk she is willing to take for life...and yet i cant help but disagree with the stupidity she rationalises the situation with....
gayatri only hopes that the next time, amit's recovery phase will last longer!!


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P.S: had written this 'reality-inspired' piece a long time back for 'aimless banter'--a blog which was breathing only for a very brief period of time...will be transferring a few deleted posts on here since i dont write in there anymore...
take care!