I should probably preface everything with the fact that my mom is a Marriage and Family therapist. When I was growing up we didn’t talk about people in terms of status or privilege, but rather in terms of how they used their minds and emotions. People were analyzed, dissected, but there wasn’t an anger to it, just a soft knowing that this was the nature of man. My dad was insane, my whole family is insane, but it was funny to have a therapist in the middle of it all. The insanity would unravel and my mom’s cool logic would clarify it. Everything could be understood.
When I was 18 I would check in with my mom regarding my mental health. “Is it good?” “No.” She’s an immigrant mother and incredibly cut throat. The bar was high, always. When I left my first toxic relationship at 21 she sat with me “Amber, you’re dealing with codependency issues, you need to read Codependent No More.” Before I moved to New York she tried to get me to do EMDR so I could process my trauma but I told her I was fine, left for the city, and watched my life implode.
I eventually hit the EMDR at 26 when everything came to a dead stop and I needed to piece my life together. That was my mom’s first lesson for me, and maybe the most important one: every problem I would encounter in life would require my personal evolution. Life didn’t repair itself. Money, sex, power didn’t repair life. We repaired it, rotting in therapy offices, admonishing the traumas we experienced and cleansing our energies of them. I remember listening to a podcast and they mentioned an Arab saying that the soul is covered in a thousand veils, and it was our job to uncover it. Psychoanalysis is spiritual work.
I was obsessed with reading as a kid. I come from an intellectual bloodline. My mom’s line of the family is from Bihar, the same state Buddha is from. I ran into a Tibetan girl on the train one year and told her I was Bihari “Oh, very well read people” she said. My great-uncle, a Pakistani man, could read books in French, wrote them, and oversaw archaeological excavations. My great-uncle on my father’s side was a bit of a Marxist and had a library of books, many of which were on the Russian economy. It’s too far beyond my grasp. Both sides of my family eschewed classism. There’s a lot of poverty in Pakistan, it will break your heart in two. I think my family likes being cultivated and cosmopolitan (the fruits of status), but the hunger for power doesn’t appeal to us.
I grew up reading books like crazy, getting shuffled around different cities, and performing badly in school. I knew I wanted to be a writer from a young age, maybe 7 or 8 years old? I would copy books and drawings. I remember reading about a young girl who dreamt of being a writer and became one as an adult. My little world lit up when I saw that. My parents were incredibly abusive during my teenage years and by the time I was 17 I had severe PTSD and a nervous breakdown at 21. I’ve spent the last 11 years using therapy to rewire and build my brain, I need it for work. I’m an Aries, a fire sign. We’re ruled by the God of War. We like minimalism, avoid emotional entanglements, and for the most part keep to ourselves. I don’t have a lot of fucks to give.
a soft death 