Disbelief, the stealthy thief of joy

When a state of disbelief settles over me, I feel like I have been ushered into a kind of limbo. Representation Pic/istock

Is disbelief an emotion or a sensation? It seems to manifest in my body as a coping mechanism, a trauma response. I do not usually allow myself to believe that something incredible has happened to me until I have solid proof of it - some kind of written confirmation that will give me the permission to rejoice. It's how I avoid disappointment. It's how I wrestle with rejection, too. When a state of disbelief settles over me, I feel like I have been ushered into a kind of limbo, a suspension of feeling. It's not quite the same as disassociation. It's as if I am deferring my joy, and, unfortunately, by postponing any revelry around potential good news, I sometimes dilute its intensity. It is, like I said, a coping mechanism, a trauma response to having inhabited a culture where various forms of bureaucracy conspire to make life exceedingly difficult.

Nothing ever comes easily in India, unless you are able to pay the right people. I think back to my recent struggles with trying to procure my missing birth certificate from Kuwaiti and Indian authorities - a year-long process that drained me of emotional and financial resources, all so that I could make my application for citizenship in Italy. I think back to 2019, when I wanted to get married in a court in Delhi and the website on which one had to register simply refused to work, and when it finally did and we were in the system, we were asked for ten thousand documents. There's another instance, when I was skimmed of some Rs 35,000 - pretty much all the money I had in my bank account back in April 2019 - during a trip to Vienna and my bank made me jump through hoops for months until they could verify my claim and return me the money.

Anything marginally joyous has been laced with a stream of difficulties, so that by the time you actually get what you had working towards, your sense of relief is tempered by the cynicism of disbelief, thanks to all the strings that came attached to your happiness. You have, by then, lived through so much despair, so much fragility, you feel almost grateful to every sadistic force that had a hand in ending your misery and facilitating your aspiration.

When you contend with such a state of disbelief for most of your life, you do feel robbed of joy. You find you have to concoct other ways of administering to the happiness that sits shyly inside your soul, like a seed that's too afraid to sprout. Disbelief becomes a state of being, a mentality. You share the potential good news with someone, but with the caveat that they dare not repeat it to someone else, lest it be jinxed. Superstition becomes a normal part of your being. You begin to harbour secrets even from your own conscious mind. And you wonder if there is any way you will ever heal from this.

I'm currently nursing a sense of disbelief around the ceasefire agreement finally arrived at between Israel and Hamas. Because there is no guarantee it will be maintained, not to mention the deep suspicion around why this present moment of time and fear about who has had the biggest hand to play, or what deals might have been struck. I want to feel unadulterated joy on learning about this agreement that one has been praying for, for months, but instead, the sensation of grief, coupled with disbelief, continues to linger.

On the more personal front, two days ago, I finally finished transcribing my second book, which has been entirely handwritten in ink and was, until now, nestled within a little carton, each chapter held together by U-pins. Is it really done? Am I emotionally ready for it to be a past tense thing, a rendered manuscript that can be pitched to editors? Unlike many of my peers, I seem to take at least a decade or so to write one book, which is a huge contrast from my otherwise prolific output. Writing a book seems to be, for me, a deeply embodied experience. And this next book, which I call Milking Time, is literally the consequence of bodily and textual secretions. Each word has been measured against the time I didn't have, the time I had to make for myself. Instead of feeling unbridled delight at my achievement, I feel disbelief. I wish it were otherwise.

I wonder if there will ever come a moment in time when the sensation of dread is erased from my being. I wasn't prepared for the empty nest feeling after I had transcribed the book's postscript. What now? What next? Another ten years until the next? I have watched with unmistakable envy as other writer friends have released several books in the same time span. I had been craving the feeling of holding and cradling my next literary output - a feeling that is, contrary to popular perception, totally different from birthing a baby. Now that I think of it, perhaps that instant when our son was born was the only moment in my life when I felt my soul unapologetically gleaming; basking in joy that felt uncontainable.

Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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