The Girls Are Gagged: Dysfunction is pretty — for me at least
Content warning: This article contains references to mental illness.
Every few days (when I feel like bathing) I sit in the bathtub and stare at the water as I pluck out the strands of hair that need to go. As I run my fingers through my curls, my mind wanders. On special days I might feel thankful to the strands for serving my head, on shitty ones I might resent them for leaving, but mostly I just dissociate as the water glares at me and I glare back.
Before bed I hop on my counter and take a peek at my local blackheads. It is an incredible form of dopamine — a business that I’ve managed to loop many of my friends into. I locate them, they pop em’ — it’s the pinnacle of friendship. Together, we address questions of access.
There is also a huge learning curve — of course. I usually have to urge them to be a little more assertive and dig deeper. My blackheads are as strong as God and this sure as hell ain’t my first rodeo.
But seriously, now that I am home in suburban Texas for the holidays, glued to my couch, I am proud to be tapping into every single dysfunctional version of myself. I’m popping in for a quick chat, accepting free samples and providing only slightly filtered life updates to past Arjuns. Like Arjun who was extraordinarily obsessed with kitchen and pantry organization (age 10) and my slightly unhinged student body president era (age 17). I’ll never forget the visceral panic that struck through my friend Valentina and I’s veins as we realized MHS Student Council had forgotten the god-damn Chick-fil-A sauce for senior sunset. A mob of hungry Texans approached as we sank in despair.
As I experience a taste of introspection reflecting back on all the various Arjuns that formed in this house, I don’t want to become too entrenched in reality. Not to fear, I’ve found the perfect solution: consuming hordes of questionable content, fueling the disassociation.
From “The White Lotus” to “Dance Moms” compilations, let’s just say it’s been more white people than I’ve anticipated. I’ve also watched Mindy Kaling’s new show, “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” which perplexes me as it normalizes porn, but then again, porn is everywhere. A hard reality to grapple with, but a real one – as reality often is.
Speaking of real, I’m also battling the realest of battles: the urge to eat a Sonic pretzel stick for lunch every day. Not to forget, the pretzel sticks have made my car awfully crummy, and to be honest — I don’t feel like cleaning it. After a certain number of cherry limeades, you kind of just want to sink into the maraschino cherry and become it.
When (if) I finally clean it, I’m excited about the dopamine rush as the vacuum inhales the gummy bears lost in the storm that is my car. However, I fear that it’s a ways away to get there; now that I’ve overexposed myself to just about every form of dopamine, my interest in standing up is more minimal than ever.
Most of all, it is an active challenge to share space with my family and remain friendly. The only way I can communicate with my business-bro-brother is by speaking in “Shark Tank” pitches which feels like speaking in tongues but 50 times worse. It’s not like the Scrub Daddy sponge runs through my veins every moment of the day. It’s not like I get aroused at the store when I see it.
My dad and I tend to part ways pretty quickly when we indulge in controversial, or even just civil, conversations. It usually ends with a reminder from him, that everything in the world is shit, so I might as well embrace capitalism and become a CS major. It seems he’s projecting his unfulfilled dreams, and while I can’t follow them for him, I can mourn my unfulfilled dreams alongside him.
In the chaos of all this dysfunction, I’m accepting the fact that there are dreams my inner child has left unfulfilled. As a kid, I dreamt about decorating the Christmas tree as a family, even though I, alone, had enough bat-shit energy about the decorations to sustain a whole small Mormon country. The color theme, the garlands, the centerpieces — Christmas felt like everything mattered, probably because I dreamt of being a part of a white, functional, loving family. Let’s just say the pieces of the puzzle didn’t quite fit.
Nonetheless, with the guidance of slightly unhinged white women on YouTube (thanks Rebecca Robeson), our non-religious family shared the love of Jesus. It was a beautiful touch to our atheist-Hindu household.
Unfortunately, this year, our home went undecorated because my inner child ran out of juice. Or rather, ordering myself Christmas gifts off the Urban Outfitters clearance section seemed far more alluring than my past wishes of hustling and bustlin’ to wrap everyone’s presents alone in my bedroom.
I forgive myself for no longer wanting to be the domestic glue of the family, and I empathize with women, as they are too often forced to perform domesticity. This shit is exhausting, fr.
I can’t stop thinking about Aubrey Plaza referring to the stroke she had as “kind of a freak thing,” and yet, I get it. I resonate with her wording, especially because I also feel like kind of a freak thing.
I want to remind the version of myself who somehow slithered my way into a world where things feel awfully real that my heart will always be where it belongs in the foggy midst of inescapable dysfunction.
I’m proud to no longer be performing Christianity or wishing to be a part of another family. I’m perfectly content dazing at my dad waking up my mom with a six-inch rat we’ve collected in our garage. Rumor on the street is that those rats are building a whole rat community and our home coordinates are the exact epicenter.
Other things I’d like to get off my chest at this time: I lost my retainer. Again. I’ve been thinking about my relationship with Martha Stewart lately. I know she has a conviction of conspiracy and she’s like a mega-capitalist but she was my hero as a child, and I was cute back then. What I liked about Martha was that she had an answer for everything, even if it was just buying her products. Slay queen! Take my mom’s money!
I keep thinking about how I want to meal prep but refuse to touch salmon. Recently, I touched chicken though, and she and I got really comfortable.
If I chicken out of making the salmon, I’m thinking I’ll still be nice to myself. After all, my recipe for success isn’t just Bella Hadid’s pasta recipe, it’s Bella Hadid’s pasta recipe with a sprinkle of self-love. And a boatload of parmesan.
Arjun Bhargava is a sophomore writing about differing identities and their role in our larger political & cultural landscape. Their column, “The Girls Are Gagged” runs every other Thursday.