The Never-Ending Story

I would consider your story heart-wrenching if I had thought that you were a victim of external forces beyond your control. You were not. You brought all that misery onto yourself willingly and now wallow in self-pity. So your parents were tough on you. Big deal. Many conservatives parents are. You let that waiter fondle you and did not tell anyone, especially your parents or uncle or brother, maybe because you liked it. If you sold your body for opium, it was your conscious decision; it was an economic trade and if the buyer and seller are happy with the transaction, as Milton Friedman would say, more power to them.

Hey, I`ve been stoned more times than I care to remember, with mixing and all that. That hasn`t stopped me from making a distinction between what`s `right` and what`s `wrong`, when to say when. It hasn`t stopped me from pursuing my dream of a balance between the spiritual and the material world, that of an inner peace and outer comfort. I had been on my own and have made all the decisions myself since I was seventeen in this free-for-all country, the USA. Nobody looked after me, or perhaps even cared much for me. I got kicked-out of a fourth-rate undergraduate college for not passing my courses; that didn`t stop me from getting a graduate degree from an Ivy League school. If I had screwed-up my life, which I didn`t, I`d have no right to blame the society, only myself. If one`s IQ falls somewhere between 90 and 110--I`m sure yours is higher than 110--then one should know the consequences of his/her actions.

This cold world keeps moving forward, oblivious to everything; as Steve Miller said in his song, ``The big wheel keeps spinnin` around``.

Now, the stories of the Muslim women--or any other women in fact--who are suffering in the hands of the Serbs make my heart bleed. Your story? Please.

The social elite in Pakistan face some really weird social problems. Families seem caught between eastern values and western charms.

In our culture intelligent women don`t find avenues to express themselves in contructive ways. Kaneez doesn`t need a therapy session, Pakistani society does.

When someone goes through a traumatic experience, one of the steps in the process of recovery and healing is the need to talk about the experience, repeatedly, to anyone who will sympathetically listen. Reading this piece makes me feel like this woman needs to tell her story, over and over again, cathartically, sparing none of the details. Once she`s done this enough times, she`ll release the pain, anger, guilt, and other associated emotions - and might be able to move towards healing.

I am left wondering, however, if she is in a place where she really wants to stop doing drugs. I didn`t get a strong sense of why she wanted to stop. She says she stopped ``as abruptly as I started`` but her slide into drugs doesn`t seem abrupt - it seems like it had been going on for quite a while, starting with the baby bottles of absolut. But again, why did she stop doing drugs? Did she recognize that she was being destroyed? Did she give in to family and societal pressure? Was it all too much in the end? Did she get bored with it?

Kaneez, if I could speak to you, I would tell you that help is out there - don`t discredit the power of therapy and rehab programs - but I`m not really sure that you want the help. Nor do I feel you believe you deserve it. But you do. A woman as strong, self-aware as you, whose eyes are so wide open, can pull herself out of the morass. The story CAN have an ending - you`re just not there as yet.

That was probably the strongest article

I have ever read at chowk.

Your brevity is inspiring. I know how hard it is to look into oneself and explain to yourself and others, exactly what is going on.

The misery of an abused child is the heaviest burden to carry. I carry it, and so I know. What your father did to you is unforgiveable.

May God give you the strength to be a better person.

You have `life` to look forward to. Hope you get to embrace it with an open heart.

Keep coming back to chowk.

Dear Kaneez Rehman,
If thats your real name. Your revelation reads like poetry and I couldn`t stop reading. You speak brutally and honestly and sincerely, and I guess you may have realized that one of the many instinctive reactions to reading your piece is this need to mother you and tell you its going to be okay. Then I wonder, if you would react badly to that. Because it is already okay? You are right that Islam, factors, the emotional distance in our families wreaks havoc with our psyches. Your college experience speaks so truthfully and daringly to some of the college experiences that we all share .. to some extent. The only difference is that we are all dealing with these .. to different extents, in dark cervices of our minds. Or blocking them with whitewash and smiling pretty into cameras. Isolation reaches new heights in college abroad and sometimes its hard to cofront some of the madnesses..the madnesses that you lay out like poetry in this revealing essay. I`m sure there are people out there who relate. And i feel like I should tell you, my gut reaction also was to feel protective of you and tell you not to tell the world. But hell, why not? I doubt anyone, including your boyfriend, would leave you. best wishes.