They Called Us Exceptional And Other Lies That Raised Us By Prachi Gupta
They Called Us Exceptional and Other Lies That Raised Us by Prachi Gupta is a raw and riveting memoir of Gupta family’s struggle with many unresolved issues including untreated mental illness hidden for decades in the garb of patriarchy and resultant normalized practices like emotional and verbal abuse, gaslighting and manipulative behavior.
“Papa had a wartime personality…the problem of that kind of a personality was that when everything was peaceful, one had to create wars to feel useful or important.
I asked Papa why he yelled so much, and he said “because that’s the only way I’ve found people will listen to me.”
His screaming and insults were so commonplace that I can’t remember many incidents with any specificity-what he said, what triggered him or how exactly you responded.
But abuse is so often perpetuated under the banner of goodness, disguised in the language of benevolence.”
Outward Appearances
On the outset, the Gupta family is an embodiment of the American dream: a surgeon father and a homemaker mother who raised two high achieving children. The family toggles between the cultural and social practices of the Indian American community and Pennsylvania’s white suburbia.
I am sure many highly educated South Asian professionals that immigrated to the US and raised families in American suburbs can relate to the varied described experiences that revolve around academic and career ambitions and achievements as bedrocks of Indian diaspora life in the US.
In the words of Gupta, “we had perfected the delicate alchemy of culture, family and work that resulted in happiness and success in America.
In our house, everyone fulfilled a duty: papa provided, you nurtured, Yush and I achieved. These jobs defined our identities.”
Beyond Optics of Success
But the book is not about the optics of the much publicized success of the Indian American diaspora in the US.
Gupta’s hard-hitting memoir is about the pain and price of drinking the kool aid of the model minority myth and her challenge to the natural order of her patriarchal family.
“To challenge the powerful binaries about success, identity and culture that defined my life.”
Gupta is a keen and sensitive observer and an honest writer who has dug deep into her haphazard memories and notes to bring out a work that is unvarnished and deeply emotional.
“I was just another product of inherited trauma, unresolved grief and reactive survival mechanisms.”
Gupta addresses her mother throughout the book acknowledging that the two are in rift because they live on opposite sides of the same story clinging to their own interpretations of their lived experiences.
“In my mind, when one adult yelled,the other was supposed to yell back. There was a primal, animalistic equality to sparring. But in our house, watching you and papa fight was like watching a war plane bomb a village. And maybe that’s why rather than being mad at him, for a long time I was mad at you. I wanted you to rise up against him, hoping that if you did, the violence would feel less brutally unfair.”
Toggling Identities
Gupta has woven a deeply vulnerable personal narrative with history, postcolonial theory and research on mental health to bring out her slow realization and acceptance of her reality.
“I yearned for freedom that I associated with whiteness. The stress of navigating life with two different identities. I didn't want to make myself small to appease papa anymore. I could no longer maintain the facade of existing in two ways.”
Gupta breaks the myth that Asian Americans have perfected the dream of middle class life in the US-raising hardworking and high achieving tight knit families immune to hurdles and hardships of life and living.
Gupta walks the tightrope of not promoting the strict dad/tiger parent stereotype of South Asian men in the US that can normalize mistreatment and dysfunction as a cultural or ethnic identity inevitability.
She also mentions about the toxic culture in the ultra competitive worlds of venture capitalism and tech entrepreneurship- some common career paths pursued by highly educated South Asian professionals in the US.
“Yush told me that these cultures valued blunt assholes. I believe more intensely than ever that rigid gender roles harm men too, and the effects can be deadly, writes Gupta.”
Hidden Cost of Perfection- Mental Illness, Suicide etc.
She slowly reveals the steep hidden cost of perfection including the suicide attempt of her high achieving brother and later his death from an avoidable cosmetic procedure, and artfully articulates the privately held traumas behind the veneer of a family’s American success story.
She includes the high toll of the pressures that more and more South Asian families have begun paying in the form of teenage suicides, mental health breakdowns, rising epidemic of loneliness etc.
“Most Indian kids I knew felt pressured to pursue engineering, medicine or law and most Indian kids I knew planned to carry out their parents wishes.
In a capitalist society, the measure of wellness isn’t a person’s actual health or happiness but how far one can rise or how much wealth one can accumulate.
Papa believed that he knew best and then took whatever actions he deemed necessary for the greater good, regardless of how they affected us.”
Gupta writes about her dad’s volatility and rage and her limited understanding about his actions. She alludes to borderline personality disorder as a cause and the havoc his unresolved issues and actions caused.
“Papa’s singular obsession with status, his anger and controlling nature and the conditionality of his relationships could be cast as the far end of the psychic space that Indian men are encouraged to occupy in America-as omniscient providers who lead their families to success, no matter what the cost. Yet, if taken too far, these extreme behaviors indicated a debilitating mental illness according to western psychiatry.”
Freedom From the Myth of Success
Via her journey of understanding, acknowledging and accepting, Gupta frees herself physically and emotionally from the myth of success and normalcy that had defined her, but her act of liberation also distances her from those she loved the most.
“I began to think of success not as a job title, wealth, prestige or social network but as the ability to be myself in the world.”
Gupta passionately speaks against the traditional notions of success that keep us disconnected from ourselves and our true callings.
“Creating art made me feel good and I liked it, but I couldn't quantify, intellectualize or defend why art kept my spirit alive. I feel sad that papa might not know what it means to connect with oneself or with someone else in this way.”
Gupta writes in detail about the role of therapy and a great therapist in her life and her broader understanding of human nature and path towards intimacy.
“I wanted to learn how to be at peace with what I could not control and find a way to be happy.
I now understand that unrestrained, non judgemental curiosity is the key to intimacy. But, like all learning, it began with surrender, with admitting that I do not truly know you.”
She implores us to think deeper to redefine success as a holistic outcome that is inclusive of a person’s mental and emotional health, rather than one governed by narrow criteria of only academic and material success.
“To learn to find value in myself, value that I had jockeyed to receive from others.”
Shalini Kathuria Narang is a software professional and a freelance journalist. She has reported for national and international newspapers, magazines and news sites. She is also a poet and her poems have been published in several anthologies including Starry Nights: Poetry of Diaspora in Silicon Valley and Pixie Dust and All Things Magical. She is a monthly contributor to Masticadores USA and has been published on Spillwords Press and San Antonio Press. She is originally from New Delhi and currently resides in the Bay Area, California.
