[Trigger Warning: This blog is a genuine confession about my mental health journey and it contains triggering words, which should be read only under a safe, stable, and secure mindset]
3:35 am, 10th July 2020. Numb, insomniac, helpless, hopeless, and unsecured. I wish I could label a few more feelings but it made me anxious to label the state of mind, only to deal with a few more demons inside my head. I did not have any strength to even breathe, to think, to label, or even to talk to anyone, at this hour. I have been home alone, for the last few months, during this period of the first COVID-19 lockdown.
I peeped at the full moon, yet the shining light appeared bleak to me. I was unable to understand what was happening to me; I felt that a storm was snatching me away to the abysm of hell, where I would be aesthetically judged, and stoned to death. Vague ideas fueling in my head and I am sweating, despite the AC in the room at 18 deg. cel. But I was feeling dead already inside, only waiting to be buried.
The buildings around me had their lights off, except the street light, defining the space of loneliness. I envied the pin-drop silence on the street since it was not privileged in my head. I used the Google search engine, to find multiple ‘ways’ to die without pain, but irritatingly the pop-up notifications on the mental health helpline pilled up. I was in the genre of many assumptions to seek help but I was not knowing how. It was 4:20 am, I dialed a few numbers, only to hear nothing. I pledged to not call again and continued searching for the ‘ways’.
I forced myself to sleep. The ache in my stomach, due to this state of mind, had burning plans for me. Staring at the wall, I found it nothing compared to the walls inside my head. My life was already a prison, I felt, and the trauma inside my head was the jailer. Bribing it with the abundance of anything would backfire at my attempt; the guilt; the regrets; the anger; the emotional pain appeared in front of me, congratulating me for the deeds, for the lifestyle; for the contradictions; for the suppression I did in my life.
7:30 am, the sunlight kissing me through the windows, for sure it is not a morning for me yet. I drank a glass of water and it tasted salty. I switched on my laptop to conduct the lecture and I was simply staring at the screen. The students asked me, passed remarks, and I was eager to speak but my mind did not allow it. I was hacked by my mind, switching off the laptop, to weep rigorously. Not a good weekend to start with, unexpectedly.
Drafted 8 pages of letter, explaining the reasons, the thoughts, the feelings, the concerns, and a few people responsible for facilitating my extreme step.
I did not eat for three days. I did not feel hungry, too. My body was getting thinner but I did not care either. The earth was gravitating as usual, but my body felt the voidness as if I were floating in space. I was staring at the clock, at the time, and every hour felt like one minute. Maybe the time zone was gradual to derive sadistic pleasure from the pain, I felt.
Self-mortification is what I unconsciously decided but an unexpected call from an old lady, a professor at Somaiya University, and a friend, who helped me analyze the data for my PhD (social sciences), changed the whole conversation I was having with myself and my life. Did not greet her, I simply wept heavily on the call. Around 15–20 minutes, I cried. She did not disconnect the call and I felt a little better.
“Is everything OK?” she asked benevolently and the tone of her voice was a rainfall on the desert
This simple question is what I could not easily answer, despite the profession of teaching. Maybe this is the question we, as a society, have not normalized. A dew of silence erupted and I could not find the alphabet to frame “I am not fine!” to the question. The question was a million-dollar for me. Even today, I find this question more important than any other question because we never know if this question can be a good intervener in someone’s life who is going through a storm. In the words of Heath Ledger, “Everyone you meet always asks if you have a career, are married, or own a house as if life was some kind of grocery list. But no one ever asks you if you are happy.”
She gave me regular calls to check on my state. I did not feel irritated at the number of calls, although the conversation did not last for more than 5 minutes. I was still not eating. Since intercity travel, in Mumbai, amid the first lockdown period, was heavily regulated. She arranged for a ‘chakra healing’. It was online and I was initially fascinated by the idea. The healing had to do more with forgiveness of one’s karma but it did not bring about major structural changes in my mental functions.
I politely expressed my rejection of this method. Without letting me pay, she helped me connect to a popular therapist in the town, with whom I shared the causes, my story, my household culture, and my mental state. She was already burdened with a lot of calls, I felt from her tone, so she simply shortened the conversation and prescribed me a few pills to overcome anxiety and they were costlier too. I followed the advice and it helped me to at least sleep well.
After 6 days, the pills inflamed my body, especially my stomach. I consulted the same therapist, informing her that I was discontinuing the pills. With time, I started enjoying my food, and bookshelves, journaling, and resorted to meditation practices, too. On 17 July 2020, I commenced a whatsapp group on mental health with 6 trusted friends to discuss our issues, our concerns, and our trauma, without judgments or schema, and altogether generated a ‘safe space’ between us, attending the group calls on weekends. We felt better and we grew to 150 dedicated members hitherto. If you are willing to join our chapter or community on whatsapp, feel free to mail me at jblesav@gmail.com
Before my borderline issues, I used to nurture my nature too and always assumed “I am alright!” However, the healing process is not linear. I realized this lesson. Of course, it is sad to observe that we carry a lot of stigmatic conventions about depression or mental health issues and we are not willing to smash the shackles. Amid the brouhaha of modernity, in this rat race, we hardly interact about what we feel, what we think, or what we carry. With loads of information and communication uncontrollably shelling around, we are hardly programmed to pause and reflect. In schools, in offices, or in social gatherings, texts and discourses on mental health are gravely missing and it is not a healthy sign to ignore the results of the choices our culture is making today.
Out of 365 days, we may globally commemorate 10th October as “Mental Health Day” but we have yet to socialize the importance of mental health. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Mental health is a basic human right. And, it is crucial to personal, community, and socio-economic development. Mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.
The topic is still deemed as a taboo, a stigma, and the ones who express their depression or anxiety state are judged as “mad” or “psycho”. In India, not more than 10% of the total population (135 crore) can afford mental health assistance. When the annual health expenditure of India’s GDP is 1.15%, despite the staggering rate of suicide rates in the world, Indians are eligible for .33 paisa (less than one dollar) in the space of mental health assistance. The amount spent on mental health assistance is comparable with what Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani makes in just 3 hours or a day’s expense of a trip abroad by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India is home to an estimated 56 million people suffering from depression and 38 million more from anxiety disorders, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2015–16. To add woes, in this lockdown period since March 2020, there has been an increment of 20% sufferers (other than the cases of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and suicidal rates) but the predicament has always persisted before the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to the National Mental Health Survey (2016), 83% of people suffering from mental health problems in India did not have access to adequate mental health treatment. The same year, India had three psychiatrists for every million people and even fewer psychologists, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). India currently has 9000 psychiatrists, 2000 psychiatric nurses, 1000 clinical psychologists, and 1000 psychiatric social workers. The country would need an additional 30,000 psychiatrists, 37,000 psychiatric nurses, 38,000 psychiatric social workers, and 38,000 clinical psychologists.
According to a study published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, it will take 42 years to meet the requirement for psychiatrists, 74 years for psychiatric nurses, 76 years for psychiatric social workers, and 76 years for clinical psychologists, to provide care for the total population. The same goes for hospital beds as well.
Today, and every year, I celebrate “10th July” as my mental health day. This date is important for my experiences, for my journey, for my battle, which I have constructively channelized to freely help people around me, guiding them about therapies, journaling, and meditation, letting them determine with valour and courage to say ‘No’ without owing explanation or guilt, suggesting them the self-help books to read, and guiding them to balance work-life spaces and boundaries. I am not fully healed, as you may assume by now, but healing is not a destination. It is a perspective, it is a process, it is a panacea.
Hugs!
