It is not by locking up one’s neighbour that one convinces oneself of one’s own good sense.
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky in A Writer’s Diary
Radiologist R Keshav (name changed) was diagnosed with mental illness in 1983. After 27 years of treatment, he has shown remarkable improvement. Keshav, now aged 57, said that the support from his family and the acceptance of colleagues had helped him tide over the illness of his mind.
“I was severely depressed when I came back from a foreign assignment. I used to think there was nothing left for me in this world,” Keshav said. “Sometimes, I went without food for 20 days at a stretch, and did not drink water for four days. It had been a difficult time for my family.
“The community of doctors is a close-knit one, and my illness was no secret. I was lucky to have been accepted the way I was. A senior doctor I worked with never said he would throw me out of my job. For he knew I was good at it. This made the greatest difference to me.”
Initially, Keshav was treated for schizophrenia. It was only in 2008 that he came to know that his ailment was bi-polar disorder, not schizophrenia. A person suffering from this disorder experiences extreme joy or extreme sorrow owing to a neuro-chemical
imbalance.
“Just like high blood pressure, my condition used to worsen without medication. But it became alright within five to seven minutes after me taking my pills,” Keshav said. “Mental illness does not turn humans into devils. If spared the harshness and ridicule, they recover much faster.”
What the shrink says...
Hundreds of mentally ill persons continue fight their battle against social exclusion and discrimination.
Psychiatrist Harish Shetty said, “Almost none of my patients who have overcome mental illness have got back their jobs. Our society has compassion and sympathy for HIV-positive and cancer patients, but even a minor mental illness can lead to ridicule, discrimination, and exclusion from work place.”
Shetty said 8 to 12% of India’s population suffers from mental illness. “Just like there is excessive insulin in diabetics, there are excessive neuro-transmitters which cause mental illnesses. With medication they can be brought under control, and people can get back to normal life.”
He rued that people detected with mental illness have very little chance of getting married. “Marriage is more difficult for the mentally ill than it is for people with other deficiencies. It is worse for women with mental illnesses.”
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