SECRET.

"Don't tell anybody that you are a Bipolar patient. They will think you are mad."
This is what my psychiatrist told me when I lost my job. I had to tell my boss that I had a Bipolar Disorder. He had seen me walking around restlessly during the office hours. He fired me the next day. In spite of my restlessness, I had worked diligently and hard. My boss had liked me. But one word about my mental illness and he threw me out. He didn't even bother to think whether I was capable or not.
Having a Bipolar Disorder has to be kept as a closely guarded secret. Forget about your workplace, even otherwise it has to be a secret. If you tell somebody that you have a mental illness, people feel threatened. They think you might get violent or do something crazy which will put them in a spot. Mental Illness, even in this day and age is considered a taboo.
Do not tell your boyfriend that you have a mental disease. However sanely you have behaved in the past, it doesn't matter.. He will turn tail and run. I realize of course that if you have the intention of marrying him, you have to tell him the truth. and here's where the danger lies. Your disorder may be  well under control, you may be behaving normally so that he has no inkling of your disease, but that doesn't matter. With the exception of a few men who understand and love you. you will be rejected.
Don't talk about it. But a relative or a friend who stays over the night with you will be curious if they see you taking the medications in front of them. So hide the medicines as well. 
It is because of this that mental patients live in a state of denial. They will not even accept that they are ill. Even if they are behaving abnormally or are violent, they pass it off as aggravating circumstances. They might be seeing or hearing things that do not exist, bit they still refuse to accept their disease. They might go through years of suffering without any treatment.
Not only is the patient supposed to keep his affliction a secret, his family has to keep quiet as well. As if it is a thing to be ashamed of, a skeleton in the cupboard!
So don't mention it to anybody, don't say a word. It is a secret. Shhhhh-----!

Tremors.

I have Bipolar Disorder. I have to take medication for it. Unfortunately all these medications have side effects. My hands start trembling. So much so, that I can't lift a glassful of water without spilling half of it. It was time to pay a visit to my doctor.
The doctor was worried. The medicine was causing a serious physical disability. He didn't want to experiment on me. So he gave me a medicine to stop my tremors. The good news is that the medicine worked. The trembling stopped. I was able to write out a check. I was able to put on my eye make up.
But the med got me depressed all over again. I started crying for the slightest reasons. I was on Lithium which had caused the tremors, but had controlled my depression. Now that Lithium was discontinued, I went back to depression. It was neither as intense nor as longstanding as before, but it was there.
 The doctor had no alternative but ti prescribe an anti depressant. It got me out of my sadness, but made me 8 kgs heavier. So it was discontinued after some time but I am back into depression. I can neither lose weight nor get rid of my depression. My doctor has reassured me that the depression is temporary. It will settle down after sometime. I dearly hope so.

OUT CASTE.

Anybody with a mental illness has a challenge to deal with. For the poor and the illiterate this is an insurmountable challenge. Many times he and his surrounding family have no idea what in the hell is wrong. If he is behaving strangely,seeing or hearing things which are not there, has plunged into depression for no reason at all or seems ecstatic, for no reason at all, they are puzzled. Mental diseases have many other odd symptoms. On the whole a patient can make a terrible nuisance of himself.
In the initial stages everybody might try to help. The odd behavior may prompt his family to look for a doctor. The first doctor is generally a general physician. He may prescribe some medicines and give some counselling to the patient. Even if the patient is in need of psychiatric intervention, he may not encourage a visit to a psychiatrist or even a psychologist. Many people are convinced that psychiatrists give medicines that are too strong and which leave the patients numb and  doped.
So what's the solution. Leave the patient alone. He will recover in time.
When he doesn't, then the uneducated or the illiterate start finding other methods. They go to a witch doctor, convinced that the patient is possessed. The witch doctor tries to exorcise the demon and gets nowhere.. The poor can no longer support such a person. He is thrown out of the house.
Where does he go? He wonders around the streets, alone and forsaken. Soon the police are informed about him. They bundle him up and send him to a mental hospital. The living conditions in the hospital for the free patients are abysmal. The toilets are filthy, their beds full of lice and bed bugs and there are rats running around. The food is inedible
Sometimes the police pack the patients up in jail. Here they languish for years. Needless to say that these solutions fail to cure the patient. They are truly out caste.
These horror stories affect us but most of us can do nothing about them. These patients live in hell for no fault of theirs. Nobody wants them.
And yet there can be hope. There are rehab centers that helps these patients. They go regularly to such mental hospitals and even jails where they pick up the patients and brings them to their half way homes. Here the patients are treated for their illness free of cost. When they recover, they are sent back home. Even after they leave, medicines are provided to them free of cost.
India needs more of such rehab centers. If we recognize the mentally ill poor patient as a person in dire straits needing immediate attention, then we can make a difference. It is necessary for charitable organizations and NGOs to make this a priority.
Perhaps then these horror stories will have happy endings. 

MAD

"MAD" is a cruel and derogatory term, used by the layman to define a person with a Mental Disease. "Crazy, loony, bats in the belfry", are also very defaming and inhuman. Yet they are used time and again. I have a Bipolar Disorder. I have had my share of this adjective.
It is not my fault that my mind plays tricks on me. I have gone through long periods of acute and meaningless depression. There was no reason for it. Yet I felt as if my world had come to an end. I thought that I would be unable to even raise my arm. I attempted suicide many times because I hated myself. One day i would be fine, the next day i would plunge into excruciating pain which i thought would last forever. 
It didn't, but I was left weak and trembling, convinced that I was feeble and a coward.
"I have no will power," I told my psychiatrist. I suffered from a terrible inferiority complex till I was diagnosed a Bipolar patient.
Even in this enlightened age, a mental disease, though controllable is taboo. People are afraid to talk about it. They would rather go through months and years of intense torture, rather than speak about it. What a shame?!
You can't find employment if you have a mental illness which has become public. You are told by your doctors, not to mention it in your workplace. If it becomes apparent, your employer will not think twice before firing you. You may have been doing a good job, but that is not even considered. At least it was not with me.
Tell me, will an employee get fired simply because he has high blood pressure or diabetes? No of course not. Then why this discrimination? A mentally afflicted person, may have his disease under control, but he would still be afraid and embarrassed to talk about it.
A mentally diseased person can be a nuisance. They can become violent or destructive. But the solution does not lie in denouncing them. It is a disease, and it can be treated. Rejection can only make it worse. Take a mental patient to a doctor for God's sake.
Don't condemn a person because he is stark raving mad in your opinion. Your opinion really really doesn't count.
   

ECT.

ECT, that stands for Electro Convulsive Therapy, is a form of treatment of Bipolar Disorder. I was aware of  the administration of electric shock for the treatment of mental diseases. But when my psychiatrist told me, after a long bout of acute depression, that I had to  have it, I was petrified. I thought that it was a cruel and barbaric procedure, which would hurt like hell. My family too was utterly shocked. My sister, who was the most vehement protester, went around trying to find out more about it.
She did. The procedure was done under General Anesthesia. The doctor, who spoke about this to my sister, laughed.
"You have seen all the wrong movies. Hindi films and Hollywood films like 'one flew over the cuckoo's nest,' show electric shock in a very horrendous style. But there is no strapping down of the patient, no shoving of pad in between his teeth and no writhing around in agony. The patient doesn't feel a thing."
Reassured, my family allowed the procedure to take place.
I arrived bright and early in the hospital the next day to take my first ECT. Though I knew that it would be painless, my heart was thumping very rapidly and painfully against my chest. I was summoned to the OT which had a narrow bed. The room smelt of spirit. I was asked to lie down on the bed and put out my wrist. The cold touch of spirit, a needle prick and I was fast asleep. It was a short  procedure. Mild shock waves of very low intensity was passed into my brain.
When I woke up, I was feeling dizzy and weak. I had a terrible taste in my mouth. My father was sitting beside me and smiling.
"Is it over?" I asked feebly.
"Yes," said my father, "but you have to eat something before you go home." He held out a small tiffin box of cheese sandwiches.
After an hour I was allowed to go home. ECT has no side effects except for some memory loss.

                                             

                                                      AFRAID TO BE HAPPY

                                                                                               

                                                            Chapter 1

"Electric Shock?! asked Neha terrified,"dear God please don't make me go through this."

She was in agony already and she couldn't take any more.

Dr. VSR Raman looked worried. He was a renowned psychiatrist.

"General anesthesia," he replied.  

Neha felt relieved. She sank back into her chair and breathed freely. She wasn't very tall, only 5 feet. The lines of fatigue and hopelessness were deep on her face. Ordinarily pleasant looking, now she was unrecognizable.
Neha suffered from Manic Depression, ordinarily known as a Bipolar Disorder. Manic Depression can be caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. If there is an excess, the patient becomes Manic i.e. excessively ecstatic. If there is a deficiency he sinks into a meaningless but acute depression.
Neha was on the verge of suicide. She hated herself.

MANIC DEPRESSION

I am a manic depressive. This is a mental disease. It is better known as a bipolar disorder. There are two extremes to it, mania and depression. When you are depressed, a continuous, meaningless feeling of despair grips you. It can go on for weeks, months and even years. By the end of it, the patient is in a suicidal mood. Many patients have committed suicide unable to bear the pain anymore. Others have attempted suicide.
Please don't get the wrong picture. This disease can be controlled. But people must know more about it. I have written about it in a book called 'AFRAID TO BE HAPPY'. I will soon be posting excerpts from this book.
Do not worry. This book is not a long, rambling medical book. It is a novel containing the  experiences of a very dear friend who is also a manic depressive. It is in the form of a story which I am sure you will laugh and cry with.
Please read the excerpts. I am a new writer but the novel is mostly true with a dash of imagination.