Paripurnata.

Paripurnata means fulfillment. It is the name of the charitable rehab center that I work for. It is a half way home for mentally diseased patients. The patients are treated free of any cost and are even provided with medicines, once their disease is under control. These medicines are also given free of cost and the patient can come and collect them for a lifetime if needed.
It is the brainchild of a doctor named Joyce Shiromani. She built this center to fulfill a dream of doing something for the poverty stricken. The center is run on government grants. It only admits female patients.
The poor, mentally diseased women are one of the most unfortunate members of society. They are born to illiterate parents who are ignorant about mental diseases. Their illogical behavior makes them the brunt of ill treatment and abuse. They are considered to be 'mad', and since the family may not know any better, they are taken to quacks for the treatment of their 'lunacy'. Naturally the witch doctor is not able to cure them. The patient has to endure mental and physical torture as the parents may think that a good beating would straighten everything out!
Rarely are they taken to a qualified doctor who can make a correct diagnosis. Even if he does and sends them to a psychiatrist, the fees are prohibitive. Either the patient languishes in his agony for the rest of her life, or, unable to handle her unreasonable behavior any longer,her family drives her out of her home.
Once she is thrown out, the patient wanders around the streets, lost and broken. The police pick her up, and either sends her to jail or to a mental asylum. The patient might languish in jail for years or be trapped in a mental asylum with abysmal conditions.
Paripurnata rescues such patients and give them a safe haven where they can survive in peace till their disease is under control. The center is clean and healthy and the patients are made to learn various skills which would make them a valuable member of society. In the serene atmosphere of the center the patient is able to relax, rest and recuperate.
Even if they have been thrown out of their homes, they are taken back, once the disease is under control. The management of the center convinces the family that she is well and able to live a normal life. Sometimes it takes a lot of persuasion. But generally their is a happy ending.

DOCTORS.

I have come across doctors of all kinds. Some are good and some are bad. The good doctors can save you. The bad ones can kill you.

I have a Bipolar Disorder. Consequently I have had to visit doctors from my teenage years. They came in all shapes and sizes. Some were male and some female. My first doctors were general physicians. They dismissed my illness as examination fear. I was giving my school final exams when I had my first attack. One of them even said I just had a very bad case of worms!

I was shunted from one doctor to the other. They did their best I guess. But even the psychiatrist misdiagnosed my illness. He said it was an ordinary case of anxiety.

Then came the doctor who thought he could make a lot of money out of me. He couldn't diagnose me correctly either. When I asked him what was wrong with me, he gave me a string of highly technical and incomprehensible words. I could understand nothing. He took a sizable fee from me at every session and tried to prolong the treatment as long as he could. I stopped going to him after sometime.

I was correctly diagnosed after my son was born. I asked the doctor how he could be so sure that I had a Bipolar Disorder. He said his expertise, experience and my case history showed that I was Bipolar. But the good doctor was furious that I had questioned him. He conveyed this to my husband who was extremely annoyed with me because I had dared to open my mouth.    

The next psychiatrist I went to was quite good but he panicked when I went high. There are two sides to my illness. I can become very badly depressed or go into a state of ecstasy. He gave me medication to bring me back to normal. Instead I plunged into depression. It took me a long time to come out of it.

At last I met a doctor who not only diagnosed me correctly but also cured me. By that time I was fifty years old! I have a very good doctor now who not only medicates me but councils me. I am really very fortunate. But this doctor practices in a different city, so I am forced to go to another psychiatrist. She is a very beautiful woman but she gave me medicines that made me exrtremely fat.I am trying to lose all that weight now.  

I am generally very fond of my doctors and I get along well with them. They are mostly good people but prone to human errors. When they go wrong the patient is in trouble. Still by and large, I would say that I am rather grateful to them

AVERAGE LOOKING.

How important is it to be beautiful? When I was a child, my parents told me that it was not very important. It was more important to be good.
As I grew up and in school, from the ninth standard on wards, it suddenly became very important. My school friends made me feel very ordinary. I was not bad looking. I was very fair and that is like winning half the battle in India. But I was short and plump. I had regular features but had to wear a pair of hideous black rimmed spectacles, which robbed me of any beauty that I had.
My school friends would be rapturous over the beauty of one girl in the class who was tall and had blue eyes. Light eyes were considered to be the heights of beauty. And since very few Indian girls have light eyes, she was the only beauty in my class.
How I longed to be beautiful like her! I was good in my studies, but somehow that paled in front of such good looks. I had nothing but my academics to fall back on. I was not rich. I developed an inferiority complex.
The very reason one goes to school, was given little importance. The girls won huge cups for sports. A beauty contest was held and the girl who won the show also came back holding a big trophy. I was given a small silver band pinned onto my blouse. It could hardly be seen.
In college too the beautiful girls had all the fun. All the boys would be chasing them. The few boys who looked at me were not very appealing. So my complex went from bad to worse.
Luckily, I took up a professional course, and I moved around in a sari. People started taking notice of me, which gave me some confidence.
After this, it was time for marriage. Once again my looks took on primary importance. Arranged marriages give a lot of importance to beauty. People assured me that since I was not that good looking I shouldn't be too fussy. I chose a very ordinary man who was not as educated as i was.
I had an unhappy marriage but that's another story.
Beautiful women get married to famous men. I have yet to see someone famous marrying an ordinary looking woman. So beauty is important. And though it is important to be good, average looking is not good enough.   
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MY FAMILY--MY SUPPORT SYSTEM.

I had a small family, comprising of my father, mother, sister and grandparents. Like everyone else, I have had my share of traumas. I am a patient of Manic Depression. Consequently I used to fall into acute depressions. People with mental illness require a very strong support system. I had one in my family.
Initially it was my father and mother who supported me. My sister was younger to me by five years. She was too small.
As I lay awake in the nights, afraid and helpless, my father would hold me till morning. It was not as if he was not tired. He had had a busy day at the office which left him exhausted. Still he never gave up on me. He would comfort and encourage me throughout my sickness. Without him I would have been lost.
 My mother was also a staunch supporter. She did get irritated at times, but mostly she would be the one to take me to the doctor.
"You are one in a lac, I have such faith in you. Why are you behaving like this?" she would inquire bewildered. That  was my first attack of depression, and no one knew what was going on.   They could have treated me with contempt, calling me weak and a coward. But they never did. They stood by my side steadfastly. Consequently I would get out of my illness quickly.
Then my marriage broke up. By this time my sister had grown up. She was married to a Dutch and had a little girl. I had very little income of my own. Though I was working I was getting a miserable salary. My father had retired. My sister and my brother in law came to my rescue. I had left my marriage with my son, so they had to take on the responsibility of both. It was not easy but they did it.
My brother in law adopted my son so that he would never feel the lack of a father. They stuck by me during my depressions as well. To support our family, which had become rather large comprising of my parents, sister, brother in law, niece, my son and me, my brother in law had to leave the country. But he didn't hesitate. Neither did he question why he was responsible for me and my son.
When I went to rehab for a stint of three years, my sister and my brother in law put me in one of the best rooms, for which they paid a lot.
It is because of my support system that I am still alive. Depression makes you suicidal. Without my family I would be dead. Not everybody is as lucky as I am. Mental patients are a nuisance and can be thrown out by their families. Then they are left to languish in mental hospitals. On the contrary I was treated with respect and compassion. I have my family to thank for that.

ATOM

I have a Beagle called Atom. He came to our house when he was three weeks old. The tiny dog won everybody's heart. He was so friendly that it was amazing. He had a wonderful temperament. He would wag his tail and lick everybody's face. If any guest came to our house, he would greet them joyfully. His tail would be invisible, he would wag it so hard. He would climb over their legs and stay there till someone patted his head. He would insist upon making friends with them.
Unlike us, he knows all the neighbors in our building. They love to play with him. He goes to their flats, sits on their sofas and is petted and fed with some tasty tidbits. When a stranger comes to our house and asks for directions, we tell him to ask for Atom's house. Atom is famous.
Atom is not very fond of the dog food that is served to him. He likes chicken. A lot of chicken is brought into our house, just for Atom. He also loves sweets. But he is not allowed to eat sweet, salty or oily food which he adores. He gets his share of tasty tidbits though. 
Because he loves people, we laugh at him.
"He will greet the thieves who come to our house. He is a hound, but does he see the difference between a friend and an enemy?" my husband asks laughingly. He does. If someone comes to our house late in the night, he barks out a warning, even if it is the delivery boy, delivering some food. We call him the welcoming committee.
Atom gets into his share of trouble. Once a safety pin got stuck in his throat. It was lying around. He sniffed at it and then put it in his mouth. He swallowed it by mistake. Everybody panicked. He was put under general anesthesia, and the pin was gently pulled out from his throat. He walked around a little shakily for a few days. Then he was well again, running around as before.
You have to take care of a dog as if he was a baby. Atom is well taken care of. His meds and injections are given to him regularly. He gets good food. He gets a bath from time to time which he hates. He even has a deodorant and oil to be massaged onto him. Besides being petted and cosseted he goes for three walks in a day. The neighbors comment about Atom.
"In our next life we want to be born as a dog in their house!"
Atom is a happy and healthy dog. As a result of this he is very good natured. He rarely barks. So much so that we thought he was dumb. But he is not. He just doesn't feel the need to make noise.  

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH CHANTING.

My sister taught me this philosophy. She said that chanting and praying would fulfill my wishes. Of course, no philosophy is as simple as all that. It requires utmost faith in this practice to bring me happiness.

I am not a person who is easily convinced. But I am always willing to try. So I started praying and chanting twice a day. Suddenly, i became lucky. I had written a book, which I had given for editing. It was taking forever, almost a year. I had just finished chanting when I got a message from the editor that the editing was finished. You may call this a coincidence, but it was definitely one of my main wishes. It got fulfilled.

Joyfully, I let my sister know about this. She warned me. Chanting was not some kind of magic. It didn't mean that all my wishes would come true. But if I was compassionate and helpful to other people, I would definitely be a happier person.

It is not a simple philosophy. It is a Buddhist teaching which might be difficult to follow at all times. It requires courage and wisdom. 

Compassion doesn't come easily either. If you resent somebody, you must consciously try to feel it for him or her. You must try to find a reason for their behavior. The reason might lie in their past which may not have been very happy.

To keep to the tenets of this philosophy may not be easy, but as you chant and pray these lines, you move towards harmony and happiness.

So I have taken to chanting every morning and evening. It gives me the support and optimism to go through the trials and tribulations in life. And my depression has come to an end at least for the time being.

TRANQUILIZERS.

Bipolar Disorder is a controllable disease. It is not curable. We have to take medication for the rest of  our lives. 

Working when the disease is not under control, and we are going through a bout of depression can be very challenging. We are under constant stress, that doesn't leave us for a minute. How do we cope? I was tempted to take a tranquilizer to ease the constant pressure. Not always did I get them easily. So I had to grit my teeth and carry on.

But if these pills were easily available, then I would take a high dose to get rid of the depression. I was medicating myself without the doctor's advice and this is dangerous. Once only did they help me to get rid of the depression. When I came out of the low, I weaned myself away from this drug. Things went back to normal.

But these tranquilizers, which the doctors prescribe for sleep in the night at the right dose do not always help you during the day. They just make you dopey which makes work difficult. Neither do they cure your depression. 

All I wanted to do when I got acutely depressed was to sleep. I would have been happy to sleep through my depression. But things don't work that way. If it is our karma to suffer, we suffer. The situation went from bad to worse and I  became suicidal. I left my job as I was unable to cope.

I came out of my depression with the right treatment. But since then I have taken tranquilizers with a great deal of caution . I take them as per the doctor's advice only. An overdose can be fatal.

REHAB.

I was about forty nine years old. I plunged into a very bad period of acute Depression. It went on for two years. By the end of it I was suicidal. My psychiatrist knew that I was in danger. I had attempted suicide several times. It was time for me to go to a rehab.
Though the rehab had more or less all the comforts of home, the first six months were hell. I was very ill, and I refused to fall in line with the schedule of the rehab. The residents had to do Yoga early in the morning. Then there were a series of workshops which acted as therapy for the patients. I refused to co operate. This got me into all sorts of trouble, which increased the depression.
But after six months I started  responding to the treatment. Slowly, I started coming out of the Depression. As soon as I realized that I was getting well, my behavior started changing. I started taking an active part in the activities. I started doing well in the workshops. It was like going to school all over again. I started recovering fast.
Once I was out of the woods, I started becoming well known in the rehab. All the patients came to know me and they were asked to follow my example. After two and a half years of acute pain, I was happy again.
I stayed in the rehab for three years. I had a relapse after two years but I came out of it fast. Maybe this is difficult to be believe but I actually enjoyed my stay. People have a very bad opinion about rehabs, but mine was a good one. They took care of me
After three years, when it was time for me to go home, I was actually a little sad. The rehab had become a familiar place and it had become my home. But I was well again and I was free. It was a time to rejoice.    

PROBLEM.

My son was five years old when my marriage broke up. I had to leave my husband's home and shift over to my parent's place. My sister and brother in law lived with my parents. Though I was working I earned very little. My family supported me during this difficult phase of my life.
I thought that my son was too young to react to the situation. That he would get over it quickly. After all young children were resilient. I may have been wrong.
My son had been very close to his father when the marriage came to an end. Maybe he missed him a lot. I had given my husband total freedom to visit his son whenever he liked and for however long he wished to. There had been no formal divorce. Only a separation. But somehow he got alienated from his son. He rarely visited him.
Meanwhile my brother in law adopted my son. I thought that since my son had found a paternal figure in his life, he would not be affected by the broken marriage. I was wrong.
From the age of eight, he got into wrong company. He started stealing, telling lies and cutting school. He was an extremely poor student. Though I tried to teach him, he easily got bored and lost his concentration. He just would not pay attention. He was intelligent but it was really difficult to teach him.
When he was thirteen years old, he failed his eighth standard exams. He had to repeat the class. I was very disappointed, since I had spent a lot of time and energy coaching him.
Then one day he came home with a letter from his school in his hand. The school had expelled him! He went to school in his school bus. He would get down near a cyber cafe and play games till school came to an end. Then he would climb back into the bus and come home as if nothing had happened. He had not attended school for a whole month! The school should have intimated us when he didn't turn up after a week. But most probably, they didn't want him because he had failed.
I sent him to a psychiatrist. I no longer knew how to deal with my son. I desperately needed some help. He was diagnosed with a Attention Deficit Disorder. The doctor said he would not be able to study farther. He would have to acquire some skill, like that of an electrician or a carpenter.
We were all shocked! Take him out of school?! Then my brother in law said,
"No son of mine will remain uneducated. He will continue schooling despite of what the doctor said."
So the hunt for a new school began. I was absent during this period of my son's life as i succumbed to a very bad attack of Depression. It took me two and a half years to recover and I had to be sent to a rehab for three years. I missed out on some of the most vital years of his life when he was going through his teenage years. He, like all teenagers, started rebelling. He had lost his father in his earlier years and now he had lost his mother as well. This may have had a profound effect in his life. And though my sister and brother in law did their best to look after him, he started doing everything wrong. He started sniffing glue. Then ha got hooked into Marijuana. He experimented with hard drugs like LSD.
After I came back from the rehab I was told that my brother in law and sister were facing some financial problems. I had to go back to my marriage. My son joined me after a few days because my brother in law was fed up with his bad behavior. My son was miserable to leave his former home. He rebelled even more. He got stoned with Marijuana and refused to go to school.
Now my son is twenty six years old. He does not work or study. He does nothing but play computer games the whole day long. He wants to become a grand master at these games but that is a gamble. He does nothing to earn his living. He is all right now since he has his father and mother to look after him. But I worry about his future.
I have only one solution to this problem. That he visits a psychiatrist again and gets rid of his disorder. Moreover he gets treated for his addiction of Marijuana. He is changing slowly. he is growing up and becoming aware of his responsibilities. I hope this treatment helps him to stand on his own feet. I can only hope.      

MEDICATION.

Medication is an effective treatment for mental illnesses. The disease may be caused by many factors, a chemical imbalance in the brain, hereditary, prevailing circumstances or the person's nature. Whatever be the reason, mental illness can be controlled.
One of the chief ways of controlling mental illness is by medications. These medicines not only bring an end to the disease but also prevent them. Of course, there is no guarantee that the disease will not occur again. Mental illness is like Malaria. Even if you get rid of it, it may happen again. Thus you have to keep up with your medications. It is a disease that is controllable, but not curable.
Before you do anything else, have your meds. This is an advice given by my doctor and it is very wise to do so. If you miss out on your medication you may have a relapse. Then you are back where you had started.
Many people believe that they are cured when there disease comes to an end. This is a terrible mistake. They stop taking their drugs and they relapse. And the agonizing process of controlling the illness starts all over again. 
But there is a big disadvantage. These meds have side effects. Sometimes severe side effects may cause a physical disability in the patient. When I took Lithium, after a few years my hands started trembling. These tremors were so acute that I could not lift a glass of water. The water would spill out each time I raised the glass to my lips. My doctor was very concerned. He put me on a drug that controlled my tremors. But that brought on depression. So much so that I told my doctor to discontinue the drug. I could bear the tremors, but I couldn't handle the depression any longer.
There are other side effects like constipation, weight gain and hair fall. They are all distressing.
But there is no alternative to medicines. You either bear the side effects or find ways of dealing with them. My advice is to consult the doctor.