AFRAID TO BE HAPPY.

Dear Itu,
This is the beginning of my book.

"Electric shock!?" asked Neha terrified.
"Dear God, please don't make me go through this,"she prayed. She was in unbearable pain and she couldn't take any more.
Dr.VSR Raman spoke reassuringly. He was a renowned psychiatrist.
"General anesthesia," he said, looking troubled.
Neha was relieved. She sank back against her chair and breathed freely. She wasn't very tall, five feet. The lines of fatigue and hopelessness were etched on her face. A pleasant but ordinary face, now unrecognizable.
She suffered from Manic Depression, commonly known as Bipolar Disorder. It can be caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain. The patient is ecstatic when the chemical is in excess and sinks into an acute meaningless depression when it is in deficit.
Neha was on the verge of suicide. She hated herself . She thought she deserved to die. No one in her family knew what to do with her. She had attempted suicide twice. People kill themselves sometimes to end their suffering from a constant low. Everybody was afraid for her, everybody being her family and friends.

ANXIETY.

As mentioned in my previous blogs I am a Manic Depressive. I take medication for the disease which is a mental illness. I used to get severely depressed before I was treated, but now the sickness is more or less under control. My depressions are neither as long or as intense as they used to be and they are mostly circumstantial.
But my husband had been very ill for the last one and a half years and that led to a lot of anxiety. I was afraid for his life and though I tried not to think of it, sometimes the thought would prevail upon my senses. It was a terrifying thought!
My husband did nothing to allay our fears. Instead he made them worse by talking continuously about his own death and the complications of his sickness. My son and I tried our best to encourage and reassure him but to no avail. When you are very sick you think of the worst. You are convinced that you would never get well.
This fear took its toll on me. I am in a state of anxiety now. Most probably. the tension of the last one year has caused an imbalance in the chemicals in my brain. I am so scared! "Of what?" you will ask me. Well, for the slightest reasons. I am afraid to cut vegetables lest I cut my finger! I am afraid to cook lest I burn my hand! I am afraid to get out of the house because I am afraid that I will not be able to find a clean washroom when I desperately need one. 
You will say that these are ridiculous fears. I know that! But I can't get rid of them!
The solution lies with my doctor. He has given me medication assuring me that I will get well. I am taking them and on some days I feel good. But there are still some days when I feel anxious for no reason at all. There is no logic to it. It is a sickness.
My husband thinks that I am acting, and I am only trying to avoid work. Difficult to convince him otherwise. Most mental patients have this disadvantage. People do not believe them. It is a thing that they learn to live with.
Another thing they learn to live with is hope. I am no different. I hope that I will get well soon. Meanwhile I keep praying.

AM I LIBERATED?

Much has been written on this topic, and it is an old topic now. Many women are liberated all around the globe, and many are on their way to being liberated. In India it is the urban population that is liberated. The rural population is still uneducated and very much male dominated.
Personally, I don't think I am a liberated woman. Though I live in a city and there are many career women all around me, I am economically dependent on my husband. I am well educated and I have a degree in Accountancy. I could have easily pursued a career. But I am also a Manic Depressive.
I was correctly diagnosed very late in my life, so my disease came in the way.
Though every commercial organization requires an accountant, and it is easy to get a job, I could only find work in small business enterprises. The bigger companies did not have any vacancy. So it was grueling work with very little pay. Moreover these places have no work culture. There is a lot of backbiting and unhealthy competition. I started suffering from depressions. That made the work twice as hard. Eventually I had to give up working.
But I could not just be a homemaker and take care of my son and husband. I had to do something else. I cleared an exam on creative writing in English. My results were very good and I started writing.
You may wonder how an accountant could turn into a novel writer. As an accountant I was a square peg in a round hole. I did not enjoy my work which made it difficult for me to do it. I had taken up accountancy thinking that it would be lucrative. Unfortunately it was not so.
I had a flair for writing but I had not taken this up, thinking that writing fiction would be risky. But I reverted to it when I found myself with nothing to do but be a good wife and mother.
I started enjoying my work. I have written two novels and a few short stories. But, and this is a big but, I have not yet started earning from my writing and I am still dependent on my husband. It is a big disadvantage as I have to make a lot of adjustments and compromises. I have to dance to my husband's tune. That is very frustrating.
So the question remains. Am I liberated? I am a modern woman with a modern upbringing. But I have no earnings of my own, which makes me feel shackled at times. So, what am I?