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.   

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-----!