The law and mental illness

I recently attended a workshop on rights for the mentally ill organized by Bapu trust and gained a refreshingly unique (and much needed) human rights perspective to mental health which should have been at the core of my involvement with patients. It served as quite an eye opener about the subtleties of power play in psychiatric care that resulted in human rights violation; I plan to address these in a future post. More importantly, I came to know that India has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and this convention shall come in effect in India from May 14th, 2008. I recommend that you go through the CRPD here. The CRPD is unique as it takes the person affected by the disability as the pivotal person whose opinions matter over and above the opinions of the professional treating the affected person. While people affected with disability cannot move court under the CRPD, it can be used to humanize care and better mental health facilities. So here's to the hope of a better tomorrow!

Skeptical alternatives

Alternative approaches to psychiatric conceptualization of mental health have often been regarded with suspicion. And rightly so, many might say. After all, do they not take our tangible problems of mental health and expand them to intangibles like spirituality, one-ness with the universe and what have you? Karma, nirvana, etc., etc., and the whole baggage associated with it, as Puzli has written. There are such diverse views towards mental health, that sometimes you really do wonder what is it about psychiatry that makes it the unanimous king? Is the dominance of psychiatry in the field of mental health self-assumed? This self-proclaimed dominance may be partly explained because psychiatry provides you with an impersonal explanation of your problems (read genes and neurochemistry), sieves them to the resin of tangibility, and serves up the solution, all ready! So obviously, until alternative mediums of mental health do not demonstrate their efficacy like psychiatry has, and do not offer a concrete solution to fuzzy problems, these alternatives will be regarded by many a skeptic as nothing more than the latest fashion statement. But though scientific proof is extremely desirable, its it always necessary to effect a cure? My next post about placebo effects will attempt to answer this question.

Until such alternative approaches come about to account for the multi facets of human nature, I continue to rely with discontent on my psychiatric blinders ....

Karma

Another set of exams over. A lot of stress and extreme, prolonged depression, and being affected to the extent of not brushing my teeth, leave aside the non-existent bathing, had made me just lie down on the bed the whole day, and it has been only the constant pushing and effort on SoaringHeights part that I have been able to do well in the exams.

What is it that makes me depressed? My friend has been asking me that, and always got a reply from me that it's the chemicals in the brain. He refuses to believe. He has been practicing Nichiren Daishonin's buddhism, the Lotus Sutra, for some time, in which I had also been introduced some years ago. He came yesterday to talk about it. He talked about the basis of buddhism, Karma, how life is all about cause and effect, pure consequence. I listened patiently, albeit in slight amusement, but with respect for his views. He explained how we bring our baggage of negative karmas or bad deeds with us, and how we have to redeem them to get rid of them. This, he explained, cannot be done by trying to run away from it. You cannot get "rid" of problems by choosing 'flight' all the time. You have to choose 'fight'. However may you fare, it will be tough and may not be what you really long for, but the practice of buddhism will help make this process simpler for you. He talked about how there are negative forces that prevent you from performing well. This may be fear, anxiety, anger, greed....You have to work all the time to make sure that you keep on gaining positive deeds, as life is a process, and hence dynamic. It keeps on changing, your interactions with people and objects will keep on changing. You have to keep on making sure you don't accumulate negative karma! I shared with my friend that I do get anxious as I feel I cannot face my things in life, and I keep running away, postponing studying for exams, till it comes back with increased intensity. This fear holds me back. That is the negative force that holds me back. As my dad says, "Everybody has to live, eat and drink, it's up to you how tough you make it on yourself".

SoaringHeights has had a problem of putting off discussing things out as it seems futile to do so. Things accumulate, ending with her getting upset, angry, and irritated on others. I told her how she should clarify things with her peers as they come. If something goes wrong later, if someone accuses her, if someone talks rudely with her, she would know that she tried her best, she would feel bad but wouldn't lose her temper since she knows she had given it her best.

I'd been pretty rude with SoaringHeights. I told her that I feel I can't talk to people as they would be angry with me! It wouldn't seem surprising when people couldn't comprehend my accusing paranoid delusions. But now I'm fine. Also, I feel that people know what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, so I don't need to talk. That's a remnant from my paranoid and delusional past, of knowing that people can understand my actions and reactions. They know what I'm thinking as they can look in my mind. I've to therefore, protect myself from my enemies, be careful to speak around people. Interesting, that it silently remains after such a long time...