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A beautiful mind
JUL 29 -
What is it like to be mentally ill? No one knows the answer best than the people who are living with mental illness. In my three years of dedicated journalism and activism in mental health, the close association with people with mental illnesses has taught me many things about life, suffering, failure and social injustice. The stories of people with mental illnesses always tell me how social injustice and inequalities have been increasing, how the most vulnerable people are being forgotten and suppressed from our everyday social reality, and how the identities of the mentally ill are turning into non-human identities.
My colleague Nir Prakash Giri, who is associated with our self-help organisation of mentally ill people—Nepal Mental Health Foundation—is now 41 years old. Two years ago, he had sent me an e-mail, “Jagannath, I have been reading your articles in The Kathmandu Post. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1996. Since then, I have been on medication and am doing well.” A couple of weeks after receiving this e-mail, we met at a programme. After that he became a key member of the foundation that I had initiated in 2008.
Nir Prakash was born in 1969 in New Baneshwor, Kathmandu. His late mother was a nurse at the Army Hospital and his father was a businessman. He enjoyed a privileged childhood. He completed his school and college education in Darjeeling. He returned to Nepal in 1993 as a fresh graduate with the dream of expanding his father’s construction equipment business in Kathmandu.
But before he could support his father’s business formally, he began feeling that there was something wrong in his mind. Mental uneasiness, restlessness, sleep deprivation and suicidal thoughts often led him into disorganised behaviour. His intellect, elite education and family privilege could not protect him from suffering from mental disorder.
However, his family noticed his problem in time and sought constant medical help for three years. During that time, his family consulted with half a dozen psychiatrists in Nepal and India. On and off, during 1995 and 1996, he was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Birendra Army Hospital for five months. Finally in 1996, he was diagnosed as being a schizophrenic.
I had asked him, “After being diagnosed as a schizophrenic, a severe mental illness, what did you think first?” He had replied, “I was not aware of what schizophrenia was. The doctor had told me that I would recover within two-three years of medication. I took it as a normal human fate. I consoled myself, accepted the illness, and continued to practice positive faith towards life and future.”
Nir Prakash added, “It’s never a pleasant experience to be a psychiatric patient and to be admitted in a psychiatric ward; but this is a reality of life for us who are living with mental illness. The illness has brought a lasting tragedy in my life. I am passing through time that is always cruel to me. Society has alienated me forever. My future has been scattered and my dream destroyed. Every night, when I go to bed after taking medication, I never know how the night will pass. I always wake up to see the next morning feeling lethargic.”
Many of his friends are now enjoying lucrative jobs, a financially secured future and a happy family. They are somebody in town. But Nir Prakash, even though intelligent and capable, is a nobody for society. He has been passing his alienated days without employment and a strong social network. Nir Prakash says, “Time is off for me. I cannot imagine a family, job and prosperous future.”
Is life an end case for Nir Prakash? It is hard for me to imagine the tragic end of this saint living with schizophrenia. In my two-year-long friendship, I have never noticed a single incident of violent behaviour in him. Pacifist by heart and peaceful in mind, how did he get schizophrenia? It is a wonder for me. If society is not willing to provide basic assistance for mentally ill people, mental illness can become an end case for all including this saintly Nir Prakash.
I am concerned about the living conditions and the psychological and social state of mentally ill people. The degree of social exclusion and injustice that mentally ill people face is intolerable. In the case of severe mental illnesses and full mentally disabling state, it may be hard for mentally ill people to undertake competitive jobs. However, I am sure that mentally ill people can do normal office work. We have to think seriously in creating employment opportunities for mentally ill people and their families who are facing economic hardship and have fallen in the poverty trap because of illness.
I appeal to business executives of this town, please initiate some employment schemes for people struggling with mental illness like Nir Prakash or family members of the severely mentally ill who are desperately looking for economic support to shed a little light in their broken life. One day, I hope to get another e-mail from Nir Prakash writing from his new office, “Jagannath, I am doing well at work.”
jagannathlc@gmail.com
Posted on: 2010-07-30 08:31
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