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Day 928

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Metamorphosis

When something like this happens, it changes who you are and how you live your life. Your alignment with the universe shifts and you transform into an avatar of your former self. There are some similarities but huge differences.

I can’t remember what I used to be like.

Large swathes of my mental canvas have been rendered blank. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism. Maybe it’s the accelerated ageing process. Maybe shock and grief have gobbled up millions of my grey cells. Maybe part of my brain has mulched into pulp.

Whole new plantations have made an appearance in this barren space. I feel like I am going mad about MAD – making a difference. Writing was a miniscule and secretive part of my life but now it claims a lot of territory. I used to spend a lot of time and energy on my job. Now it takes up only a small part of my time. My job used to be satisfying and pleasurable. Now it sits in the back-ground. I find fulfilment in writing, connecting with people and volunteering my time to raise awareness of mental health issues.

Keeping Saagar alive through sharing his story seems like the most meaningful thing to do. Repeating his story as many times as it takes, to change things that need to change is of paramount importance.

Living in gratitude is the only way to live.

Last week I wrote this article sitting at the dining table in my parent’s house with the intention to mark the Mental Health Awareness week. Thankfully Huffington post published it today.

Thirty months on:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/sangeeta-mahajan/thirty-months-on_b_16412078.html

 

Day 923

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The idea of this blog was conceived in a state of utter shock and numbness. All I knew was that no one should suffer alone. I didn’t want anyone to experience the pain that was in me.  All I wanted was to immortalise Saagar. I wanted to continue having him in my life on a daily basis. This blog was and is, my sacred time with my son. On some days it’s my life jacket. On others it’s a luminous shrine or a punch bag, a podium with a loud speaker or an art gallery, a story-telling exercise or a tear-soaked handkerchief, a rant or a vent.

Every week I hear back from people who have been touched by Saagar’s story.

Message from a Mum:

“I don’t know you my dear but I have to say your son is so beautiful and he is watching you from heavens and being happy that you are able to save so my kids by opening up …..virtual hugs from a mom who is dealing with the same disease your son fought i was able to hug my daughter today as i knew more what she is dealing with because of you rather than getting frustrated with her ……..thanks from the bottom of my heart for correcting me in dealing with this disease.”

Message from a lovely young lady:

“Hi S. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. I just wanted to say that when we met last summer and we had an emotional conversation about Saagar and life in general. Something definitely struck a chord with me. I’ve spent my whole life since I was a child, running away from my mental health issues. I had a complete breakdown shortly after seeing you. I’ve just been discharged from the Home Treatment team after a very difficult period. I’ve been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and am on the waiting list to receive the right therapy. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you because I think if I hadn’t had that conversation with you I wouldn’t have been able to open up to my family and ask for the help I desperately needed. I’ve been wanting to message you for a while but it’s taken me some time to accept that I have a mental disorder. I read your blog all the time  and it’s inspired me to write my own about my own thoughts and experiences. Thank you for the amazing work you are doing to raise mental health awareness. Sorry about the mammoth text. I hope you are well and your yoga retreat plans are going well. Love, Z. x”

(Z’s blog: http://notasimplemind.wordpress.com)

Thank you! We are together. Never alone.

 

 

 

Day 915

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A simple source of hot water in Delhi is the sun heating up supply pipes. Very eco-friendly.

Another simple yet highly un-eco-friendly source is an immersion rod. I used it today after about 3 decades. It was like revisiting my university days. The plastic bucket and the broad clip reminded me of the 2 parallel burn marks on the edge of the light blue bucket in college. The soft hissing sound of the frantic molecules was all too familiar. Seeing the little eddies set off by the heat waves made me smile. All those times when I had completely forgotten about the water and got distracted only to come back to the horror of half a bucket or less of absolutely boiling hot water! Adding just the right amount of cold water was crucial especially at the peak of winters.

The geyser with a red and a green light is another old friend. My brother lives with his family in a rented house in a little village in India. The landlord and his wife live in part of the house with a separate entrance.  For some reason, the guest-room (my room) bathroom geyser is shared with the land-lord. The switch happens to be in their house.  This is never a problem as most people are around most of the time. We forgot to ask them to switch it on in time, hence the immersion rod.

This kind of arrangement between neighbours, land-lords and tenants is normal here. It’s no problem. It’s perfectly workable. There is no desire to change it. I suppose things like this make it a close community. It would be quite unthinkable in more ‘advanced’ settings.

Fact: 4 days is the time it took for our next-door neighbour to find out that Saagar had passed away.

Ref:
Dying alone:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/27/anyone-can-die-alone-isolated-age-uk-loneliest-country

Britain, loneliness capital of Europe:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/britain-has-been-voted-the-loneliness-capital-of-europe-so-how-did-we-become-so-isolated-9566617.html

Day 914

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Ding-dong – the laundryman with the ironing.
Ding-dong – the ever-smiling, podgy little cleaning lady.
Ding-dong – the air-con repair man with a helmet.
Ding-dong – the Fed-ex man with a delivery for the neighbours.
Ding-dong – one of the workmen upstairs requesting a bottle of cold drinking water and so on …

The lull of rotating fan blades. The hazy, lazy sun. The hopeful hint of an on-coming shower. The microscopic layer of fine urban dust on glass table tops. The colourful screw-tops of refrigerated water bottles. Old familiar Hindi film songs playing in the background like long lost friends. Dodgy links with the world-wide-web. The cool marble floors easing bare soles. Honey like water melons. Heavenly early mangos, semi-yellow, a wee bit raw around the stones. Heads taking respite under thin cotton scarves in multitudes of colours. Loose, airy, light, flowing, feminine garments. Childhood aromas emanating from Mum’s kitchen. Her annoyance with disobedient modern gadgetry. Dad’s concern. Their everyday household problems of retirement. Saagar’s pictures lining the walls adorned with flowers and silk. Being called by childhood names.

Specks of earth lifted off by droplets hitting parched ground. The magical heady confluence of moisture and earth teleporting my brain to a nearly buried, exotic moment from a long time ago. The awesome dance of the wind with the chime. The pure joy of the breath. The ecstacy of being.

The best things in life are not things.

Day 913

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Till date I wonder what it must have been like for Saagar, to be diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and to be on Psychiatric medications. I have read books, watched documentaries and films to gain an understanding of it and I think I have an idea but maybe I have absolutely no clue.

Watching a clip of Paul Dalio, a young man living with Bipolar disorder and a film director brought clarity in 2 and a half minutes.

“When you get diagnosed, you go from experiencing what you’re certain is divine illumination. After sometime in it, you’re thrown into a hospital, you’re pumped full of drugs, you come down 60 pounds overweight, completely disoriented and they tell you, ”No, there was nothing divine. Nothing illuminating. You have just triggered a lifelong genetic illness which will swing you from psychotic highs to suicidal lows and you’ll probably fall into the 1 in 4 statistic unless you take the medication which makes you feel no emotion. If you imagine missing feeling sad, it’s the only thing worse than pain.”
So, it’s very hard for people to comprehend.

After a lifetime of building your identity, your place within humanity, you’re suddenly told that you are a defect of humanity. And to know that you’re not going to be the person you used to be and that you’ll at best be able to get by is … is life shattering. And the only labels you have to choose from are some kind of a disorder, Manic-depressive or Bipolar. So you scrape through every clinical book  trying to look for answers. That’s exactly what I did. Peeling through these books which were these diagnostic, medical texts where I felt like I was under a microscope and someone in a lab coat was judging me.”

Paul Dalio came across a book by Kay Redfield Jamison who is a world authority on Bipolar Disorder by way of having the illness and being a Professor in Psychiatry. The book is called “Touched with Fire”. He went on to write and direct a film by the same name.

Ref:
Paul Dalio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUnkt7M-GCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr7vi4wLJI8
Film Trailer: