feelings

Comings and goings.

Posted by

0

As usual, I sit here at my table by the window of my study, admiring the autumnal trees standing in the park across the road, looking for inspiration to write. They have been my encouraging companions for years. The difference is that today might be the last time I write sitting here.

Early autumn has cycled back again. The fullness of the moon has synchronized with the one eleven years ago. The comings and goings of the seasons, of the world carry on as usual. Moving away from this home to live elsewhere was unthinkable at one time. But now, the heart has settled. It knows things it did not before. It carries a treasure of love and memories. Saagar lives in this heart now. He cannot be left behind. He is with me everywhere.

This, our home is ‘under offer’ now. A young couple wants to buy it for the same reasons we did twenty years ago. A quiet street. A diverse neighborhood. A garden. Parks and good schools nearby. Last few days of packing up have been intense. Things that have surfaced from deep recesses – a handheld Nintendo Gameboy carefully wrapped in its purple case, a proper Canon camera, one black sock with TUESDAY on it in yellow bunched together with another with SATURDAY printed on it in green.

I know not to trust my memory. It often fails me. It misremembers things, puts them in the wrong order. Omits some entirely. It plays tricks, causes confusion. Forgets what I want to hold on to and remembers what I’d rather forget. Luckily, the job of the heart does not include remembering but feeling – how it feels to sit here looking out the window and then at a blank page, to fold a much-loved photo in silk and cover it in more soft clothing, to look at an empty room and see it filled with light, to know it’s okay. I can trust this thing in the center of my chest. It’s all okay.

Mum’s the problem.

Posted by

2

Recently I have met a Professor of Psychotherapy, a Consultant Psychiatrist and a GP – all parents of children lost to mental illnesses. Here’s what one mum says:

“Whenever I have seen a therapist, they have gone straight to my childhood, my up-bringing, my parents and their parents. All my behaviours and feelings seem to be explained and understood based on their behaviours, however ‘normal’, for their times. I am encouraged to think of all the ways in which they could have directly or indirectly damaged me.

By that principle, all of my child’s behaviours and feelings should be explained and understood based on the behaviours of his parents. Half of them is me. I agree. I must be part of the problem. My profession is perceived as a bigger problem. ‘High achieving Asian’ parents are assumed to put a lot of pressure on their children. So much so, the medics looking after him didn’t even need to meet me or know the quality of our relationship to be certain that my job makes me a bigger problem than most other mums. They could squarely put the blame on me and actively keep me out of the picture. I asked too many questions. I was the biggest problem. They wrote it in their notes.

However, that does not mean that I cannot be part of the solution. NICE guidelines lay out my role beautifully but do the people on ground read any of these guidelines? In my experience, not. If half of all that is written in Policies and guidelines was implemented, families could engage meaningfully in helping their kids recover.”

Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 23.01.58

Ref: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg185/chapter/1-Recommendations#recognising-diagnosing-and-managing-bipolar-disorder-in-children-and-young-people-2

The Wait.

Posted by

1

4k-wallpaper-beautiful-bloom-1597662

In between childhood and adulthood.
In between start and finish.
In between finish and start again.
In between seed and sapling.
In between nothing and something.
In between ‘now’ and ‘not yet’.
In between confusion
And resolution.

In between ‘not knowing’ and ‘knowing’.
In between listening and understanding,
Understanding and assimilating,
Assimilating and learning,
Learning and applying,
Applying and having an effect or not.
In between the impact and its height,
Or possible flight.

In between the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder,
In between thought and action,
In between you and me,
There is travel.
An invisible, microscopic stirring
Of this nurturing Universe
Of this mothering Earth
Of this sun-ward bound energy of Spring
Of this Blossoming of everything
Despite everything.

Visiting my adolescence

Posted by

0

Innkeeper's wife

(The mean, very mean wife of the inn-keeper. Nativity play 1983. CMC Ludhiana. India.)

Once upon a time I used to be a kid. A bright and happy kid. I nearly forgot that girl. She used to be fun. She loved singing, dancing and play-acting. She had thick black, unusually curly, short hair. She laughed easily and played harmless pranks. She listened to music on the radio with such ardour that her day was planned around the timings of her favourite programmes on the Urdu service of All India Radio. The last few pages of all her notebooks were filled with scribbled lyrics of songs written at speed to keep pace with them as they played on the old Murphy which was a part of her mother’s dowry. Then she neatly transcribed the messy song-words from the back pages of her notebooks onto a special red diary which was her treasure.

A few months back I accepted an invitation from my alma mater, Christian Medical College, Ludhiana, India.  This is where I trained to be a doctor and an anaesthetist, nearly 30 years ago. They requested me to run a Mental Health workshop for about 70 medical students and make a Keynote address at the World Junior Medical Congress they were hosting in early April.

While preparing my lecture, I dug up a few old pictures. They flew me back in time. I saw what I looked like when I was Saagar’s age. It was a strange juxtaposition. So much had changed. Oh, that heart-breaking innocence! The stars in my eyes shone so bright, they nearly blinded me. Who was this lovely girl? Where is she now? She has walked a long way and formed a big circle. She is back where she started, working with what she has – her Love, her Grief and her Self.

MH Workshop

The workshop was four and a half hours long. The sharing was powerful, the enthusiasm infectious. The learning for all of us was invaluable. It was fun! We sang and we danced. We worked and we played. It was just like the old times. Saagar was there. He was smiling his crooked smile.

“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.” – Victor Frankl.