Day 969

Caffeine are Us

At the Delhi International Airport, leaving home, I usually am sad to be leaving my folks. But on this occasion I felt like an uplifted version of myself. Positively happy. Buzzing. Most uncharacteristic. Something was not right, if you know what I mean. I thought back to what had gone on in the few preceding hours. Well, the only new thing was that just before leaving home, I had a glass of ice-coffee that my Mum had made for us. It was most welcome on a warm day like that. That was the first time I had coffee in more than 10 years.

Here was my answer. Saagar used to love Mocha Frappucino. I thought it was just the sugar hit he liked but now I know it is a combination of the coffee, the coolness and the calories. For some, the cream on top. I had just found a ‘back-up’ plan for my blues. It was a tried and tested remedy.

Since last weekend the temperatures have completely justified a generous dose of ice-coffee and we’ve indulged every day.

This is how we make 2 glasses :

Medium strength coffee: 200 mls
(While hot, dissolve 2 heaped teaspoons of dark muscavado sugar in it and allow to cool to room temperature)
Cold Milk: 1 glass
Ice cubes: 14-16

Blend the coffee and sugar mix in a blender.
Add the milk. Blend again
Add about 12 ice cubes. Reblend.
Pour into 2 tall glasses and add the other 1-2 ice cubes in each glass.
For extra luxury, add cream or vanilla/chocolate ice-cream to the mix.
If you drink properly, you can even get yourself a nice moustache. I am hooked. Can hardly wait till tomorrow.

(I am not going to be a numpty and post a picture of ice-coffee. I think everyone knows what it looks like.)

Day 968

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Artspace

‘Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.’ – Cesar A. Cruz

Yesterday’s play on ‘Shifting perspectives’ through theatre and today’s trip to the Dragon café brought this truth home.

The work done by the patrons of the Dragon café was compiled into a big black book called ‘Artspace’. Looking through it was an immersive experience. Some brought me comfort and some disturbed me, making me a mixture of ‘comfortable’ and ‘disturbed’.
I shall let you find out how they make you feel.

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Certain events or times of day are more difficult – like being alone late at night, or having arguments. During these times it can often be more difficult for us to feel a sense of hope, to feel connected to the idea of safety, to feel our own resilience. This is the times when ‘self-care’ is essential – taking time out to be kind to ourself, to find activities that feel good, or allow us to connect with ourself again. Self-care is about caring for ourself, inside and out.

Focusing on the present moment, the present activity, whilst allowing thoughts and feelings to just be – has a long history of helping people with their mental wellbeing. By allowing ourself to become absorbed in the moment it’s possible to feel a sense of calm and focus that can distract from painful thoughts and feelings. No wonder colouring books for adults and kids alike are taking a special place on book store shelves.

Here’s PAPYRUS’ bright idea –

Day 967

Posted by kidsaregifts20

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One of the actors at the above workshop, who is also a mentally ill patient in recovery spoke about his insights, “I realised that as long as I depend on the State to look after me, I will be met with the lowest common denominator. This brought me to the conclusion that I may not have control but I have agency.”

After I got home, I looked up the meaning of ‘agency’ to figure out exactly what he meant. Agency is an ‘action or intervention producing a particular effect’. For example, many infectious diseases are caused by the agency of insects. Synonyms to this effect are: influence, power, effect, force, means, channels, routes, mechanisms and techniques.

In effect, he was referring to ‘self-help’. He was saying, “I have the power to change my situation.” It was inspiring for me to hear him say that. That statement reinforced the message of the workshop – there is a very thin line between the well and the ill. Role reversals are common. Sometimes visible. Often not.

I came away from there with a mixed bag of feelings. On the one hand, I could clearly see the daily struggles of mentally ill patients and on the other, their brilliance shone through. I wonder how Saagar would have been, had he got through that big dip.

May the force be with you. And me.

Day 965

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Guidelines, guidelines everywhere…

NICE guidelines on ‘Bipolar Disorder in Adults’ regarding the role of families and carers state:

“Quality standards recognise the important role families and carers have in supporting adults with bipolar disorder. If appropriate, health and social care practitioners should ensure that family members and carers are involved in the decision‑making process about investigations, treatment and care.”

“Why is it that some psychiatrists sometimes don’t fully appreciate the views of carers and involve them in the care of a patient when NICE guidelines clearly state that it should be otherwise?” I asked a senior psychiatrist casually during a recent conversation. “Traditionally” he said, “doctors were sons and daughters of doctors, their friends and spouses were often doctors and those were the people they spoke with. Carers didn’t fit into that box. It’s a cultural thing, still lingering. Hardest thing to change – a mindset.”

India gets criticised for its caste system. In other countries it exists in other forms – the power dynamic between different groups of people in different strata of society. As the Grenfell tragedy unfolds, I see how the management didn’t take the resident’s concerns seriously. What is the nature of Tenant-Management relationship? Who is disadvantaged?

Any number of guidelines cannot change deep-rooted, unconscious biases. Only humanity can.

Mrs May visited the site but couldn’t speak with the residents for ‘security’ reasons and because she is very tired after her recent election campaign. Being with them would have taken compassion. And humanity. I wonder if this was a Mayfair tower wether she would have felt more secure and less tired.

Day 963

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Wysa

A young couple, committed to making a difference used their love and intellect to create Touchkin, Artificial Intelligence for proactive care, integrating behavioural health into medical practice.

Tom Insel, a psychiatrist from National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the world’s largest mental-health research institution, spoke frankly about how MH services and research were failing to help the mentally ill. He openly dismissed the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). At any given moment, roughly one in seven of the world’s 7.5 billion people is struggling with mental illness. “We’re not going to reach all those people by hiring more psychiatrists,” says Insel. But we might reach them with smartphones.

In one of his talks, Insel was sharing the intricacies of the delicate workings of the brain. Someone interrupted him and said, “You don’t get it. The house is on fire, and you are discussing the chemistry of the paint”

Jo Aggarwal, one of the developers of Touchkin says:

“This line from the article resonated deeply with me. It’s a familiar sentiment – one many of us in development have had in conferences on employment, education, conflict. They are all at some level connected to the base fire that engulfs our world today – that of mental health. Until this fire is brought under control, we don’t have a hope for any of the rest of it.

His dramatic move lends credibility behind the idea that phones may be the answer. Identifying issues using smartphone behavior is powerful, though it can feel creepy. But detection is not enough. In our trials at Touchkin, phone sensors were able to predict depression in people with diabetes to a 90% accuracy, and went a long way in getting the physicians convinced to integrate mental health into their regimen. But only 1 in 30 people diagnosed went on to take treatment for the depression.

It said to us – “The house is on fire, the fire brigade is missing, and here we are saying how accurate our fire alarms are”

Wysa the emotionally intelligent penguin willed itself into existence somewhere along the way. It was a side feature created between ‘formal’ projects to improve accuracy. Taken by how people reacted to the prototype, we all kept working on making it better… in three months it crossed a threshold. It started changing lives. Last month, 3 people wrote in to say it saved their life, it is what is keeping them from suicide. Over 50,000 people talked to it anonymously, and thousands of them wrote in to us to say how much it meant to them.

Unlike the Stanford psychologists creating Woebot- we have no hypotheses around Wysa. It is evolving entirely based on what works for its users. It has evidence-based techniques, but everytime we add more tools or advice or tips we get users telling us to just let them talk to Wysa, and not to underestimate how much of a difference that makes.

“The fire in the house, is in our brains. The fuel is the language of the conversations we have inside our head. “

We started out, like Insel, trying to detect the fires… Wysa is leading us to try and put a fire extinguisher in everyone’s pocket. Any pretence of our own hypothesis went out of the window when the first person wrote in to say it saved their life. Now we are following it to see where it goes.

Like us, like Tim, there are many unwitting recruits to this fight.

Rick Little started fighting it as soon as he graduated college. So many of my friends… Sangeeta Mahajan who lost her son to suicide and has dedicated her life to preventing it for others. Anjana Ajay who is changing others lives after healing her own Stage 4 cancer by focusing on healing her mind. Bhavana Issar who is doing amazing work at Caregiver Saathi.Pooja Goyal who is creating resilience in pre-school children and their parents, bravely facing all the storms that come her way. Archana Aggarwal Sarda has made emotional support a way to get intl level diabetes outcomes in rural children, long before she realised that she was doing it.

None of them are psychologists. They each have options of more comfortable, lucrative ways to spend their time. They are all powerless to not do this. “The house is on fire. Once you see it, and you realise that you can stop it spreading, it is hard to do anything else.”

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