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Who is MINE?

By Aqsa Roshan

Does life end when one is diagnosed with psychiatric illness? Not because there is no cure or treatment available but due to the spread of darkness in the form of ignorance in our communities.
We live in the same apartment; her home was on fourth and mine on third. When we bought our house we were unaware that we would have to endure such miserable life.

A middle aged woman spends her days and nights in locked doors; her living conditions can be equated with life in a jail. She spends her most of the time by standing hours and hours in the balcony; talking to herself.
Most of the time she blames some members in her family who she thinks have done wrong with her and due to this impression she usually showed her aggression by using abusive language reflective of past stressors; that might contribute to her psychological trauma.

I have rarely listened the voice of her smile; all the time that sorrowful voice vibrates in my mind.
Sometimes when her tone rises the usual level to which we are not used to; she becomes the topic of conversation in the meetings and there also people are more interested to send the lady in some mental hospital so that they could sleep in rest. There are two approaches; one is they all wanted to have the lady treated another one is to get rid of the lady from the apartment.

My mother said that the landlord was a fraud because he didn’t tell us that a “pagal” lady is also living in our apartment otherwise I would never come to this apartment.

Despite being a member of health care team, I was unable to change the point of view of my family.
Sometimes I realized what if she was suffering from a physiological illness such as hypertension or diabetes mellitus who was responsible for it?

Whatever life has given us either bad or good; in any situation to whom do we turn to? To whom do we ask for a shoulder to cry or share our happiness? Only one word strikes in the mind that is “Family”.
I believe family is an important unit for an individual and its presence gives us a psychological support and strength to effectively deal with all the hurdles.

Mental health a term that is least understood and most talked about in our region. Mental health has never been the priority for our society. Most often psychiatric illnesses are cured with the support of Pir baba; tawiz and visit of shrines and many more........but never come the turn of psychiatric department. Why?

My working experience in the psychiatric unit has taught me that patients diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses are the most vulnerable group of people as they are least understood by their families and society.

If family consider them as a burden then society will never makes an effort to accept an individual with psychiatric illness.
But at the same time; I have also experienced while interacting with the families’ that they face multiple challenges for instance, society perceptions and condescending behavior towards psychiatric patients resulting from ignorance regarding psychiatric illness and treatment, financial constraints and most importantly care giver role strain when their loved ones are diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses.

This aspect need to be understood thoroughly because interventions performed by health care professionals would only be effective once family member don’t consider the diseased person as a burden on themselves as they often do.
Research study carried out by Warner (2009) have concluded that the rate of recovery from schizophrenia is greater and mortality of people with schizophrenia is lower in the developing world than in the developed countries and the key positive factor that bring that change is the involvement of families in the course of treatment.

But if someone is left unattended that is without proper treatment in the miserable condition of psychiatric illness regardless of any reason, then this could lead to worsening of the symptoms which is more difficult to face both for family members as well as for the person itself.

Most importantly I have observed that sometimes care giver also faces some psychological disturbances due to the strain of care giving.

Research study conducted by Carretero, Garce’s, Ro’denas, and Sanjose (2009) have also indicated that the caregivers can be involved in aggressive or violent behaviors towards the care recipient as a consequence of the burden that he/she is experiencing, by means of mistreatment or abuses.

One day, I heard an unusual scream from that home as if someone was being beaten. And my intuition turned out to be true that lady and his son were trying to harm themselves. Finally, the war ends up in massive bleeding. His son was not suffering from any psychiatric disorder but this incident has showed the symptoms of care giver role strain.

This war in her mind would remain ever until the emergence of its proper treatment is taken into consideration and most important thing is the support of family that would add up in the treatment process. This incident highlights the importance of treatment not because of one individual but for the whole family in order to save them from going into the darkness.
The lady has not chosen to suffer from mental illness. Who are we to blame her and why we don’t become supportive to them and could help them to treat her? These questions are for all of us.

There are several people who are suffering from the same pain and shame of being diagnosed with the psychiatric illness; what are we doing as member of the same society?

Although no one can understand the pain of that lady and how the woman is feeling about it…wouldn’t she feel as the one who is left unattended? Where can she go and complain regarding the attitude of others….doesn’t she have a heart or we all so much insensitive that we cannot do anything to relieve her stress?

Sometimes I feel guilty that despite having knowledge about her illness what impact I have made. But alone I would not be able to make massive change. Would my piece of paper make an effort to change the perceptions of our society members?

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” ~Wayne Dyer