Dr. Shetty writes...

Instinctively I will be absolutely shocked. My original self, imprisoned in a web of belief systems, prejudices and biases will emerge supreme. “NO—not my niece. It cannot happen to her. How the hell can she do this to me? She is naive, stupid, dumb and probably sentimentally swayed.” These would be my first thoughts. I would suffer sleepless nights, an acidic gut and an embarrassing gait. God save her! The sentences in my mental software come as a rush and I will approach her with words, phrases, and paragraphs dissuading her from the ultimate. The girl turns away and tries to tell me that nobody understands her and not even me though I am a psychiatrist who is supposed to be an icon of ‘empathy’.

As hours, days, weeks pass by the duel begins. The modern software’s fighting the older programs. Definitions emerge. All crazy people are not mentally ill and the word does not necessarily denote sickness but at times just a temperament. ‘Who is not crazy?’ will be the new rationalization. But what is his diagnosis? This is not a different temperament but a gross psychiatric illness. ‘So what?’ will be the next phrase. People who suffer from asthma, epilepsy, diabetes are worse off. This psychiatric illness is at least not fatal. But suicide is just a possibility and the quality of life is a big question mark.

Does my little angel know the facts of the case? The words change and a ‘human being’ becomes a ‘case’. It is my duty to tell her the facts of the illness and make her wiser. How do I put it across as objectively as I can? Maybe my colleague can do a better job.

I share with a close colleague my feelings and my words, jumbled, enmeshed and inseparable from each other. The days would pass and one day my colleague gently presents a powerful argument to me. It states that 85% of all mentally ill can lead near normal lives with treatment. A good environment adds and promotes an enhanced bliss.

This argument churns around in my mind over and over again and again as doubt; disbelief, denial and confusion make an attempt to thrash it into pieces. I ask my serene self a lot of probing question. The scientific argument that majority of the mentally ill can lead near normal lives with treatment and a little support stares on my mental screen without blinking.

Yes! It is a fact. I am living in Mumbai and not Kabul or Kandahar. Light is at my doorstep and the words of Sudhir Kakkar ring in my ears. He had once said— ‘The core is empathy. Empathy is the bridge between the serene reserve of the clinician striving for objectivity and the vital, passionate and vulnerable person who inhabits the clinician’s body. Without its vital presence, the creative tension between objectivity and impassioned involvement, between the stoic and the emotionally responsive perspectives, will be lost.’

The war in my mind would continue and I pray to God to ‘Let science prevail’. All the same the emotional journey for me would be difficult.

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