Mental (seek) Sickness

It was my psychiatric experience where I saw many cases of mental sickness.What I felt there was just a negative aura. With superfluous affects we proceed to our work that is mental status examination of patients.

Like a precursor I led my duty mates and moved towards our target. We felt so emotional and sympathetic as every patient seems adorable .With a great courage shilpi nicely greeted a patient 'good morning sir ' ,he gazed upon us and uttered a bad word .We quietly took our return gift and moved away . They all were smiling because they were insisted due to their sickness. Again we tried to interact with another patient ,this time we started with two magical words 'namaste uncle '.He didn't respond .Thank God! Shilpi said .

Huh! He is mad ,a cute old man said who is sitting along with our target. Before we started the cute old man again said don't disturb me I am very busy. With curiosity we asked about him from staff, he told us that this cute old man is healthier than others. He can live along with his family. Why don't his family takes him off? we asked. We called his family a number of time but they didn't come. Now he accepted the truth and trying to forget about his family said by staff .

With a great sigh we overcome the stifle moment .

PART 2: We so called mentally healthy person perceive lunacy as aggression ,violence. On another day we were still looking upon our target case. We saw a patient with horrible red eyes and cruel smile who was continuously staring us, 'once bitten, twice shy 'we didn't even try to greet him.We were interacting with patients who was lying next to the horrible eyed man, if someone stared at you Then how could you refrain yourself without knowing the reason so while leaving with the same curiosity I finally said 'Hello Sir ,what's your name to red eyed person. .He replied instantly 'my name my name ..what is my name what is my name? Subhash ..Subhash Chandra .We were astound by his sweet manner as his cloak of horror got a sundered by his cute and innocent voice. I asked 'why are you living here ?.He said 'my my father my father left me here ,I was sick ..was sick. Then he started staring outside the window ,we asked 'what are you doing now ?.He said 'just thinking just just thinking that when do I leave for my home. Everything was told bye his eyes were just moonshine. He was mentally retarded and having childish behavior. He was actually Subhash a good speaker.

PART 3: Now at this level I started thinking that no-one could read mind of these patients better than me I felt very attached to them. Now the time came when we actually met with our case for studying. Akash a 60yrs old lady she was brilliant student completed graduation, since childhood she had problem of schizophrenia. Akash didn't like to interact as she knew that these all are students came here for learning. She had common words for every student 'I am busy '.But we were luckiest of all as we got opportunity to have interaction with her. We asked about her busy schedule. She told us that she kept herself busy in knitting, she had a keen desire to become self dependent. There was a rehabilitation center where many patients like her participated and got reward. For every item rehabilitation center rendered Rs.10.

Akash wants to prepare more and more items by knitting to earn money .Through this money she wanted to buy her own tools of knitting. It was too hard for her to prepare anything because of poor concentration still she kept trying.

Everyday the same giggling, rhyming, shouting, crying could be seen. This was the place where the words care, improvement, treatment got buried. The moments spent with akash were indulging. She didn't know the meaning of dignity but she understood it's value. Watching all these things we said 'wow! What a power aunt ',she replied' if I won't do so they will not pay respect to me. 'One day a staff gave khichadi to eat. Akash took that tiffin and said 'this must be left over ',"laddo get my plate and have some khichadi and don't forget to share it with sunita, Raano you can also have some bite".These all were lovely bites ,khichdi was not special dish but they were having something different from routine meals which was the reason for their amusement. Only science can say that akash is a patient ,a patient with full of love, having sense of dignity, wants to become self dependent, aware about her needs.

PART 4:The most important thing in our profession is to understand patients actual needs. We must have foresight about patients and to make persistence of it we were posted in mental health institution. Every patient made me persuade about their seeking and took me away from their sickness .Along with this like a bud another story was developing besides the clinical area. I wanted to do something better for patients. But at that time I did not have any idea about distant drums sound well. We were 9 girls sharing an apartment. We all were Jolly in nature except one .Her name was sudhi, she was autistic in nature was a patient of schizophrenia and getting treatment .We tried to endure her initially but after 15 days she became unbearable. Many small mistakes congregated to make a huge problem. Due to shortage of water we stored water in our buckets and locked them. But sudhi didn't know the Value of this, whenever she didn't find her bucket she took water from others which leads to the beginning of World War. She didn't know about her topics and what to write,in clinical area she mixed dirty linen with sterile one ,didn't know about common topics and put bad impression about our group .We were so rude and kept ourselves away from her company. We asked our teacher to change her group as every time we were suffering due to her sick behavior.

Now compare my feelings and understanding about those patients and sudhi. I knew what she seeks but I forgot that she is sick. Now you can have the idea about sickness, we mentally healthy person are actually sick who are trying to escape from our responsibility ,can't build up balance between reality and fantasy. Every patients are seeking person not sick.