For me, the depth of that feeling, its strange, pure beauty, finds its perfect expression in the words of Purandara Dasa, and the devotion-soaked voice of the Late Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.
“Karuniso ranga karuniso…”
And I’m still alive. Not because I was strong where Robin Williams was weak. Not because his problems were presumably of greater gravity than mine. Perhaps not even because his suffering, I imagine, was unimaginable. But because when you’re there, on the edge of that precipice, “You cannot make it down onto your hands and knees because you feel that as soon as you lean, even away from the edge, you will lose your balance and plunge down…Here there is that horrifying sense that control has left you just when you most need it and by rights should have it,” writes Andrew Solomon.
Right. So now you want to know why someone becomes clinically depressed. Please do not ask that question to a suffering friend. If you do, you deserve to be slapped. Except that your friend is likely in so much pain that he or she cannot summon the energy (and the malice) to do it.
“3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
3:26 I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came.”
Why should you not ask? Because it misses the point entirely. If someone were found to have been shot with an arrow, the immediate, in fact, the only, thing to do is to remove the arrow and treat the wound. It is entirely irrelevant who shot the arrow, why they shot it, what their name is, what kind of arrow was shot, and so on. None of that makes the slightest difference to the wounded person. Treating the wound is what matters. Yes, there are triggers — the justification for existence, when sought outside the self, always provides the trigger. Yes, understanding and addressing the causes is important along the road to recovery. But leave that for the doctor, won’t you?
Alright, you say. I’ll help my friend. I’ll cheerfully ask him or her “How are you?” first thing in the morning.
Please turn to the other side to enable your friend to slap you on the other cheek. Which of course, he or she won’t. Garbage in, garbage out.
Don’t ask that question just because you can’t think of anything else to say. Hearing someone say that without a trace of conviction is possibly worse than hearing nothing at all.
Whatever you do, don’t grill your friend by asking him or her to tell you “everything.” They don’t need to tell you everything for you to be able to help them. They, in fact, should not tell you everything. There are things that are best kept within the four walls of the psychiatrist’s chamber. Being a friend does not give you the right to access, on demand, someone’s intimate thoughts.
It may be that your friend does not trust you enough. That’s not surprising. Don’t press for it.
“You lose the ability to trust anyone, to be touched, to grieve.”
Back at the Colloquium, someone suggested that the ultra-competitive environment at IITs might not be very conducive to mental health. No sooner than he had handed over the mic, someone else spoke up, passions inflamed, like a Zinedine Zidane headbutting a Marco Materazzi. At least in Zidane’s case, he could point to the insults directed at his mother or sister. Here, though, the merest whisper that something may not be quite-so-perfect at IITs was enough to set off a filibuster.
I have no desire to dwell on this topic, drawing focus away from the purpose of this article; and also inviting abuse. I will, however, make two points. One, the culture of entitlement here is of obscene proportions. Maybe that reflects what our generation is like; maybe not. Two, if there is one word that sums up the delusion people are drunk with — that being part of the “IIT system” somehow makes them ubermensch — it is a word that is, not at all coincidentally, borrowed from the vocabulary of that other great exceptionalism of our times, namely, American exceptionalism. That word is “meritocracy.”
Here’s what Dr. Thyagarajan said:
“Do not think of your worth solely on the basis of your performance, on the basis of how much you earn. Each of us have an absolute worth simply because we exist.”
All this is very well (or not), you say. What’s the point?
For those who suffer in silence, the point is one thing, and one thing only.
Believe. There is nothing else I can say that isn’t already known to you.
Believe in something: God, the laws of physics, your parents, someone else you love, your pet dog, your dream career, humanity, politics, music, art, science, beauty. Anything.
“You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
I know very well that it’s impossible to believe in anything when you’re examining the foundations of your existence in excruciating detail, every second of every day. Believe, nonetheless. You’ve made it thus far.
“But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…”
When you do find that thing, and you will — believe — hold on to it as if your life depends on it. Because it does. Nothing else matters.
You are running with a sack of potatoes on your back. You’ve been through hell — and you’re still alive. Most of what seems important to you now will fade into the background. Give it time. The demon will lose his grip on you.
“Rebuilding of the self in and after depression requires love, insight, work, and, most of all, time.”
The only thing that matters in your life, right now, is you.
Take care of yourself; no one else will. Accept yourself as you are, with all your faults, with all your shortcomings.
Forgive yourself for all the mistakes you’ve made, or you think you’ve made, over the years. You carry the heavy burden of guilt and regret — those twin tormentors from Hell — wherever you go. I know. Treat yourself kindly. Accept that there are things outside of your control.
None of this is easy to do. But very easy to say. You can’t expect you’ll be able to do this by yourself. Don’t try. Ask for help from the counsellors and/or the doctors.
To those who aren’t mentally ill — well, even to those who are — I say: Logout of Google Talk. Use a task killer to subdue WhatsApp. Go out, find a real, live human being, rather than his or her manifestation projected through a disembodied cyberspace channel, sit across a table, look them in their face. Don’t simultaneously chat with god knows how many people on WhatsApp, just to avoid looking at them. Don’t shut out the world by plugging-in your earphones at the drop of a hat; make yourself available for others to talk to. Your time is no doubt precious; so is theirs. Give them your full, undivided attention. Don’t give off the air of being busier than the President of the United States.
Try this for one day and see if it feels any different. I’m not saying this is easy or that I myself do this successfully.
You don’t have to say a thing. You don’t have to worry about giving them advice. Nobody’s asking you to pretend you’re the Dalai Lama and offer pearls of wisdom. Just be there. And make sure your friend knows that.
Above all, recognize the fact that the person next to you in class, in the bus, in a queue, in a train, is also a human being just like you. It is not enough for you to do the talking all the time; once in a while, try to listen too, without offering free advice. (I’m using my accumulated credit of having listened to a lot of people to give out the free advice now.) But please do not fake interest in what your friend has to say; you will end up doing more harm than good.
“Love” is an overloaded term, while “compassion” is broader. It is not enough to show compassion by forcing your suffering friend to come to someone’s birthday “treat,” in the mistaken belief that such “socializing” will solve his or her problem. You have no idea of the ordeal you’re putting them through. Instead, listen.
These are not profound, earth-shatteringly revelatory truths that you can only divine after years of sitting under a bodhi tree. These are simple, everyday truths that spring from experiential, lived reality, that, somehow, our generation seems to have forgotten.
I am not, however, blaming all ill on Facebook. Mental illness is by no means a modern phenomenon, although there are people who say the unholy alliance of unscrupulous psychiatrists and greedy pharma companies is happy to slap labels on all comers. That what is “normal” is being medicalized. Perhaps even Americanized. There is also a general consensus now, that the neurotransmitter-level theory of how psychotropic drugs work stands discredited — no one knows how exactly they work. Or even if they work; some say they are no better than placebos. But those are all stories for another day.
Thanks for having made it thus far. Now you want to know if this is a black hole from which escape is possible.
