50. Who the Bleep cares about madness?

Last Friday I attended World Mental Health Day, 2009, in Uxbridge London. I wasn't quite prepared to walk into a room of 300 odd participants who at various points in their life had all suffered from some kind of mental dysfunction. Madness as we used to call it back in the day, makes me uncomfortable. It makes us all uncomfortable. Those darting eyes, not quite at peace with the world, that fearful look, the quivering mouth, the slightly spasmic body, the out of place laughter or the perpetual melancholia hanging loosely about the lips, all signs that the person is a little unhinged and whose presence is a reminder of the precariousness of life and nature.

I was assigned to selling a book, titled Sectioned, A Life Interrupted by John O'Donoghue. The author, O'Donoghue, spry, eyes brimming with curiosity about the world, sat next to me signing away the book and listening intently to people who dropped by to relate their own stories and struggles with mental illness. To listen to O'Donoghue, who incidentally has a Master's Degree, it is hard to believe this intelligent, articulate and profoundly gifted individual also suffers from depression and episodic break-downs. He told me candidly that when he is in a state, which he describes as "florid" he truly believes he is "John the Baptist." I asked him if there was a single part of his being, an iota of his mind, a measure of his consciousness that could elevate itself from this state and tell himself that he wasn't infact John the Baptist, at that moment, and sadly he said no.

We in Goa suffer from almost a triple whammy when it comes to mental health, that of shame, guilt and ignorance. If the slightest form of mental ill-health makes its appearance in our families, be it depression or dysfunction, we are at once consumed by shame, the urgent desire to hide it from society's ugly glare, brush it under the carpet but on the other hand we are also blighted by ignorance. We feel the need to blame someone for it, not as in finding a causative factor but finding some divine or shamanistic reasons for it, and a possible cure through these avenues.

One of the saddest things I have witnessed is mental illness being treated by a trip to the Mhar or to places such as Potta, where parents hope to "find a cure." Sick people are prayed over, sometimes even beaten so that the "demons" in them dissipate, vanish, and they return to what we consider normal. I know of one girl, who suffering from a mild depression was taken to see one of these quack-healers. The healer put his hands on her and promptly told the parents that she was infested with several demons and should be exorcised and then incarcerated. Instead of dealing with what is a mental disability, the situation had taken on an even darker tone by the girl being held responsible for her state, accused of being a medieval witch of sorts. The fact is, mental illness is no different than a cut in the leg, a physical wound which needs a dressing, medication, attention, time to heal and constant care.

It is imperative that we as Goans come to a clearer understanding of mental ill-health especially when rough statistics point to one in four people having the propensity to be mentally depressed. This is an ailment that is not going to go away, indeed solitary modern lifestyles, without the support of traditional families and the isolation this engenders is likely to put more and more stress on us mentally. But there is hope, mental illness can be managed and mentally ill people can lead functional lives.

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