One Month at a Rehabilitation Center
The month of September was a very tough one. Suddenly, life took an unexpected turn. I felt so directionless. I was struggling both personally and professionally. Luckily family and friends supported me. They tried to cheer me up but I was so futilely looking for the right direction. I had enrolled myself in a mental health course in the starting of this year and in the month of October, luckily I got an opportunity to work as an intern at a rehabilitation center. The first day itself was exhilarating. I saw patients suffering from various mental health illness. All of them struggling to be mentally fit, to get well soon so that they can go back to their families. Some of the patients had very good insight while there were some who had lost touch of reality. They had no orientation of time and place. However, most of them had accepted that they had issues in their brain which had led them at this center.
As days passed by, I started to interact with the patients. I asked them, how they were feeling, what was currently going in their mind, was there anything that they wanted to share without being fear of getting judged. This made me experience what various types of mental illness patients feel like. Some of the patients just wanted someone to sit with them and listen to them which usually didn’t happen in their day to day life. I related to this so much.
Isn’t it true that we all want this? Someone to look into our eyes and ask us or at least listen to us what we want to say and understand our apprehension. Isn’t this a very simple thing? However, most of us in our lives have made it so difficult? Forget, sitting with your loved ones and listen or ask, people now days have just stopped communication to avoid any kind of dispute. They just don’t want to destroy their peace which they think will be maintained because of not communicating.
At the center, there were patients whose family just didn’t want them back because it had become so difficult for them to cope with them. They had misbehaved showed aggression and hit their family members.
I thanked God that I could meet my family members whenever I wanted. The pain of being away from family is a very excruciating one!
There was an elderly patient, more than 80 years of age who was admitted for severe depression. During the times of covid, he felt socially isolated which pushed him into loneliness to such an extent that in the present condition he did self-harm very badly. After few days, he started to improve. He made friends. He told me that he yearned for his family attention. Times have changed and kids no longer have time to sit with their parents or grandparents which made him feel very lonely.
After few days, it was his birthday. His family had come with two cakes and snacks for everyone at the center. However, he was very happy when his current center attendant served him the cake as he was taking care of him 24 x 7. It again made me cry out, how some of the kids get so much busy in their lives that they don’t spend time with their parents. They even don’t ask if they need anything to their parents because of whom they are there today.
There were few patients who shared that they liked to live alone, their family members visited them from time to time but they preferred not to talk to anyone. They had limited or no friends. With passing years, they felt that there was someone who was telling them something but they couldn’t see that person.
Listening to them, I felt that how it is so difficult for few people to make friends, to talk to strangers, to express their feelings, to just tell that they are not okay to someone. I realized that some of us don’t have to think so much before talking to any one but yes, people have become so distant. They have preferred to live alone. They keep themselves so busy in their phones, in their laptops, just distract themselves and just avoid anyone in their life. Have you realized, in present scenario, if there are 3 people in a house, you will find each of them engrossed in their gadgets at 3 different locations in the house and what this is leading to loneliness, to anxiety, to depression, and to various other psychiatric illness.
Most of us so much emphasize on our physical health but we forget that it is equally important to get our mental health right as well. In today’s time especially when we have so many things to cut us off from other people, it is important to keep a check on our mental health. Staying alone or not/limited talking to anyone even having family or friends around can push us into stage of loneliness which can put us at a risk to have a massive effect on our mental health.
So, try to interact people around you, have 3 am friends, talk to your family members, make new friends, remember old friends, get in touch with them and don’t forget to live in the present.
