Words Unspoken, Tears Unshed

I had written this in September '17 in response to a call for articles on World Mental Health Day. Gauri Lankesh had just been brutally murdered and the event somehow pressed a personal trigger for me to pour this out. Our lives were hardly similar except for our sharing the traits of subversiveness and irreverence - in my case a whole lot less courageous/foolhardy than hers. It has taken me a while to share this publicly - half a dozen friends have read it - because I could not bear the hate that was being hurled at Gauri by a section of the populace that were too close to me for comfort. Perhaps there is no place like here and no time like now for this share. Credit goes to Karan Vohra for pushing me to write this and for critiquing it as well. Thanks dear man! Maybe it was not meant for the Buzzfeed folks to read but I dedicate it to the folks at the Write And Beyond Group

Gauri

The shocking murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh and the two tributes that were written in her honor, triggered my writing this account. Many people including myself, met Gauri through her death. And most vividly through what - surprisingly for many - her ex-husband and his second wife wrote in her honor and is being widely shared on social media.

The tributes to Gauri brought to mind the acute post traumatic symptoms that two people I know went through - one of these, a woman called Aparna (more about her name in a bit) who grieved her brother and the other a boy Jason aged 13. I’ll share Jason’s story first as this was his first encounter with mental illness and my connection with his case, though powerful, was fleeting.

Jason

Over forty years ago, thirteen year old Jason’s mom died of cancer leaving the teen traumatized by his mom's journey through cancer and chemotherapy, in her sister’s care. Jason’s aunt adopted him and gave him the best of everything. But he retreated to the basement and began to pull out his hair. They turned to their doctor for help, and of course he was placed in a mental health unit of the local hospital for therapy and care, understanding that he was now living through his mother's illness, baldness, and death.

The family kept it hidden, as if there was something wrong with being treated for stress and mental health issues.

Happily for Jason, his time at the mental health facility helped him to understand what was happening to him and how he was mirroring the trauma he had watched his mother go through. There are many things we miss around grieving and they lead to mental illness. The case of Jason (the ending was happy and he is doing well in life) is heartbreaking but it made me sit up because it reminded me of a recent friend, Aparna, who went through a phase of self-damage that clearly came from an urge to self-destruct. Often we destroy in our bid to create anew, and the impulse behind it is an unvoiced cry to be guided in a creative direction.

Aparna

Aparna was nearly 43 when she lost her brother. She had gone through bouts of mental illness in the recent past. She had been under treatment for acute anxiety and depression that first showed itself as an episode of acute panic, disorientation and symptoms of heat exhaustion some years earlier. She had had an uneven health record, with chronic physical problems - loosely termed “psychosomatic” by physicians. They started manifesting as acute allergies - that started almost as soon as she attained financial independence. The most noteworthy symptom was psoriasis or constant shedding of skin, a process that she actively promoted in a self-destructive manner. And it would be apt to mention at this point that her name(it was the name they called her by at home and she wasn't known by it outside) Aparna, by coincidence, means “leafless.” What had gone unrecorded even by her doctors, was a long phase in her late teens when she had first shown aberrant, almost violent behavior originating in unexpressed fears and a staunch refusal to express what troubled her when attempts were made to draw her out. She revealed this towards the very end of her therapy sessions years later.

Aparna’s therapist had identified her father’s death and her sense of insecurity on losing him, as the starting point of her problems. Her worst ever symptoms manifest themselves after the shocking loss of her brother six years later, in emotionally distressing circumstances. At her worst she suffered from acute agoraphobia that touched an all time low when she was terrified of getting out of bed. On a rare good day she was reasonably functional within familiar surroundings. She consistently refused medication, but was somehow persuaded to see her former psychiatrist who resumed anti-depressant medication that she was already familiar with. The symptoms reduced and she became more functional over time. Outwardly everything seemed alright and she made tentative forays in the direction of her profession after a long hiatus.

However something was missing. And that came to light when I happened to interact with her by chance, many years later at a workshop on dealing with loss. Aparna was by now an activist and a grief counselor. And she revealed to me that her psychiatric symptoms had blown up entirely because of suppressed grief. Aparna had not let herself grieve her brother. She had turned away from grieving in a bid to protect her bereaved mother from breaking to pieces from post traumatic stress. Or rather that was what she told herself. Sadly the truth was, that Aparna’s own vulnerabilities dating back to well before her father’s death, were still in the closet. They were connected with people dear to her with whom her relationships had been not always the best. Her own hurts were unspoken and with the passing of each person from her life, the chances to speak up about them to those persons, were lost. And Aparna’s survival was dependent on her mother being highly functional for her!

Aparna’s story took an unexpectedly happy twist when she chanced upon a film called Brokeback Mountain that broke open the floodgates and turbulently released all her suppressed emotions. The survivor of the love story between two men, Ennis Del Mar, who could neither celebrate his love when he had a chance, nor expose his grief before anybody, held a mirror before her in which her untold story and her un-shed tears confronted her poignantly. The film jolted her own closets open and flung the contents out for her to pick up, lovingly hold, nurture and rearrange. Luckily for her, her highly functional mother was alive and well enough to see her through part of her healing process.

Today Aparna is almost fully healed from her mental illness. It had always been about suppressed fear, and at its peak the fear of acknowledging and venting her grief over her brother’s loss. Her mother died a few months after she watched the film. One the observations from a physician in attendance during her last hours was that she was quite clearly suffering from high functioning depression and that highly intelligent people are more prone to concealing it well. Aparna’s mother left her own unspoken grief to her daughter to process. Everything that has followed in her life has been about finding peaceful closure and reaffirmation. Her unvoiced cry found an outlet, garnered many responses and the creative direction she was struggling to find, presented itself to her. Everyone is not as fortunate as Aparna and this is why we need to be aware of the people around us and be available to those Aparnas who may never find us if we don’t find them. Just as it was vital for Jason to get the right kind of medical help which fortunately he did in that day and age.

The Message to take from this - Recognize and Support

All losses share a common core - they need to be recognized, faced and healed. Aparna had encountered many kinds and almost always kept her reactions locked away inside her, unexpressed. Here I have confined myself to talking about the symptoms following the death of a near or dear one and ways to prevent it or alleviate them. Most of all is the need to be acknowledged and validated in that grief, by others in a supportive role.

The grieving process is different for each individual but a loss needs and deserves its due of grieving. Traditional societies prescribed a format through which this grieving could be channeled to help the bereaved persons transit into a meaningful life in the wake of a loss. These formats sadly did not always evolve in keeping with changing needs. People suffering losses through death, did not find a suitable outlet for their emotions. Much of mental illness following bereavement is caused by the absence of catharsis that grieving opens the door to. My observation is that the feelings that are released through creative and celebratory channels while embracing the inevitable pain, help the healing process best. No loss ought to be trivialized - the loss of jobs, homes, relationships, a limb or an eye, or a treasured possession that can’t be replaced. They all ask to be recognized, held, soothed and made peace with even as we move to a new phase of life that follows.

Aparna’s illness was comprised of several strands, several unresolved problems, unconfronted demons that all converged to paralyze her. Like our physical health, our mental health has its ups and downs. It is not a binary of being mentally ill or well. This wavy line is interwoven with the wavy lines of physical and emotional health and there are points where there is a peak in all of them. Do they feed each other? Is one of them the "alpha" among the three that can pull the others forward or push them down. I’ve seen it vary from case to case.

I digress to mention that mental illness often takes the form of physical symptoms that can be easily confused with those of a physical disorder. The period leading to a death (often a painful losing battle with illness, sometimes a shocking accident or sudden demise) and its aftermath can be physically very demanding, leaving the people concerned with compromised immunity and a tendency to fall physically ill. That certainly happened to vulnerable 13 year old Jason, barely out of his childhood and stepping into puberty with all its attendant confusions. In the thick of post-death activities, one is usually on a high and keeps going till one fine day, exhaustion overpowers. This is when sorrow comes into its own and seizes whatever is left of the will to fight. And this is when we are alert to be on the ready to receive and hold up the one in need.

An elegy for Gauri Lankesh

I close by returning to her. The tributes to her reminded me of the unsung eulogies, the unspoken tributes for lost loved ones, frozen in my own head. While she remained the best of friends with the one from who she had technically parted ways - her ex-husband - I have lost the ability to relate to many in my family because of the absence of shared grieving, something we have consistently failed at. And her death as well as Aparna’s flourishing life are a wake up call to me to unfreeze and go forth!

Footnote: Aparna’s Name

Aparna told me that shortly after her major catharsis and her renewed confidence in her regeneration and progress, she discovered that her name literally meaning “leafless” in Sanskrit and having many related stories in mythology, could have powerful interpretations for her personally. The jolt of her mirror-moment made her shed her metaphorical leaves in one go. It was frightening and she was exposed all at once to the elements. But she swiftly felt within her, the warmth of new, strong leaves emerging like numerous wings she could fly with. The related stories in mythology too have happy endings of hope and abundant life.

PS - I leave you to interpret the leaf images as you choose. Leaves have always fascinated me in all their stages