I got this that the Mental Health Science calls Anxiety Disorder at the age of 13, which is 42 years back from now. I was in Grade VIII then. It wreaked so much havoc to my mind so much so that I became paranoid, had recurring hallucinations, palpitations, severely traumatized, seeing horrors everywhere I went, my head was like the whole mountain sitting on it, wanted to f**ing run away from it all throwing the head off shoulder but where could I go except to kneel down, bury head in hand and cry.

Those days, in the little place I was born and brought up, no one had heard about this queer mental phenomenon, or this ugly twist of human mind. (Objective signs and behaviors of a person led them conclude whether someone was sane or insane. That’s it) No one believed that a human mind could get so terribly wrong so much so as to render someone completely paralyzed and defunct, moreover, put him through grinding misery. The one and the only health worker that I had access to wasn’t any better than the crowd of health seekers. The man in white coat with stethoscope around neck was like a crow in the blanket of wintry fog, as long as my mind was concerned, like me and those who cared me.

Recurrence of horrifying train of thoughts in quick succession crippled me day in and day out. I would think that some demon has crept into my head and playing havoc with me. Thinking this and thinking that and thinking and thinking, stretching and bending the mind as far as it could go, is what I did. The attack of dark and morbid thoughts continued unabated as if there was mine of them somewhere in my bottomless memory. I can say it for sure that I wasn’t old enough and seen much of the world to have accumulated heaps of dark and morbid images and thoughts in me. Here, I am tempted to realize the power of brain to turn a thought – size of a mustard seed into the size of a water melon, and they hammer in your head like someone literally pounding your head with an iron rod. I don’t have a grain of doubt about it that those thoughts issued from my own memory and that they were fed and deposited in my memory through observations, experiences, tales, stories, superstitions, and last but not the least dreams. (In dreams episodes, events, characters get unimaginably larger than in non-dreaming state). I reject downright any possibility of the tower or receptor in my mind receiving signals (thoughts) from some other plane (unearthly/ASTRAL PLANE) or it had to do anything with what they call paranormal phenomenon. That is outright trash.

Where do I go from here with the head that was a chamber of torture and constant torment which no one outside me could see and understand except me who is going through it? At times, a lethal idea would come over me that I should smash open my skull with an axe and let the people out there see what a horrendous misery I was really going through. Those few (may be one or two) who had little patience and empathy with me gaped at each other in utter helplessness, pushed their lips in downward curve holding chin in hand, and shrugged shoulder. They were at their wit’s end, didn’t know how to help me and bring me any relief, they seriously wanted, though. Others took me as a wailing cat or a grumbling pig. They blamed me for thinking all rubbish and wallowing in self-pity.

Whenever I tried to relate my misery to them, their reaction would be like, “Get off it. Come out of your tortured self, you fool!”

One thought that grew stronger and stronger day by day in my head was that the DEATH was one and the only welcome refuge and that it was right round the corner. It was only a matter of time and I was gone.

But again, like the English proverb goes Every cloud has silver lining, somewhere in me or round some corner or layer of my mind, there was this what we call HOPE or I prefer to call it THE OTHER SIDE that would come alive, time and again, like fading embers glow at a gust of wind, when things turned really nasty. And this HOPE or THE OTHER SIDE would dig out incredible power in me to offset (so to say) against the hurricane of horrible thoughts sweeping me off my feet. It was right at this point of time (moment) I would strongly feel the need for someone who could sit beside me and I could get my angst, anguish, or ordeal, through him and he listen to me till cows come home and give me soothing words of sympathy and comfort. Wishes are seldom granted and no one was interested in listening to a wailing cat, all the same.

Never in my wildest of imaginations it ever came to me that in the length and breadth of the earth there could be mind-menders or healers who could correct this type of mental wrongs, and who are known as psychologists and psychiatrists. All I knew was that there were faith healers, shamans, necromancers and exorcists who had this power to scare the demon or ghost out of me. May be they had but the ghost in me was beyond their power to grapple with.

To cut the story short, I never saw a psychologist or psychiatrist all my life and was left to deal with my problem all by myself, nor did I ever take any neuroleptic or anti-psychotic drugs or any suppressants. Not because I had any pathological hatred to medication, but just because I didn’t know where to find them nor did any of family members know it. I’d push any f***ing thing down my throat to palliate my misery. No second thought! Sadly, for me, drugs and drug-prescribers were like a mirage.

But again, not everything was gloomy about it. The silver lining was this OTHER SIDE. It was like the straw the drowning man would clutch at. From then on down to next 27 years, I scraped through it with the aid of the OTHER SIDE (mother) and her son the other “I” or “ME”.

In course of time the OTHERSIDE gave birth to one more NEW “I” and thus I had two warring/conflicting “I” – one wallowed in the DARK and MORBID thoughts, gave palpitations, anxiety, dread, hallucinations, and the other fought it and knocked it over every time it tormented me. The battle was going on in my mind every moment no matter where I was and what I was doing. Don’t know how, but I had learnt the knack to put up with this deadly and dangerous game going on inside me.

This OTHERSIDE and her SON, the other “ME” had a life span of 27 years only. They were born to offset against the DARK and MORBID “I” and thus to palliate my misery. They helped me to fight off the old DARK and MORBID “I” every time it tried to play havoc with my mind until that eventful night at 50 when I had the THREE weird dreams that changed the game totally forever.

These dreams I am gonna talk about were weird inasmuch as they had no relation whatsoever as far as I remember to my real life experiences. But, they proved so efficacious in solving my entire mental health problems that I doubt any drugs, meditation, yoga or anything would ever come this effective.

That night, I guess, I slept tight. The first dream that I had was about me being a pupil at a convent school run by catholic nuns. The gothic style school building had a chapel. We were poor family so poor that the family could hardly afford two meals a day. I had walked to school in hungry stomach as there was nothing to eat at home. I couldn’t resist the temptation of plucking bunch of grapes from vine at the backyard of the school. The warden saw me stealing the grapes, took me to the headmistress. She was a tough elderly nun, stiff necked, not a person to trifle with, wearing habit, a pair of thick glasses with angry, piercing eyes behind them, and a cane. As I was brought before her right in front of the chapel I knew I was going to get the cane. I fell to my knee. She walked up to me, “You sinful thief! You should rather die than live off stealing”, she shouted at me, and gave me two canes. I endured it without a word with my head bowed before her. I didn’t know stealing out of hunger is a sin or not! I didn’t know if I deserved the punishment. I knew one thing for sure that stoic acceptance without questioning was the right path. 

In the other dream, I am living with my family – wife and a child in a non-de-script house. The community I lived in was going through some dreadful ethnic or communal strife or war or something like it. A band of gunmen barged in on us while we were having evening meal. They demanded that we vacate the house immediately or get shot. I bundled up the bed sheet, held it under my arms and set off. My family followed me. We quietly disappeared into the blanket of darkness. There was no wrestle, only stoical acceptance.

The third dream was about a dozen or so of venomous cobras chasing three lads. I was one of them. We were running for life across vast stretch of paddies. I got tired to the point of bursting my lungs, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my chest, and couldn’t move any further. I gave in; don’t know about the other two. I fell to my knees, closed my eyes. After a while, I opened my eyes, inhaled lungful of air, and looked around. The boys were gone, the cobras were gone, and I was still breathing under sky. Here too, was stoical acceptance.

In the morning, I woke up, sat up on bed, and pondered over the dream, allowing things to sink in. And, then I let go of it. The OTHER SIDE and her SON was gone. The old “I” was there, but only too debilitated before the STOICAL ACCEPTANCE. It wouldn’t bring things back from memory because the STOICAL ACCEPTANCE stood firmly on its way like a bulwark. The old “I” had only faint presence in me. I needed thoughts to put this “I” back on feet or else it remained dormant.

The lesson:

1.    In dream, learning is pure, unfettered, you are effortlessly conscious, have no power over what is going on except to watch it like a mute spectator,

2.    Stoical acceptance has incredible power, the fountain of bliss lies right in there,

3.    Thought is the creator of “I”, stoical acceptance is the destroyer of “I”

4.    When the “I” is debilitated, it can’t bring garbage from memory and stir the shit in the mind, then you live as though you are not living,

5.    Act, and don’t ever think about it, no hindsight, just move on, only action, no thoughts.

6.    The OTHER SIDE can help to cope with the problem, but it should go, the sooner the better. One should be free from all.

7.    The mental health problem can never affect one who lives naturally.