About the Blues

Thanks to Deepika Padukone, there’ve been some open conversations about mental health and depression in our country. I have felt quite sad and helpless about our collective ignorance on this subject and our unwillingness to open ourselves to understand it. Mental health is dear to me because this is where I found my calling and also because I myself have suffered from depression in the past and had also been on medication for some time. Today, I write about it in a completely different context, but my grievances on the subject’s treatment in our society still remains.

It`s been roughly six months since I’d been diagnosed with cancer and have since been undergoing treatment. I have written extensively about the initial shock, the life changes and the various challenges that it brings. There’s one other thing that cancer brings to your door - its long lasting impact on your feelings and emotions. Depression and anxiety are well known side effects of the treatment. The cause of it can be traced both to the enormity of the disease and also to the side-effects that the medication induces. The medical community in the first world understands this and provides all kinds of support to patients in this area too. There are psychologists and psychiatrists, support groups, non-profits that offer different services to patients to help them deal with these effects. Cancer treatment in India from a medical sense may be comparable to the best quality that we find in the western world but it seems like we are quite clueless about the emotional battles that a patient faces.

Whenever I reflect over these points, I’m acutely aware of the geographical and societal context that I inhabit. We in India are still struggling with what Maslow refers to as survival needs. I acknowledge that we probably have classes of society who live in the first world, the third world and several intermediate worlds.

I would say my treatment started in the ‘first world’. I consulted with and got operated by one of the top surgical oncologists in the country. But even with him I didn't have a discussion about the emotional side effects of cancer. We had multiple conversations on the physiological issues that I would be likely to face. There was also no mention of support groups or about mental health professionals who look into these unique needs of cancer patients. Back then I hadn’t started the chemotherapy, so I hadn’t experienced any such feelings and was also not expecting them.

I have since moved my treatment to what can be called the ‘second world’ (from a service point of view, mind you, the treatment quality is still top notch). I began the chemotherapy sessions here and remember feeling the blues from around the second cycle. I panicked when it happened because I knew this monster will just add to my woes. I then researched a bit and read that this is a common side effect. The website I was referring to was a western one and advised me to speak to my doctor for her opinion. So that’s precisely what I did on my next visit.

The doctor looked at me incredulously when I suggested that it could be due to the medication. She impatiently said that it was also caused by the cancer and scribbled the name of a doctor I should now meet. To be honest, I dreaded the thought of meeting another doctor in the hospital. Everything takes many hours of waiting and my patience was thinning. So in my next visit, I asked for what I thought would be a middle path; a support group that may run in this hospital rather than another doctor. This brought about an even stranger reaction from my doctor. She looked up at me and asked “What for? Why do you need a support group?” Yes, this really happened.

Anyways, I’m doing all I can to deal with these blues. I read, meditate, try and step out, meet people etc. There are still days that overwhelm me. I feel quite hopeless and fail to see the point in all the things I’m doing.

All sorts of thoughts keep running through my head. I think about all the women I regularly meet at the waiting room. How must they cope with all this? I am privileged enough to be aware of all this and also to be in a metropolis where access to so many things is easy. Many of these women travel from long distances to access this treatment. I wonder if they even have the bandwidth to think about these issues. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

I read a rather shocking article the other day about one of the least acknowledged, long term side effect for a cancer survivor: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to others and to the outside world (Source: Wikepedia). It’s really not hard to imagine why something like this could happen to a cancer patient. The disease never really lets you off the hook. The cells may disappear but the thoughts just stay.

All this has led to the genesis of Maitri, an online community for people dealing with Breast Cancer. It is often said about Cancer that it is not just the person but his/her family and friends that go through it. All of us who are fighting this battle as an individual and family have so much to share which can help someone on a similar journey. Maitri aspires to be that platform where tried and tested tips, snippets and crucial advice that can assist breast cancer patient and their family is shared is shared. I hope over a period of time Oncologists, advocates, patients and their kin join in to make this a truly supportive community. May I request the readers of my blog to spare a minute to like and share this page. I hope that over a period of time, this will reach to people who really would benefit from being a part of this community. . https://www.facebook.com/maitrisupport