Therapy is not a cave

Midlife Musings

Two years ago, an ordinary summer’s day in May, I woke up one morning, as usual, got down the stairs, as usual, poured myself a cup of tea from the waiting teapot, as usual, walked out into the patio, as usual, sat my cup down and sat myself down, as usual, lit a cigarette, as usual, and before I could begin with any pleasantries to my daughter’s father, I began to weep, not tea, although that wouldn’t have been unexpected of me, but proper, big, fat, salty, silent tears. All this was still alright -- Section 144 of our ‘happy marriage’ allows us both the right to weep at sight. That day, that time, the problem lay in me not knowing why. How could I be just so fine and yet feel so fragile? But of course, at 44, I was grown-up enough to know this was my ‘mental health’ May Day moment.

A few phone calls later, to two friends and my ObGyn, my distress signal reached, WhatsApp speed, one of Delhi’s, arguably India’s, best-known, most benevolent, and busiest psychiatrist-psychotherapists, and an appointment was secured. After hours of diving deep into my ’history’, that ordinary folk like me accumulate as just years, and hours of ‘clarifying questions’, I was determined to be quite capable, you’re welcome, of finding my way by feeling my way through my feelings. No, COVID-19-like, there is no magic medication yet made for my particular strain of “corrosive melancholy” which also mutates. I say this with some emphasis because, like many of us in my generation, I grew up less with visions of the joke of a Tejo Mahalaya in Agravan and more with the threat of a loony bin in Agra. In fact, I did a bit worse with a perennially politically precipitous Punjabi mother who dismissed anyone she didn’t much care for as a ‘psychiatric case’! I was asked if I was in for what was going to be plain good old-fashioned hard work, of ‘clarifying questions’, and more and more, a lifetime. The alternatives, although unknown, didn’t seem exactly attractive so ‘in’ I was. It’s two years, on and off, and I’ll never know if I’m inching closer to the right answers, but at least I’ve now got help with not asking myself the same set of wrong questions, again and again. That was my ‘corrosive crisis’, looking back, long time coming.

When I realised I was now in my own way of being functional, despite being moderately successful and “insanely sane”, I did five things: I squared up to my reality; I took full responsibility for it; I sought qualified help, heck, I paid good orange remonetised Indian rupees for the best help money can buy; I subjected myself to a series of terrifyingly troubling and tiring inquisitions that dug deep into all my creative truths, my crafty little lies, my hidden agendas, my vicarious victimhood, and my delusional dishonesties. I took charge. Silently sloganeering “Indu khatre main hai” (translated ‘Indu is in danger’), I went into maximum government-maximum governance mode.

The thing is that professional therapy is not a cave, it’s not yoga, it’s not ayurveda, it’s not a glug of ‘gau-mutra’, it’s not even ‘vipassana’, those must have their place like those little sugar pills called homoeopathy does. No, even a double dose of chloroquine won’t do the trick. Professional therapy is not a placebo. It is not a well-packaged, hyperbolic ‘stimulus’. It has no ‘feel-good’ factor for your personal stock market. It is not unkind, but it endlessly asks you ‘why’. Professional therapy is a long, cold, hard stare in the mirror to see if one’s smile reaches one’s eyes. India’s doesn’t, and who but the government, the role model of all role models, can take that crucial first step and get itself help — qualified, professional help. The majority will not think even once before also deciding to migrate, even burst crackers to celebrate.

Recovering atmanirbhars like me know this is all very hard but continuing to pretend to know it all on all of India’s behalf hasn’t been very smart. And before you begin, kindly remove that mask.

My Rolodex is ready, and surely, PM CARES can fund a round or two of therapy. I will pay the price for the rest. We already are paying.

(Indu Anand gives melancholic one-star reviews to marriage, motherhood, most men, and midlife @Indu.A.Anand)