hoping for miracles

Work has always been about food and safety since the beginning of human time. It still is for most people. But some of us have moved away from that basic premise and work to fulfill either our higher needs or unmet psychological needs. We tend to treat food and a safe home like collateral benefits.

At one extreme, Elon Musk says, “Why do you want to live? What is the point? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.”

I don’t deny that the launch of his manned rocket is a huge feat. It’s just unsettling to have news of his rockets and driverless cars juxtaposed with images of hunger and homelessness of millions caused by corona, then Amphan, Nisarga, Christobal and earthquakes and forest fires.

But then, everything else can’t stop just like that, right? So other things happening – like the launch of Falcon 9 with two brave people inside – alongside the march of the corona virus, worldwide protests against racial discrimination, and extreme weather events is just how life works.

Far removed from Elon Musk’s reality there is a lot of anxiety in the world of ordinary people right now. Anxiety, unfortunately, is not something that happens in a small corner of the mind. It involves the whole person. It can eventually cause high blood pressure, a heart attack or a stroke if it becomes chronic.

I think everybody knows most of this, but I’ll do a quick recap:

• It starts with the eyes and ears observing and transmitting data to the back of the brain.

• In a flash the information reaches the forebrain, which interprets it and sends it to the midbrain, the emotional part we have in common with lower animals, and we feel fear.

• This sets off a cascade of stress-related hormones that course through the blood stream and whip the heart, lungs, guts and kidneys into action, preparing us for fight, flight or freeze.

• So the heart beats furiously, blood pressure goes up, lungs pant out heaving breaths, sweat glands pour out sweat, the stomach churns, and there might be an urge to run to the bathroom, as all systems are in overdrive.

• Within the brain itself, the hippocampus opens the folder of memories related to the current fear and reminds us how terrible it was the last time around.

• And the amygdala computes the emotional value of the information and decides how awful we should feel.

Different neurotransmitters are released in the brain at each stage of information transfer. There are more brain chemicals swirling around in an anxious brain than the number of mind-altering ingredients in a glass of LIIT!

Anti-anxiety medicines stop this hectic activity and reduce restlessness, depression and confusion. I prescribe them if anxiety is severe, and only for a short time, because they cause dependence in the long term. So they are not a solution.

The mind of a super-anxious person is like a blast furnace. Somebody has to collect the slag, turn it into skid-resistant asphalt aggregate and use it to pave the rutted road of his life, and that’s what I do. I use the period of relative calm when a patient is on meds to sort out things through therapy – to some extent. So this is only a partial solution and that too, only for some patients.

I realize that one might learn all the mental gymnastics therapy can teach, but when there’s hunger and fear and creditors knocking on the door, autosuggestions to be positive might seem delusional. There is a limit to cognitive restructuring and trying to neutralize negative thoughts in the face of reality. And reality is so harsh for millions that therapy doesn’t even enter the picture; it would be like Marie Antoinette allegedly said, “let them eat cake”.

There isn’t always a simple solution, hence the number of corona-related suicides in the news. We need more than psychiatrists and mental health workers to reduce the suicide rate because people don’t kill themselves for the simple 2+2=4 reasons that relatives and friends usually give the police. Despair – a complete loss of hope of getting support – pushes people over the edge when a trigger like corona comes along and wrecks their fragile financial systems.

I hear from those who received regular rations from the Public Distribution System in the last four months that they were okay because they didn’t have to go hungry during the lockdown. That, and physical shelter, is what we didn’t give the migrant labourers who wound up walking across the country for thousands of miles to reach home.

As I said in my last post, we can’t control everything in life. The idea of God is a natural outcome of people having to deal with a difficult present and an unseen future, like now. Hoping for miracles is not that different from a therapist telling you to be positive in a hopeless situation.

I sometimes think that what people are going through is more like grief at the death of someone dearly loved than any other emotion. The new normal is an unalterable reality and we are never going to get back the life we knew and liked. There’s a profound sense of loss.

Those who depended on the gig economy in some way, including the migrant laborers who trekked across the country in thousands, are devastated. Even those who stayed afloat financially feel grief for the loss of a familiar way of life, mixed with relief and gratitude as in ‘there, but for the grace of God, go I.’

People who had slowly crawled out of poverty are mourning for the lives they had painstakingly constructed, rupee by rupee.

• I talked with Kiran, a 23-year-old who works for a small event-management company putting up decorations at venues. No events, no gigs, no income.
• Ashwini, a young assistant at a dentist’s office, has been on half-pay since her employer sees only occasional emergency cases due to corona risk.
• Sunil, the barber near the market, shut shop just before lockdown and rushed back to his hometown. The owner of the general store next to the barbershop says he isn’t coming back now fearing institutional quarantine.

I don’t know how these people will rebuild their lives when this sad chapter is over. Maybe they are more resilient and stronger in spirit than I think. Mothers forget the intense labour pains of their first delivery and go on to have more children – my friend Mario’s mother had fourteen!

Viktor Frankl, the famous neurologist and psychiatrist, did a lot of meaningful work after surviving the Holocaust. He lived to be 92. Maybe the ability to forget pain – despite having every single memory stored somewhere in the brain – is a gift. It’s probably what keeps us going, because none of us go through life unscathed.