Life. Together

My father suffered from a combine of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for more than four decades. In all this time, our family battled social ostracisation, structural stigma and the healthcare system's inability to deal with mental illnesses effectively

- By Apeksha Priyadarshini

BRIGHT fluorescent light flooded the otherwise dingy room from every corner.

It looked like a prison cell with its grilled gate and armed guards. A low hum of listless chatter filled the air, with occasional yelling. My mother had gone to talk to the psychiatrist about my father's recovery. He seemed a little better, more himself than he had been lately. We were visiting him after some time and I was left to spend a few minutes with him. While he was away for a moment to use the washroom, one of the patients came up to me. I was naturally a little concerned, seeing no one familiar around. He handed me a chit with a phone number in it. Looking over his shoulder, he whispered, “Please call them when you leave from here. They will come to take me. These people won't let me go otherwise." As my father returned, he quickly said, "Please don't forget", and left. I showed the chit to my father. He said, "He's crazy, forget it. His folks have left him here and gone."

It must have been 2010 or 2011—it's hard to remember; years of going in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centres can do a number on your memory. I would later find out that there were many like this person in that psychiatric ward, who were paid for by their families, but never taken back. My father, however, was always confident that he would eventually be home. Whenever he was admitted to a hospital or a rehab for a prolonged period, the nursing assistants would always report about him asking the same question—"When can I go home?" If not anything else, that was perhaps the one certainty my mother had been able to instil in his fragile mind with her care.