I have a cure for Insanity

Now you may be wondering what I mean by this headline.

I mean this – there is a form of insanity or mental illness for which I have the cure. I was suffering from this type of mental illness myself till I was about 25 years old and then I finally did something about it. I will be explaining what I did in this article.

I must add however that there are likely to be many other forms of mental illness that I know nothing about.

I hope through this article to guide and give direction to research in the field of mental health in a small way. I contacted my psychiatrist a few days back and she was impressed enough by this blog to think of sharing it with the Indian Psychiatrist Society. Inspired by her I am thinking of forwarding this article with psychiatrist associations of as many countries as possible.

Now I don’t have any medical degrees and I am not a mental health professional. So I will not be surprised if my claims are met with scepticism and disbelief. But I am a little too old and have read too much philosophy to be bothered too much about name and fame (although I wouldn’t mind the money).

Ok so I’ll start my article:

Until I was about 25 I was suffering from a severe mental illness. I was completely impossible to live with and I don’t know how my family put up with me for so many years. My inner demons were making my life a misery and causing me to behave in all sorts of eccentric ways. I could not spend even 5 minutes alone with myself and kept compulsively busy at all times                .

What was the cause of this?

I used to block my unpleasant memories and feelings. I did not allow myself to experience them. This led to eccentric behaviour as already mentioned. I offended my family (no small thing in a traditional and conservative country like India). I also offended people in the Accounting profession and some powerful people in Mumbai.

I was also completely lacking in empathy, prudence and humility and did not know how to think.

I was making my life such a misery for myself (internally) that I would have given 50 years of my life for a cure. And that is what I am going to explain in this article.

Around the year 1991 I began to reclaim my memories and feelings. Whenever I had some spare time in my job or at home or wherever I revisited my memories and felt my unpleasant feelings. The whole process was so intense and so unpleasant that I was actually hallucinating by the end. This was a process that lasted about 2 years.

My behaviour changed dramatically around that time. I also developed schizophrenia around that time but that was a second problem that came up. The first problem had ended. I was no longer behaving in disgusting, outrageous and offensive ways on a daily basis.

But I developed schizophrenia so clearly I did something wrong. What was it?

It was this – during the process described above I did not stop thinking about the way I had behaved.

What do I mean by that? I will explain:

The Satipatthana sutra is one of the basic texts of Theravada Buddhism. It is one of the Buddha’s original teachings. The form of Vipassana meditation that SN Goenka teaches is based on the above sutra.

This sutra teaches that whenever you are observing any sensations or feelings or mental arisings you should label it in one of three ways – pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. You should further observe that which has arisen without reacting, judgment, attachment or aversion.

Obviously this sutra is meant for spiritual people seeking enlightenment but take it from me it can be used to regain your mental health.

Had I read this sutra at age 25 it is possible I would not have developed schizophrenia.

By not thinking I mean:

1. No thinking about whether my behaviour was good or bad
2. No assigning blame as to whose fault it was that I behaved the way I did
3. No trying to understand the causes of my behaviour. No trying to understand why I behaved in the way I did.
4. No judgment, period.

The feelings that arose were impermanent and passed away in due course. I had to just suffer and endure and label my experiences – during the reliving of my memories and feelings – in one of three ways – pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.

I am basing my arguments on certain well founded facts which are:

1. I was blocking my memories and feelings till age 25.
2. People who know me from that time (around the year 1992 and earlier) will testify that my behaviour changed dramatically after that period. This was because of my reliving my memories exercise.
3. I developed schizophrenia at around that period.
4. The Satipatthana sutra is one of the Buddha’s original teachings that has survived for more than 2,500 years. It has a track record of helping people and Vipassana (as taught by SN Goenka) is based on it.
5. The teaching to not judge comes from the Bible (the New Testament) and that has a track record of helping people for 2,000 years.
6. Impermanence is a key concept in Buddhism which also has been around for two and a half thousand years.

If anybody has any questions please ask.

One of my cousins told me to be more descriptive when writing this article. But this is the best I can come up with. I hope I have made myself clear but it is not possible for me to anticipate all your questions. Also I am not a professional writer and it has been more than 30 years since the events that I described above took place. Please feel free to clarify all your doubts.

What I have described above may be an important modification that yields better results than Freud’s method of Psycho Analysis.

To know more about the Satipatthana sutra do a Google search or buy the book Transformation and Healing by Thich Nhat Hanh. This book is not easy reading and is meant to be put into practice. Treat it like an instruction manual.

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