Mongsentong Longkumer
Dimapur | September 17
People living with mental health conditions are seldom heard in the public realm. Their sharing of experiences, in many ways, help move conversations around mental health in a positive manner.
In this context, in last of this three-part series, three patients identified by the field workers of Prodigals’ Home through their on-going Community Mental Health Programme (CMHP) shed light on their struggles and how their treatment has progressed.
The Morung Express, with the assistance of Toshiwapang, a field worker associated with Prodigals’ Home, spoke to the patients in order to bring a better understanding on how mental health issues can be diagnosed and treated.
Among the patients was a 14-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with severe seizure disorder and intellectual disability. (Name withheld to protect identity of minor)
“In 2010, when he was only 7-8 months old, he fell off from a bike parked near our home and hit his head,” his mother told this newspaper.
Since then, he has been unable to communicate properly due to his condition and it eventually resulted in him leaving school in 2016. “We want him to get a proper education one day and allow him to pursue whatever he wants to do in life,” his mother said.
According to his mother, the family initially went to Dibrugarh for treatment and surgery and also visited the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS), Shillong for treatment. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had to give up treatment.
It was in September 2021 that he was identified by Prodigal’s Home and has been undergoing medication for his condition ever since. “He has been feeling better these days and his compulsive seizure attacks have reduced as well,” his mother stated.
Another patient, Subash Dey, 30, barely leaves home owing to his condition. Physically, he is frail and thin and can barely talk. His mother, seated beside him, said that he barely eats as he suffers from depression in addition to having seizure disorder since 2011.
His father passed away four years ago due to a fatal stroke while his mother works as a domestic helper and barely earns enough to feed her family.
According to Toshiwapang, Dey was identified by members of Prodigals’ Home for the CMHP on October 30, 2021, “We tend to check up on him occasionally to check if he’s taking his medication or not,” he said.
The field worker also revealed that Dey had attempted to end his own life on two separate occasions and has tendencies to ‘self-harm’. So far, his situation has not deteriorated but it is not improving significantly as well, he said, empathetically adding: “We can only imagine what it must be like to for him to suffer so much.”
For 25-year-old Hihyulo Seb who lives with a mental health disorder known as psychosis, his condition prevents him from connecting thoughts and emotions with external reality.
According to his siblings with whom he shares a rented home in Dimapur, Seb used to cause immense challenges for the family due to his unpredictable mood swings and bad temper. “He got into a lot of fight with the boys from our colony,” they said.
After being contacted by Toshiwapang and being included in the CMHP, his sisters admitted that there has been a considerable improvement in Seb’s health and state of being.
As such, he is currently able to earn a decent amount of living through working as a peon at an office nearby his residence. Seb shared that he studied till Class 8.
“Since his case wasn’t as severe compared to other patients thankfully, he has improved quite considerably,” Toshiwapang mentioned.
This is the last of a three-part series
