Madness !!

Since I am no internationally acclaimed writer and there would be no national calamity or catastrophe, I decided if I give you, hapless readers a break since my mind went blank for a while (like it does most of the time!!).

At this point I have a private confession to make on a public blog space..I was extremely busy and preoccupied doing something extremely important to me....nothing!! For all you people who have begun to envy my blankness, joblessness and most of all my supreme mediocrity,,,hold your horses! I enjoy (others would call it suffer,but we will conveniently ignore the logically minded people for a moment!),yes..I enjoy extremely high levels of ADD! ( for the uninformed,that is attention deficit disorder!!).

I have a hyperactive mind that is constantly doing something or the other and when I have long breaks between work, I go into a frenzy of activity...mostly the kind that will hurt me on after-sight!!. To keep myself busy, I am busy devising business schemes that are guaranteed to lose money, help friends with something that I will be conveniently blamed for pretty soon, planning movie projects that only people in Korea or Japan 'might' watch and even investing my heart in places with a 'German precision and guarantee' for failure and hurt!!

Recently I had an epiphany and probably for the first time (due to my ADD, I dont remember the last time, so for convenience sake, let's assume this is the first!!), I am sitting back and trying to take stock of my life!.My mistakes from the past and the new mistakes I was dangerously close to making...! I have decided I will not make the same mistakes and look deep inside my mind (and pretend there is a lot of depth inside!) and be still,calm and stop my 'running around like a headless chicken' sport that I like playing with my team members who are all in my head!

Phew, I have sufficiently and suitably confused all as to my delay in blogging, but that is not the point I am trying to make in this blog! To set the record straight, all my friends will vouch for my not having any ADD problems( though madness is widely suspected!). I confess to start with some humor to address a problem that is silently plaguing this nation and maybe this world!!

psychiatry is still unknown, unappreciated, undervalued specialization in medicine that we have today. Crazies and loonies is a term loosely used for slotting people when we dont understand their words and actions but it goes much deeper than that.On a lighter note...without which you might not care to read this, we are not talking the mad old woman at the traffic signal who chases you with a stick when you try to give her some change...! We are talking about normal people (on the outside) who are battling demons on the inside without understanding what they are going through and why they are going through!

Educated, affluent people with full access to a psychiatrist and his help do not like to acknowledge problems, thanks largely to the stigma that is associating with a shrink with madness and the person being ineligible for a job and marriage and normal life!!

A 55 year old man suddenly quits his job and goes in to a crippling depression, refuses to seek help;a 60 year old woman leaves husband, children and home with no clue where she is going or wants to go; a woman is hurriedly married off by the parents to a man who has heavy suicidal tendencies that she is reduced to being his guard and watchman so that he doesn't attempt it...again!; a young woman, after one year of marriage is caught trying to kill her new born!!

These are real incidents and there are many more we dont know about silently happening all around us!. Friends, if you see the signs around you, reach out and help, guide them to seek help.I dont claim to know much about the subject, but there are so many kinds of disorders that can happen to the human mind and slowly science is progressing to understand the variances and deficiency in the chemicals needed for the human brain, which the scientists have only touched the minuscule tip of the iceberg!!

ADD- attention deficit disorder, OCD-obsessive compulsive disorder ADHD- attention deficit hyperactive disorder, Bipolar behavior 1 and 2 ( mood swings ),

Chronic Depression, which needs no explanation,Schizophrenia - a multiple personalty disorder ........ so on and so forth!The reason why I brought this up is that we are not as unaware or uneducated as our elders... we need to be much more aware of this field so that we dont make the mistakes our elders did!A relative of mine was married off to a manic depressive and she still is living that hell!

On a lighter note, in the US, there is a common medication that everyone thinks is the answer to all problems...PROZAC ! So much so that it has become a joke but universal cures for all problems with a single tablet is a myth and self medication is extremely dangerous!! We as Asians have a ready made answer in comparison to the westerner! we blame it on fate or karma and we are never plagued with responsibility of actions or guilt because God is doing it all....it's never our fault!!

The average westerner believes he is responsible for his actions and feels low when he screws up, but not our Asian!! So to some degree, the Asians are lucky to have so many Gods to entrust their guilt on and sleep peacefully !!

I know this is the first time I have sounded preachy or even sane but I apologize for my lapse in madness and promise to be less in control of logic next time! :p

p.s .. any Docs out there, feel free to correct me on the medical terms!!