Faltering at the final step: It is not how many times you fall but how many times you get up that counts!

I was an extremely bright student in high school and junior college. I was born and brought up in Nagpur. I had a great childhood and teenage years. It was fun. We used to study, have fun, play sports, travel, read, participate in quizzes and whatnot. Mathematics was more than a subject; it was lifeblood. Cricket was the default pastime. Summers were meant for travelling to the Satpuda Mountains, the Himalayas, and the forests of Central India. I cleared several exams, such as the National Talent Search Examination, Olympiads in mathematics and astronomy and others. I cleared the IIT-JEE in the general category and got into IIT Kharagpur, Mechanical Engineering, in my first attempt.

I entered IIT Kharagpur in 2008. The first two years went by like a breeze. In the third and fourth years, too, I enjoyed a lot, studied hard, travelled to Europe, and made great friends. I remember we had shifted to our new home, where my parents currently live, and my cousin sister had gotten married in an interstate marriage. Life was all looking good. I was in the 5-year BTech and MTech dual degree program in mechanical engineering.

However, shortly afterwards, when I was in my final year, my behaviour started becoming quite aberrant. I started picking up fights. Disconnected from my family and friends. My parents took me to a psychiatrist. He asked me a few questions, showed a torch to my face, upon which I flinched. Then, he bluntly declared that I was psychotic and would have to take anti-psychotic medications. I went home and checked the contents of medications and their adverse effects. I was good at chemistry. I immediately realised that those were very dangerous substances. I never wanted to take them. I also started discovering the iconoclastic psychiatrist Dr Thomas Szasz, who had declared mental illness to be a metaphor and not a real biological malady in his book ‘The Myth of Mental Illness’. This whole experience made me even more paranoid, and I started behaving even more madly. My behaviour worsened. One day, the warden and my father had to be called, and then next, I landed up in an inpatient psychiatric unit after an extremely ugly scene in my hostel, which is hard to describe in words. My hands and legs were tied up, and I was tranquillised and involuntarily hospitalised, locked up in a private psychiatric nursing home in Kolkata. I was given a “diagnosis” of paranoid schizophrenia.

I stayed there for close to 20 days. It was December of 2012, and I had missed the campus placements. I was on a heavy dosage of psychiatric “medications”. The adverse effects were unbearable. I used vomit almost every night, I had painful muscle cramps all over my body, problems with bowel movements, lethargy and excessive sleepiness, salivation, huge weight gain and other adverse effects. I managed to graduate. The work I had done in France, in mathematical physics, led to publication in the top journal, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, where even well-established researchers find it difficult to publish, and I remain extremely proud of it to this day.  In the upcoming months and years, I made the mistake of quitting these medications cold turkey twice. It led to “relapse”, and I had 2 more involuntary mental hospitalisations for 3-4 months each, once in 2013-14 and once in 2017. I was put on more and more doses of all varieties of anti-psychotics and occasionally benzodiazepines, including pills and injectables and was probably even given an electroshock “treatment” once, I am unsure as I would have been unconscious. The adverse effects were mind-numbing, and I was in unbearable pain. I just endured and got one more degree in Post-graduate Diploma in Business Management with a specialisation in Finance from the Sydenham Institute of Management Studies (SIMSREE) in Churchgate, Mumbai and worked in Bengaluru for four months. I then secured admission to the PhD program at the Department of Management Sciences at IIT Kanpur. This was an inflexion point, and, hopefully, it remains so, for my sinking ship to be redeemed, and things have since then taken an upward turn. My journey at IIT Kanpur has also not been devoid of difficult circumstances. I have had all the same adverse effects: I have been lonely, and I have cried a lot. However, I have somehow managed to tide through, and hopefully I will get the doctorate in 2026.

Although my recovery is not yet complete, and it never will be in a true sense, many people and things have helped me to turn back the tide. The first and foremost is self-learning and education. From reading Dr Thomas Szasz, I found out about the economist Prof. Bryan Caplan. I have arduously followed his writings and lectures. I was also lucky to meet him in New Delhi and to travel with him to Amritsar in 2024. His blog has been a lifesaver, very literally. ‘Mad in America’ also has been such a resource, and now that I also have ‘Mad in South Asia’, I feel very optimistic. I also study behavioural economics and psychology, which helps me significantly. Some of the books I included in the further readings below helped me educate myself and find ways to cope that I would not have found otherwise. Psychoeducation, economic and financial education have helped me a lot. I also listen to several podcasts, which help me in my continued education. Psychotherapy and counselling are also processes of education. I have felt very lonely at times, and listening to music helps me here. It also helps me a lot to stay focused and actively, meaningfully engaged in my research.

As Dr Thomas Szasz has said,

 “The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and even antibiotic known to medicine—in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea—is work.”

Szasz, Thomas. Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary (p. 99). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Also, support from family and friends is crucial, and it is not possible without them. Specially, my father was always the one who came to my rescue in times of emergency. My family and my first cousins and their families have always supported me in times of difficulty since my “diagnosis”. I will be forever thankful to them. It also helped me a lot to exercise and lead a healthy lifestyle. Simple activities, such as walking, yoga and pranayama, help a lot. Following a routine, sleeping on time and waking up early are important. Managing one’s finances well also has a role; small pain points can be done away with if we use money wisely. It also helped me very much to quit and abstain from smoking and drinking. Coffee and tea help a lot to get over the drowsiness caused by the drugs, to be able to work actively. At times, I drank five cups of coffee a day to stay awake. Dietary changes, such as vegetarian to eggetarian or non-vegetarian or vice versa, as per one’s requirements, helped too. Also, I ate a lot of fibrous foods, drinking juices and milk-based drinks, to keep one hydrated during summer is also important, as the anti-psychotic medications not only disturb our bodily metabolism but also the homeostasis, that is, its thermal, chemical, and electrical equilibrium. Spiritual organisations, such as the Art of Living, ISKCON and Ramakrishna Mission, helped me a lot, especially in tough times, through their various programs. It also helped to travel to and spend time in the midst of nature. All in all, I feel it was a process of becoming intellectually and psychologically more mature.

We must aim to achieve full physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being, not just avoid bad outcomes. After all, as Szasz has written, I feel “mental illnesses” are nothing but problems in living. As per Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we not only have physiological and safety needs, but also needs for love and belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation. The PERMA model of positive psychology - Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment - is also very relevant. What I have learned is that optimism, strong willpower, self-belief, building one’s resilience and self-control, having an internal locus of control, and working with intrinsic motivation are important. My recovery is not complete yet, as I am still on a significantly high dosage of these “medications”, but there has been a lot of water under the bridge. In the end, learning is an important part of life. We study to be able to live happy and fulfilling lives, not just out of curiosity. However, before we reach the destination, let us take the journey in our stride. In times of difficulty, never act recklessly; the darkest cloud has a silver lining. When facing difficult times, think about all the good in you and in the world, and stay positive, mustering all your inner strength!

Further reading:

1.      https://www.szasz.com/ - all books

2.      https://www.betonit.ai/ and all of his books

3.      https://www.madinamerica.com/

4.      Some other books: ‘Good Mood by Dr Julian Simon’, ‘The Irritable Male Syndrome by Dr Jared Diamond’, ‘Vinegar into Honey by Dr Ron Leifer’, ‘Deep Work by Dr Cal Newport’, ‘Indistractable by Nir Eyal’

5.      Books, video lectures and podcasts by Dr Joanna Moncrieff, Dr Peter Breggin and Mrs Laura Delano

6.      Books on the history of psychiatry and the cultural sociology of mental illness, such as those by Dr Andrew Scull

7.      Reading existential novels and short stories

Disclaimer: Please note that the intention of this article is not to malign or defame any person or any institution.