ATLAS.

THE ATLAS OF OUR LIVES:

On a daily basis we read at least three articles on social media which urge us to think and behave in particular ways if you want to find meaning and happiness in life. On a daily basis, as a mental health professional, I speak to 5 people who are not in sync with their families and 5 people who are experiencing a loss of meaning in their work life.

Life in cities has made people rush, increased the ‘rate of doing’ so much that the ‘rate of being’ gets quashed. But what of living intensely, living on a small scale. By this I mean living in touch with your own surroundings, smell the mud in your own garden, if at all you have one. Something that goes along the message of this post is this poem by Shane Koyczan. https://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An4a-_NjilY

One of the videos I saw was that of Mr Suzuki (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jlyv1hCTr0), who said economics is basically brain damage. It accounts for human made reality but not what is already out there. The environment and ecosystem we were privileged enough to inherit without a will-paper.


LEGACIES AND INHERITANCE:

In the light of natural and human made disasters piling up like Christmas presents we give to our children, perhaps the urban intellectual citizen of the world needs to breathe in deeply, exhale and reflect, just for a while. Are we enjoying this chase? Does it give you a rush or a high? Does it make your family secure to have more than enough money. Does it require you to compare yourself with your neighbors each minute but not be compassionate to them? 

Fukushima will have long term effects, apocalyptic statements will arrive at your doorstep as headlines. Food will be scarce, even if you are rich. There is no escape to what we have collectively created. This was not the case when you grew up, our generation ends up spending more than ever before, and saving very little. Investment, real estate, black money, white money, we know a lot about this, perhaps more than our parents. But they were happier and more successful than us in the same age, and I am talking to 23-35 year olds here. Which is a bigger success – being happy with less money or perpetually wanting more?

This is not to say that the previous generation did not have dreams or did not work hard for them. They knew why they had the dreams and somehow the reasons I hear today don’t seem worth it.

Everyone is either planning to live till 30 only or continue living in the fantasy that they’re never going to die. To escape the past they anesthetize the present and to not think about the future, they make the excuse that they’re living in the present. Brilliant actors we are, but we only have ourselves as audience. The imaginary audiences we carry in our heads, the virtual representations of the entire world’s populations, that is a heavy burden. We work to please that image. Strangely, in our rush to please them, we are not concerned about the same people’s well being. 

I read about tribes, and cultures and “illiterate masses” who are the real educated citizens of the world. They know the place of every leaf and insect in the world. They know the value of survival of every animal they hunt, every tree they ask for timber, a way of life which respects the living and honors the dead. A culture of song, dance and eating your fill and sleeping enough. Tell me honestly, whether one among you does not have a dream of having a vacation. We came from a place in history where work was play, and playful. Where, to have peace of mind, people didn’t have to leave their homes.

So what is it that I propose to you?

Do not act as individual plants. You are a part of a forest. Expand your sense of I-ness. Your self cannot exist independently. It is a fact, not a belief system. Notice, breathe, take in the surroundings at home and work. Consider the people you see as yourself. It is an exercise in empathy. Because you are them and they are you. You share the same home called earth and air that you breathe. A research study with DNA testing revealed that everyone has genes from practically every race, you might have a cousin in the room without knowing them. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls

And the more you chase the welfare of yourself, the more you’ll be struggling. We as people of the earth are designed to take care of each other, to have the distance and the vision to be able to see other’s problems and limitations not to take advantage of them but to care for them when they cannot see it on their own.

In sickness which is rampant, in debt which is high, in anger which surrounds us and makes us feel unsafe all the time – I find only one solution, take care of another human being’s needs if not animals or forests. Take care to not increase someone else’s misery if you can help it. Not as a value education lesson or momentary feeling good about oneself. But as a way of life.

A way of life born out of the understanding that inter-dependency is neither a luxury nor charity nor sympathy nor an ideal. Inter-dependency is a necessity, the more you propagate it as you would a religion, the better it is for the group of weird beings we call human. 

FROM THE FIELD ... as published on www.knowyourstar.com

Going Into The Field

Field work is a crucial component of any social work student’s life. This is where we get to apply whatever theories we have managed to retain, which explain how people and communities participate in life. I was very thrilled to be able to go to the field and learn more firsthand. My first institutional visit really shook me up and made me realize that what I considered a course component is actually a human laboratory of sorts. We are actually examining people’s lives and trying to make an attempt to help them in some small way.

Govandi Dumping Ground: A Case Study

The visit was to an NGO working in the Govandi Dumping Ground. You might have heard about in the news recently when some homes nearby had caught fire, and the entire area was under a heavy cloud of thick grey smoke, and the stench of burning garbage filled the air. What I would like to highlight here are some of the social factors that determine our physical and mental health using the example of the communities living near the dumping ground.

Most of the people living near the ground work as rag pickers, including the women and children in the family. The area has several cultures living in close proximity and it houses a masjid, several temples, and several NGOs. Crime and violence is rampant, and weapons and illegal substances are easily available. Some of the important issues worth discussing here are children’s education, bringing down the violence, finding suitable employment for at least the newer generations, and facilitating some amount of harmony between communities.

Intervening as social workers is quite challenging because of the interaction of multiple issues. A sort of learned helplessness pervades in the community because for so many people this mode of living has become permanent. Poverty is very real and so are harsh circumstances. We, as social workers, come in and do our analysis, address some of important issues, but it is the locals whose lives are severely impacted so solutions need to be addressed at a broader level.

The TB Project: Broadening The Mental Health Gaze

On one of our projects, we tried collaborating with NGOs and the local health providers, both government and private, to understand the prevalence of tuberculosis in one area within Govandi.

TB, which is known to be curable and manageable, is a fatal illness in this locality because of very poor drug compliance, overcrowding in the slums, malnutrition, poor hygiene, and inability to prioritize health. Unfortunately, TB drugs need to be taken regularly as advised for six months, otherwise the body develops resistance to the first line of drugs, and then more expensive and heavy medication is required. Often, people here cannot afford to take the expensive ones on a regular basis. This leads to further resistance to even that class of drugs. Several versions of TB now exist due to this.

TB as an illness affects weakened immune systems worse than healthy ones, so people who are HIV positive, women, children, and the elderly are the most vulnerable populations. Women are at risk because often they eat last, work for the longest hours, and are in close proximity to sick family members as caregivers.

Why the focus on TB when I am a mental health social worker? I want to highlight how health is a subject that cuts across all domains of life. Imagine a young adolescent from the community I have been describing. He may be 17, has dropped out of school, and is trying to help his family by earning some extra cash, which leads to working long hours.

Boys his age have a gang, which competes with other gangs of boys to get better access to where they want to work on the dumping ground. This leads to periodic bouts of violence. The boy may have a sister who is helping him work for certain hours of the day, and now he cannot take her with him to these areas because he is afraid that she may be assaulted in revenge. So the family loses out on income, but the boy is in a more vulnerable position because he has not been honest about where he is going in the evening. He also needs the extra income to buy a little packet of whatever he needs to snort to make his work easier to bear.

What sort of mental health issues do you think the boy and his family members might face? Substance use related dependence? Aggression? Anxiety, depression, stress reactions? Emotion regulation problems? What issues must the sister and the mother have? What about the other siblings?

I do not want to make this article about diagnosing their illnesses, but to showcase the roots of mental health problems that often stem from surroundings, relationships, and the beliefs and psychological processes of individuals. Causes of mental health concerns are studied by using this bio-psycho-social model. A doctor or a therapist can help the person in such a situation only when the person reaches out to them. It is the mandate of a social worker to reach out to these populations, work with government and non-government support systems and raise awareness both inside and outside the communities about the problems present there.

The See-saw Of Health

All of us have had at least one episode of diarrhea/constipation/nausea/dizziness before a high stress event like an exam. These are called stress reactions, our body’s way of coping with a threatening event. This is a small example of how the body and the mind are connected and influence each other throughout the course of our life. Now, scale the example to the level of a community, and imagine the number of causes interlinked that would affect someone in that position with that lifestyle, those restrictions, and no education. What would your physical and mental health be like? I leave you with these questions, which hopefully might lead to the broadening of your gaze the next time you attempt to see the world through another person’s eyes. On the see-saw of the health continuum it is a matter of how much your stressors weigh for you to move from illness to health or vice-versa.

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For people more interested in reading the technical aspects of this article, look up bio-psycho-social model, social determinants of mental health, and the person in environment model.

MILESTONES IN LOVE.by G.P.D

I dreamed of love that feels like a drug,

That takes you high and makes true all fantasies

Instead I found love that comforts you like a blanket

And roots you to the ground, steady and strong

Love took the self away from myself

Took me into the unknown where I was scared and in awe

Yet love brought me back changed and unchanged

Love grew and with it so did I

Love was a feeling I thought, something that is felt and carried

But now I know love is a way of being and doing things

It is the essential reason of “why” we are

Love is pure energy and a drive

Love is also a person, who makes you feel

You are not alone, Yet you are

Because in life’s journeys we have different lessons waiting

Love is quiet and calm and angry and raging

But most of all love is patience

And love is hope and trust and everything which makes living for another day possible

Love sees all, love sees you in entirety

Loves pushes and pulls and holds when you are broken

Love helps you go beyond your capacities

And still have some strength left

Love teaches you new languages, not just of regions unknown

But also of the heart, the smile and the body, and the soul

Love truly sees the soul, draws into the well that is bottomless and

Makes you compassionate

Love makes you feel you are enough, you are not small

You are not inefficient, you are not stupid or silly or any of those negative things

You think you are. They are just part of you,

Which you will shed like old clothes, unnecessary, a hindrance,

But hold on to because you are so familiar and dependent on them

And so love is naked,

A lover’s body perfect, no matter what scars or shapes they have

No matter what color, what fragrance and what strength

Because when love touches your body,

Every particle of it shines the light within

Every movement is a dance of ecstasy

And every silence and gaze is in admiration

Of the reflection of the soul’s perfection, its timelessness

Its limitlessness and of love itself.

And yes such love makes you want to be around love

All the time.

Without knowing that you yourself are love’s form and content

You have been touched and transformed by your lover

And your lover is within you as you.

The magic of that is to be discovered slowly

Like a bee sucks the honey out of the universal flower

Such powerful love is not destructive, it can only build

And what is left behind or broken down, or thrown away

Are only unnecessary burdensome portions of your sadness

Leaving you light, your heart full and calm and joyous

Leaving you open to miracles and opens your ears and heart to stories

You then are meant to change lives and see life

Without wanting to change it,

You are able to see beauty without damaging it.

You are able to love without expecting anything in return.

And that is the security of love. That is the god within everyone.

“I met the you in me and fell in love with me. I met me in you and fell in love with you.”

From the diaries of a social worker

FROM THE DIARIES OF A SOCIAL WORKER

As published on knowyourstar.com
http://www.knowyourstar.com/sreepriya-menon/

07/10/2016

“Social Work? Acha samaaj seva!”

“No. It is a professional course!”

“But why does anyone need a degree to help people?”

“Because you need to know which people to help and how.”

I saw the power of labeling first in a slum in Malad, Mumbai. I labeled a person as a slum dweller and she labeled me as a social worker. I went there to help, she saw me in obvious discomfort in her house and gave me space to sit, by moving outside the door way and asking me to sit on the floor. She fed me juice by the time which my guilt was poking stones in my stomach for having the audacity to think of who is helping whom. My supervisor later told me, you took a step forward by accepting the invitation for the juice. Otherwise, she would have thought that you have purity-pollution issues based out of caste. Later due to our visits in the future, we were able to support a women’s SHG to take a bank loan together and buy some materials through which they could earn a livelihood. They were all women, young and old, but mothers of children with disability who had taken a stand to support and not abandon their children just because the world says he or she cannot achieve anything because of an illness or impairment to the body or mind. To this day I maintain they helped more than I could hope to help them.

LIVING AWAY FOR SOME REAL EDUCATION

My first experience in TISS or Tata Institute of Social Sciences was that of awe. The new found independence of being a woman in a city like Mumbai to study a subject that is usually not recommended to young folk because neither is it lucrative nor is it practical. I use these words very mindfully since my colleagues will either laugh in pride or in irritation. I came to this institute with the single conviction that I need to work in the area of mental health and psychology was too clinically detached from the social reality of my people of this country.

I started learning how to articulate what I believe and spell out clearly what I don’t believe in. Slowly without realizing it I became too comfortable in that space where disagreement and diversity is found, appreciated, and then taken for granted. This is what social work taught me about education. It never stops. I had a seventy year old professor who taught us about the importance of being in love in a law class she took for us. She told me the sheer weight of duty that is rested upon the top 1 per cent of the country’s educated employed youth who has the power to change the social fabric of India’s villages and cities. She taught me whose voice I ought to represent when I speak. She taught me to question every authority and to work with every person with humility and pragmatic cleverness.

The people I met in TISS had come from forests, slums, cities and mountain lands. They were India for me. How each of them spoke and about what they wanted to live and die for was different. Each of them has a dream and a temptation from the world regarding a well paying job, a supportive partner and comfortable life. But what TISS did to us was to question who is paying you at that job, whether your partner’s gender and orientation is something you’ve thought about and what exactly is comfortable about living if you don’t shake things up which need some shaking.

COLLECTIVE CULTURE

Education wasn’t meant to be a level playing field at TISS, but what made it so was the city we were educated in. A budding social worker needs to explore their interventions, explore their communication skills and do a thorough need assessment. Mumbai as a city is a complex field for a social worker. For someone who likes studying and observing people and their stories, Mumbai is like a library. So what works well in Mumbai?

Certain cities have a culture of collectivity where they resonate with each others’ troubles and miseries and celebrate their joys together too. I saw the miracle of community living nowhere else but inside the Mumbai locals. Children, vegetables, vessels, fish and heavy equipment like ladders and baskets and whatnot enter the ladies compartment in a neat line, occupy space, give out a few choicest of swear words, and exit similarly all in the span of say 2 and a half minutes or less. Come rain or terror attacks, fear of outsiders or disdain for one’s own species, help is extended like for one’s own. Pride takes a beating when you accept help, and then you are open to helping others as well because now you’ve seen how easily it can be done.

The first and foremost thing of a gifting culture I noticed was acceptability and normalization of help giving or in simple terms “how easily we accept the practicing of kind behavior by strangers”. Once it is accepted, it is noticed more often, acknowledged and acted upon with lesser hesitation.

What is it that makes this city’s collective culture friendlier to curious learners and newcomers? I believe that along with a person’s genuine concern and joy of being alive and freedom of being somewhere unquestioned, of being allowed to exist in connection with their fellow beings is what makes wonders happen. This is an environment built over generations through practice, and marketing of this city as a city of dreams. Similarly, more spaces can be built in such manner, if the concept of collective or community living is understood and celebrated for the joy that it is.

By the end of my first semester in TISS, I had an answer to why I am a professional social worker and not a charity worker or doing social service. The answer lies in the fact that one has to appreciate the nuances that social work as a multi - disciplinary subject has to offer to people’s lives. The systematic study of social issues such as caste, class, gender and race have a direct impact on how we conceptualise development in the social sector. That is the power of working at the grassroots with this perspective and that is how we see empowerment.