By Santwana Chatterjee

The last two nights I became a horribly changed person, so much so that I removed all clothing but still felt hot and claustrophobic. Made quite a nuisance of myself but the attendant calmed me down. I wake up at about 1 am every night, up after a long nightmare and feel I have been abandoned in this hellhole alone and a strong suicide wish takes hold. I try to find a way…find none…I feel I am left alone after Suraj… Terrible feelings take over. Back to sleep at about 3 or 4 am. I can never stop hearing people talk, they never stop—mostly Bheema my youngest brother and my sister whispering. The problem starts when these threats start to get me in the waking hours too. I suspect someone is spying on me, even when at the office desk, an extremely uncanny belief, the drum inside my chest starts beating, I even suspect such brutes are right at my doors and windows to break in…terrible feelings but no one to confide in. When Suraj was here I could tell him everything, though all such attacks come not only because of his odd behaviour but also from aggression from in-laws. Now there is no Suraj , no aggressive in-laws but I am afraid I would slip into that horrible state of mind any time if I am with hostile and uneasy company. Hard to sleep alone at night scared stiff of some kind of assault from black shadowy figures taking shape out of nothing… out to destroy me… but the day I meditated desperately to Suraj mingled now in infinite consciousness yet by my side in the dark, I felt his presence. Tried a few days before to analyse my belief but I knew I was completely wrong and two or three nights before, in the middle of the night the Black scary shadows came back taking shape on the window curtains.  I knew I had to accept my queer self and the absurd belief that I am always protected by some unseen force.  I do not see any harm in believing in my dual identity. Z I hear voices talking when alone in my flat. Moment I come out of my room they stop talking. Very very distinct and audible. I guessed the male voice was yours Dr and that you were discussing how bad my case was. I cannot sleep alone. When my elder sister got married I (I was 17 y) had to sleep alone in my room. Soon arose anxiety and insomnia and I was prescribed sleeping pills. After Suraj I am sleeping alone but luckily I always feel he is there in bed in my sleep and even after that… Last night Peter my tomcat was in my bed but we were not talking (Peter was naughty) and I definitely felt another cat too sleeping by my side.It was so real that waking up I searched for the cat in my bed realisation came late and was scary. My husband Suraj was a senior friend of my Daa. Daa admired him tremendously n always used tell us how strong… how brave etc… how my Daa was protected from the big bullies… I started admiring Suraj n married him. The day Daa committed suicide by cutting his veins and hanging himself from the ceiling fan (it must have been quite difficult) someone from the neighbourhood came and announced. I ran then and there barefoot and crying but was told the police had taken away his body. Strange I really could not accept his death and thought he might be alive and suddenly come back, I secretly thought that if he really died, he  would come back in a…someone somewhere…absurd I know. I now realise I kept him alive in my husband in many ways which I never realised, but today I think I finally lost my Daa with my husband. Thanks for helping me finally realise the truth that I have lost them both. I have no one to turn to… no roots…. B Thanks The new drug has done a world of good to my mental state. One thing worries me that this is the kind of drug I used to take a long while back. After my bro committed suicide I made a mess of my life…did not/could not go further than an MA. I have gone into trauma, suicidal, hell of an existence which with Gods grace and medical help I tackled somehow. I am going through melancholy which is natural after Suraj expired. A constant undercurrent of helplessness, apathy and physical discomfort which comes with this mental state has been difficult to overcome with no one to understand… Thanks a lot Doc but I am worried about the side effects as I already find the puffiness of my face coming back. Almost all my family members have gone through mental illness which could have been handled sympathetically keeping them at home but they had to be sent to mental home periodically as their condition worsened Horrified by how they, the ward boys, would come in the morning and would not serve breakfast to the patient to be administered electric shock and (from my bro who was so soft, intelligent and loveable) gave him strong drugs and he became a drug addict…. These memories I want to forget. I would later find almost a shadow of my dark nights in the famous novel and movie “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”. XXX analyses of my present state of mind came very clearly and so I think this medicine is not bad for me after all. YY (A) My reasons to thank the Doctor who unknowingly dug out…my reasons for being alive, happy and enjoying life as long as it is…. ((An extremely odd reaction from deep down my consciousness haunts me. These days I am happy and relaxed like, distant past, dozing off to sleep even after lunch; but I wake up with a jerk as if I am going into the unknown oblivion …death…again again again. Some force pushing/pulling me …. There is nothing, no one for me…my utility for being alive is over. My utility…my service is no longer needed. There is nothing, no one but my pet that still needs me. Is there really any use being alive while being a burden on others? Still haven’t achieved any of my dreams,  my aspiration to pursue the meaning of life and death but I am the luckiest soul on earth to realise that love is not only physical it transcends life and death, space and time. Life for both of us was confined to worldly pleasures, limited only to our five senses, without realising the existence of the sixth sense travelling through infinity, connecting and floating into and mingling with the sea of bliss that exists, beyond sensibility,in all existence engulfing hate… Love always melts limited consciousness into abundance of bliss beyond the reach of manmade boundaries to the unconscious, which, however much we try, can not realise the unconscious as we the conscious will melt with The unconscious i.e life into death. Ultimately there is only the uncountable mathematics of zero into infinity. A beginning has to end as we know through experience and logic. Explains the theory of “Cogito ergo sum, we exist because we think.” We can never be there in the Unconscious…thinking is bounded.The moment it crosses material boundary it becomes the infinite, incorrigible, the Unknown, the unconscious… Decartes’ theory of “cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore I am”— Great Mathematician wandering through Logic to the Philosophy of existence.

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Santwana Chatterjee is an author of psychological realism. She has a masters in mental and moral philosophy from Calcatta University, and writes books and blog posts in Bangla and English.