Are we NORMAL...???

To differentiate what is normal and what is an abnormal human behavior takes a lot of understanding of the human mind. Have we understood that is the real question. Well i will try to explore my experiences as a postgraduate student of psychiatry and try to elaborate the differences to my level of knowledge. After selecting this topic when i was sitting in the hostel balcony i noticed a cat standing on the top of the hostel gate and being confused whether to jump in or jump out. The incident just looked similar to the situation which i was in now after selecting the topic. Well with the sip of our ever reliable energetic coffee of the hostel my neurotransmitters got stimulated and i was full of words. I will like to share with you few of my experiences as a postgraduate student in psychiatry. 

During my first week of joining the course i saw a child around 12yrs coming with his mother for consultation for an alleged consumption of poison. When i asked the reason the boy told he was angry because his mother did not allow him to see cartoon channel because she wanted to see some serials so he consumed the poison. When i asked him where did he get the idea of consuming the poison from he told me that he saw that the previous day in a serial his mother was watching. My next experience was in ward a adolescent girl who was taking treatment for her illness. When i saw her i noticed a mark on her head and i enquired her

mother about that. Her mother told that she took her daughter to a magicoreligious person for some unusual behavior in the girl. He had made a mark on the poor girl's forehead with an iron rod and told the mother that he has chased away the evil spirits which has invaded the girl. From my two experiences I had a doubt now that who is abnormal here. Well I am not interested to go into the details so i leave it to the readers to decide.

 Today's trend even in the advanced scientific world is people going behind magicoreligious people and spending few thousands before landing to the psychiatrist for proper treatment. The sad part of our busy life is people have forgotten to share their normal experiences with each other. I had such a personal experience during preparing for pg exams. I was so tensed during the last few days before exam so even during sleep I was dreaming about my books and what I have studied before. I was so anxious so i went and used to enquire it to my friends asking indirect questions .If anyone of my friends replied to my expectation i would smile happily in the back of mind "oh god i have company here" but i never revealed it to my friends.

Similarly everyone one of us experience different emotions for different psychological stressors. This is a normal phenomenon. This becomes abnormal when we continue to feel the same emotions and do things which may harm you or harm our caregivers and do things which are not socially acceptable. A person seen to have decreased self-care decreased sleep having an irrelevant talk without any insight into their problems is usually abnormal and they need to consult a psychiatrist as soon as possible. Well as in any field of medicine the sooner the person reports the better is the prognosis. So I kindly request all the readers to educate their peer groups about the awareness of mental health and advice them to consult a psychiatrist as soon as possible .Don’t shy away from any person who is mentally disturbed. Maybe tomorrow anyone of us could also be affected. It is just like a fever or loose stools we experience in our day to day life. Let’s unite together and help them to think and behave normally as any other person.

Let’s make a difference.

Dr. Bevin Sathya.

"Psychiatry - The Real Definition"

                          Psychiatry is defined as the study and treatment of abnormal mental problems. This is just a definition of  the textbook and for academic interest. Do we understand the real meaning of the word is still an unsolved  mystery. 

                        When  Johann christian reil coined the word psychiatry in 1808 and defined it as the healing of human mind he would have thought that he has unsolved many unanswered questions regarding human psyche in one word.Today even after 200 hundred years of scientific growth we find ourselves  lagging behind in the knowledge about psychiatry. When a person gets a chest pain he rushes to the best cardiologist when he gets fever he searches a physician or when his wife gets a  labor pain he runs to a ogcian but sadly even today when people get depressed stressed out or even when they have some mental problems they never visit a psychiatrist. Rather they prefer a priest or temple or church or some local black magicians for help and end up in deep trouble. 

The social stigma and cultural  boundaries have always prevented people from consulting a psychiatrist. People should break out of these unseen chains  to understand the large perspective of human mind. People even today are proud to say they are a diabetic or hypertensive or asthmatic but never a mentally disturbed. 

When I joined my post-graduation in MD psychiatry few of my co-doctors and medical professionals questioned me why I preferred this field over the highly fancied surgery and related fields.I just smiled at their ignorance. I can tell confidently that psychiatry is the only field where we can treat humanbeings without any scissors blades and costly investigations. Psychiatry is the only medical field were we treat people who are sadly not aware of their abnormal behavior and psychiatrist is the only doctor who treats the part of human body that is hidden within itself the mind.Psychiatry is nothing but understanding the human mind regarding the person’s personality and emotional behavior in relation to the environment in which he is living.

This brings us back to the same old question what is psychiatry. A person developing abnormal mental problems is mostly a person who lacks parental and social support. So It goes without saying that understanding a human mind starts long before the birth of the child when he his swimming happily in his mother’s womb.To make it more clear a mother is the first psychiatrist of the child , father is the psychiatrist who teaches discipline the school teacher is the psychiatrist who gives knowledge and so on.
 

Hence the development of a normal psyche rather depends on the surrounding in which he develops and not the person himself.So It clearly defines the role every one of us to have in understanding each others emotions and problems to have confidence and to understand psychiatry. In my next blog I will be giving a outline of what are normal and abnormal human psychic behavior .

Dr. Bevinsathya.