WE ARE LOOSING OUR ONLY CHILD ... DOCTOR, PLEASE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ... HELP US !!!

Recently I had a call from a mid aged couple, who wanted to know if I could help their 22 year old son, their only child. I asked them to schedule an appointment and tell me what the issue was and then I will be able to say if I can help or not. On the pre determined date and time, they walked into my clinic. After exchanging pleasantries and introductions, I asked them to tell me about the issue with their only child. Instantly I noticed that the mother’s eyes were filled with tears, and she began sobbing. She said “Doctor, He is our only child and it pains us a lot to see him in this condition, we have tried everything, but don’t know what to do now”. I let her finish and then turned to the father and asked him “What seems to be the issue with your son?” He promptly responded “He is an addict of online gaming”. I repeated “online gaming ?”, and the father responded by nodding his head. Now, I had successfully dealt with a few addiction cases, but they were all substance abuse, not of online gaming. Anyways, I asked the father to elaborate on what has lead to the child’s current condition. He went on to share his son’s history. “He was a brilliant child, good at academics, good at sports, used to compose very good poetry, very active in debating and even did some paintings and had a good ear for classical hindustani music. We were very proud of him as he was turning out to be a very fine young boy, pampered yes as he was our only child but we were proud of his achievements. It was after the Tenth exams, when he first started out playing online computer games, at first it was a few hours a day, but slowing we noticed he started spending more and more time online playing games. Lunch and Dinner began to be taken to the table and to be consumed while playing games. We ignored by saying its holiday times, so let it be. His result was out and as we had decided earlier he was to apply for engineering stream. He got into a good engineering college but his craze for online gaming continued. He used to go to college every day and on his return he would sit again on the computer playing those games. We thought that this online gaming craze will come down automatically once he gets busy with his college assignments and other stuff. We did not bother much about it.” “It was just before the deepawali period, we received a letter from his college, after about two months of college, the college authorities were now informing us that our son has not attended a single lecture in the last two month, we were in shock, and did not know how to respond. Both of us decided not to disclose this information to our son but to find out what exactly he does the whole day. So that same week I took a day off from work and decided to follow my son, so as usual eight o’clock he leaves for college on his bike, and I then started following him only to notice that he was not driving towards his college. I kept following him for some time and then noticed him parking his bike in front of a Cyber Cafe and going in. I parked the car a few feet away and got down and peeked into the cafe, and to my utter surprise there he was, my own son, getting ready to start playing online games. I immediately realized that, this seemed to have been his routine for the last few months. I did not confront him there but came home and narrated the whole incidence to my wife, and we decided to seek professional help as we were unable to deal with the situation. The counselor told us to confront him on his behavior and ask him if he wanted to continue with his engineering studies or wanted to do something else. We did as told and also popped that question, he said he was not interested in continuing with his studies and wanted to play online games. “ ‘We were devastated, did not know what to do, where to go. We did remove him from the engineering college and then told him to do external studies to which he readily agreed. But nothing changed, same routine, instead of playing in the Cyber Cafe he was now playing at home. The counselor also, had asked us to check on his friend circle too, and we did, we realized that he no longer “hung around” with his school friends, and was not in touch with any one of them since long, not even online on FB. We shared this information with the counselor, and she made us realize that he was becoming a loner a recluse, and was now getting away from the real word and society, and living his life in the virtual world. She asked us to follow him and see what kind of friends he hangs out with. We did that only to realize that our son’s new friends were all into gaming and heavy metal music and also to our surprise had got into the habit of smoking cigarettes and weed. A boy who loved classical music was into heavy metal and smoking. This broke us down completely as parents”. “As parents, thinking day and night about our son drove us up the wall, and then all this stress and tension started taking its toll on us as parents, we everyday questioned our way of bringing up our only child, did we do something wrong somewhere ? Did we not inculcate the right value into him ? What went wrong in our parenting ? We began blaming ourselves for his condition”. “With all this continuously on my mind, I started to have issues at workplace as my performance dipped and my wife had to deal with our only son, sitting at home in his room with the door closed playing online games coming out only to take his food back inside his room, and at times to go out to meet his new gaming friends. Both of us started developing health issues. Then I was diagnosed with acute depression and was put on anti depressant pills. As husband and wife, we stopped communicating with each other and even less with our son, our only child.” "And, suddenly we realized that we were celebrating his 20th birthday. Years had gone by like this, same routine day in day out, nothing had changed. He has still not cleared his external XII th exams”. “And, suddenly we realized that we were celebrating his 21st birthday. After a lot of coxing and pleading, one paper at a time, he cleared his XII th exams and took admission in BA external. But during the last one year he got addicted to another online game called DOTA and now this has changed his sleeping habits. Previously he used to sleep at 3 am and wake up at around 10:30 am, now he does not sleep whole night and plays this DOTA game with others all over the world. He pretends to go to sleep when he hears us open the door when we come back from our morning walk around 7:00 am only to wake up in the afternoon and then goes out for an hour or so, comes back and back to his DOTA”. “Doctor, he is now 22 years old and we are really really worried about him, we can’t give up on him as he is our only son our only child. We have tried everything, from counselors to temples to baba’s, but no change in his addiction”, and suddenly the mother yells out “WE ARE LOOSING OUR ONLY CHILD ... DOCTOR, PLEASE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ... HELP US ... we can’t watch him go down that road”. And they both broke down into tears. I somehow felt the pain and anguish of those parents, who were desperate for a cure to the illness of addiction of their son, their only child. I asked them to see if their son was interested in joining one of those gaming companies, where they employ such young kids to test their games before they go online, to which they responded in the negative. I assured them that if they are able to get their son to see me, I will do all in my powers to ensure that his life comes back on track. Once they left, I kept wondering ... gaming can be that addictive. I remembered my college days when we had Packman and played it for a few times or the Snake game, or those amazing games from Nintendo but never beyond a few rounds. How a mind does get addicted to online gaming. When does fascination end up being an addiction ? May be I need to go back to the books and do a little more research about it. And yes some research on this game called DOTA. I just hope and pray that this kid agrees to come and meet up with me, and help me in putting his life back on track, but more so by agreeing to work with me reducing the daily agony and mental torture the parent’s are going through. Buddha Bless :)

“I WANT TO LIVE, I DON’T WANT TO DIE SO SOON”

Yesterday, after paying a visit to a friend, who was admitted in the Hospital, as I was leaving the building premises, I happen to pass the Casualty Section which is situated at the entrance of the Hospital. I heard a young girl’s voice yelling “I WANT TO LIVE, I DON’T WANT TO DIE SO SOON”. Curiosity got the better of me so I stopped, took a few steps back and took a peak into the Casualty Ward, only to see a very young girl probably in her early 20’s crying out loud and begging with the doctors / nurses to save her life. As I stood there, the Doctor was frantically working on her and then he asked her friend who had got her to hospital to wait outside and drew the curtains on us. Out of sheer curiosity I asked this girl, accident case ? She said No, Drug Overdose. I was kind of shocked ... The look on my face probably said something and this girl immediately said, No No not those drugs, then she went on to explain to me, “She had taken a whole strip of Combiflam at one time”. Probably the surprise look on my face and her need to vent it out got her taking to me. “It’s like this Sir, that she just had a break up and could not handle the emotional pain of it anymore, and hence wanted to end her life, so she has consumed 10 Combiflam’s at one go”.

While this girl kept on talking, I was giving her a quiet hearing, after about 10 minutes this girl calmed down, I offered to buy her a coffee but she said she was “OK”. She was then summed by the hospital authorities to fill out some paper work. She went back inside the Casualty Ward.

I started moving towards the parking lot, thinking to myself “Ending your life because you can’t handle the emotional pain of a break up ?” “All this girl had to do was pick up the yellow pages or Google for a counselor and go and take an appointment and work out her issues, not to attempt to end her life, and honestly I do not think that Combiflam’s would have killed her”. “But No, she preferred to attempt self termination rather than go to a counselor or a therapist to get her issues resolved”.

With every step, I kept thinking, “What is it with people, why the resistance to go to a Counselor or a therapist ?” When you have issues with your heart, liver, kidney you go to a specialist right ? Then why not one for resolving issues related to your Behavior / Emotions / Thoughts or Mind ? Is it the shame of visiting one ? Still is it considered a Social Stigma, if you’re seeking help in an area which you’re not able to deal with on your own”. “How many lives have been lost because of this Stigma and the big question is how many more are we going to lose and till when ?” Or is it the eternal answer that people have “Oh, it’s nothing much, I’ll manage it”.

As I sat in my car about to start the engine, I say “I think only educating the people on the issues of Mental Health will help”.

Let's hope and pray that girl has lived through the night. Buddha Bless