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 

Mind Your MIND ...

How many times in your life, like Hritik Roshan in the movie “Laksha”, have you asked yourself the question “Mai Aaisa Kyu Hoo ... Mai Aaisa Kyu Hoo” (why am I the way I am) and hoped to get some answers, which obviously did not come through because the person who is asking the question and the person who is going to answer it, is one and the same, YOU. The great Albert Einstein once said, “You cannot solve a problem at the same level it was created at ... You need to move one notch higher to get the answers”. So you get the point ...

Yet your mind, yearns for an answer, it needs an answer ... So to get the answer to this eternal question you turn to various things viz. Religion, Philosophy, Spirituality, Enlightened Masters, Gurus, or even self claimed God Men or what we normally refer to as Baba’s.

The answers that you most likely will get is ... You’re a light Being, or You’re a thought entity or like Dr. Wayne Dyer says You’re a Spiritual Being in search of an Human Experience and not vice versa. The number of places you go to, those many answers. But to you, at one level, somewhere all this makes sense but your logical mind is always going to question all these answers too. You really start wondering “am I a Thought identity or Light Being ... and the end result is still no answer to the eternal question WHO AM I ?

   

But if, you dare to venture out, there is another place, you might get a logical answer to this eternal question WHO AM I ?  The place is of Science or specifically Behavioural Sciences or what are today referred to as Mind Sciences.

What if I was to tell you that the answer is very simple and is within YOU only, and unnecessary YOU were running around from one Guru To Another or from Master to another, from one Self Help Book to another. All YOU got to do is to look at YOURSELF and Understand YOURSELF. Again, you will sit up and say ... all religions / self help books authors have said the same thing or similar things only “ Look Inside and ALL Your answers are there ! The question your asking now is “What different are you talking about ?” Well the difference is in Approach. I am not talking a Philosophical / Spiritual Approach but a Scientific Approach, a more Logical Approach or if I am permitted to say a much Rational Approach, an approach which is acceptable to the logical mind, your logical mind, not something where in I am asking you to go on FAITH or TRUST as others do.

So, let’s first begin by looking at this person we are referring to ... YOU ! What are the components that go into making this YOU.

YOU are made up of your muscles, tissues, 206 bones, internal organs, blood and your FIVE senses ( all you women readers can read it as SIX senses ... yes yes your superior to us males in this aspect ). So let’s call it your PHYSICAL SELF.

YOU also have your Emotions and your Feelings and your Desires. ( for some of you these things are pretty pretty strong ) So let’s call this your MENTAL SELF.

YOU also have your Thoughts, your decision making abilities, your reasoning abilities. Let’s call this your INTELLECT and YOU also have your EGO ( for some of YOU it’s a pretty pretty large one ). And if you believe in it YOU also have a SOUL (and let’s not get into the SOUL Business for now ).

So, in shot you have a PHYSICAL SELF , MENTAL SELF and A SOUL ( like I said it depends upon your belief so let’s keep this aside for now ). Now, some of you again you will sit up and say ... So and so book from so and so religion / author has said this only, what different are you talking about, we all know this ?

Well there is a very powerful mind science called psychoneuroimmunology. This Mind Science looks at this connection between MENTAL and PHYSICAL SELF ( NO SOUL Business ). This Mind Science studies the impact of the linkage between MENTAL and PHYSICAL SELF. Remember the old saying “ Where the Mind goes the Body follows ” or doctors saying “ 75 % of all diseases are Psychosomatic ”. That connection is what I am talking about. So far so good, right ? Are we on the same page ? I think so.

Now, let’s get an understanding of the working of this MENTAL SELF. Like I said before it is made up of your EMOTIONS, FEELINGS and DESIRES. And then we have your INTELLECT which does all the THINKING work, DECISION Making ability and your REASONING abilities. All this put together is referred to by many as the MIND.

So, what does this have to do with WHO YOU ARE ? Well honestly everything. Haven’t you heard the saying “You’re everything You Think You Are”. Even the great Buddha has said eons of years ago "What we are today comes from thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow : our life is the creation of our mind”. Yes the MIND, we live in our MIND. I am sure he understood things more than I do ...

So, How does all this work ? The working is again very simple, we begin by looking at the THINKING process. Why thinking one may ask ? Well this is the Single Factor which differentiates us Humans Beings from the Animal Kingdom. Remember the saying “ I am because I think I am ”.

Well most people believe that this is the beginning of the whole thing ... the source of everything is in your thinking ... But, my dear friends this is where you are grossly mistaken ... Please understand, there is something in the background that is giving YOU, YOUR thinking. Yes I repeat there is a background conversation going on which is giving you, your thinking. Again, I ask you at this point of time “How many time have you kicked yourself ( not literally ) when someone else gets a brilliant idea at work place, which is appreciated by one and all especially the bosses and your putting your head down and asking yourself, why not me ? Why don’t such ideas come into my realm of thoughts ?

So, the million dollar question in your head right now is ... what is sitting in the background which is giving you your current thinking. Get ready ... for most people it is their PAST, yes YOUR past experiences are sitting in the background and which is giving you your current thinking. Yes it is your Past experiences and how you have interpreted that past experience is governing your currently thinking patterns.

Don’t take what I am saying at face value, check it out. Look at your current thinking patterns especially a negative one and like peeling an onion begin to peel one layer after another and go deeper, another layer, go deeper, and there see your past experiences sitting there, your past decisions are sitting there, your past emotions and feelings are comfortably sitting and it is all this past which is running your current thinking process.

You are going through life carrying with you all your past. You think time has healed it, sorry not true. Time helps you to deal with it, at the most lessens the impact. But the experience is still there. See the kind of thoughts you entertain just before you go off to sleep. Yes it’s those very same thoughts that you think you have dealt with but sadly they still trouble you once in a while. A Behavioural scientist Alfred Korbasky once said “God may forgive you for your sins, but your own nervous system will never”. Get the point.

But, these past experiences that are there are not alone, really they have a very strong companion giving them company. They are placed on a platform of your BELIEF System. Yes, your belief’s are the bases on which you interpret you experiences taken in by your FIVE / SIX Senses. In the scientific language we call it your programming. In the Indian context I would like to call them, your “Sankars”.

Behavioural Science says “Programming Creates YOUR Beliefs, Beliefs Creates YOUR Attitudes, Attitudes Create YOUR Feelings, Feelings Create YOUR Actions, and Actions Creates YOUR Results” So, just for fun sake replace the word “Programming” with “Sanskars” and see if it is making sense for you. I am 100 % sure it is. Hence, I say “To Change the Results your getting out of yourself and others around you, you need to change the Programming”. So, it’s not just about your Attitude it’s all about your programming. So, now your thinking to yourself, is it possible to change the programming ? And the answer is an astounding and emphatic YES with big asterisks. We cannot change what has happened but we can definitely change the impact of the past on you in the current.

So, once again now your thinking to yourself ... But How ? Please remember, you have been programmed by your religion (majorly), parents, grandparents, school teachers, media, social media, friends etc etc. And if you can be programmed, you can also be re programmed. Today we have very advance Mind Science Tools / Processes like Transactional Analysis or even Neuro Linguistic Programming or even Hypno Therapy apart from Ontology, Grapho Therapy and good old Psycho Therapy or Counselling, which will allow this to easily happen and within a very short period of time. We can change the impact of the past on you. This change will change the way you perceived it then and now. And this change will free you from the shackles of the past (especially if it was a tragic past) and enhance the current by enhancing the past experiences. 

Above I have used the phrase “your interpretation of the experience”. Yes my dear, you have a very unique way of interpreting experiences. The input channel of taking in any experiences is your FIVE / SIX senses. The way these work determines how you store the experience. The more open and active they are, better the interpretation of the experience. Remember the brain has a habit of Deletion of Information, Distortion of Information, and Generalization of Information. When these three processes are working constantly working 24 x 7 x 365 you’re not experiencing the experience in totality. Then when asked about it, it becomes your interpretation of that experience.

Having understood this, this will give you an insight as to how each and every experience that you have experienced till date has been deleted, distorted, and generalized. And remember it is based on this information you create your beliefs and opinions and perceptions about self and others around you. So, spend a moment and think about all that you have been through, and ask yourself is there a possibility that the way you have interpreted the experience and drawn inferences about the same, could be your exclusive way of interpreting it, not what really happened. After all it is said “you see what you want to see in an experience”.

Also, we need to understand that most of the time we have problems with our near and dears ones, colleges at workplace and others in our lives because most of the times we relate to an deep rooted thought or feeling which gets triggered because of the similarities we see in this person and the person whose image or feeling has been triggered. This is referred to as parataxic distortion. For e.g. There is a person A, whose mother is very strict and dominating, when A begins his corporate career he gets a boss, let’s call this person B, who is very strict and dominating, he starts to relate to this boss as his mother, and hence behaves in a manner which is very argumentative / rebellious, because he is not relating to what the boss is saying, but to the feeling of his dominating mother in his mind. It is said, that each person is your life is representing someone or the other from your past and your mostly relating to the past in the present relationships.

So, the next time you ask the question, WHO AM I ? Remember you’re your past experiences and your Belief’s nothing else. So, if you want to change something in yourself today ... all you got to do is change your perception of the Past and your Belief’s. That’s as simple as it gets. And there we have a whole NEW you. A New you who thinks different, who behaves differently, a new you who is no longer tied down to his past or his old limiting belief’s. The New You is FREE from all this.

So, I say, Instead of Asking the Question, WHO AM I ... Ask yourself WHOM DO YOU CHOOSE TO BE TODAY ... in which area of life do I wish to be free / liberated ... because in my world anything is possible.

If there are some of you who still logically don’t get it and are still asking the question can behaviour really change, can a leopard really change its spots ? My request to you is too look at the possibility of “What if ... what if this is really possible ... what if whatever Dr. Tavkarr has said so far here is really possible ... then is it really possible for me”. What if ... you could overcome your limiting belief’s ... then is fulfilling all your dreams possible ...

Today modern Mind Sciences have shown us that Human Behaviour can be changed. Today, we can change the “Programming that created YOUR Beliefs, Beliefs that created YOUR Attitudes, Attitudes that created YOUR Feelings, Feelings that created YOUR Actions, and Actions that created YOUR Results”. I usually say “in today’s world, mental misery is a choice, an unnecessary choice”.

Today I believe it is truly possible for us to have a beautiful mind, and I too strongly believe that using the advance tools in Mind Sciences the Leopard Can Change its Spots.