Skip to main content

A Friend for the Depressed


Book

Title: Why do I feel so sad?

Author: Dr Shefali Batra

Publisher: Jaico, 2023

Pages: 305

Having gone through extreme depression two times, I know how painful the state is. You feel you are the most damned fool on the earth, utterly useless. You curse the day you were born. You long for death. Worst of all, you don’t trust anyone, not even those who intend to help you sincerely. I trusted books, however. Weren’t they my friends forever, the only friends who didn’t ditch me at any time?

Dr Shefali Batra’s book, Why do I feel so sad? Your pathway to healing depression, is an eminently companionable text that I will recommend to anyone who is going through depression. The book is divided into five parts. You will get to know the theoretical and scientific aspects of depression in the first part. The title of the second part is self-explanatory: ‘Thoughts rule you, but when twisted, they could fool you.’ The subsequent parts take you on a self-re-creating journey.

Dr Batra’s approach is firmly founded on Cognitive Psychology which looks at our beliefs, attitudes, intentions and other mental processes which determine our behaviour. “We all respond to events or situations in accordance with what we think and feel about it,” as the book puts it. Miracle is a change of attitude, as I used to repeat ad infinitum in my classes. I got that concept from Cognitive Psychology. By the way, I did a postgraduate course in psychology from Indira Gandhi National Open University. Cognitive psychology caught my attention the most.

Dr Batra’s book can be an ideal companion for anyone going through depression. She is a practising psychiatrist with much experience. Each chapter of her book presents the theoretical framework illustrating it with examples from her experience before going on to suggest certain exercises. This is not a book that is to be read; this is to be practised. Put the exercises into practice if you have depressive moods or tendencies.

We live in a difficult world in which approximately 703,000 people opt for death every year. That is, one person commits suicide every 45 seconds. Dr Batra informs us that the number of people who attempt suicide is 20 times this number. What may shock us further is the fact that “suicide ranks as one of the top four causes of death among 15- to 29-year-olds worldwide.”

All these people actually do not want to die. They want to put an end to their suffering. They wish to put an end to their feelings of defeat, entrapment, burden, isolation, disconnection… When the number of people choosing death is so large, the problem is indeed very acute and deserves close attention. Books like this one are immensely handy.

“Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever,” as Keri Russell said. I got that and a lot more inspiring quotes from Dr Batra’s book. This book can help anyone to make certain decisions, even if they are not suffering from depression. 



Comments

  1. Hari Om
    As one who's medical practice was fifty percent counselling, I commend and support this book choice! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is indeed a terrible problem. I'm glad the book was worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great insights! I completely agree with your perspective on this topic. Considering counselling for depression is essential when making informed decisions. Looking forward to more valuable content from you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great Post! You’ve shared valuable information that’s both informative and engaging. I appreciate the effort put into this post. Keep up the great work.

    Counselling for Depression

    ReplyDelete
  5. A touching and empathetic piece. Your words beautifully capture the quiet strength of simply being there for someone. True friendship often lies in presence, not advice. Thank you for sharing this.

    Depression counselling Calgary

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...

Two Women and Their Frustrations

Illustration by Gemini AI Nora and Millie are two unforgettable women in literature. Both are frustrated with their married life, though Nora’s frustration is a late experience. How they deal with their personal situations is worth a deep study. One redeems herself while the other destroys herself as well as her husband. Nora is the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House , and Millie is her counterpart in Terence Rattigan’s play, The Browning Version . [The links take you to the respective text.] Personal frustration leads one to growth into an enlightened selfhood while it embitters the other. Nora’s story is emancipatory and Millie’s is destructive. Nora questions patriarchal oppression and liberates herself from it with equanimity, while Millie is trapped in a meaningless relationship. Since I have summarised these plays in earlier posts, now I’m moving on to a discussion on the enlightening contrasts between these two characters. If you’re interested in the plot ...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...