It’s been long time since I was in 12 standards, I used to study in a boarding school in Rajasthan, and it was a girl’s school. One of the most reputed schools in India for girls. Girls’ school wasn’t my idea but I had a family tradition which led me to the school. At first I was reluctant about it but later I realized it was far more fun than my previous school, we had lot to do and lot to learn so we enjoyed it .
But there have been incidents then but I understand them now, what they meant. When I was in 11th standard I was sharing, my room with Neha, she was a very good friend of mine and used to stay jubilant all the time, she was a great friend of mine. We used to share a lot of things, one day she told me about her family and and how she carves to meet them. She told me that just like me she wasn’t prepared to come here and was forced to the school by her parents who were going through divorce so that it doesn’t have any impact on her. She always seems sad and disturbed when she talked about her parents and family. She was the only child of her parents.
One day while we were sleeping she started to shout loudly and screamed “she is following me, she will kill me” I was very afraid and I tried to wake her up thinking she must have some bad dream but she wasn’t waking up and kept screaming so I ran out and called out the warden as we entered my room, warden tried to wake her up but she didn’t respond and then she threw a full glass of water on her face, which woke her up and she was fine. Later that night she apologized for her behavior and said it was just a nightmare, for some days it was fine again and I forgot that incident but after 1 week later while we were doing our assignment Neha and Rita had some differences of opinion, so they were discussing to do the assignment better but again she started screaming at Rita and said that she is trying to kill her, she is jealous of her. We tried to console her but she couldn’t after sometime our teachers calmed her down. Since then Neha would do that repeatedly but our warden claimed that this is just an act so that we would send her home but we were terrified and thought she definitely is cursed. I changed my room and stayed away from Rita her condition got worse and she would do so regularly screaming that somebody is following her and everyone was trying to kill her so, next month her parents were reported about her activities and they took her home forever
Now after 10 years later I understood the reason for her behavior, that time she was suffering from schizophrenia, , a physiological condition which makes a person hallucinate .i feel very sorry for my behavior with her and wished we could detect it in her early stages and helped her to get over it. I just wish she is fine now and living her life peacefully and fully recovered.
Today almost 2 people out of 10 are suffering from schizophrenia, but due to ignorance people consider it nature of people or an act of stubbornness. Social withdrawal, sloppiness of dress and hygiene, and loss of motivation and judgment are all common in schizophrenia. There is often an observable pattern of emotional difficulty, lack of responsiveness. Sometimes the person becomes very violent towards the near ones .there have been cases where a boy aged 18 due to pressure from school used to beat his parents on regular basis and the parents considered it as an act of adolescence. Another case where a husband used to beat his wife on regular basis after death of his parents but wife considered it his nature and continued living like this.
It makes people associated with the patient's life hell, I just hope people detect the symptoms and would be able to help the patient properly.
