How to support a loved one with schizophrenia or attention disorder | Mohanji
Compassion for Schizophrenia
If you have to take care of anybody who needs special attention, the right attitude or the right approach is compassion. We should be very considerate, very compassionate, and we need to accept that person as himself. We cannot think of the best possible way; the best possible may not be possible. That doesn’t mean you should be pessimistic; be optimistic. Do what you can, but at the same time, accept the person as he is. That way, you can make a difference in his life.
Acceptance
Most times, when a person needs something special, or a person has special needs, he isn’t accepted by society. His main problem would be not that he has special needs but that he has no acceptance in society. Most of the time, it’s like that. That’s why he can’t really do anything, just like our judicial system, police, and all that.
If a child gets sufficient counselling, he’ll not get into any crime. But what happens in schools or young age? If a child does something like stealing a pencil or something, he is immediately punished. And punishment makes a person angry or develop a complex within. When a person has a complex, he is abnormal already, and that evolves into an attitude of rebellious nature, or a rebellion happens inside. The person feels like fighting against things, angry, and then they evolve into criminal activity. Some move into drugs or things like that – escapism. Most of the addictions are escapism. That happens sometimes.
Counselling
So, through counselling, you can change a lot of things. You need to have compassion, deep compassion. In schools etc., we need much more compassionate people. We shouldn’t look at a child who is not learning well as not okay; maybe he has some other skills. He is probably good for something else. But we’ve already made a frame, and if somebody does not fit into that frame, we call that person a misfit. This is the way our system is.
Our system, the educational system, mostly is making bricks on the wall, not individuals. If a person has individuality, he isn’t accepted. A person is not allowed to be perfectly himself. This is the problem. And if you start doing that, you’ll accept everybody around you. Everybody is a unique being, a wonderful universe. So, we should start accepting them, and that’ll make a great difference in life.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Yogesh Pandit