Anil Vartak is the founder of the weekly Recovery self-help group at the Schizophrenia Awareness Association (https://schizophrenia.org.in/support-groups-2/recovery-methods/). He recently spoke with the Recovery Reporter about what is happening with the group in India during the period of nationwide lockdown and about his published newspaper columns written in the local Marathi language. See a translation of the first one below.

In Pune there’s been a complete lockdown since January 29. It will last for two more weeks. Recovery group meetings are not being held. Electronic meetings like Zoom are not very popular in India and many people cannot use the sophisticated gadgets. Instead, the members talk by phone one-on-one with me and my colleague.

That is how we are helping members. They can use the tools. Some of them are not giving full examples but they are talking about the situation and the symptoms they’re having at the body level and the mental level and the tools that they are using.

I have been writing a column for a newspaper in Goa State for more than one and a half years about different aspects of mental health. I wrote four articles on Recovery. I suggested to them to write a series of articles about using the Recovery method in the present situation.

The first article has been published. It is about how the Recovery method can be helpful with common symptoms like anxiety, depression and restlessness that average  people are experiencing in this current situation.

So I am explaining it with examples about the current situation. For example, people these days are watching TV news again and again. They also look at WhatsApp messages. All these things increase their anxiety.

So I give an example about how this chain of thoughts and emotions can be broken by commanding your muscles to only watch the news after waiting five or six hours. Or they can close the mobile and only look at it after five or six hours. So by commanding your muscles you can break the cycle of anxiety and negative thoughts and restlessness.

I plan to write about 15 or 20 tools. This will take up seven or eight articles. This is the first time that I’m writing for a common audience so I am avoiding the technical Recovery Language which is used in Recovery groups, because otherwise people will find it very monotonous and hard to understand.

Average people are not interested in technical language. They should get the feeling that they experience similar symptoms in the present circumstances, and that this Recovery Method offers them an opportunity to handle them in an appropriate way.

The Recovery Method: A Path to Ensure Mental Health

Tool 1: Maintaining my internal peace is my supreme goal

Sudhir Moghe, a renowned poet says, “The mind is an incomprehensible entity. Where should one seek support?” Many times, we feel helpless and anxious but fail to understand the depth of the emotion.  At such a juncture, it is difficult to gauge where to look to for help. Even though mental manipulations and challenges are not easy to understand, it is relatively easier to understand the workings of the mind. Once this is accomplished it is also easy to find answers to and resolve mental issues. In short, “The mind is comprehensible to oneself and help should be sought in this manner.”

In the lives of the greatest of men, there are times where their movements are restricted due to imprisonment, illness or situations like the current one that we are facing. But this time grants an opportunity for reflection and many decide the future course of their lives during these times. Maybe being compulsorily homebound will give many a new self-awareness, a different perspective of the tribulations of the rat race of life and answers to the problems that we face.  This could be a turning point in our lives.

Dr. Abraham Low, an American neuropsychiatrist, developed a self-help method keeping these goals in mind. Even though this method was evolved to help the mentally ill, it can also help to cope with the tensions, uncertainty, loneliness and the resulting fear in the current scenario. Every person has issues on the mental level. But majority of them  are regarding trivial or inconsequential issues. These are caused by our own mental machinations or the behavior of the people around us. According to Dr. Low, instead of thinking about past occurrences or mistakes, it is important to focus on the present and what can be accomplished now.

In his vast body of writing Dr. Abraham Low developed certain recovery tools for those who face mental issues. Recalling and using these tools of recovery in situations that cause stress, worry and uncertainty can help us deal with our anxieties. If the perspective that is implied by this method can be developed, it will greatly help all of us in these times of Covid-19.

1. Maintaining my internal peace is my supreme goal. There are many thoughts that enter our minds during the entire day. Worry about the future is the most common thought that occupies out minds and turns it into a battlefield. These thoughts can, at times, occur in passing, and we may be unaware of them. Even if we are aware of such thoughts, we assume that they are inevitable and cannot be resolved.

Against the backdrop of the coronavirus, worries about the uncertain future are constantly on our minds. How long will we be homebound, when will exams take place, what difficulties will we encounter, how our income will be affected, will our kith and kin who live abroad fare well - these are worries that all of us face.  None of these questions have concrete answers and that is what causes emotional uncertainty and distress.

Even though these worries and thoughts are reasonable, we are unaware that the cure for our distress lies within us. We are never completely helpless. It is always up to us to decide which thoughts to accept and which to reject.
Even if our mind has the capacity to play games on us, it is, finally a theatre of the mind. We are the actors on this stage. We can make our realization as prosperous as we want to, study carefully and make the changes we require to ensure our own peace of mind. “Maintaining my internal peace is my supreme goal.” This tool of the Recovery Method should always be in the back of our minds. The aim behind this is to remind ourselves that we have alternative thoughts and actions that abet mental peace and we should resort to these. This realization can be an extremely enabling one.

We should write down our thoughts, chronologically, on a piece of paper. Along with this we should also write “My mental peace is my supreme goal.” If we prioritize all our thoughts, we will realize that maintaining mental peace will always be on top of the list. It is only when mental peace is maintained that other activities can take place. We will also ascertain that this simple thought is often not realized by us. The Recovery Method places the greatest importance on the minutest of changes. In the same way that we believe that the world was created out of nothingness, similarly, our mental world is created out of these small but constant, repeated changes.

This is not the only aid element in the Recovery Method. Like the multitude of arrows that Arjun had, each aid element has to be utilized according to the situation and circumstances. We will see other aid elements in the forthcoming articles.

Anil Vartak
Vice-President, SAA, Pune
Group- Leader, Recovery International, U.S.A
avartak@yahoo.com