New book dives into lives of successful women leaders living with mental illness

Neha Kirpal was barely five when her mother told her to stop brushing her teeth because the toothpaste might be poisoned Childhood for her became a blur of paranoia and chaos mdash ldquoHow do you unadopt your parents I felt I was constantly parenting my parents while feeling the vacuum of being parented myselfrdquo mdash she writes in her essay Being and Belonging Itrsquos part of the 11 accounts by women in the book Homecoming Mental Health Journeys of Resilience Healing and Wholeness coauthored by Dr Nandini Murali Itrsquos set to release in October in Mumbai It was only much later that Kirpal learnt her mother was schizophrenicNeha has spent a lot of her life cataloguing everything shersquos been through to cope with her trauma PICNISHAD ALAMThe family endured extraordinary ruptures mdash a decadelong disappearance of her mother and brother followed years later by her brotherrsquos suicide As is the fate of many girl children Kirpal was the caregiver shielding her mother and her brother The battle scars emerged later in life leaving her diagnosed with complex posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD in her 30s and an autoimmune disease called Sjogrenrsquos After years of struggling to hide or explain her motherrsquos mental illness from society Kirpal dreaded how her own diagnosis might become her entire identityShivhare uses focus fixations such as bedazzling to find an anchor to make sense of your thoughts PICNIMESH DAVEldquoIf women have any severe mental health challenges their lives are written off Therersquos nothing else you can be known for nothing else you can make of your liferdquo says Kirpal now 45 ldquoThese are women who have led whole lives thatrsquos what we wanted to showcase through our bookrdquoThe book is an anthology that brings together women who have excelled in their own fields but have simultaneously suffered from severe mental illnesses In India Kirpal feels that a woman picks up on the shame associated with her mental health as a child itself ldquoWomen are taught to associate their mental illness with secrecy and somehow it is her responsibility to not let this secret associated with the familyrsquos reputation get outrdquo she saysIn their 2019 study Mayo Clinic Arizona found that women are twice as likely to suffer from depression as compared to men Women are also much more likely to face sexual trauma dowry abuse and domestic violence making them more vulnerable to stressrelated mental illnesses Biology and hormones are no friends either All this combined with the social role of women as caregivers nurturers and protectors of family reputation makes women hesitant to even seek helpSuppressing their own needs and bearing a disproportionate burden of caregiving can then trigger further issues later in life A 2018 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 106000 people in Sweden diagnosed with stressrelated disorders Researchers found that PTSD was linked to subsequent development of autoimmune diseases such as in Kirpalrsquos caseTo cope with all of this she has spent a lot of her life cataloguing everything shersquos been through Writing is the one outlet that helped her make sense of the extreme chaos in her life On the page she could slow down the whirlwind and confront her fears Once she could make sense of her thoughts she knew the next step was to share her story ldquoMost people respond very well but sometimes it makes people really uncomfortablerdquo she says ldquoMaybe theyrsquove gone through something similar and just arenrsquot ready to confront that yet and so it makes them uncomfortablerdquo she says showing astounding empathyIt has been four years since Aditi Gangrade 27 first discovered her autism and ADHD The journey has been a hard one especially during the festive season when she often felt overstimulated ldquoWhenever we had to go for Garba during Navratri or family functions I would take two to three days just to recoverrdquo she says Gangrade would experience something akin to rage during these days and would often experience breakdowns ldquoIf Irsquod known earlier I would have made accommodations like I do nowrdquo she addsWhile we are seeing a lot more awareness about early detection of autism now a 2022 study from the US National Library of Science found that 80 per cent of autistic females go undiagnosed until the age of 18 As far as what Gangrade feels about the inequality in treatment compared to a man with a similar diagnosis as hers she says ldquoMen are given grace I have a guy friend who is autistic He usually gets uncomfortableanxious when guests come over unannounced to his place and he goes into his room when this happens But if someone comes to my place I am conditioned to entertain them to put my needs secondrdquoAlthough her mental health journey started late Gangrade channelled it into Much Much Media a content studio that tells stories about meaningful change But even in a professional setting she is expected to shut off her neurodivergence When she wears her sensory aids like noise cancelling headphones in business settings ldquothey say itrsquos not very lsquoladylikersquordquo implying that her gender performance supersedes her neurodivergenceDespite being an advocate for those like her when Gangrade attends panels or gatherings with friends she often asks for a quiet corner or breaks in the middle to decompress from the chaos But even such an ask is almost radical for a woman when the assumed expectation for her is to ldquoadjustrdquo ldquoWhen I was younger people didnrsquot even know that girls and women could have autismrdquo she says Once she got the diagnosis ldquoI understood myself so much better mdash my sensitivity my strong sense of justice Even just knowing that noisy environments bother me I went through all that agony not knowing what was happeningrdquo she saysFor many women seeking therapy might not bring relief Lakshita Shivhare 21 has suffered from insomnia and anxiety all her life After trying almost every fix Shivhare turned to therapy ldquoI felt this pressure to compress 20 years of my life into 40 minutes I kept thinking she the therapist misunderstood me or that she was getting presumptuousrdquo she says The pressure a woman feels to perform never ends even in a judgementfree zone like therapyShivhare has found that the fix to this is consulting her close friends ldquoI feel like they already know me they have the context I donrsquot have to explain myselfrdquo she adds Shivhare also uses focus fixations such as bedazzling to keep her mind from going into overdrive We hope that the stories of these women reach every fiveyearold holding on to a tube of toothpaste mdash scared and confusedlsquoWomen are also conditioned to mask lifelongrsquoDeeksha Athwani Clinical Psychologist at Fortis Hospital Mulund Hiranandani Hospital Vashi and SL Raheja Hospital MahimDeeksha AthwanildquoMental illnesses like premenstrual dysphoric disorder postpartum depression even postpartum psychosis mdash which gets overlooked a lot mdash are unique to women especially with how hormonal changes impact mental health Other than that even regular illnesses like depression may show up differently in women They will show more internalised symptoms like guilt and sadness whereas men will be more angry or aggressive more outward symptomsrdquolsquoWomen are called hystericalrsquoGarima Pal Assistant Professor at Maharashtra National Law UniversityGarima PalldquoWomenrsquos health often gets ignored as they are expected to manage everything mdash work home family This leads to higher rates of depression anxiety hormonal issues PTSD and eating disorders which are taboo and rarely acknowledged Anxiety panic attacks and disordered eating are all disorders more skewed towards women Often theyrsquore dismissed by family as ldquomanageablerdquo Womenrsquos struggles are trivialised mdash breakdowns termed lsquohysteriarsquo while menrsquos are taken seriouslyrdquo80Percentage of autistic women who go undiagnosed as of age 18US National Library of Science2xLikelihood of women to experience depression as compared to menMayo Clinic7 to 5Median age at which men are diagnosed with autismEpicResearch1 in 5Proportion of women with depression or anxiety who are initially misdiagnosed