The mind is a boggling space. At once, it is capable of making you feel euphoric and just as swiftly has the capacity to plunge you into the depths of dysphoria. It can debilitatingly blur the lines of real and imagined. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) 2017 report, 4.5% of India’s population suffers from depression and 38 million Indians suffer from anxiety disorders. Thanks to advances in brain research and to celebrities talking more openly about mental illness, there is a lot more awareness and correspondingly less stigma attached to it. Yet, a lot requires to be done.
Giving mental health the importance it deserves, Dr. Peter Castelino, an Aldonkar and the force behind COOJ Mental Health Foundation is a practising psychiatrist and a man on a mission to provide Goa with the right psychosocial support for mental health issues. Giving a background to the formation of COOJ (Cause of our Joy), Dr. Castelino says, “It all started when our Founding Trustee desiring to fulfill the last wish of her daughter and wanting to support a social cause, met me in 2000. Together, we decided to bridge the gap in mental health care as there was a big lacunae in awareness and psychosocial care.”
Initially just getting people aware of mental health issues posed a challenge. Dr. Castelino explains, “The understanding of it was limited and acceptance even more difficult. 1% of our population has schizophrenia and 3-4% have severe mental health problems causing disabilities. It took us six months to get our first client.” With two centres in Mapusa and Vasco, one of the methods he used to spread the message was to speak at churches educating people on the scientific basis of many of our behaviours. Given that so many people turn to faith healers as a solution, Dr. Castelino was quick to identify them as a potential resource. He often works with these faith healers who help people identify the line between spiritual and medical, often referring cases to COOJ.
COOJ Mental Foundation caters to persons with severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and addictive behaviours. It deals with awareness and rehabilitation for people with mental disabilities, conducting workshops and seminars and providing a support group for families. Making skills based training an important facet, it also runs a sheltered workshop programme to hone skills for handicrafts like making paper bags, gift bags, cards etc. More recently, they initiated the COOJ Shoppee and Integrated Services as an opportunity for employment training. Through this, they enlist community support to outsource work like online marketing, data entry etc. which its members can undertake at their pace.
Juggling his independent psychiatry practice and running COOJ, Dr. Castelino is understandably hard-pressed for time. In 2012, COOJ in association with Befrienders International, introduced a Suicide Prevention Programme (SPP) and in 2013 started a helpline 2252525 that runs on weekdays from 3-7p.m. The enormity of this service hits home when you realise that while the national rate of suicide is 11.4, it is 15.8 in Goa. Says Dr. Castelino, “Suicide is the second leading cause of death in young people. In India, around 40% of suicides are due to relationship problems rather than mental health problem.” He further adds, “Often, just a small glimmer of hope is all that is needed to avert a possible death. Through gatekeeper training workshops done with the police, teachers, parents, counsellors, clergy and other stakeholders, we are able to empower key people in the community to deal with crisis situations.”
Fear of failure and peer pressure are the driving forces abetting suicide in youth. Not alien to failure himself, the dynamic Dr. Castelino in fact urges people to look at failure positively. Having failed to get Pediatrics as his preferred subject, he quite serendipitously discovered Psychiatry. “I am thankful for my failure which helped discover my true calling,” he exults and adds, “Everytime I see a person who starts out so broken but then is able to pick up the pieces through therapy and live their life is very fulfilling. Like one of my patients who was able to complete his MBA despite all the odds surrounding his mental illness. Today, being a productive member of society is his and my pride.”
Having lived in Kolkata for sometime, Dr. Castelino remembers visiting The Missionaries of Charity and assisting there as a child with his grandmother. Perhaps the seed to be of service stemmed from these early encounters. Often simple parental advice seems to be jaded but Dr. Castelino reiterates, “Just listen to your kids and spend time with them. Don’t be afraid to seek help and there is no shame in going to a psychiatrist, getting assessed and seeking early intervention,” He adds, “Parents must make children resilient and not fall into the trap of over-protecting them.”
Coming a full circle, COOJ introduced their Geriatric & Dementia Programme in 2014 to improve the quality of life of seniors. Through their Senior Therapy Centre and Memory Clinic, they offer assessments, physiotherapy, recreation and overall well being for seniors, with the aim to keep them engaged and connected.
Catering to children, youth and the old, COOJ is all inclusive and even if, when it comes to mental health, everything one does seems insufficient, the affable Dr. Castelino strives on. He, like Albus Dumbledore, knows that happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
