47. Mind games
When we face any physical pain, we take medicines. After few days we get relief from the pain. But there are always side effects of any medicine. It is possible that the medicine can have effects on some other part of the body. You don't get to know about it immediately, but it happens after some time period. You take painkillers for headache, but it can cause you nausea, irritability. If you take paracetamol, you can get allergic reaction which can cause rashes, swelling or low blood pressure or a fast heartbeat.
Same thing applies with mental diseases. When you give medicines to cure one mental disease, it may cause you some other mental disease as a side effect. Not immediately but after some considerable time period. In fact, a medicine for curing physical pain or ailments can sometimes cause side effects mentally and a medicine used to cure mental diseases can also show side effects on body.
After the purposeful torture that had happened with Tarini in her college, she had started suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It was like a trauma for her. She was a straightforward and simple person and hence was not able to handle these things and the conspiracy against her was like a trauma for her. She had started suffering from hypervigilance, self-destructive behavior, social isolation, fear, severe anxiety, loneliness and mistrust.
Though they take psychological therapy sessions with such mental patient, to improve their symptoms, teaching skills to deal with it and restore the self-esteem and recover from all the symptoms. Still in parallel, Doctors give medicines to cure it. That medicines may also cause drowsiness, sexual problems, hormonal imbalance, insomnia, hairfall and weight gain etc.
Maya knew this very well. Hence, she was worried when she saw that day the eyes of Tarini when she saw her with Dipesh. Tarini had got most of the side effects of her treatment on her body and mind. She had gained lot of weight and suffering from hairfall.
Recently, she had started developing sudden increase in sexual desire followed by sudden possessiveness and dissociative identity disorder and mood disorders. She suddenly had started imagining that she loved Vishwanath.
Recently Maya started getting feedback from Tarini’s office that her behavior has been changed. She told them not to show it on their faces and behave normally with her.
After a few days, Tarini was in no condition to go to her office again. She also had started showing all prominent symptoms of mood disorders and dissociative identity disorder.
One day Maya couldn’t sleep and suddenly heard that Tarini was blabbering in sleep, but the words were clear:
“Didi is enjoying her life, not thinking about me. What about my body? My desires? She has become selfish. She must search for a life partner for me. Instead, she is having affair with that guy. She is cheating a godly person like Vishwanath, who did a lot for her and me. I haven't expressed this in front of anyone, but I love Vishwanath! I will tell one day this to him that I love him. Yes, I love Vishwanath. But I kept this feeling to myself. But will he also love me back? Yes, but for that he should hate Maya first. And to make him hate Maya, I will tell him about her affair with that guy Dipesh!”
Maya looked at Tarini. Her eyes were shut but there was a cunning smile on her face.
Maya rose and sat on her bed, decided something in her mind. She was not sure whether it was complying to the so-called medical ethics or not, whether it is right or wrong, but she changed the medicine course of Tarini. She decided to give more strong medicines to Tarini which were not right for her brain.
To make sure that Tarini doesn’t suspect this sudden change in medicines, Maya kept the same labels on the bottles but changed the medicines inside it. While doing this, only one face was flashing before her eyes, and that was of Dipesh!
Maya had become more and more obsessive about Dipesh, day by day! Maya thought that she could pacify Tarini’s over-active and agitated mind using these strong doses and remove those thoughts from her mind.
Doctors don’t usually recommend these medicines, until there is extreme mental condition, but Maya decided to use it otherwise Tarini could do something wrong. She either could have hurt herself, Maya, Dipesh or Vishwanath. It was also a possibility that she might attempt a sexual attack on someone!
So, Maya started giving these new medicines to Tarini.
After change of medicines, Tarini's mental condition deteriorated day by day. On the other hand, Mitali showed a drastic recovery in recent days. She was responding well to the therapies. Bhanugopal and Kirankumar helped a lot in the physical therapy and the muscle training and exercises which included strength, flexibility, balance and mobility.
Dipesh made a lot of efforts along with both the children and his efforts were now paying. Of course, it was Doctor Maya who worked a lot honestly on it. Dedicated therapies by Maya and other doctors in her staff made it happen. It was noted as one rare case of recovery from acquired cerebral palsy. It was a rare achievement for all the doctors though, it was not a complete recovery but recovery percentage was more than any other case so far.
Mitali got significantly cured after a few months. She finally uttered the words "Mummy and Pappa". Ears of Dipesh and Dipika were eagerly awaiting to hear this. Dipika also was recovering slowly however, still she couldn't remember many past events.
Taking all the treatment history, one day Dipesh and Dipika went to a school where they were able to convince the head mistress that she got cured significantly and the school became ready to admit her in school. Maya was also accompanying them and felt happy for Dipesh.
Maya was pregnant and now she expected that Dipesh would stay with her. Hence, she increased therapies for Mitali so that Dipesh can take Mitali to hospital for few more months and that way both can spend some time together. Vishwanath and his mother also visited Maya, they stayed for few days and left. Both were happy that finally a child will be born.
Meanwhile, mental condition of Tarini got more and more deteriorated. The altered medicines didn’t prove to be effective. In fact, it made her condition even worse! She had gone beyond control. Also, it was a risk to keep her at home. So, Maya decided to keep her in a mental asylum.
One day when Maya delivered a baby boy, she heard news that Tarini was missing from the asylum. Police had started their investigations with the help of CCTV cameras but there was no clue.
Some asylum housekeeping staff and the CCTV footage saw her for the last time near a broken wall of the asylum at midnight. Before they could come out and stop her, she disappeared. On the other side of the wall there was nothing but a deep dark trench, in which if someone falls, never returns! However, for a normal human being it was impossible to climb on the wall as the wall was too tall and steep and slippery to climb for any human being.
Maya cried a lot for her missing sister as well as she became happy that she got a child. Her own child! Her and Dipesh's child!