IRS officer writes handy primer for beating the blues

CHENNAI: Writing has been her passion since childhood. And, as an adult, when Shubhrata Prakash was diagnosed with depression, it was writing that became her lifeline during the darkest phases. Suggested as a form of therapy by her family and psychotherapist, Prakash began blogging. Today, these very chronicles of her battle with the disorder have culminated in a book, ‘The D Word: A Survivor’s Guide To Depression’.
“There is so little information about depression, or any other mental health issue, in India, that a book on it was urgently required,” says Prakash, an officer with the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), who at present works as additional commissioner of income tax.“I had spent a lot of time researching my condition and thought the knowledge gained by me could benefit others if I wrote everything down in a condensed form.” Her book, which will be launched in Chennai on March 26, also aims to bust myths about depression and fight the stigma associated with it.
Born and brought up in Patna, Prakash joined IRS in 2002. During her decade-and-a-half-long career, she worked in Chennai, Delhi and Ahmedabad. Prakash was formally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in 2011, at the age of 36. “But it was just the culmination of years of feeling low, disoriented, disjointed, dysfunctional, dis-everything,” she says, adding that the problems started with postpartum depression in 2006. “There was so little awareness about it that we failed to catch it,” she says. “But, with the passage of time, and my growing disability and dysfunctionality, I came to realize that something was grossly wrong with me. That is when I contacted a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with MDD.”
Prakash was put on a course of anti-depressants. A few months later, she got better and tapered off the medication as per the psychiatrist’s advice. Then in 2012, she was put on anti-depressants again. “The drugs were not very effective in my case and the drug protocol kept escalating over a period of three years,” says Prakash. After life-crippling adverse reactions, she had to go off all medication.
Though her disorder was resistant to drugs, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and alternative therapies like mindfulness, yoga and swimming helped and she has been living a drug-free life for the past 14 months. Prakash wants to highlight that ‘there is no silver bullet to slay the beast’. “There are no ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ in my book; the only ‘must’ is that one ‘must’ not give in to the illness; one ‘must’ fight back,” she says.