From happiness to fear, guilt and depression

Mrs. Chowdhury is a housewife from a middle class family of Kolkata. She got married in the year 1986 to a very caring and understanding husband. They became proud parents to their baby boy, within two years of their marriage. Time passed by smoothly as the couple attained their post youth phase of life. Their son, Abhishek passed Madhyamik Examination with 80% marks, from a very reputed English medium school of the city. Mrs. Chowdhury was happy and very well recognized among her peers.

Over the last couple of years, she was not keeping well. She had been treated by eminent physicians but none of them were able to detect the root cause of her illness. Finally, she was suggested by a doctor to undergo Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) for HIV. She never knew what VCT meant. Her husband, manager of a nationalized bank, sensed something could have gone wrong and decided to undertake the test. Unfortunately, Mrs Chowdhury was detected positive. She was completely shattered and too depressed to carry out her normal activities in life. Her husband took her to a psychiatrist who after initial counseling referred her to HIVE. After an initial telephonic discussion with our medical officer she was brought to our outdoor treatment center, one afternoon.

After initial situational analysis, our doctor referred her to the counselor to assess her psychological status. She was hardly able to control herself and would often break down into tears. In order to confirm the diagnosis, it was decided to repeat the test in another laboratory. Unfortunately, the test once again confirmed the previous diagnosis.

HIVE continued to provide the post counseling services. But nothing could alter her mindset. Though her husband was very supportive, she was not responding to counseling at all. The test result came as a terrible shock to her and she could not comprehend how or when it might have happened. The fear of discrimination and ostracization, feeling of shame and guilt had enveloped her completely. She tried to peep into the past trying to explain where the things had gone wrong. For an individual without any risk behavior, the only possible route of infection which came to her mind was the transfusion of two units of blood 8 years ago, during her gall bladder surgery, as she was suffering from anemia.

The next phase of the story is really traumatic. Mrs. Chowdhury started suffering from self imposed stigma and guilt. She withdrew herself from the outside world and cut off her connection with the outside world. She stopped interacting with family, neighbors, relatives – with the fear in mind, that if they come to know about her status, they will all be looking down on her and will shun her. Her greatest fear was regarding her son. She was petrified to think of how her son’s outlook towards her may have changed. On one hand she started thinking that he would also start looking down on her and even believed that he might commit suicide. She also feared that he might be thrown away from his school and his friends will also discard him.

With this level of trauma, she even tried to poison her beloved son – by giving him a cup of tea – with a high concentration of sedatives. Her husband at the right moment noticed the act and some how managed to save his life. The very next morning suffering from a sense of extreme guilt and depression, she tried to set herself on fire. This time also her husband came to her rescue.

Shrouded with the feeling that situation is getting worse by the day, her husband brought her to HIVE’s outdoor treatment center for counseling a couple of times. Each time she would improve a bit but after a few days interval she would again go back to the same situation. Slowly this was developing into an obsessive compulsive disorder, where she started believing that she might have already transferred the infection to her husband and son al. She felt that she was a curse in their life. Her husband in order to clear her of this notion got himself tested during the last visit to HIVE clinic. The doctor and the counselor interacted with her for quite a long period. They assured her and gave her all the information on how to lead a normal life even with the infection. At that time, she seemed a bit convinced.

On the morning of 5th May 2006, we received one of the saddest news that Mrs. Chowdhury had committed suicide on the 3rd evening by hanging herself at home. Though everybody was present in the house at that time nobody came to know of this until she died. The depression, sense of guilt, the fear of infection transmission to her son and trauma of being vilified and discriminated had taken a toll on her psychologically and she left silently for unknown in order that her son and husband can live a life free of this curse.

The real identities of all individuals have been kept confidential.