The house he goes back to
A camp lasts a fortnight. The house lasts the rest of his life. Almost everything that decides whether this holds happens in a room we will never see, and the people in that room have been given no instructions at all.
What is already there
There is one number, and it is free.
14416, or 1-800-891-4416. Round the clock, in English and twenty regional languages, in every State. A counsellor answers first, and a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist is reachable behind that. Nobody in the house has to travel and nobody has to give a name.
The whole of this site works with no signal.
Open it once where there is network, press the one button, and every practice and every session stays on the phone. A family that shares one phone can do this once and never pay for it again.
What is missing
Nobody has ever told a family what to actually do at three in the morning, and the advice they are given is usually to watch him, which is another way of saying to distrust him in his own house.
What to do first
Put 14416 in one phone in the house, tonight.
Not his phone. Somebody else's. He should not have to be the one who asks.
Pick a practice for the house, not for him.
Ten minutes, everybody who is at home, at the same hour. A man practising alone in a house that is watching him is being supervised. A man practising beside his brother is doing something normal.
Decide in advance what happens if he uses again.
Decide it now, while it is calm, and say it out loud. The plan is that he comes back and the practice starts again the same evening. Relapse is not the end of the treatment. It is the commonest event in it.
What to write down
Three things, on one piece of paper on the wall. Did he sleep. Did he eat. Did he come back. Nothing else, and no scores.
When one family has done this for a month, it is worth showing another. That is the next rung.
Where each of these comes from
- Tele MANAS, National Tele Mental Health Programme, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 14416 and 1-800-891-4416, free, 24 hours, English and 20 regional languages, in every State and Union Territory. telemanas.mohfw.gov.in