SURAT: They were a perfect couple, happy and contented in their own cocoon.
However, their world turned upside down when the 28-year-old woman suddenly developed severe depression.
In fact, it turned several shades worse after their house in the village in Amreli was ravaged by Cyclone Tauktae that hit Gujarat last month.
Vanita Dodiya’s trauma increased after 11 members of their family spent a horrendous night in the bathroom of their house when the cyclone struck.
“Seeing her (wife’s) mental condition, I too started to break down,” husband Dhiru told TOI.
Both partners helped to run the house in Varaccha area comfortably as well as raise their two little children.
But that was until Vanita started suffering from clinical depression around four months ago and developed suicidal thoughts.
In a household that thrived with double income, the family soon was fighting to make ends meet after Vanita would not even let her husband leave the house to work.
And in fact, Dhiru, who hails from Kotdi village in Amreli district, couldn’t afford to either as he had to keep his wife under constant watch because of her suicidal tendency.
But, thanks to Vanita undergoing a rare electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) under a neuropsychiatrist in Surat, the situation has today turned around completely.
So much so, in the last 10 days Vanita has been encouraging her husband to work hard in a diamond factory while she herself has started getting involved in a job-work of designing sarees.
“We both used to earn well, but she gave up her job-work after she lost interest in everything and even stopped doing household work.
We changed our house in Surat, but there was no difference in her behaviour and finally, we went back to our village,” said Dhiru.
“We consulted a doctor in Bhavnagar, but the medication did not work,” Dhiru said, adding that cyclone only added to his nightmare.
“My parents, my brother’s family and my family spent almost nine hours locked up inside a bathroom during the cyclone and when we came out, everything was gone,” Dhiru recalled with a shudder, adding that Vanita too started talking seriously about consuming poison or hanging herself.
“Frightened, we again came back to Surat,” he added.
Neuropsychiatrist Dr Milan Sojitra, who treated Vanita, said that it was a severe case of clinical depression and because of the trauma of the cyclone she kept talking about ending her life.
“There were two treatment options — through medication or ECT.
But medicines will take time and she was already suicidal.
Hence, with the family’s consent we went ahed with ECT,” said Dr Sojitra, adding that thankfully, Vanita’s behaviour changed after two sessions even as docs had planned three sessions of ECT.
“She does not remember much about her negative thoughts and is not only encouraging me to work, but is also working herself,” Dhiru said.