We have something to SAY.

This summer, the residual pain and isolation from the loss of my Indian mother to bipolar disorder was so profound that if I didn’t channel it towards positive means, it would destroy me. So, in July 2008, I started SAY Campaign.

My mother, an immigrant from India to the U.S. in 1969, found herself lost in America, in a country where she couldn’t find cumin seeds and where people didn’t sleep on rooftops during summer. She gave kisses like satin, embraces like warm, thick honey and flipped grainy parathas (North Indian breads) with the bare tips of her fingers.

In what’s proving not to be such a rarity anymore for Indian families in the U.S., my father’s sudden departure from the family when I was 8 triggered severe symptoms of depression in my mother. This, combined with a complicated, abusive and rather hateful relationship with her own family, eventually morphed into biploar disorder -manifesting itself through hysteria episodes, hospitalizations, and suicide attempts.

Since my father’s departure,, I have provided care for my mother through the happy moments, the hallucinations, episodes, high peaks and low falls. We grew up on welfare, moved around from house to house, friends’ couches and an ashram (communal living).

My mother’s eventual break-down in 2006, leading to sudden heart failure after months of hospitalization, could have been prevented. Her mental illness fell silent to her traditional Indian family and to the South Asian community and prey to the stigma – the problem did not exist, so why should the solutions?

My father was often held at blame, I was often held at blame, being told my nontraditional choices and lifestyle has left my mother in only an “extreme sadness.” And what were my nontraditional choices? Choosing to leave Texas to live abroad (when my mother was doing well), move to Washington, DC for graduate school in international development, opting for travel in the world when possible, choosing colorful boyfriends over marriage. I was essentially told by my mother’s family that my actions had so much power over my mother as to cause mania, hallucinations and suicide attempts in her. They thought they were insulting me by calling me “American.”

My mother and I are inextricably linked through the times I missed school to give her ‘busy’ tasks; through the times I bought her bunches of her favorite bananas and playfully called her a monkey, just to see her laugh. We are linked through the drops of coconut oil she rubbed into my hair as a child, and through the drops of coconut oil I rubbed into her hair as an adult. Many called her Nancy, instead of her Indian name, Neroo. Watching her negotiate her fight for mental wellness and shouldering the battle myself for her was a childhood of anguish, triumph, guilt, courage, and resentment. In a South Asian context, watching her sometimes felt I was the only one not wearing blindfolds. I craved to ask someone: “how did you do it?”How could I help my mother, who laid ultimate trust in her family, if her own family would not cooperate with me? It seemed Indian ideals were not enough to cure my mother.