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Last Week Revision strategyTwo days for Essay:Prepare quotes, facts and intro and conclusion on below topics. You can also do mind mapping of below topics.Read here my essay strategy:What should be our strategy for the essay paper in the IAS (UPSC) exam?Very Important Topics1. $5 trillion in five years: Can we do it?2. Is Bretton Woods still relevant today?3. Politics without principle is a disaster.4. What India needs: Population control or population development?5. With Big Data comes Big responsibility6. Destiny of the nation is shaped by its citizens7. Is water crisis in India a manmade crisis?8. Means or Ends: what is more important?9. Is Gandhian philosophy relevant today10. Rapid Urbanization : Problems and prospects11. Can Zero Budget Natural farming ensure food security?12. Is privatization panacea for ailing Public Sector?13. Can UBI be a panacea for poverty?14. Rising inequality in India: An anomaly or an outcome of economic reforms?15. Industry 4.0: Is India ready?16. Without the rule of law there can be no democracy.17. Is India’s water Crisis a Man Crisis?18. Is Artificial intelligence boon or curse?19. Can State Funding ensure free and fair elections?20. India’s Population: Demographic dividend or demographic Disaster?21. Development and tribal welfare must be synchronous.22. Extreme is the new normal: Climate Change23. “Is development possible without making compromises on our environment?”24. Inequality is not just a moral issue—it is a macroeconomic issue.25. Is de globalization underway?Less Important Topics:26. The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs security of all.27. If you don’t vote you lose the right to complain.28. If voting made the difference they won’t us do it29. Politics, Business and Bureaucracy – a fatal triangle30. E-vehicle : Is it the right time to make a transition31. Malnutrition : A silent epidemic32. Suicide: A silent emergency33. Live simply so that others can simply liveGS Strategy:Answer writing Strategy:What should I do to improve if I only scored a total of 328 marks out 1000 in GS 1,2,3,4 and an overall score of 718 out of 1750 in the UPSC Civil Services 2018 Mains?Important Topics GS1:Culture:1. Mughal painting2. Indian school of philosophy with special focus on Vedanta (advaita, DaVita, Vishist Advaita) and Yoga.3. Ancient Indian Sruti literature4. Aryan invasion theory.5. Trace the evolution of Hindustani and Carnatic style of music in India6. Guptas as Golden Age in Ancient Indian History7. Mughal chroniclesModern India:1. Contribution of Jawaharlal Lal Nehru in pre and post-Independence India2. GoI Act 19193. Subhas Chandra Bose and his Azad Hind Fauj4. Jallianwala Bagh5. Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar6. contributions of Indians living abroad in India’s freedom struggle movement, especially during WW1World History:1. French revolution2. Treaty of Versailles of 1919 had sown the seeds for the Second World War3. Colonialization and decolonialisation : China and Hong Kong4. Cold war5. Communism6. Nationalism: Compare and contrast the policy of Bismarck with that of Count Cavour.Post-Independence:1. The language problem2. Unification of post partition India and the princely states under one administration.3. The 1969 bank nationalization4. Assam AccordSociety:1. Secularization of caste in India2. Social exclusion3. New social movement4. Sexual Harassment of women (prevention, prohibition ad redressal) Act and Crimes against Women5. Female labour force participation in India has fallen to 26%.6. Indian family – changing structure and norms7. Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic techniques Act and intentional sex selection- sex rati8. Discuss the linkage between the poor sanitation and Malnourishment9. POSCO and child sex abuse10. Optimum population and population explosion11. Anti-Trafficking Bill12. Tribal land alienation13. Drug menace in society14. Malnourishment problem15. HIV (Prevention and Control) Act 201716. Multi-dimensional poverty17. Disability and Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan18. Migrant workers and one nation one ration19. Sec 377 and transgender20. What are PVTGs? Discuss their geographical location along with characteristics and vulnerabilities. List few schemes for PVTGs.21. UNCCD’s land degradation neutrality (LDN) and land degradation in India22. Globalizations and tribal23. Globalizations and labour24. Rapid urbanization and environment degradation25. Counter urbanization26. Secularism and Communalism27. Does regionalism a threat to the unity and integrity of IndiaGeography1. Why earthquake and kinds of waves ?2. Tsunami2. Marine biodiversity and Depp ocean mining and deep sea fishing3. Biodiversity hot spots4. Indian monsoon and extreme climate events5. Polar vortex6. Forest fire in India?7. Hindu Kush Himalayan assessment report8. Gacial lakes outburst floods9. Heat wave10. Rare earth minerals significance and distribution around the world.11. Formation and distribution of coal deposits in India12. Two time zones in India.13. How tropical cyclones are formed and what phenomenon strengthens them? Explain how cyclone Tilti and Fani are different from the early ones?14. Identify the significance of jute industry? Explain the factors responsible for jute industry?15. Discuss the factors influencing the locations of automobile manufacturing Clusters in India.16. Port led development17. Bangalore as IT CITY locational factors18. Despite a ban, rat hole mining remains a prevalent practice for coal mining in India, why?19. Discuss the geographical factors responsible for the growth of Iron and steel industry in India?GS 2: Important Topics• Government of India Act, 1919• Due process of law• The 44th amendment• Fundamental duties enlargement and enforcement• Directive Principles• 102nd constitutional amendment Act and 103rd Constitutional Amendment Act. Does this violate the basic structure doctrine?• Assam Accord? Citizen Amendment Bill, 2016• 124A of IPC violate the freedom of expression given in article 19• Mob lynching and rule of law• Right to religious freedom• Section 499 of IPC• Article 32• Concurrent list• Madras High court has held that the elected government of Union Territory generally assumes supremacy over the lieutenant government.• Indian fiscal federalism suffers from vertical and horizontal imbalances- Role of NITI Ayog• Office of the governor and Article 356• 15th Finance commission• Finance of ULBs- municipal bonds• Cooperative federalism is an important tool in healing many evils like inter-state and intra-state inequalities• CBI credibility• Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, 1996• Gram panchayat development plans• Inter-state River Water Dispute (Amendment) Bill, 2019 helps in overcoming the challenges.• Cooperative federalism and Zonal councils in this regard.• Demand for smaller states will lead to balkanization of Indian states. In your opinion, can more number of smaller sates bring in effective governance at state level? Discuss• judicial legislation in India• interstate council• Decline in performance of Indian Parliament• Parliamentary committees are like mini Parliament. Discuss how they increase the efficiency and expertise of the Parliament.• Department related standing committees necessary?• Cabinet Committees• Parliamentary privileges codification• office of profit• Compare and contrast the vote on account and interim budget• Rajya Sabha relevance• Anti-defection Law has achieved its desired purpose and role of speaker.• Opposition Party and leader• Need of Legislative Councils• 5th and 6th schedules tribal area administration• Legalizing lobbying• State funding of elections• Rapid criminalization of politics, SC judgment and Regulation of political parties?• Feminization of Indian politics• FPTP system to PR system• Delimitation.• MCC• electoral bonds• Increasing role of PMO vs cabinet secretariat?• Judicial reforms and vacancy• Pressure groups role and limitation• India had a piecemeal approach to transport planning with multiplicity of agencies .How far can a unified ministry.• Election Commission Appointments• Tor of 15th Finance commission• National Green Tribunal• Tribunalization of justice• Lokpal can be an effective anti-corruption body• National Human Rights Commission commemorates its 25th anniversary• centrally sponsored schemesNGOs vs state and National policy on voluntary sector, 2007• Self Help Group and Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana• Manual scavenging Act• Transgender being the third genders according to the landmark Supreme Court judgment in NALSA vs. Union of India• Forest Rights Act, 2006• Extensive amendments to Forest Act 1927• The consumer protection bill, 2019 is a major step forward in consumer empowerment. Discuss• RTI (Amendment) Bill is RTI elimination bill and Official Secrets Act• E-Gov• NCD Challenge in India• Ayushman Bharat scheme and how far it would address these limitations?• draft NEP• Bihar Primary health crisis.• What do you understand by family law/personal law? Do they come under laws mentioned in Article 13 of Indian Constitution Lateral entryImportant Topics GS 3:• Middle income trap? How can India avert this?• Employment elasticity? Examine the causes of decline in employment elasticity• domestic demand falling• Private investments• India's tax-GDP ratio is still abysmally low and widening tax base• Restrictive labor laws• MSMEs significance• India’s demographic transition• The nationalization of banks and bank merger , NPA• Under-employment• Share of manufacturing in India’s GDP is low.• Demographics especially age structure of the population and economic growth• Black economy• 1991 reform and inequality• Domestic demand driven economy to export driven economy• Green GDP• Is GDP a satisfactory• capital account convertibility and risk• Twin balance sheet problem• Double farmers’ income by 2022and Agriculture Export Policy, 2018. In this context, discuss the key recommendations of the agriculture export policy.• Farm loan waiver.• Agri distress and structural Imbalance in agriculture• Agriculture census shows trends of slide in farm size and rise in woman land owners• Ease of doing business• The vision of $5trillion economy• Missing middle• Farmer security and Farm security• Agriculture and Inclusive growth• Inclusive growth and increasing economic inequality.• Financial inclusion is a prerequisite to inclusive growth.• Economic Survey 2019 and Budget 2019 role of private investment is a key driver of the growth.• Is there a need to revisit the FRBM act FRBM Review Committee headed by NK Singh• Outcome based budgeting• Cropping pattern? Discuss the factors affecting the cropping pattern in India.• Crop diversification for doubling farmer’s income.• Agricultural marketing problems and APMC , ENAM• Precision agriculture• National Agro-forestry policy 2014• GM crops• Price deficiency payment• Challenges of Public Distribution System• Potential of FPOs• Technology missions in agriculture• Non-farm employment in the rural areas• Global warming and its impact on crop productivity.• Model Contract Farming Act, 2018.• E-technological intervention for farmers?• Discuss the scope and prospects of food processing in India. Also examine the challenges faced by the sector.• It has often been suggested that an essential element of “Make in India” has to be “Bake in India”, i.e. a renewed focus on value addition and on processed agricultural products. Comment• land reforms of India• How far LPG reforms introduced in 1991 succeeded in fulfilling the original goal of liberalization? Do you think the economic reforms are the main causes of increasing inequality in India? What are its impacts? How can this be corrected?• What is Industry 4.0? Do you think that India is prepared for this?• dedicated freight corridor-• Infrastructure deficit is the biggest hurdle in achieving $5 trillion economy. In this context, discuss the budget proposal to build a robust infrastructure.• What is strategic oil reserves• What do you understand by energy poverty• Only Solar farming• Private investments need to be encouraged in infrastructure through renewed public private partnership (PPP) mechanism on the lines suggested by the Kelkar Committee.• What is Artificial Intelligence? How artificial intelligence can transform the Indian economy and provide for inclusive growth? Discuss in the light of Niti Aayog's National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.• Internet of Things IoT and Big Data• India’s policy on Data localization and its implications.• Net Neutrality.• Block chain• Gene editing? What is the role of Crisper-Cas9• DNA Technology (use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 would augment the justice delivery system of the countr• What is Personalized Medicine? How Genome India Project• Food fortification• Antibiotic resistance, superbugs.• gravitational waves• ISRO space industry and Vikram Sarabhai contribution• Mission Shakti. Does• Why the world is in a second race to the moon? What is the importance of India launching Chandrayaan-2 mission to moon?• Electric vehicles• India’s new drone regulations• Generic medicine and pharma industry• Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001• India's rank in Global Innovation Index.• National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)• Water crisis• Biofuel Policy• The coastal regulation zone notification 2018• Rat hole mining• Illegal mining has ravaged the Aravallis• Space private players• E Wastes• Large hydropower reservoirs• Extreme climate events• Circular Economy?• zero draft EIA notification, 2019• solar geoengineering• Biofuel policy 2018.• climate change on Ocean• National Clean Air Programme and Green Mobility• water crisis• GM technology• . Modernization and indigenization for the armed forces.• Digital currency security• Money laundering• Coastal Security• Smart fencing on borders• India nuclear doctrine• Mission Shakti• Indian Army's "Cold Start" doctrine• How organized crime in India is reinforcing Terrorism• NIA (Amendment) bill and UAPA bILL• Police reforms• Central Armed forces• State and non-state actorsGS 4: Topics:• Altruism• Surrogacy ethics• Medical Ethics• Sports ethics• Political campaign Ethics• Climate justice• Citizen Charter• Work Culture• Citizen charter• Probity• Courage of conviction• Civil service activism• Neutrality• Intellectual Integrity• Organ donation• Prejudice and stereotype• Mob violence –psychology• Abortion ethical dilemma• Price gouging• Sacrifice• Honor killing• Social audit• CSR• Corporate governance• Trusteeship• Auditors ethics• Politics and principles• Consumerism• Challenges of corruption• Leadership ethics• Altruistic surrogacy:• What do you understand by altruism? Does true altruism• How is compassion related to altruism?• What is ethical egoism?• What are ethical and legal issues in surrogacy?• Altruistic surrogacy and Women agency?• What are medical ethics?• Women hysterectomies:Doctors sans ethics: How medical malpractice has made hysterectomies a big business in MarathwadaWhy many women in Maharashtra’s Beed district have no wombs• What do you understand by medical malpractice?• What are reproductive rights?Fire: A young man saved life in Ahmadabad fire incident.This man saved two girls from deadly Surat coaching centre fire. Internet calls him a hero• What do you understand by self-sacrifice and courage? Why courage is called mother of all virtues?Caste discriminationNegative attitude and prejudice.Defections: Politics without principle is a disaster. Politics Without Ethics | Youth Ki AwaazWhat are the ethical issues involved in gene editing?Ethics in voting: Explain the below quote and their relevance in present context.• If you don’t vote you lose the right to complain. Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.• The ballot is stronger than bulletAbortionDiscuss the moral, legal and religious issues regarding abortion.Prejudice and stereotypes• What are prejudices? Explain with examples.• How do we develop prejudices? How it leads to discriminatory behavior? How can we get rid of it?Ethics in disasters• Disasters are not administrative challenge they create moral problems also. Discuss• What is price gouging? What are the ethical issues involved in it?• Should businesses lower prices of their services during disaster?Sports ethics• What role ethics plays in sports?• Why ethics is important in sports?• What are the ethical issues involved in allowing use of performance enhancing drugs in sports?Social accountability: RTI, SOCIAL AUDIRSensitivityPrivate and Public Ethics• Is it sufficient to practice ethics in public life?Important Facts for mains 2019ResourcesWater:World’s 9th largest freshwater reservesTotal water resource: 1869 BCMReplenishable groundwater: 433 BCMAnnual per capita water availability 1951 20195177 1720 Cubic MeterWorld Bank Report: Ganga River Basin water shortage: 39%Asian Development forecast: By 2030, water deficit of 50%Niti Ayog Report: 600 mn will face water shortageStanding Committee on water resources: Waterbodies, wetlands are getting encroachedGroundwater: 85% used only for irrigation (221 BCM out of 243BCM).80% of rural people still don't have access to piped water supply.India has only 4% of the world’s renewable water resources but about 18% of the world’s population.NITI Ayog “Composite water management Index”- The report warns that twenty-one cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people. If the present situation continues, there will be a 6 percent loss to the country’s GDP by 2050.Of 91 major reservoirs in the country, 11 have zero percent storage. Further, almost two-thirds of the country's reservoirs have below normal levels, a report by the Central Water Commission’s report.As per a 2018 study by NABARD and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, shifting a major chunk of the rice production to India’s central and eastern states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, while encouraging wheat cultivation through sustainable irrigation in the rice-growing regions of Punjab and Haryana, could help India prevent an impending water crisis by 2030.As per the Central Water Commission, 85.3 percent of the total water consumed in India was for agriculture in 2000, and the figure is likely to decrease to 83.3 percent by 2025.Rice and wheat, two of India’s most important food crops, are the most water-intensive. Producing a kilogram of rice requires an average of 2,800 liters of water, while a kilogram of wheat requires 1,654 liters of water, as per a recent report by WaterAid IndiaGroundwater makes up 40 percent of the country’s water supply. The erratic monsoon and successive droughts have led to excessive depletion of groundwater, which resulted in the decline of groundwater by 61 percent between 2007 and 2017. A 2018 report by Water Aid has already put India at the top of a list of countries with the worst access to clean water close to homesUtilization of water: Agriculture>Domestic>Industrial>Commercial consumptionAcc. to The Energy and Resources Institute states, quoting the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organization, that the average water supply in urban local bodies of the country is 69.25 litres per capita per day (LPCD) against the service level benchmark of 135 LPCD.On an average, 85 liters of water goes waste for every 100 liters utilized.According to information furnished by the Centre, while urban areas of the country generate 61,948 MLD of sewage on a daily basis, the installed capacity of sewage treatment plants (STPs) is just 23,277 MLD. This means that only 37.5% of sewage generated can be treated.As per the Agriculture Census 2010-11, there are 138.35 million farm-holdings in India, of which 92.8 million are marginal (<1 ha) and 24.8 million are small (1-2 ha). Even though small and marginal farmers account for more than 85% of total farm holdings, their share in operational area is only 41.2%. About 1.5-2 million new marginal and small farmers are added every year due to law of inheritance.The International Seabed Authority (ISA), an autonomous international organization established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, allots the ‘area’ for deep-sea mining. India was the first country to receive the status of a ‘Pioneer Investor ‘ in 1987 and was given an area of about 1.5 lakh sq km in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) for nodule exploration. In 2002, India signed a contract with the ISA and after complete resource analysis of the seabed 50% was surrendered and the country retained an area of 75,000 sq km.According to a release from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the estimated polymetallic nodule resource potential in this area is 380 million tonnes (MT), containing 4.7 MT of nickel, 4.29 MT of copper, 0.55 MT of cobalt and 92.59 MT of manganeseClose to 80% of the electricity generated is from coal and gas. Yet another 50,000MW of coal-fired power plants are being set up under the National Electricity Plan. More than 20% of all the electricity generated goes into “transmission and distribution losses"Due to inadequate and irregular last-mile supply, close to 15 million tonnes of diesel is used by local generators to produce 80 billion KWh of electricity. Close to $2 billion worth of battery storage capacity is imported every year. And most independent power plants operate at 12-15% below their declared capacity as they over-invoice plant costs.Official estimates indicate that around 3, 00,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past 30 years.The single largest factor about India’s water is that 90% of it is consumed in farming. 80 per cent of this irrigation is for water-guzzling crops — rice, wheat and sugarcaneFood Security:·Global Food Security Index (Economist Intelligence Unit) india’s rank - 76/113Resource Mobilisation:Tax collection for 2018-19 fell by,Direct Tax: 74,774crIndirect tax: 93,198Gross tax revenue- GDP 2018-19= 11.9% 2019-20=11.7Direct Tax:GDP will fall from 6.4 to 6.3Indirect Tax:GDP will fall from 5.5 to 5.3Disinvestment target :1 lac croreGovernment interest payment for past borrowings forms the largest component of revenue expenditureCapital expenditure is projected to grow at a rate slower than the projected rate of GDP growth.Investments of Rs 100 lakh crore would be needed cumulatively over the next 5 years to boost infrastructure.The digital payment market, with 800 million mobile users in the country of which more than 430 million have internet access, is estimated to grow to over $ 1 tn by 2025.Pre 1980’s era- GDP growth rate was about 3-3.5% and the population growth rate was 2%.World bank in its Global Economic Prospects, has projected weakening of global trade in 2019. It is projected to grow at 2.6% this year.Requirement will rise to 2.3-2.7 million digitally-skilled professionals during 2023: NasscomIIP dips to 3.1% in May owing to slow down.Index of Industrial Production (IIP) measures the quantum of changes in the industrial production in an economy and captures the general level of industrial activity in the country.Index of Industrial Production is compiled and published every month by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme ImplementationBlockchain technology is considered revolutionary for its ability to enable the secure movement of assets, without intermediaries, with its economic impact projected to exceed $3 trillion in the next decade. Blockchain is now the fastest-growing skill set demanded on job sites, with job growth rates at 2,000-6,000% and salaries for blockchain developers 50-100% higher than regular developer jobs.Blue Revolution:Blue Revolution 1.0: 1987-1997Blue revolution 2.0: 2016 onwardsIndia is second in the world in aquaculture production @ 4.7mn tnChina no.1 @ 60mn tnEEZ= 2MN km squareIndia exported fish worth 2017-18Energy:India is one of the world’s largest producers and consumers in 2 and 3 wheelers.Under National Biofuel Policy, 2018- 20% ethanol blending by 2030 10% ethanol blending by 2022One of the key requirements for a $ 5 tn economy is an investment of about Rs 5 lakh crore in the power transmission sector over the next few years, in order to cater to the 1.8 lakh crore units of electricity that India is likely to consume by 2025.·Share of green power increased from 6 %( 2014-15) to 10 %( 2018-19).Acc. to Oil Minister, India will continue to rely on petrol and diesel for running automobiles, and needs to expand its oil refining capacity by 80%.About ⅕ th of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.Even with the growth of renewable energy, coal has been projected to be the backbone of electricity sector until 2030 and beyond.India has created 80,000 MW of renewable energy and set a target of achieving 1,75,000 MW by 2022, reduced energy intensity by 21%.Global Innovation Index 2019 : Rank 52Boost demand for vehicles as 1 mnIndia and China will surpass the U.S. as the World’s Centers of Tech Innovation by 2035, according to Bloomberg New Economy Global Survey.India has just 4% of the world’s renewable energy but have 18% of the world's population.·The advantages of transporting water over water include the fact that one Horsepower of energy can move 150 kg on road, 500 kg on rail and 4,000 kg on water. Similarly, one liter of fuel can move 24 tonnes per km on road, 85 tones on rail and 105 tones on inland water transport.·China is way ahead of India in its expansion. Over the 2014-17 period, China’s addition to its renewable energy capacity (207.2 GW) was nearly six times India’s (33.3 GW). Over the same period, China increased its installed capacity in solar energy by 105.5 GW, while India increased its capacity by only 14.3 GW — a mere one-seventh of the former. Advanced economies like the U.S. and Japan installed almost twice the amount of solar capacity over this period compared to India.·India’s annual coal demand rose by 9.1% to nearly one billion tones during the year ending March 2019. Coal features among the top five imports of India, with total imports rising from 166.9 million tons in 2013-14 to 235.24 million tons in 2018-19.·A report published by the Centre for Financial Accountability in June 2018 showed that out of a total lending of ₹83,680 crore for 72 energy projects, 12 coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 17 GW obtained loans of ₹60,767 crore. The 60 renewable energy projects, with a combined capacity of 4.5 GW, were able to mobilize only ₹22,913 crore·According to BP Energy Outlook 2019, coal’s share in India’s primary energy consumption will decline from 56% in 2017 to 48% in 2040. But that is still nearly half of the total energy mix and way ahead of any other source of energy. Oil’s share, the second largest, will decline from 29% to 23%, and the contribution of renewables will rise fivefold to 16%. Even the NITI Aayog, which replaced the Planning Commission, in a 2017 report estimated the share of coal in the energy mix in 2040 to be at least 44%.Science and technology:Chandrayaan-1- Launched by PSLV -C11. Detected signs of water molecules.·Chandrayaan-2- Orbiter, Lander(Vikram) and a rover(Pragyan). GSLV Mk III. 3 stage(solid, liquid, cryogenic). 2 Vikas engine. Science and Technology.·The establishment of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969 heralded the Indian space programme. As the sixth-largest space agency celebrates its golden jubilee, India has slowly and steadily emerged as a pre-eminent space power with 102 spacecraft missions, the largest fleet of civilian satellites in the Asia-Pacific region, a successful inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission and a world record of launching 104 satellites from a single rocket.·The establishment of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in 1969 heralded the Indian space programme. As the sixth-largest space agency celebrates its golden jubilee, India has slowly and steadily emerged as a pre-eminent space power with 102 spacecraft missions, the largest fleet of civilian satellites in the Asia-Pacific region, a successful inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission and a world record of launching 104 satellites from a single rocketEducation:·Acc. to RTI query, scientists from SC and ST are grossly underrepresented in scientific institutions funded by Dept. of Biotechnology.·UGC has issued list of 23 fake universities and 14 of them also appear on the 2005-2006 list of fake universities by UGC·Water: India has 4% of the world's renewable water and 18% of the population.Health:Health: SDG AIM END AIDS BY 2030AIDS: consumed 20 mn lives22 mn under ART1.7mn new infections every year and 1mn deathsPreventing mother to child transmission of HIV by 2020By 2024- 80% less new HIV infection.The second edition of NITI Aayog’s Health Index was recently released in its report titled ‘Healthy States, Progressive India: Report on Rank of States and UTs’.What does the trend imply?Some States and Union Territories are doing better on health and well-being even with a lower economic output.In contrast, others are not improving upon high standards, and some are actually slipping in their performance.In the assessment during 2017-18, a few large States showed less encouraging progress.This reflects the low priority their governments have accorded to health and human development since the first edition of the ranking for 2015-16.The disparities are very evident in the rankings, with the populous and politically important Uttar Pradesh being in the bottom of the list.A World Health Assembly Resolution passed in May is hoping to catalyse domestic and external investments to help reach the global targets. These include ensuring at least 60% of all healthcare facilities have basic WASH services by 2022; at least 80% have the same by 2025; and 100% of all facilities provide basic WASH services by 2030.As a joint report published earlier this year by the World Health Organization and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) outlines, WASH services in many facilities across the world are missing or substandard. According to data from 2016, an estimated 896 million people globally had no water service at their healthcare facility. More than 1.5 billion had no sanitation service. One in every six healthcare facilities was estimated to have no hygiene service .Despite decades of effort, India still has less than one doctor for every 1,000 people, the World Health Organization’s minimum ratio for a country’s healthcare adequacy.On an average, a government doctor attends to 11,082 people, more than 10 times than what the WHO recommends. The shortage of government doctors does not augur well for India where 70 per cent of health care expenses are met by out-of-pocket expenditureIn Bihar, one government doctor serves 28,391 people. Uttar Pradesh is ranked second with 19,962 patients per doctor, which is followed by Jharkhand (18,518), Madhya Pradesh (16,996), Chhattisgarh (15,916) and Karnataka (13,556).Delhi is better in terms of doctor-population ratio (1:2203), but it is still twice the ratio recommended by WHO. The states and UTs that are closest to meeting the WHO standards are Arunachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Manipur and Sikkim.As of March 31, 2017, the country had a shortfall of 10,112 female health workers at primary health centres, 11,712 female health assistants, 15,592 male health assistants and more than 6,1000 female health workers and auxiliary nurse midwifes at sub-centres.In fact, primary health centres across the country are in want of at least 3,000 doctors with 1,974 such centres operating without a single doctor. In community health centres, there is a shortfall of close to 5,000 surgeonsThere are reportedly 462 medical colleges that churn out 56,748 doctors every year. Similarly, 3,123 institutions across the country prepare 125,764 nurses each year. However, with India’s population increasing by about 26 million each year, the increase in number of medical staff is too little.States, which are the worst performers in the entrance test for admission to MBBS courses, have the highest number of registered doctors. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had the lowest pass percentage in entrance test and yet they top the list of registered doctors—153,513 and 126,399, respectively. Rajasthan, the best-performing state in entrance test, has less than half the number of registered doctors.If the entire country wants to achieve 1:1,000 ratio, it will need 2.07 million more doctors by 2030, according to a study published in the Indian Journal of Public Health, in September last year. With the government sparing just 1.3 per cent of the GDP for public healthcare, as opposed to the global average of 6 per cent, shortage of government doctors means people will continue to incur heavy medical expenditure in private health care system.The study titled 'The Health Workforce in India', published in June 2016 by WHO, also revealed that in urban parts of India, only 58.4% of doctors have a medical qualification. The figure is really poor in rural areas with only 18.8% qualified doctorsAs per the WHO World Health Statistics 2015, India ranked 187 out of 194 countries for its public healthcare services with the public sector spending only 1.16% on health as a percentage of the GDP.Non Communicable Diseases- disease pattern in India in general and particularly in rural India has undergone a significant shift over the last 15 years. An early inkling of this change was evident in a 2001-2003 government of India report on the causes of death in the country. The report revealed that the deaths in rural India due to communicable diseases (41%) were almost matched by those due to NCDs (40%)A follow-up study on the causes of death in rural India for the years 2010-13 showed that NCDs accounted for 47% of all deaths while communicable, maternal, peri-natal and nutritional conditions together accounted for 30%High blood pressure, the biggest risk factor for death worldwide, now affects one in five adults in rural India, while diabetes affects about one in 20 adultsA recent report released by the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative shows that three of the top five leading causes of DALYs lost in India were NCDs: coronary artery disease, chronic lung diseases and stroke.It is estimated that India is likely to lose $4.58 trillion before 2030 due to NCDs.NCDs in rural India are affecting a relatively younger population—about a decade younger—compared to that in the developed countries. This is likely to be due to malnutrition early in life, which paradoxically increases the risk of NCDs and an unhealthy lifestyle in early adulthood.The government-run healthcare system in rural India largely focuses on maternal and child health and infection. For instance, of the total health budget of Rs47,343 crore in 2017-18, only Rs955 crore was allotted to the NCD programme.India has a doctor-population ratio of 1:1,655; the World Health Organisation standard is 1:1,000. Moreover, there is a considerable skew in the distribution of doctors, with the urban to rural doctor density ratio being 3.8:1.Diabetes has increased in every Indian state between 1990 and 2016, even among the poor, rising from 26 million in 1990 to 65 million in 2016. This number is projected to double by 2030. A major contributor to this epidemic is the displacement of whole foods in our diets by energy dense and nutrient-poor, ultra-processed food products.Self-styled doctors without formal training provide up to 75 per cent of primary care visits. Moreover, at present, 57.3 per cent of personnel practicing allopathic medicine do not have a medical qualification.Population:·As the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) notes, women in the lowest wealth quintile have an average of 1.6 more children than women in the highest wealth quintile, translating to a total fertility rate of 3.2 children versus 1.5 children moving from the wealthiest to the poorest.·Similarly, the number of children per woman declines with a woman’s level of schooling. Women with no schooling have an average 3.1 children, compared with 1.7 children for women with 12 or more years of schooling.·This reveals the depth of the connections between health, education and inequality, with those having little access to health and education being caught in a cycle of poverty, leading to more and more children, and the burden that state control on number of children could impose on the weakest.·As the latest Economic Survey points out, States with high population growth are also the ones with the lowest per capita availability of hospital beds.·Today, as many as 23 States and Union Territories, including all the States in the south region, already have fertility below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman·The Economic Survey 2018-19 notes that India is set to witness a “sharp slowdown in population growth in the next two decades”. The fact is that by the 2030s, some States will start transitioning to an ageing society as part of a well-studied process of “demographic transition”·A study by the UN Population Fund titled Demographic Dividend in India projects that by 2060, India’s population is expected to touch 166 crore. Most of this increase will translate into a larger working population of people aged between 15 and 59 years. Eighty percent of India’s total population growth during the period 2001-’31 will get translated into an increase in the working age population. By the mid-2040s, this sub-group will consist of more than a billion people·For the first time in Indian history, the population increase during 2001-2011 has been greater in urban areas than in rural areas. Nearly one-third of India’s population, 377 million people, lives in urban areas. The level of urbanization is higher in the south-western Indian states at an advanced demographic stage, accounting for 45% of the population of India’s urban population.Demographic Dividend:·For the first time since independence, India’s working age population — those aged between 15-64 years — will outnumber its dependents, that is, children aged 14 and below as well as people aged 65 and above·This demographic dividend is expected to last for the next 37 years, till 2055 — and is expected to spur India’s economic growth, as well as per capita income.·In Japan, for instance, which was among the first major economies to experience rapid growth because of changing population structure, the demographic dividend phase started in 1964 and ended in 2004. It was seen that in the first 10 years of this phase, it recorded a double digit GDP growth in five of those years, above 8% in two of those years and a little less than 6% in one year. Only two of these 10 years saw growth below 5%.·In Singapore, the dividend years started in 1979 and in the next 10 years, there were only two years when its economy grew at less than 7%. The island country saw double digit growth in four of these 10 years. South Korea entered this phase in 1987 and in the next 10 years, there were only two years when its growth rate fell below 7%.·The dividend years started in 1979 in Hong Kong and it witnessed less than 8% growth rate in only two of the next ten years.·According to the UNFPA — which cites the example of Latin American countries that, despite a demographic dividend, saw only a two-fold increase in their GDP in the late 20th century whereas the Asian countries in the same period saw a seven-fold increase.·Much of what India is able to achieve through its working population increase, says the UNFPA, will depend on whether India is able to provide good health, quality education and decent employment to its entire population.·India’s dependency ratio has declined from 68.4 %( 1950) to 49.8 %( 2018). Total Fertility rate declined from 5.9(1950) to 2.2(2018).India’s working-age population is now increasing because of rapidly declining birth and death rates.In their study, Atri Mukherjee, Priyanka Bajaj and Sarthak Gulati examine how changes in India’s population have influenced macroeconomic outcomes between 1975 and 2017. They find that while overall population growth is associated with lower economic growth, an increase in the working-age population is associated with higher growth.India’s age dependency ratio, the ratio of dependents (children and the elderly) to the working-age population (14- to 65-year-olds), is expected to only start rising in 2040, as per UN estimates.India’s labour force participation rate is declining, especially among rural youth (15- to 29-year-olds) and women.Agriculture:Acc. to FAO, insufficient investment in the agriculture sector in most developing countries over the past 30 years has resulted in low productivity and stagnant production.In India, with a steadily decreasing share of 14.4% in Gross Value Added since 2015-16, the sector’s contribution to a $ 5 tn economy would be around $1 tn- assuming a positive annual growth rate.An early experience of BRIC nations has shown that a 1% growth in agriculture is at least 2-3 .times more effective in reducing poverty than similar growth in non-agricultural sector.Public Investment in agricultural research and development in terms of percentage share in agriculture GVA stands at 0.37%, which is fairly low in comparison to between 3% and 5% in developed countries.·Acc. to Deputy Governor, RBI disinvestment in PSEs would alleviate crowding out effects of government borrowings in the country. Currently, the share of capital expenditure is meagre 14%.·Digital Payment- The number of transactions done through UPI has increased by 180 times since its inception in 2016. However, private players have cut into the government backed BHIM app’s share of the transactions, while card based transactions are still the most preferred online payment method.The Ashok Dalwai Committee clarified real incomes will need to be doubled over seven years (over a base income of 2015-16), which requires a growth rate of 10.4 percent per year in order to realise doubling of farmer’s income by 2022.India is the largest exporter of rice in the world, exporting about 12 to 13 MMT of the cereal per year. If the government raises the MSP of rice, by say 20 per cent, rice exports will drop and stocks with the government will rise to levels far beyond the buffer stock norms.Today, India spends roughly 0.7 per cent of agri-GDP on agri-R&D and extension together. This needs to double in the next five years.India, with a large and diverse agriculture, is among the world’s leading producer of cereals, milk, sugar, fruits and vegetables, spices, eggs and seafood products. Indian agriculture continues to be the backbone of our society and it provides livelihood to nearly 50 per cent of our population. India is supporting 17.84 per cent of world’s population, 15% of livestock population with merely 2.4 per cent of world’s land and 4 per cent water resources.Various studies on fresh fruits and vegetables, fisheries in India have indicated a loss percentage ranging from about 8% to 18% on account of poor post-harvest management, absence of cold chain and processing facilitiesIndia is currently ranked tenth amongst the major exporters globally as per WTO trade data for 2016. India’s share in global exports of agriculture products has increased from 1% a few years ago, to 2.2 % in 2016.Women in agriculture:The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30%. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by up to 4%, which could in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12–17% - that's 100-150 million people.MobilityThe higher your educational qualifications, the longer your work commute. That, in essence, is the finding reported in a working paper on mobility in one of India’s most congested cities, Bengaluru, by researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC).Unlike people with higher education qualifications, those in the unorganised sector without degrees work within five km of home.The commute to work required 42.45 minutes for about 10.84 km. This is an increase from around 40 minutes in 2001. Peak hours add on average six minutes to the commute one-way. Over 95% working in government, or in trade and commerce, move in peak time, while in the industrial sector, 66% of workers have peak-hour travel. That figure falls to just 10% for IT and 6% for the informal sector.Also, 41.91% of commuters used public transport, and a quarter used two-wheelers. Over 10% of commuters walked to work, highlighting the need for better pedestrian infrastructure.·Farm Mechanization: Laser guided land leveler can flatten the land in less time than oxen powered scrapper. It increases farmers productivity by 15%.·Agriculture Census 2018: Uttar Pradesh is home to the largest number of people tilling land, followed by Bihar and Maharashtra, according to the 2015-16 Agriculture Census.·India has been allotted a site of 75,000 sq. km. in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) by the UN International SeaBed Authority for exploitation of polymetallic nodules (PMN). These are rocks scattered on the seabed containing iron, manganese, nickel and cobalt.·Being able to lay hands on even 10% of that reserve can meet the energy requirement for the next 100 years. It has been estimated that 380 million metric tonnes of polymetallic nodules are available at the bottom of the seas in the Central Indian Ocean.·India’s Exclusive Economic Zone spreads over 2.2 million sq. km. and in the deep sea, lies “unexplored and unutilised”·The Amazon basin, spread across millions of hectares in multiple countries, hosts massive sinks of sequestered carbon, and the forests are a key factor in regulating monsoon systems.·As the custodian of forests in about 5 million sq km of Amazon land. One estimate by the World Bank some years ago noted that 15 million hectares had been abandoned due to degradation. Globally, there is tremendous momentum to save the Amazon forests. Brazil must welcome initiatives such as the billion-dollar Amazon Fund backed by Norway and Germany which has been operating for over a decade, instead of trying to shut them down.·The rainforests harbour rich biodiversity and about 400 known indigenous groups whose presence has prevented commercial interests from overrunning the lands.Zero Based Natural Farming:·Acc. to NSSO 70% of agri household spend more than they earn·50% of farmers are in debt.·In AP and Telangana debtedness is 90%(Avg debt 1lac)·Acc to NITI Aayog , more than 1.6 lakh farmers are practicing the ZBNF in almost 1,000 villages.Banking:The opening of 36 crore bank accounts in Jan Dhan Yojana has linked the poor to our growing economy.Government is in talks with foreign lenders to provide $14.5 bn in credit to millions of small firmsIndia’s 63 million firms in micro, small and medium firm sector are responsible for more than a quarter of the country’s manufacturing and services output. Gross domestic product growth fell to a 5 year low of 5.8% in January-March quarter, well below the 8% plus rates that the government is targeting.Credit availability for SMEs, which also account for about 45% of the country’s exports, has worsened due to a liquidity crisis in the NBFCs sector.A study by RBI Panel said the overall deficit in credit for the MSME sector is estimated at about Rs 20-25 lakh crore.Employment:MGNREGA- Lack of adequate financial allocation, pending liabilities and low wages have dogged the programme over the past 8 years.About 20% of budget allocation in each of the last 5 years is pending wage liabilities from previous years. It was worst in 2016-17 when pending liabilities were 35% out of total allocation of Rs 38,500 crore.MGNREGA wages in many states are about 40% lower than the national minimum wage.Swaraj Abhiyan vs Union of India, 2015- Government should provide more work to the people of drought prone area and timely wages.Public employment in India is only one-tenth of that in Norway, only 15% of that in Brazil and much than a third of that in ChinaAuto Industry:8-10 lac job lossAutomatic Hubs: Gurugram - Manesar belt , Pune , Jamshedpur,PithampurEnvironment:The total surface area of our Earth is 52 billion hectares (Ha), and 31% of this has been forest cover.FAO defines forest as a land area of at least 0.5 hectare, covered by at least 10% tree cover without any agricultural activity or human settlementSwiss and French ecologists have found out that there is potential climate change mitigation through global tree restoration by adding 0.9 bn hectares. More than 50% of this restoration potential can be found in 6 countriesIndia has 21.54% tree cover and between 2015 and 2018, we have added 6,778 sq kmPhilippines Success story- Making mandatory for each elementary, high school and college student to plant 10 trees before graduatingSection 15 of the Environment Protection Act(for thermal power plants) provides for blanket penalty for contravention of any of the provisions of EPA: up to 5 years of imprisonment and up to Rs 1 lakh fine along with additional daily fines for continuing offences.·As per Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms for upgraded fuels, (IS: 2796 – petrol and IS: 1460 – diesel), sulphur content is reduced to 10 mg/kg max in BS-VI from 50 mg/kg under BS-IV. This key reduction in sulphur makes it possible to equip vehicles with better catalytic converters that capture pollutants.·As per June 2019 sales data released by SIAM, automobile companies sold 16.28% fewer passenger vehicles compared to June 2018. There was a 23.39% drop in the sale of commercial vehicles in the same period. Two-wheeler sales dipped by 11.70%.·India has been emerging as one of the world’s most polluted countries, with particulate matter PM 2.5 levels spiking more than 999 microgram per cubic metre in parts of Delhi last year.·The government also commissioned a study to gauge the economic value of tiger reserves. Based on an analysis of 10 of them, the government claimed that the cumulative benefits — from the carbon and timber conserved, livelihood to those who depend on forests and tourism — were anywhere from ₹4,200 crore to ₹16,000 crore annually.·Nearly 3,000 tigers now reside in India, that's more than 70% of the world's tiger population.·The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has asserted in its report, ‘Status of Tigers in India’ 2018, that 83% of the big cats censused were individually photographed using camera traps, 87% were confirmed through a camera trap based capture-recapture technique, and other estimation methods were used to establish the total number.·The less accessible Western Ghats has witnessed a steady increase in numbers from 2006, notably in Karnataka, and Central India has an abundance, but there is a marked drop in Chhattisgarh and Odisha; in Buxa, Dampa, Palamau, which are Tiger Reserves, no trace of animal was found.·Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number at 526, closely followed by Karnataka (524) and Uttarakhand (442).·Chhattisgarh and Mizoram saw a decline in tiger population and all other states saw a “positive” increase, according to a press statement.Studies show that India’s road transport emissions are small in global comparison but increasing exponentially.Global Carbon Project reports that India’s carbon emissions are rising more than 2 times as fast as the global rise in 2018.Globally, the transport sector accounts for a quarter of total emissions, out of which three quarters are from road transport.According to the recent National Family Health Survey(2015-16), nearly 30% of all men are overweight or obese in southwest Delhi. These data correlate with high reliance of car use in Delhi and low demand for walking.India Human Development Survey shows that 10% increase in cycling could lower chronic disease for 0.3 mn people.A recent UN Global Assessment Report estimated India’s economic losses would be 4% of GDP annually if we don’t invest in building natural ecosystems, while a 2018 World Bank Report said that 600 million Indians are moderately to severely affected by changes in temperature and rainfall.Greenpeace air pollution report for 2019 lists as many as seven Indian cities among the 10 worst in the worldAnother report said that 1.2 million deaths in 2017 could be directly attributable to all-round pollutionThe IPCC report warns that clean energy, clean transport and reduction emissions alone will not cut global emissions enough to avoid dangerous warming beyond 2 degrees Celsius. It points out that the global food system is responsible for 21 to 37 per cent of the world’s GHG emissionsAbout a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is subjected to what the report describes as “human-induced degradation”. Rapid agricultural expansion has led to destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands and other ecosystems. Soil erosion from agricultural fields, the report estimates, is 10 to 100 times higher than the soil formation rate.The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) estimates that the commercial production of shale gas would require multiple fracking activities in each well with water requirement of up to nine million liters per fracking activity. As of today, 56 sites across six States have been identified for fracking, and according to the World Resources Institute, all of them fall under ‘water stress’ zones, having limited supply of fresh water.The world is 1° C hotter than preindustrial 1850-1900 levels, with 2015-19 comprising the hottest years on record.As a result of global warming, sea levels could rise by 2.8 ft. by 2100, presenting an existential threat to India’s coastlines.Driving this temperature increase, carbon emissions rose by a record 2.65 parts per million (ppm) a year in 2015-19, reaching 412 ppm today. At this rate, the catastrophic threshold of 450 ppm for reaching the 2° C increase in warming will be breached in just 15 years. By 2050, temperatures in India are projected to increase 1.5-3° C relative to 1981-2010, if little action is taken.The average cost of these two renewable power sources is now in the range of the cost of fossil fuels. Even so, renewable energy still accounts for only 17% of India’s electricity needs, with 80% coming from polluting fossil fuelsAlso, energy-related CO2 is rising because of increased fossil fuel consumption, encouraged by government subsidies for this energy source. Worldwide, these subsidies increased by one-third in 2018, to $400 billion globally.Perversely, coal plant capacity is set to expanding South and Southeast Asia, which together account for half of the world’s planned coal power expansion, with India, Vietnam and Indonesia combined for over 30%. Bangladesh and Pakistan plan to increase coal-based capacity threefold, and the Philippines wants to double capacity.·Marine culture: Agriculture Minister further said that fish production in India is estimated at 11.4 million tones, out of which 68% is registered from inland fisheries sector and the remaining 32% from marine sector. It is expected that the indigenous fish requirement by 2020 would be 15 million tones as against the production of 11.4 million tonnes. This gap of 3.62 million tonnes is expected to be made up by Inland Aquaculture and also through Mari culture.E-Waste:According to the United Nations University’s Global E-waste Monitor, India’s e-waste generation amounted to 2 million tonnes in 2017. Computer and telecom equipment accounted for 82 per cent of the total e-waste generated in India, according to an ASSOCHAM-KPMG study.However, only 0 .036 million tonnes of waste was processed.E-waste generation in India is estimated to increase by 500 per cent by 2020. Approximately 95 per cent of e-waste generated ends up in the informal sector according to reports.As of now, government has 312 registered recycling facilities across 19 states with the capacity to recycle 0.78 million metric tonnes.Infrastructure:Road Transport- More people die in India due to road accident related incidents than anywhere else in the world. With over half a million accidents and over 1.5 lakh fatalities every year — and that’s the official figure; unofficially, fatalities could be 20 per cent higher and accidents 50 per cent higher than what’s captured in the crime records database.India overtook China in 2006 as the country with the world’s deadliest roads. A total of 146,133 people were killed on Indian roads in 2015, an increase of 4.6% from 2014, according to the latest data with the roads ministry. The number of road accidents in India increased 2.5% in 2015 to 501,423 while injuries from road accidents rose 1.4% to 500,279 in 2015.According to NITI Aayog “Transforming Mobility Report”, congestion in the 4 biggest metro causes annual economic losses of over $22 bnElectric Vehicles:In 2018 China accounted for 57% of EV sold globally.By 2023 100% electric 3 wheelersBikes by 2025Science and Technology:It is feared that these multidrug-resistant superbugs may kill as many as 10 million people worldwide by 2050.On Medical Devices- “The fact is after the GST regime, importers have to pay respective customs duty which is around 7.5%-10% in addition to 12% of GST. So in effect, importers are paying more taxes after the GST regime than before.It is true that the input tax credit is applicable against GST component on inputs, but the same is available for locally manufactured goods as well.In total, GST regime does not benefit importers in any way over domestic players. In fact, post-GST import duties on many implantable devices have gone up to 10% due to increase in custom duties.Micro RNAs- These are regulators of gene expression, acting like switches. They decide which protein should be made and how much in a given cell or tissue or an organism. They are tiny, having some 20-22 digits of RNA.·The establishment of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969 heralded the Indian space programme. As the sixth-largest space agency celebrates its golden jubilee, India has slowly and steadily emerged as a pre-eminent space power with 102 spacecraft missions, the largest fleet of civilian satellites in the Asia-Pacific region, a successful inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission and a world record of launching 104 satellites from a single rocketSecurity:“30,000 to 40,000” militants — trained in Afghanistan and Kashmir — are still operating in Pakistan, Mr. Khan(PM of Pakistan) has admitted.Western countries such as U.S, U.K, Canada, Australia, Germany advise their citizens against travelling to Kashmir valley. Against 13 lakh tourists who travelled to Kashmir in 2016, the first 6 months of 2019 recorded just 3.54 lakh.Migration:·Top out migration states: UP,Bihar , Rajasthan,MP,Karnataka·Top in migration states: Maharashtra, delhi, up , gujarat,Haryana.5.43 cr roughly population of Myanmar was the interstate migrant at the time of census 2011.More migrants in Maharashtra ( 91l) than Delhi ( 63l)and Rajasthan(26l). Gujrat( 39l), UP( 41L)21% of interstate migrant go to Maharashtra.22% of job seeker migrants prefer MaharashtraReasons for migration:23% for employment31% for marriage3% for education1% for business40% for familyGender perspective:o47 % Men migrate for employmento4% Women migrate for employmentoHalf of women interstate migrant state marriage as the mains reason.Innovation:·Global Innovation Index : India’s rank 52nd·Israel in top 10.·It invest 7% of GDP in education.·It invest 4% in R&D.Organized Crime:·In 2016, in its reply to a Lok Sabha question, the Union Health Ministry noted that there is a huge gap between the demand and supply of human organs for transplant even though the precise numbers of premature deaths due to heart, liver, lung and pancreas failures have not been compiled.·The Ministry noted that against the demand of 2 lakh kidneys, only 6,000 were available. Similarly, against the demand of 30,000 livers only 1,500 were available, and against the demand of 50,000 hearts merely 15 were available across the country.·According to the Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network Foundation (Mohan Foundation), a Chennai-based NGO working on organ donation, only about 3% of the demand is met.·“In India, [the] deceased organ donation programme is largely restricted to big institutions and the private sector which makes it less accessible for all. The deceased donation rate in 2013 was 0.26/million population and this went up to 0.36/million population in 2014.Innovation:·Global Innovation Index : India’s rank 52nd·Israel in top 10.·It invest 7% of GDP in education.·It invest 4% in R&DEconomyThe latest International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Economic Outlook update in July 2019 has confirmed a growing belief that global growth has decelerated and dark clouds seem to be looming in the near term. Specifically, the IMF has downgraded global growth multiple times since October 2018 and now projects it to be 3.2% compared to 3.6% in 2018.The government’s fiscal deficit touched ₹4.32 lakh crore for the June quarter, which is 61.4% of the Budget Estimate for 2019-20 fiscal.In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit, or the gap between expenditure and revenue, was ₹4.32 lakh crore at June-end, as per the data released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA).The government aims to restrict the fiscal deficit to 3.4% of the GDP (gross domestic product) in the current fiscal, the same as last financial year.India dropped two places in GDP rankings in 2018 compared to2017. With a slump in consumption, and new investments reducing to a trickle, the government’s aim of making India a $5 trillion economy 2024 seems far fetched.Drop in position : In 2017, the size of the Indian economy stood at $2.65 trillion, the fifth largest. In 2018, India’s economy in $ terms grew by 3.01% to $2.73 trillion. But in the same period, the U.K. and France grew by 6.8% and 7..3% respectively, pushing India to the seventh place in the World Bank’s GDP rankings in 2018.Investment Woes : Investments in new projects nosedived to a 15 year low in the quarter ending June 2019. The drop in value of new projects was driven by a dip in both private and government investments.Consumption drops : Three of the four major indicators of the consumer economy recorded negative growth rates in the first half of 2019.Downward revision : The IMF, Asian Development Bank and CRISIL brought down their projections for India for FY20. While both IMF and ADB have projected that India will grow at 7% or more, CRISIL has estimated that the GDP will grow by 6.9%India will now need to attract private capital amounting to 3%-4% of GDP for the ‘Great March’ that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has flagged off to $5 trillion GDPBanking: After nationalisation of banks in 1969, the share of institutional sources in the outstanding debt of rural households increased from just 16.9% (1962) to 64%(1992).The share of bank deposits to GDP rose from 13% in 1969 to 38% in 1991. The gross savings rate rose from 12.8% in 1969 to 21.7% in 1990. The share of advances to GDP rose from 10% in 1969 to 25% in 1991. The gross investment rate rose from 13.9% in 1969 to 24.1% in 1990.After economic reforms of 1991, more than 900 rural bank branches closed down across the country. The rate of growth of agricultural credit fell sharply from around 7% per annum in the 1980s to about 2% per annum in the 1990s.Between 1991 and 2002, the share of institutional sources in the total outstanding debt of rural households fell from 64% to 57.1%RBI new branch authorisation policy in 2005- the number of rural bank branches rose from 30,646 in 2005, to 33,967 in 2011 and 48,536 in 2015. The annual growth rate of real agricultural credit rose from about 2% in the 1990s to about 18% between 2001 and 2015.Between 2010 and 2016, the key responsibility of opening no-frills accounts for the unbanked poor fell upon public banks. Data show that more than 90% of the new no-frills accounts were opened in public banks·A revenue deficit of Central govt. Is relatively recent, having been virtually non existent till the 1980s. After that a rampant populism has taken over all political parties, reflected in revenue deficit accounting for over ⅔ rd of the fiscal deficit.·World Economy: IMF forecast for the world is 3.2%Disaster ManagementAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), 30-40 per cent of the victims of catastrophic natural disasters suffer from major mental distress and require counselling.CybersecurityInternet Shut down·During 2012-017, says Icrier, 16,315 hours of Internet shutdown cost India’s economy around $3 billion, the 12,600 hours of mobile Internet shutdown about $2.37 billion, and the 3,700 hours of mobile and fixed-line Internet shutdowns nearly $678.4 million.··India is the 5th largest producer of solar energy and 6 th largest producer of renewable energy.·China ranks 1st in terms of renewable energy production according to International Renewable Energy Agency·A study by the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, shows that Indian coal-fired thermal power plants are considered the most inefficient and polluting in the world. More than 75% of these plants don’t comply with governmental regulations.IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR MAINS-2019:Employment:The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) released on Friday showed the unemployment rate in the country in FY18 was at 5.3% in rural India and 7.8% in urban India, resulting in overall unemployment rate of 6.1%.Middle income trap:The per-capita income at current prices during 2018-19 is estimated to have attained a level of ₹1,26,406 ( ₹10,533.83 monthly) as compared to the estimated for the year 2017-18 of₹1,14,958 ( ₹9,579.83 a month), showing a rise of 10%," according to the annual national income and GDP 2018-19 data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).Export policy:India’s revenue from exports of merchandise over the last four fiscal years was $310 billion, $262 billion, $275 billion and $302 billion, respectively. Thus over the four years from April 2014 till March 2018, the total growth was zero, or, rather, a tad negative. Even the ratio of exports to gross domestic product (GDP), at 11.6%, is at a 14-year low.In 2014, the trade policy announced by the Union commerce minister envisaged total exports worth $900 billion by 2020. That looks almost impossible, unless exports grow by 40% per annum from now onEmployment elasticity:The old link between growth and jobs is now much weaker than before. In the 1990s, the employment elasticity in India was nearly 0.4. This number measures how much a given rise in growth impacts jobs. At 0.4, a one per cent rise in GDP growth gives us a 0.4% rise in employment; 5% growth gives jobs a 2% boost.Now, this elasticity is down to 0.2 or lower. This means, for every percentage rise in growth, we get only a 0.2% impact on employment. Put another way, we need a minimum of 10% GDP growth to give us the kind of jobs kick we used to get in the 1990s.The gap between jobs created and jobs sought will be just over 1.5 million annually.Tax-GDP Ratio :The tax-GDP ratio is expected to cross 12% in FY19, a new high in over a decade, but lower than emerging market peers.Tax-to-GDP ratio for India has inched up slightly in recent years, but remains well below the world average. It is 10.6% , 11.6% , 12.1% in the years 2016, 2018, 2019 respectively.MSME :MSME has played a prominent role in the development of the country in terms of creating employment opportunities-MSME has employed more than 50 million people, scaling manufacturing capabilities, curtailing regional disparities, balancing the distribution of wealth, and contributing to the GDP-MSME sector forms 8% of GDP.MSME sector has cut jobs in the last seven yearsDemographic transition:India’s working-age population is now increasing because of rapidly declining birth and death ratesIndia’s age dependency ratio, the ratio of dependents (children and the elderly) to the working-age population (14- to 65-year-olds), is expected to only start rising in 2040, as per UN estimatesDemographic Dividend:For the first time since independence, India’s working age population — those aged between 15-64 years — will outnumber its dependents, that is, children aged 14 and below as well as people aged 65 and above.India’s dependency ratio has declined from 68.4 %( 1950) to 49.8 %( 2018). Total Fertility rate declined from 5.9(1950) to 2.2(2018).Black Money:Various studies and estimates have pegged black money circulation india anywhere between 7 per cent and 120 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2009-10 and 2010-11.Green GDP:Damage to the environment is put at Rs 34,0000 crores per year and it reduces the GDP by 9.5 percent annually.If water scarcity persists, it can lead to an alarming loss of six percent in the GDP by year 2050.Non Performing Asset:In recent years, the gross NPAs of banks have increased from 2.3% of total loans in 2008 to 4.3% in 2015 .Care Ratings says 17 banks have bad loan ratio above 10%. Gross NPAs of a set of 36 banks increased from ₹6.71 lakh crore in March 2017 to a peak of ₹9.66 lakh crore in March 2018 and subsequently moderated to ₹8.70 lakh crore in March 2019 before increasing to ₹8.97 lakh crore in June 2019.Agriculture export policy :India’s share in global exports of agriculture products has increased from 1% a few years ago, to 2.2 % in 2016.In 2018, India accrued a $14.6 billion trade surplus of agricultural, fishery, and forestry goods. Leadingexports consisted of Basmati rice, carabeef/meat of bovine animals, frozen shrimp and prawns, cotton, and refined sugar.Farm loan waiver:Agricultural NPAs were on a continuous decline between 2001 and 2008. Second, there is no evidence to argue that the 2008 waiver led to a rise in default rates among farmers.The rise of agricultural NPAs, from 2% to 5%, is no evidence for indiscipline in farmer repayment behaviour. One, NPAs in agriculture remained stable at around 4 to 5% between 2011 and 2015. This was despite the fact that agricultural growth averaged just 1.5% between 2011 and 2015.Agriculture census:Small and marginal farmers with less than two hectares of land account for 86.2% of all farmers in India, but own just 47.3% of the crop area, according to provisional numbers from the 10th agriculture census 2015-16.Inequality and Inclusive growth :About 50% of wealth in India in owned by just 100 people which is due to unequal distribution of wealth.Agriculture has a share of 17% in the GDP but employs about half the total labour force while the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) have a share of 32% in the gross value added (GVA) and have an important place in providing an “above the poverty line” lifestyle to the people (GoI 2018).Financial Inclusion:600 million deposit accounts were opened between fiscals 2013 and 2016, or twice the number between 2010 and 2013. Nearly a third of this was on account of Jan Dhan.for fiscal 2016 (the latest period for which data is available) show financial inclusion has improved significantly in India, with the all-India score rising to 58.0 in fiscal 2016, compared with 50.1 in fiscal 2013.Private investment:Investment in private sector projects fell similarly (83% compared to the previous quarter and 89% compared to last year).The stalling rate of private sector projects, which has hovered above 20% since the September 2017 quarter, reached an all-time high of 26.1% in the June 2019 quarter.Livestock Population:About 20.5 million people depend upon livestock for their livelihood. Livestock contributed 16% to the income of small farm households.The value of output from livestock was about 31.11% of the value of the output from total agriculture and allied sector.Food security in India :The country is home to 270 million hungry people, the highest in the world. India stands 97th in Oxfam’s Food Availability Index, and 103rd in the 2018 Global Hunger Index. In 2015-16, food grains accounted for 79 per cent of the imported agricultural produce; the figure was 76% the following year.Large-scale import of wheat in 2016 is often attributed to drought years. But there has been large-scale import of edible oil and pulses as well in the past two decades.Energy Poverty:India has just 4% of the world’s renewable energy but have 18% of the world's population.Agricultural technology:Farm Mechanization: Laser guided land leveler can flatten the land in less time than oxen powered scrapper. It increases farmers productivity by 15%.Food processing :According to the ministry of food processing industries annual report, the sector employs 12.8% of the workforce in the organised sector (factories registered under Factories Act, 1948), and 13.7% of the workforce in the unorganised sector. Despite being one of the largest producers of agricultural and food products in the world, India ranks fairly low in the global food processing value chains.Food processing is also important from the point of reducing food waste. In fact, the United Nations estimates that 40% of production is wasted. Similarly, the NITI Aayog cited a study that estimated annual post-harvest losses of close to Rs 90,000 crore.Renewable energy and energy security :Even with the growth of renewable energy, coal has been projected to be the backbone of electricity sector until 2030 and beyond.India has created 80,000 MW of renewable energy and set a target of achieving 1,75,000 MW by 2022, reduced energy intensity by 21%.India’s annual coal demand rose by 9.1% to nearly one billion tones during the year ending March 2019. Coal features among the top five imports of India, with total imports rising from 166.9 million tons in 2013-14 to 235.24 million tons in 2018-19.Best of luck to all mains candidates!God bless you all

Read my story, so you can really understand what has helped me, a schizoaffective, live a meaningful life.It began with my parents, as it usually does.I believe my mother has bipolar. She does not have a diagnosis but she knows she has serious issues she must deal with on a regular basis. She has a lot of emotional fragility and a lifetime of emotional and physical abuse starting from a very young age.You see, she was born in poverty, physically disabled with a deformity. Because of this, and the fact she was not a boy, she lived a life of demeaning existance. She grew up on the streets, often malnourished begging for food and going thru garbage cans scrounging for something to eat. During this time she also suffered under extreme disdain from her parents.She would get wippings with a willow tree branch soaked in urine. This, was so when your skin broke, the wounds would burn even more.She was told repeatedly how messed up she was, how ugly, how worthless, how no one would love her and was eventually disowned by her parents out of shame and disgust.She then went to live with her grandmother who eventually died, and so she was put in an orphanage, where she learned and witnessed many other coping strategies.At 8, she was adopted into an abusive family. She was sexually abused by her adoptive father and verbally abused by her adoptive mother. She was again, told how pathetic and worthless she was, how she would find no one, anywhere else who would love her. She was criticized for everything, and forced to experience humiliating situations.Here is a mild example.Her new mother hated her hair. It was bone straight, unlike anyone else, as she was the only Asian in her school. In order to get her hair to hold a curl for church in the evening, the mother would make her daughter wear curlers all day at school. She was bullied everyday at school. She had no friends. She was different, she limped when she walked. She couldn't run like other kids and she was teased and made fun of constantly.She ran away. She became a ward of the state and got placed into many different foster homes. When she was an older teenager she climbed onto the roof of the house of a foster couple and threatened to kill herself. They wanted to adopt her, but she didn’t think it was possible they could ever really love her.So when I was born, she knew she would love me and thought I would love her. But all she knew was how to control. She was constantly trying to control my life. She would hold her power over me so strongly at times I felt like I would explode. She would say things and then change her mind on what I could and couldn't do.She has slapped me in anger. She has screamed for hours at me until she is shaking and can't move. She has threatened me with every possible thing she can come up with all in her quest to control me and her life.She loves to hold power over others and sometimes cultivates her power only to help herself. Although she may do this unconsciously.I have years of emotional abuse from my mother. I have many memories of her anger, her actions in anger and the harm it caused me. So while I have been around someone I could always learn from, I have also had to be around someone who was a nightmare when under stress. However, my issues have always seemed so much less when I compared myself to the struggles she was given.My dad is honestly worse with these type of traits. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother didn’t develop these in response to him. But my birth father also suffered from paranoia, along with his narciccism and other warped, distorted and divergent thinking and thought patterns. He could not hold a job for long, had difficulty interacting with many people but was extremely creative, talented and able to stay independent.He taught me nearly everything I know, while my mother provided the financial means to do anything I wanted to do. My father raised me to believe anything was possible. He gave me direct examples in my life where I witnessed him doing amazing and varied things.For example, I have seen him give the best sermon, though I do not know how he was able to convince someone he should be given their pulpet for a Sunday.He was an inventor. Once, he convinced a whole town of farmers to fund a wind machine that he built for them. Sadly, a wind storm came and blew it down. We had to move.He could land a high profile job in electrical engineering, despite having no credentials and do the work using only his life experience. He could go from prestigious jobs and fancy cars to getting bored or frustrated and go live in a shack in the middle of literally nowhere. I mean, we would go visit and there was no electricity or toilets or shower. I would take a bath in a tub under a windmill or just walk for hours wandering in sand dunes.Once, he lived temporarily in a van and parked it on the street near my mother's house.He was always given permission to stay in abandoned houses. He would fix a few things to cover the amount of time he lived in them and would leave them in better condition. I have some pretty good memories of being in homes like this.This is because, above everything, my father knew the importance of creative experiences on the divergent mind. He spent a lot of time setting up projects for me to pour my energies in. Such as building, crafting, drawing, designing. Any project I could come up with, he would find a way to help me do it.He took care of things and himself. He taught me to love my body. To see and appreciate the value in your percieved physical faults. He was always pointing out the uses of things to show value and he was always worried about consumerism and materialism.We would spend hours lecturing ideals, philosophy, religion, debate. Nothing was off topic and no question was wrong. He made me meditate with him all the time. He loved me so much just like my mom. They would each look at me in amazement at their creation. For my mother, I was a family who would always be hers and for my Dad I was a unique work of art he could help shape and nurture into being.You can see how you can be influenced both positively and negatively by your parents. Nothing is ever cut and dry really. My father has called me names and compared me to my mom in disgust. And so while I experienced their emense love, I also experienced their emense fury and regular abuse.For my entire upbringing I have been subject to the wims of each of their lash. Often living in worlds of enormous anger they each could build. When under stress, both would struggle to maintain their emotional stability. I was horrified when they decided to marry each other again a second time because both under one roof was ground shaking. Literally, because of my memories of seeing and hearing things breaking.Putdowns, digs at the heart, direct stabs of pain, I have learned to give and recieve them all. If you didn't listen you were berated, attacked, villanized, hated, pushed away or even left.I learned to wait. I learned to overanalyze situations to try to prevent escalation. I have learned to think quick on my feet and stay calm under pressure. I learned to wait out their storms and hold thru their mood changes. I learned to create little protective bubbles inside their whirlwinds I couldn't control.I would often hide in this mental structures and huddle and cry. And I learned to see them for who they really are: broken, fragile creatures who suffered from the aftermath of years of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.My father, like my mother, has never needed to go to a mental institution, take psych drugs or have a diagnosis. Were as me, after being raised and genetically from these two individuals, use psych meds as part of my existance, regularly, but abnormally go to a mental hospital and have my current diagnosis and help from professionals.For the first ten years after my diagnosis, I was in and out of mental hospitals trying to learn and manage my illness. Older, repeat patients told me to do everything I could to prevent coming back.I think the process is really about finding and knowing your own truth and that is what we all search for. However, these truths don't mean as much if we have to keep re-learning them.Sometimes, you go to the mental hospital to be reminded of and feel your truths. It can feel so good to be in a safe environment, away from your stressors, around like-minded individuals who are living their own truths and feeling emotions that have been denied for so long.Feeling and not building up emotions like shame, failure, anger etc. on the outside is hard because we have access to all our coping mechanisms, such as alcohol, spending, sex, food, drugs, etc. which can provide escape but not healing or growth.Going to the mental institution breaks you from these and lets the emotions pore out. After you release them, you finally realize reality is not that bad and get better.The cycle continues until you learn to really manage your stress, take breaks from your stressors, use healthier coping mechanisms, embrace the variety of tools that can change brain chemistry and release emotion more effectively.Going to the mental institution can become an addiction like everything else, but the drugs they use like Haldol, can really damage the brain. Over time, your symptoms worsen, become more frequent, you do not respond or recover as quickly. There is a price and your health suffers.You need to try to limit these extremes to protect brain functioning. They don't like you to know how frequent or long-term exposure to anti-psychotics harms the brain. But if you are out-of-control or not functioning in reality, they do not have many options. Everyone knows the sentence: you would be a danger to others or yourself.I think the point is if you have been a danger, you could be again. Be diligent. Don't give up, on yourself or someone who is mentally ill. We all have some form of mental illness, to some degree, or at some time. There will always be someone who makes you feel normal or more normal than them. But we all have something we can contribute and can tame our own demons. There are success stories and you can be one of them.Stay out of the hospital, stay healthy, remove yourself from toxic people, even if they are family, try everything the doctors suggest, see if and which meds work for you. You can use the more dangerous ones as responsible as you can. I use an antipsychotic as needed for times of high stress but I am aware of the damage I am causing my body. Another drug my psych doc perscribes works great for me but is going to cause kidney failure eventually. But I know this and have accepted it. My mind is much better on it, and so I know what the price is. I have learned my disease, how and why my symptoms increase and how to de escalate them.These are my truths from someone who has mental illness to you.I am diagnosed clinically with shizoaffective disorder. My grandfather was shizophrenic. I manage well with an average of 6 year periods of symptom free existance around a week or 2 period of psychosis. How ever, if I try I can induce psychosis or schizophrenic symptoms without stress. I can also focus on my senses enough to change how I see, feel and hear. And I can imagine with enough intent to actually change my reality.However, on a daily basis, I live exceptionally ordinary. During rarer periods of extreme stress, symptoms can escalate to psychosis. My symptoms in those either 1 to 16 days of psychosis go from bipolar symptoms to dissociative disorder before becoming full-blown schizophrenic symptoms unless I intervene.There is a genetic component, and biology that has some things you can not control and some you can. I have learned many techniques from locking myself in a room, to intense workouts and then falling asleep in showers, to any activity that allows for creativity to popping one tranquilizer or a doc-approved amount of 8 at a time, to checking myself into a hospital, or asking a friend to come take care of me for a day or two at home.Sometimes, I have just decided to stop thinking delusionally and can “snap myself out of it.” Sometimes it was a matter of will power to curb delusional thought and sometimes I am so far out of touch that I had to be forcefully restrained or removed from society. The thing is for me, 2 weeks every six years is pretty manageable. But I also know others who don't fair as well.The key for myself is that I have set up a good support system and I try to love myself as best I can. I can report that I am happy and productive and have an overall good life. I feel successful, am thought of as successful by society and that all my dreams are coming or have come true.My mental condition has not limited me, though it has challenged me. On a positive note, it has often even provided me with some divergent thinking that has been essential to who I am.As I have aged, I have come to believe that I have a dysfunctional brain, but there are some advantages at times from the disfunction. I can act very well in a high-stress environment for a limited time. I can think calmly and quickly and can analyze more information at a faster rate when stressed. I also can be more sensitive to subtle factors in reading the environment and from other people. I have had many experiences of accurate premonition and can connect on a unconscious level to people I focus on and many can attest to this. I am often able to see solutions that others can't and connections others don't.Also, I have some pretty strong academic abilities, scoring over 100% in advanced academic college classes, such as anatomy/physiology, etc. and broke my college’s record for most amount of classes taken during a semester. I had to get special permission and scored all A's. Also, people are often impressed by my creative achievements.I tell you this, to let you know that there are gifted, well-rounded individuals who also have this disease and work diligently on daily emotional processing, thought monitoring and disease management, but most others do not know of their illness. This effort can also become so practiced that for the majority of your life, you can devote your time and energy to pursue a “normal life.” For me, I have been able to have a life with children, a successful marriage, career and stability for 98% of my days.This is despite having completely abnormal mental functioning. On what some would say a “metaphysical” level, I am able to allow my body to be controlled by other forces. This feels like a supernatural force that can take over your body. I also have a different experience with time. I am able to jump ahead consciously to periods of time in the future and have no memory of getting to these next moments, if desired. These last two behaviors are ones I do not do any longer for obvious reasons of self-harm.While it can be argued I am not really doing this but only thinking I am doing this, the fact remains, that I can feel this. Meaning, I can FEEL an autopilot switch turned on and the autopilot is way better than I am. I can do this at anytime even when symptom free but it takes more mental effort to stop than start.I have learned to FEEL and cultivate the experience of choice during these experiences. This means that I have some power that I can exercise when my senses start changing. Over time, I have learned to strengthen this ability to start or stop symptoms and it mostly started when I became open to the possibility.Belief in the power of your mind is just one small part and especially in the beginning I needed lots of professional help and support from family in order to really provide stability to my brain chemistry.Another mental concept is consciousness and how we interpret time. I can feel the experience of simply becoming conscious at a different moment, meaning I can turn off my brain, but still get myself to another point in life. This is like functioning with witnessing the autopilot or choosing to completely hand my life over and not even witness it until I decide to “turn on again.”It is kind of like your life is a tape and you just say, stop, fast forward, stop and then play again.I tell you this to understand the appeal of the delusional mind, the appeal of psychosis and how it can become an addiction of sorts to not feel, or cope. The more you embrace non-reality, the more you stay in it and the harder it gets to come back to the real.For example, there have been times in my past where I just no longer wished to experience what I was experiencing. Maybe I was going thru something where I felt my safety threatened or maybe I just didnt want to experience boredom.Another reason to explain the pull of delusion were because there were times when I didn't know what the right thing to do was and decided to sink into my auto guidance and just follow the wonderful things it did. It was great at the time because I did some amazing things and could just skip some rougher times.From a survival standpoint, one could see the advantage. Stuck in prison, better to go insane. I, personally, have lived in padded rooms, confined in restraints, lived without a window for what I believed could be forever. I have woken up on concrete, with no clothes (safety risk) with only a drain to stare at for hours upon hours.Sadly, staring at drains, or waking up to the view of a drain as I have either passed out, fallen asleep or finally woken up to reality on a cold concrete or tile floor has become something familiar to me. And instead of sparking fear can spark comfort as it means I am alive and in a safe place I can recover. The only worrisome issue is how bad of shape my physical body is in and what permament damage I have to the body and mind I actually really love.Of course, this is just one of the extremely serious risks of delusional thought that are too numerous to even list. There were times, in the heat of psychosis that people thought I was trying to kill myself, when in my mind I simply thought I was elevating my existance to another level. Death, naturally, is a legitimate concern as the flame burns quick with often devastating consequences.Many schizoaffectives over history have died from just complete exhaustion, of pushing themselves to hard during moments of delusion or mania. Some have been the greatest inventors, and charismatic leaders of their time.You can really push yourself to the extreme with some extraordinary results and awareness and more commonly some devastating impacts to loved ones, jobs, or worse, society.Here is a mild example. Once, while psychotic in a mental hospital, I really wanted to understand the emotional effects of food on a most basic level. In order to start at the beginning of how my body and mind truly felt and were effected by different food I survived first on air, then water, then days on 3 of those tiny “half and half” little tubs of cream, before adding slowly, a little jam packet to feel the effects of sugar vs. dairy.You get the picture, until I finally graduated to real pieces of substance in forms of protein, starch, and essential vitamins. You can see how eye-opening this experience could be and also how dangerous. And also how some might think you have an eating disorder when really you normally love food and always maintain a healthy weight and muscle mass.However, even to do this day, sometimes, if I feel anxious and it is time for a meal, I will subconsiously think, “What does my body need first? Dairy, protein, carbs, fats, vitamins, or sugar? And I listen to it and think what the craving is vs what would be best for immediate functioning. I already know the feeling each can have on my mind.Cream, from a survival standpoint has the perfect combination of sugar, dairy, fat and protein for its size. It is such a gift to nutrition and sadly being lost in many of our foods and consumption.This is an example of truths you learn about yourself, understanding your mind, body and and limits, while delusional. Less mild examples of being able to push your body include escaping handcuffs, a straitjacket, needing four police officers to restrain me, and breaking thru hospital locked doors.When psychotic, I have learned so much about my abilities and personality. I love singing, dancing, tedious activities, design, nearly all sports, and have a huge need for physical exertion. I have learned this from what I do in mental hospitals. I have cleaned every inch of floor in a wing on my hands and knees with a sock and spit. I have “rock climbed” up windows. I have made an entire outfit, including shoes, out of toilet paper. I have made a sculptural painting on a mirror out of peanut paper. I have learned exactly how tight I like to be restrained with the right amount of pain, without leaving marks on my body.I have realized how nice it can feel to be really tightly but not too painfully restrained because you can fight and fight, as long and hard as you want without hurting anyone. Except yourself. And sometimes you just want to fight yourself because you are so angry and have only you to blame.I have since learned there are more productive ways to do things similar, but outside of the hospital.Learning to live in the now, in a shared reality, feeling the pain of life is definitely a process. Ultimately, I think we all just want to connect. For me, discipline, healthy choices, including healthy thought, and emotional stability all conflict with mental illness.It is a life-long ilness, but so can any addiction, as it becomes a pattern of the mind and body. But it can be retrained, accomodations can be made, and accepted.We all have our limitations and dysfunction. It is what it is. I love my mind and would not change it. I try to keep it functioning every day as best I can. Stress, diet, poor choices, too much adrenaline, repetitive thoughts, worrying, inconsistant sleep schedule, unsafe environments, unresolved trama, lack of support system, toxic relationships, hallucinogens and hormonal changes all accaserbate the illness.For doctors specifically, here is my advice on different forms and styles of treatment on successful outcomes:It is all about the doctor.I do not prefer any form or style; I only prefer one doctor over another.The best growth happens when you trust your doctor or therapist.This trust does not come from a style of therapy. It comes from the time, and quality of interaction with the provider, the level of experience and expertise of the provider and the shared VALUES the provider has with the patient.Trust means guidance, guidance means you can give direction on the patient's life. This means CHANGES in the mental health of the individual.If a doctor or therapist devotes their life to helping others, and treating mental diseases, develops a strong faith and conviction in their beliefs and values, this conviction will translate to the patient.This gives a doctor the authority and creates the essential trust.This next section is directed to the providers:The patient must believe you. They must value you. You can only do this if you value and believe in yourself.When you give your life to this higher cause, and try daily to act in the noble way your calling deserves, you will be the best style and type of therapy your patient needs.You will challenge yourself, take chances and learn new things to help them.You will grow to have the experience and expertise you need and your faith and devotion will do the rest.To the patients:Don't give up on finding a good doctor. You can learn a lot from bad ones too, so it is not a waste of time, when you are finding a good one.For additional feedback on what I have found to be true for me about coping strategies read the following paragraphs:Everyone self harms. Its completely normal. Alcohol destroys your liver. Soda destroys your teeth. Obesity destroys your insulin cells. Cigarettes destroy your lungs. Video games destroy your attention span. Shopping destroys your checking account. I could go on and on.The thing is whether the risk, long-term or short-term is worth the immediate pleasure. Finding the healthiest activity that can still soothe the need is ideal.For example, if you have learned to feel pleasure or emotional release from physical pain, boxing or MMA fighting might be more productive than say, sitting alone cutting your skin.There are so many different examples, you just have to find what works for you and get creative. I am sure you can find something that though there is risk of harm, could also provide you with opportunities, passion and a deeper connection with others.But know, that anything you chose could be done destructively, if done too hard, too often or too frequent. For example, you can exercise too much and ruin your joints or have an unhealthy fat percentage where your body starts eating your muscles for energy.Or take something else universally deemed “healthy,” such as meditation. You can start spending so much time trying to live in that moment of a completely clear mind, that you lose hours of time you could actually be producing something or strengthning your relationship with someone else.I would worry less about not self harming and focus more on embracing the emotion rather than coping. Coping, means you are just trying to get by. The point is to release the pain, not dull it just to make it to Day 2.Your goal as an individual is to figure out you. This means not coping but suffering. You learn who you are when you suffer. You feel the pain and survive. The more you cope, the less feeling you actually do.What do you do when you truly feel the pain, failure, shame, despair, loss, helplessness, loneliness? You live it, you feel it in everyway possible in an environment where others help protect you from danger, until you finally realize, they kept you alive and you chose to live.You do not need to cope all the time. Sometimes, you have to just cope temporarily until you get to a safe place. Go to your safe place. Remove obvious tools of self harm, but if you really wanted to smash your own head against a wall you could right? Ask a friend to restrain you so you can just lash out without abandon. Ask a friend to just sit with you while you cry and scream obsenities. Or just do by yourself. Sit, close your eyes and tap into the pain. Stay there and dwell in it. Feel what it feels like to not be able to breathe or move and sink further into the emotion until you really know it. Check yourself into a hotel room and ask room service to bring you food in a few hours to check on you or get a wakeup call at 3am to make sure you’re “awake.”You figure out your own safe place. Cultivate your own support system to HELP you experience emotion and limit risk. You don’t have to do this alone. Everyone is different. I could give you tons of suggestions on coping.Plunge your head in ice water, put hot blankets on, get a massage, or give yourself an orgasm. Sometimes, I have run a hot bath and just blown bubbles under the water to focus on my breathing. But the truth is, you will just be creating another habit.In order to live less mindlessly, you have to just live and experience the ups and downs of life. It is easier to do this when you believe in yourself, know your capabilities and have learned your own worth.You do this by suffering, because when you survive the worst pain you could imagine, you start believing in yourself, or a higher power who was there at your lowest point, and you find your worth. You are worthy simply because you were created and here and deemed worthy to be.As you get older and more comfortable with emotions, if you experience them rather than immediately coping, you will have less highs and lows and longer normal days. Most of the time, you are able to then feel less intense emotions and more participation in activities you choose.Life shouldn't be about lots of highs and lows. When you dwell in these areas of existance too long you truly experience self harm, damage to your brain. If you can learn to not fear the emotion you will gain mastery over it. You cannot do this without establishing a comfort level. This means, at a certain point, you have to let go of your coping mechanism.While you might not be ready to let go of your security blanket or perferred tool of self-harm yet, the rewards are a higher level of existance. You can graduate to your stronger self.How long it takes you to learn or change does not matter. What is of value, is that we are all able to change, learn and what seems like an impossible feat at the time is really possible for you. You are not the first and are not the last person, learning to live in the painful reality of life. It is the human condition. We are all in it together and we must help each other, like a good psychotherapist is obligated to do.Postscript: Under my questions answered section you will find many answers I have given to those suffering from many disorders from narcissism to borderline to depression combat disorder and anger issues.If you read thru my responses to such questions you may gain some insight from the perspective of a divergent mind.Here is a recent example on depression.Question: Is depression a legitmate excuse for failure?My response:Of course!If you are depressed, how likely are you to succeed?Not very likely.When someone asks you then, “What made you fail?”Of course you would say, “I was depressed.”The point is, “WHY are you depressed? and “WHAT can you you do about it?” so you aren't depressed anymore.The FASTER you can do this, the faster you can start succeeding again.Let me tell you what I know about depression, a super not funny topic, by starting with a funny story.Once, when I was previously diagnosed with bipolar.Quick background: I am currently diagnosed with schizoaffective but secretly I believe I am a paranoid schizophrenic because I can “hallucinate and hear voices anytime.” I just never felt the need to tell my doctor this because it has never been a problem to experience this and then stop.My doctor and I only talk about problems I might have that are actually hurting my life or causing me stress. These problems are never my symptoms of sensory issues. Those only escalate when I am seriously stressed from PEOPLE issues.So when I meet with him or her as I have had different doctors over the years, we usually talk about stress, and that is usually from people. The doctor part really steps up when I have a major medical problem.Meaning, something major has happened, my stress levels skyrocket and my symptoms, usually managable, start taking over my life. That’s when drugs get changed, family come help, I get myself to a safe place, we all figure out how sick I am and what I need. It's a team effort.But, back to my story.The rest of this will be less on mental illness and all about depression. Wait. Depression is a mental illness. Yes, but sometimes, it is also just an emotion. And sometimes it can LEAD to mental illness. And sometimes, it can lead to epiphanys and lead to amazing growth and change your life for the better.Let’s get started.The story to explain how I treat depression in myself and how it transformed my life.Once when I was labeled bipolar, I had a psychotic episode and my boyfriend took me to the hospital to get checked in for treatment because he wanted to make ABSOLUTELY sure I was safe. Well, we are never absolutely sure we are safe. (Take everything I say with a grain of salt because paranoia runs in my family.)But yeah. I was really sick. I got my meds adjusted and felt better and when they released me they said, “Would you want to go to a bipolar out of hospital treatment program?”Oh my gosh! I thought. I had never been to an out-of- hospital treatment program! It honestly sounded fun to me, at the time. I had been bipolar for a few years at this point and this solution had never been offered before.So I go there, and there are all these depressed people there. I mean, no one was like me. I have never been depressed. Not like really seriously. Okay, I take that back, I do not WALLOW in depression forever.I am depressed, I feel it, embrace it, get to the end of the experience and then just go on.Okay, but the point of this story is coming.The class.So there is probably about 12 people there, mostly young women like I was at the time, and for FIVE days I tried to help them with depression. Because I mean, what were we supposed to talk about, going psychotic, which was my issue? No.So I sat and listened to them, mostly whine about things that I often would assure them was totally normal. Normal to feel, normal to experience. But one girl, I remember she really wanted to get better. She and I would brainstorm more drastic ways to feel different emotions quicker, to change moods faster and to stop depressive feelings sooner. We went on a nature hike all together on the last day and I opened up about me and things I thought were amazing.Here is the point: The therapists there said I DEFINITELY do not belong to be there and I did not need the treatment. Well, duh, I wasn't depressed.And here is HOW and WHY I am able to not let depression take over my life.First. Depression is like quick sand. OMG, you dive in, I mean really dive like you have a rope and you jump, head first, like you have to hit the bottom to save someone who already went in and fight your way back to the surface. I mean you fight or die attitude, with everything you have.The underlying theme is usually hopelessness. But it also can be dying, despair, self hatred, loneliness, no escape, absolute horror, total desperation, powerlessness. Fuck, it’s so hard to go there.You have to go deep. Keep going deeper into the darkness of all your worst fears and nightmares. And then keep going down. Because you realize then, you can’t even see the bottom.So keep pushing, close your eyes and squeeze your hands over them and face the black and try to see a bottom. Fight to get there. Feel the pain of losing everything. Feel the pain of being forgotten. Feel the pain of believing there is not a way out, never will be or that you were too late. Feel the fear of never finding love again or joy. Feel what it's like to believe there isn’t even a bottom to it.But there is a bottom. It’s called rock bottom. And guess what you will find there?You.Remember when I said quicksand? Yeah, the loved one you are looking for is you. The part of you no one can touch. The part of you that is all good, all beauty, all you.So get her and save her because she is DYING! You have to want to save her. You have to WANT her to live. Come on! What will it take for you to find her, and bring her to the surface? You have to love her. I mean you have to love the precious part of you enough to give your life for her. To sacrifice everything you have just to get her help. You have to emotionally die trying to save her.Now. How long do you want to feel dead?Emotional death is what I believe you have to go thru to get thru depression. So die (emotionally). Stay down there and WALLOW in that hellhole but seriously. The longer you stay the harder it is to get out. Don't get comfortable with this feeling, the feeling of death. Please stop dying. Your true, sweet, innocent self is down there. Bring it back up. Save yourself. I mean really fight. She is worth it. She is so innocent. What wouldn’t you do for her. Keep trying.I know it feels like your body is dying. I know you are weak. I know you can't breathe. It's just because of where you are. Claw with bloody fingers your way out of that pit.How do I fight, you may ask. You do the work. You put one foot infront of the other and you get yourself off the floor. You put on a brave face. You adjust your hair. You make yourself presentable or you don't. You just stager up and walk to a door. And you go wait for someone, anyone to see you. To talk to you. To help you. You go where you can be seen. You wait. You wait. You tell yourself I will wait as long as it takes and I will JUMP at ANY FUCKING opportunity. And then you shout out “Thank you God, that I am still alive and have you.”Or atleast that is what I did.Question on how to deal with and understand those with NPD:I guess you know a narcissist huh?Does anyone suffering from anything know what they are suffering from?Sometimes yes, sometimes no.Sometimes it doesn't even matter what the pain is from, only you want to heal or change. Others, are terrified of trying to change themselves but secretly wish they could, and some people don't even know they are suffering right?For a narcissist, the inherent theory is “How can you know truth, when delusions are your problem?”In my experience, I think there are much broader issues going on, that make diagnosis a minor point.Let me start by telling you a recent true story. Then I will give you my view of NPD sufferers and will give you my advice on how to deal with them. Also, I will finish this post with the most vivid experience I have with my brother, who EVERYONE thinks has NPD (layman: Narcissism, someone whose primary drive is, “What’s in it for me?)First, my mom recently broke her leg, but didn't even know. She went to get a flu shot and when the injection hit her arm, she broke down crying and THEN knew something was wrong. Thankfully, she figured out she needed an X-ray and now is in a cast. She is a nurse practicioner by the way, who has a lifetime of experience with pain management, chronic pain herself and a high personal pain tolerance.You could say she should know, right? But when it comes to herself, she also manages her mental illness. She is not diagnosed and would not be good for her to be. She manages others and her moods extremely well while working and has had a very successful career. I have had doctors she works with tell me she is better than they are and are intimidated by her. You get the picture, but close friends of hers, who have known her for decades tell me things like, “You don’t have to have bipolar symptoms to be bipolar” with regards to my mom. I would say she is Bipolar II if I had to find a label for this purpose of understanding her mental challenges.Comparatively, like an expert nurse, a narsassist should know they have a narcassist disorder because connecting well with others is hard for them. By now, an adult, they should have started to see their own tendencies or behaviors reflected in others. Or start questioning why some close to them keep telling them they are narcissistic.I believe they do see parts of themselves in others. This does not conflict with the fact they are value their uniqueness. I also believe they agree, and know everyone thinks they are narcissistic or a a**hole, selfish jerk, manipulator, or delusional.So that brings us to the point of a disorder, as an illness, meaning you have a serious problem that impedes your life. If you stick a label on a narcissist, will it help them have more empathy? Possibly.Let's imagine they are forced to attend meetings with others whose lives have been destroyed by someone else who acts, talks, and thinks like them. Maybe they have to meet with a therapist to tap into their hidden, more vulnerable self. Yes, I could see this possibly helping some but for most it would be a waste of time.This is because a diagnosis and treatment are not strong enough to break thru the protective barrier a narcicisst has. Narcissists are actually vulnerable individuals who chose not to be vulnerable. Its actually an amazing feat. Their life works for them and many can not say this. And they can accomplish best this way.True self awareness usually comes at the high cost of devastating pain and I DO believe it is possible for narcissist to feel pain, though it is often taught to be pushed down so deep.There is great reason for this. And this is the most imortant part: Narcissists must protect their fragile minds. In reality, a narcissist either knows their mind is not stabile otherwise or has learned that their mind’s stability is best when the shield of arrogance, independance and beliefs about self is up.I also tend to think there was a possibility the mind may actually fracture otherwise. Could it be put together again, yes, but some functioning with be lost. In gaining empathy, self-doubt and more emotional fluxuation would be gained as well.In this way, narcissists have actually protected their brain, which they prize above all else, and are more successfully functioning than many diagnosable mentally ill.Put bluntly, I think individuals who suffer from this disorder, use their shield of narcissism just to survive in this world. They have not yet learned other tools, patterns, or skills to allow their more vulnerable self to show. And many who still can reveal and know their more honest kernel, believe it is not worth the risk. A great fear would be that they become more vulnerable, only to be taken advantage of. And they have often been taken advantage of for too long already.This possibility would leave them stripped of all their power; they fear they would completely fall apart. This person perserves the self at all costs. Often, attacks now any remailing vulnerability left, so late in life, can leave irreparable holes in the pieces that you are able to put back together.However, I never give up hope. I have seen growth can be done in small increments, though sometimes it is short lived.I believe little doses of pain can slowly teach a change in behavior but a complete destruction of self has the most lasting results. Everyone suffers, even them, and all are aware or unaware of their suffering in different ways. My point is, suffering is a complex issue that is unique and layered to the individual's ideals, thresholds, previous experiences, and a host of other things, including mental illness. As you saw with my mom and her broken ankle who walks for weeks and then the littlest poke in a new place makes her breakdown in tears in front of strangers.Individuals who are narcissistic do not need to necessarily be labeled with a disorder. They pretty much know everyone gets the impression they are an a**hole. In my experience, if narcissim is the only serious problem they suffer from, they usually are still able to learn from observing behaviors in others and compare their selves to others, even though they usually don’t care to do so because it is painful.Imagine everyone always critizing you, picking on you, bullying you to change. It's abusive to them too. They are constantly on the defense. Getting a narcissist to accept or acknowledge a a disorder for themsleves pales in importance to the skills they CAN learn and abilities they can cultivate. When you stop trying to get them to show weakness, which is what a label acceptance often requires.Becoming more empathetic, on a regular basis, usually only comes from intense pain. Whether you have a diagnosis or are able to make a diagnosis about yourself does not neccessarily correlate with your ability to learn from your behavior, others or experiences.It is very easy to have narsisstic qualities, or become a narcissist person. Some times if only for certain times or moments of your life. And even if someone is chronically known for these tendencies destroying their relationships, they still may not have a disorder.*If you are dealing with a narcisist, I would say DON’T, if you can. If you work with them, and you must interact with, here are my tips.Try to keep the conversations fast, and to the point. When they talk you listen, but when you talk, you talk fast. You have to know the whole sentence you want to say before you say it so you can get to the point quickly. You also can speed up the sentence quicker up to the point and then slow down and talk more animately during the point section. This will help them stay interested in what you are saying, which they will really appreciate.Also, try to remember they are actually often trying to get you to like them. They love it when you listen with genuine interest and ask a question. However, do not do this if you are not able to actually BE interested in the answer they give. They can spot ingenuity extremely well and will just talk about a topic that interests them in order to help them perfect their delivery or argument on the topic for someone else.This is actually just using you and I will leave a conversation like this. However, sometimes you can learn the best things from this type of personality, so it's up to you if you want to legitimately USE THEM for information. But, you should have a legitament interest in hearing what they have to say if you want to make it easier to deal with them.Honestly, just be real. They don't NEED you to like them but they need respect like everyone else. You often can honestly admire their expertise, knowledge or abilities and when they sense this legitimate admiration, they relax a little, eventually.Narcissists, are are often coping with their pain with their facade. The closer you get to them, the more likely the unbending aspect of this facade will be. Their facade or delusion is they are their own little GOD; they can do what they want. While they can function pretty well in terms of being able to care for their own needs and be productive, behind closed doors, they can have serious anger issues when you can't be controlled.This is why, I repeat, DON'T deal with them. The reason for the anger is of course the necessity for their shield. The control is keeping them protected. If you are close, you become the part of their little world, God complex, where they have to control everything. They have to start controlling you to then feel that bubble of safety. It is hard to control people and you will probably rebel at some point. When you do, you THREATEN their shield of delusion inflated self. You start breaking their reality as discussed.In conclusion, while they can contribute to society, NPD sufferers are broken and come with a danger label to those close. The mind in its tightly-wrapped state is prone to warped thinking and a focus on protection. This abundance of fear, that they could be destroyed powerless again is intense when it comes to protecting their reality. The reality is of course that they can keep themselves safe.They cannot always do this, always keep themselves safe that is. The best growth happens once they experience destruction AND then survive. However, this destruction leaves lasting results. Ideally, a narcissist can learn to abandon their shield sooner rather than later. If they can begin to let it go at the first chips, brain emotion-patterns and chemical overloads, can be avoided.As you can imagine getting someone to take down a shield that has been rebuilt, repeatedly, is sometimes more difficult.Honestly, the amount of truthful awareness one has about oneself is something I believe everyone struggles with. And most people harbor some sort of delusions or exaggrations about themselves.As someone who has been in quite a few mental hospitals, I am familiar with mental illness in many forms and can see it in nearly everyone at some time. It is only a matter of being around them long enough and they trust me enough to reveal their honest selves.In my experience, I have found that the people who are clearly suffering but do not know what they are suffering from, do not believe they are suffering from a specific thing or do not even believe they are suffering though they clearly are, often have a few things in common:They do secretly know.They don't want others to know.They are not ready to talk about it.They believe you can see their issues based on how they act so there is no need to talk about it.They really believe no one else is a bad as them and they have this unique problem.They do not know the name for their problem.They do not even know their problem was even now a labeled disorder.They do not know much about brain chemistry and how it effects behavior.Here is my background. I am diagnosed shizoaffective. I say diagnosed, because while it is the current label experts have given me, this is not a term I would have picked for myself. Honestly, paranoid schizophrenic fits me, my illness and my symptoms better but I am highly functional and manage my symptoms really well.I will be honest and say I CAN exist out of reality full time, but I choose not to. If I did, I would get the paranoid schizophrenic label.As a society, I do not know if we are ready to have some closeted schizophrenics come out. We are only just starting to touch on schizoaffectives.So, as a schizoaffective, I had my brother arrested because he crossed a line. The line was very tiny.He grabbed my arm.I told him to let me go.He said, “No” and subtly began to squeeze.I said, “Fine, you win. I will let you do what you want.”He wanted to move all my parents patio furniture outside to make room for his stuff in the garage. I was house sitting at the time while they were away on vacation.So you can see on the surface, this looks like nothing. But, when two people have been raised by mentally ill parents and have illness themselves it is anything but.Let me start a little earlier to explain how he committed a crime.When he first started moving the furniture that my Dad had meticulously, as my dad does everything meticulously, moved all into his garage to be stored for winter, I flipped.I yelled at him that he can't do this, Dad will flip and I will help him make room for his stuff. I had just come back from walking my dog and assured him we could both fit everything in the garage.My parents did not know he was coming either or that he had stuff he needed to be stored of course. My brother was very narcissistic that way.He wouldn't listen to me. He kept moving it onto the lawn. Eventually, I tried to start moving a chair back as I kept selling my case. He grabbed the end of the leash of my dog. I had tied the other end to my belt, and he whipped it. Somehow, the end flipped up and hit me in the collarbone.This is such a horrible story. Anyhow, to make a long story shorter, I had a vision when he grabbed my arm. I saw his future girlfriend getting killed. A woman I have never met, smashing her head thru a glass coffee table. She had the same feeling as me, trying to escape. I can still see her face even now. I don't know if she was dead, but she could have been.Anyway, after being blinded by this new revelation that I felt was or could become 100% true, I said he won and walked inside and let him leave all the furniture on the lawn for my Dad to come home to. I told him he crossed a line. He needed to apologize. I told him if he didn't, there would be consequences. I tried be be as authoritative as I could. I waited for him to come talk to me and he just continued working in the garage.He glared at me. We both knew he physically abused me because he was stronger and when he restrained me, I felt trapped. It invoked fear, as was his point. I felt fear and knew any other person would have fought to escape his squeeze. It was determined pressure, slow to evoke the power of control. Slow to make one feel they can stop the abuse. Calculated enough to scare. In reality, he was attempting to train me, to get me to submit, like a dog when he grabbed the leash.I knew he needed someone to try to help him, someone to intervene. I couldn't honestly do it for him or for me. I did it for her, the beautiful blonde. Not a natural blond but pretty greenish eyes.Later, as in the following weeks after the whirlwind of the arrest, my mom told me she talked to his current girlfriend. She found out that when he was really mad and they fought, he was locking her in the bedroom. I think he was trying to prevent her from leaving because he was so desperate she would leave with his unborn son in her belly.He really was desperate. His life was falling apart and everything he owned was now in the garage. He never really talks about his problems until after he has solved them, so I had to always gage how much he was really feeling and how much he can deal with what I put on him. But, on that day, I decided to call the police because I wanted hope for the future.The police came and I told them he grabbed the leash and whipped it and it hit my collarbone, and I said he grabbed my arm, and wouldn't release me when I said to let me go. I tried to show the officer how he did it by grabbing the officer’s arm and squeezing like my brother did. Not rough, but calculating.The officer was nice. He saw the scratches under my neck. He said they were getting redder as I talked to him and something about a mark on my arm. I didn't even know I had any marks. He went and talked to my brother and my brother was incoherent at this point. For probably the first and only time in his life.The officer arrested him and he was released the next day. I had no desire to press charges. I hoped a night in jail and a note on his record was enough to change what I believe I saw. I wanted a future girlfriend to know she wasn’t the only one who was abused by him, if she ever needed more credibilty or evidence. I wanted a kind of first strike to help prevent behavior or make the consequences more severe if it happened again.But I will never forget his face, his body, his entire essense as the officer was guiding him away, his hands cuffed behind his back. He was shaking, almost wimpering, in utter horror/defeat. He was completely vulnerable, like a boy and not a young man. It was the hardest thing to see in someone, their outer shell of protection and arrogance gone.My brother left for a job opportunity in another city. He was energized in a way when the judge released him. Somehow, he had managed to put back his typical suit of supreme confidence.My mom paid for plane tickets for a grandchild yet born and his mom to go where ever she wanted to go. She funded her move to another state to live with a aunt. He, now, years later, has a new family in San Francisco. He got an MBA on his own; is a brilliant stockbroker.From a young age, he would blow my mind with how much money he could make and spend in one month. I still think it is rare for a 19-year-old to be able to close enough loan deals in 30 days to prepay a full year lease on a new corvette, buy a girl friend implants and go on a vacation to Hawaii.On a side note, my dad was happy I tried to protect his right to put his stuff where he left it. Where it's supposed to go.Mental illness is no joke. Not easy stuff. But I was very lucky to have everyone’s support in my family and had everyone calling from all over to say they loved me during a rough time.I think it was because they know my brother is the usual liar and not me. Plus, they know I love him.I have also always felt they believe my visions but that doesn't make it any easier.Here is an detailed account of what it is like to experience symptom escalation in a psychotic episode. I hope it will help you understand your clients, give more light on how stress affects their illness and what they are actually attempting to do to deescalate.Once, I had my husband just drive me around in my van, never really stopping, because I felt stressed just being out in the world. So, I just had him take time off and drive back and forth between different locations to help clear my mind.Just feeling the car moving and being in its protective little bubble, with him, was relaxing enough. What really helped me feel better was when he went on the freeway and I could feel the speed of the car under me. I felt safe, like I was being taken far away from my troubles by someone I love.Truthfully, though I just needed to feel like I was going far away from my location of stress, I also wanted to get away from the sounds that come with staying in one location. And specifically, I wanted to take a break from the emotional energies of residential areas. This was because I was having specific problems associated with houses.I will try to explain this better in a way that is more understandable. You know when you are in an apartment and you can feel energies of those living around you? I mean you know the sound of the voices even though you can’t really make out what they are saying? You sense emotions in sound through the walls or in the common hallway, even if the sound is heard only for a second.This is kind of what I am talking about, except on a VERY small and completely normal level. But when you are a stressed schizophrenic, it is a whole different story and it is anything but normal.That's because for the average person, these things are very subtle. They are simply part of your environment that sometimes you pick up on and sometimes you don’t, often depending on your own emotional state. Now for a schizophrenic, or SCHIZOAFFECTIVE who is experiencing their schizophrenic symptoms, their stressed emotional state heightens all their senses. Imagine having a dial of emotional awareness and you crank that sucker up.All this talk doesn’t mean that much though, so it is better for me to just describe a day for a very STRESSED schizoaffective and I hope that will help you understand the benefits of stress, the downsides, and how you can use it to harness your most powerful self.That is why I will describe the 24 hours leading up to my husband driving me around. I will explain how the best part of stress is that it allows you to do some great stuff.But I will let you be the judge of that.If the following story is too hard for you to read, please stop. I warn you. I write very descriptively and I will not spare you the intensity of my experience. Just know, it is much harder to experience this in real life than to read about it.So here is what I did all in a day. Basically, I had a conversation with my mom, my landlord, a biker gang, a construction worker called the police, and talked to two neighbors. It doesn’t sound too stressful right? Tell me about it.It began with my mom. While visiting her house, I notice her neighbor’s house has all these strange, beat up cars in front of it. This is an expensive neighborhood, so it is completely out of place. I ask her about it and she says, her neighbor foreclosed on his house. It is coming up for auction soon, but he says his keys were stolen from a worker he has. So thats why there are all these strangers living in it now.I question the news. I tell her that her neighbor is pretty shady. “You can't believe anything he says,” I say.I go into the backyard and look into their backyard. When I finally see someone, I wave them over. I ask her who she is, why she is there and where my neighbor is. She immediately acts weird. She doesn't answer my questions. She keeps telling me “Don't worry about the noise. We are just celebrating. My grandma is dying and we are just so happy we get to take care of her in such a nice house.”“But what about my neighbor?” I say. “Where is he?”Finally, she stops talking about all the loud praying and chanting noises I may hear and stops pleading her case for me not to worry about noises at night. I haven't even asked her questions about this.Finally, she tells me they rented this home for 6 months.By now, somehow the neighborhood has all come to their back yards to chime in. “That's not true!” I hear. “Thats a lie."I look at her and tell her there is an auction date online in 2 weeks. She said “That's not true. They have six months.”I respond, “Well. You won't mind if I call the police to clear things up. I mean he could be dead for all I know.”Honestly, he was a shady kind of guy. It wasn't impossible. Everytime I talked to him, it felt like I was coated in lies afterward.So I go inside to call an officer over and my worst case scenario brain is hoping he isn't tied up inside or something. Not very likely, but nothing seems right about any of this.In the meantime, my undiagnosed bipolar mother stars freaking out. She starts rushing thru all the previous events that she didn’t feel the need to tell me earlier. Now things are finally starting to make sense.I begin to see terror grow in her eyes. I guess the other neighbor on the other side has been super stressed. He is a lawyer but he won't do anything because he has a disabled and vulnerable wife inside his house. Everyone hears these “loud noises” at night, at all hours, and they can't figure out if its a party or cult or what.Ugh.So, I start dialing the police and when my mom sees what I am doing she starts screaming out things like she fears retaliation and other such craziness. I look at her like she has gone insane and continue on with the call.Whatever.The officer comes and he is super nice. I tell him, “Look. I don't know what's going on. I don't know where my neighbor is. There are all these people I have never seen at the house next door. I tried talking to someone and she says she can live there for six months. But online is says it's going up for auction in 2 weeks. I don't know. It could be my neighbor scammed these people or he could be in trouble.”I end with. “Honestly. I just don’t know. He is pretty shady.”By this point my mom has locked herself in her room and is brewing up a full-blown emotional frenzy. I try not to listen to her as I hear HER call 911 about how “her daughter is about to start some confrontation with her neighbors and she fears for her safety” and all this other stuff.I block her out, because at the moment, I am too concerned for the officer who is thankfully a super muscled out, huge, black dude that I immediately feel like I want to protect somehow. He takes one look at the seven or eight super junky, kinda tricked out cars all parked halfhazzardly around a nearly million dollar home and frowns.I ask, “Maybe I should go with you?” and then realize no, it is probably best if I wait by the cars.So I watch him go up and ring the doorbell and the women comes to the door. You can’t see anyone else inside, though I know there are lots of men inside because I could hear them or feel them, I don't know which, when I was in the backyard.After a few minutes the officer comes back and starts taking down numbers from each car's license plates. He goes back to his vehicle. I am trying to figure out if is he is calling for backup or just running plates and by this time, I get this feeling like everyone in the neighborhood is listening. It is WAY too quiet.After about 6-10 minutes or so the women is rushing back out with a paper. One piece of just regular computer paper. The cop is reading it, he hands it to me. I look at it. It has my neighbor’s correct name. It is typed, and not handwritten and it says it he agreed to rent until a date two weeks from now. I yell out for the whole neighborhood to hear, “It says you are supposed to be out in weeks!”The cop says more quietly but firmly, “You need to be out in two weeks."The women starts screaming, “How can you start looking at our vehicles. This is discrimination!” And the cop says, “No, how would you feel if a bunch of people you didn't know came into your neighborhood and you didn't know what was going on.” We then both immediately walk back nextdoor, trying to get away from the fury this woman was starting to build.As we come back, my mom comes rushing out, asking what's going on and the officer explains calmly to her that they will be there for two weeks and will be out by the auction date.He looks at me and says, “It’s good it went that way.” and I say, “Yeah, either that or it's the best scam EVER.”Our eyes lock as I see us both processing how easy it would be to just look up homes online going for auction and typing up a rental agreement note with your victim’s name on it.“Do you think so?” he asks me.“I don't know.” I respond seriously. “But they will be out in 2 weeks.After he left, my mom was still freaked out. I told her she could come stay with me. She was still mad but I exclaimed, “Mom! I have made you as safe as I can make you! We have all their license plate information.”“Oh.” She stops her ranting. “He ran their plates?”“Yes,” I say with an eye roll in exasperation at how difficult she made the situation.Well, that was the first hours of my day. It only gets more stressful.To take a breather from my story. Stress allows you to stay calm. It is great to use if you need to protect something or someone. It gives you courage. To fight for loved ones, a stranger. To protect your home, your neighborhood, your county, your world. It can collectively band you with others, give you common purpose, and help you complete a mission. It helps you think, increases reaction time, assess more information. It allows you to hone your senses to a very powerful point.But that point can only be used for so long. Still, it's amazing how far the body can go, all the way to the breaking point.My breaking point was still a ways off, though my stress would only keep escalating.To continue…As soon as I made it home. Literally, I get out of my car and my landlord rushes up to me.She has put up “No trespassing” signs on the duplex diagonal from me. Our backyards have half a divider separating them.“I don't want you to worry,” she begins.OMG. She has the same terror look as my mother! I look at her with horror, but she is picking up steam.She continues. “But the unit across from you. I don't know who is living there. I have no idea who they are. They are not supposed to be there. I put up signs.” She keeps going, unloading all this info on me about how she keeps trying to get them, they only come at night, the sheriff won’t come for so many days.Finally, she gets to her main point.“If you see them. Please, please call me. I will rush here and get them out!”You have got to be kidding me. I have a young son living a few steps away and you have no record of who is living there, I am thinking.Omg. And here I told my mom to come here!“Fine.” I tell her.“Thank You, thank You.” She is groveling now. “I am sooo sorry I had to tell you. There is only one other thing.”My jaw drops. Really. Another.“He is on the other apartment, on the back side,” she speeds out.I stop her there, with eyes widening. But the pause is brief as she continues to explain that there is just one other guy that is not supposed to be there. That is living there when he is not supposed to.Well, fast forward a little, I then find myself yelling at a girl in her early twenties, a girl who later comes out of that unit and passed outside my back yard. I called my landlord on the phone and shoved it over to the girl's face and screamed, “You talk to Carol right now. She says she can't get ahold of you for months, and she is on the phone right now!”The girl talked to Carol and gave the phone back to me and Carol says, “She is going to get her father to help her pack her things and they will be out by tonight.”Whatever. I am now super pissed off. I feel used by both of these two weak, terrified women who can't hold themselves together or so I am thinking at the time.I am so mad.I leave my home to go get some food and I see a guy I have see a guy I saw at the library the day before. He is younger, in his twenties, and has a construction hat and back pack. But, he has a bedroll too. I figure he is homeless, but he is trying so hard to look put together. He clearly is working. He is trying so hard to stay in the right places that are open and not draw attention.I start to feel guilt. I feel bad. I thought about all the people I interacted with today who were desperate for a place to live in. And here was someone with no place at all.I looked again and I saw a young man who reminded me of my husband. Someone trying to be independent, trying to do the right thing. Suffering, but knowing every day he was working towards something. Those type of guys need a break every once in a while.I went and picked up pizza and a 2 liter. On my way back, I pulled up to him and motioned him to the window. “Hi” I said. “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but do you have a place to stay tonight?”His eyes lit up. I saw a spark of hope. “No,” he said.“Well, I don't have a place you can stay, but if you want I will let you sleep in this van tonight,” I said. He immediately told me he thought he was going to have to camp in the woods tonight and was so happy he didn't have to and how he was here for a job and would be going back tomorrow.I told him the arrangement would only be for tonight and that he would be fine as long as he stayed in the van. You cannot see inside the windows and the seats were already folded into the compartments so it was flat and open for laying down.“But,” I warned. “You have to be VERY careful of the neighbors.”At this moment, I saw or felt paranoia. It was in him, and it reminded me of myself.I quickly continued. “It will be fine as long as you just stay in all night and quickly slip out in the morning. Everyone is on high alert right now with strangers being in the neighborhood and how safe they are in their homes, especially at night.”He said he understood and wouldn't even turn his phone light on. When I gave him a few slices of pizza and poured some soda in a to-go cup I had, he looked at me like a I had just given him $1,000.It broke my heart.That night, I can't sleep. Or I can but I am an emotional wreck. I have a stranger in my van and I am trying to process everything I've seen.Somehow, I end up going for a walk at 3am. I just remember thinking I needed to get out. I needed to just wander around and as I wandered I could unwind my brain. I try to just let my body go where it needs to go. I practically close my eyes and walk. It doesn’t even matter if I use my eyes because not only is it pitch black outside, but I have my little toy poodle to act as a guide.I just let her lead me. She knows this neighborhood so well. She knows our regular routes. She is a scout, a patrol dog. She walks me and looks for danger. She patrols and protects the neighborhood. She makes me feel unified in our mission. She makes me feel I have a purpose in this stressful time.I completely zone out.I am so stressed that I don’t even notice I am walking with my eyes barely even open. Thinking back on it now, I might have even been like sleep walking in a way. I couldn’t sense, I could only feel. I could feel the need to wander and get lost. I remember getting to the point where I didn't even know where I was and was okay with that. I just kept walking in the dark, and it felt nice to just wander around in the dark.Then something got my attention. In the far off distance, some lights began to appear. The light was like a pull. I felt myself needing to go there. I needed to see this compulsion out.As i got closer and the lights grew bigger I sensed a lot of people. I heard little noises that grew more focused as I neared. It sounded like people trying to scuttle around in the dark. The nearer I got the more the event started to take shape. It was a party. And the people sounded like me.Someone said something like “I can never sleep at night.” And people were laughing and joking. And they sounded like they were having so much fun. The lights were getting bigger And I could start to see more. It was a fire. In a big metal barrel.Now I was starting to wake up and process what I was seeing. Yes, I finally knew where I was. I was at the abandoned house.During daylight, I had seen some old RVs and campers in the back. But I never saw people. Now I realize people must be living in them. I had seen a couple of motorcyles parked there once. And you always heard bikes roaring occasionally thru town. This must be where the local biker gang came to party.I listened. I felt. I was still feeling a little in a daze but i could feel a pull. Like a moth to a flame, I kept going forward. I heard voices that made me feel …happy. It was so nice to feel happy. I wanted to rush in and embrace it and roll around in it. I wanted to feel abandon, where you had no care in the world.It was like finding water when you've be wandering around in a desert. It was a mentally ill person oasis. It felt like I was where I belonged.It would be so nice to be invited to a party like tha, I thought. Maybe I could get invited, I thought. Maybe I could get an invite for me and my husband to come another night. He used to have a bike. He would love it if they were good people.Good people. That was the point. I needed to see if they were good.I heard some sexual talk and that's when I remembered. This abandoned house was across the street from a park. My son plays with a boy who lives next to the park. His house was directly across the street. Horror flashed across my brain. It's summer. The windows are all down. The boy and his brothers might hear this. I suddenly remember what the boy told me last time I saw him. Gunshots. He said he heard gun shots at night. Crack, Pop! The fire just spoke and echoed across the dark to me.That's it. I had a little bit more purpose now. I would get to the bottom of this.I approached the house and headed for the fire. I approached the guy who looked and acted like he was the bouncer of this “club.” He had presence, confidence and an aura of providing protection. If he liked me, everyone else would.“It sounds like you guys are having a party,” I say with sass. “I heard you and could see you from a mile away,” I smirked. Take that; there are kids in this neighborhood.I continued. “I came to check out what kind of people you are and whether this party is a party my husband would approve of.”“Oh yeah?” he said with a tone of approval that I knew meant he liked what had just walked to his door.“Yeah, is this the type of party a girl like me would feel safe in?” I asked.He quickly responded. “I tell you what, if you stick with me I will personally make sure …I…take care of you and make sure everyone will leave you alone. How does that sound?”“Not very appropriate considering I just told you I have a husband.” I countered quick.At this point, two of the sidekicks came running up to flank his sides.Before they could assess the situation a pit bull charged in from behind. My 8-pound dog lunged and the dog 10x her size, melted away to the background.“Who is this?” I heard. One was a lengthy smart guy who liked to talk fast and the other was like a Chris farley type, soft but probably used to taking a lot of jokes at his expense.I didn't like either, but the one in the middle still had potential. I could see him still possibly being the type of guy my husband might like.But I focused on the mission.“Is this TIME and PLACE normal for your parties?” I asked. Sweet but with steel. You have to step up when it's 3 on one.The fast guy then starts talking fast. I don't even really listen because it sounds like he's trying to sell me a car.“Because it kinda seems like you might be terrorizing the neighborhood. I am just concerned about what's APPROPRIATE you know. It’s a family neighborhood. Lots of kids around.”I pointed to the park behind me.At this point, it got weird.Confusion. “There's no park there,” said Middle, short for guy in the middle.It was pitch black to me but yes, I remembered the park right across the street from the abandoned house.“Right there.” I point again.“No.”“What! Wait. Are you sure?” I said starting to sound confused. Maybe I had gotten turned around in my quest to just get lost.This is when Middle slowly came closer. “Are you lost?” He said like he was talking to a suddenly innocent child instead of a woman he wanted to take care of a few moments ago.“Oh my god. Are you sleepwalking?” said Quick.“Here, let us help you!” They all we were coming towards me.Sensing danger, I forced myself to open my eyes. They were shut. Oh my God, I didn't even know they were closed. I am so messed up right now, when I am seeing and not even seeing.I needed to get home fast.No!” I shouted and started backing away.“I'm fine! I just wanted to know the time and place for your parties.” I spat out as I turned on my heel, and gave them my backview.“Every Friday and Saturday night at ten!” I hear.“Thanks,” I yell now because I am already a few yards away. “Watch out for me and my husband!”I tried not to run. I try to walk with swag. I wanted to excude confidence to guarantee my escape.“I love how they walk,” Farley says.I exaggrate the movement even more and then once I had the required distance I felt I could out run someone, I ran as hard as I could.By the next morning, it was 24 hours since my stressful day started. I told my husband I let some guy sleep in the van. He ran out and checked. But he was already politely gone. I told him about my confrontation with the local biker gang and tried to plead my case that I was just so hung up on protecting the neighborhood and feeling so much fear from everyone locked in their homes at night. I kept stressing how I saw in my mind the neighbor boy trying to sleep but listening.Seriously. The fear was just too much and I needed to get away. I needed to go where I felt the safest. Where was that? And then I remembered my paranoid friend and knew.And so I went and fell asleep in the van.Aftermath:I had always been worried about that abandoned house. After my night visitation, the gang moved on and i never saw bikes there again. In its place was a bunch of police tape stringing the entrance off.My husband had us moved out of this city in a week as we were month-to-month. He thought the city was too difficult for my sensitivities. The owner of our duplex sent the loveliest note saying what beautiful tenants we were. I kept it.Postscript: This was a time I did not manage my symptoms well.The next few paragraphs explain my connection between me, being once an actor and mental health. It illustrates the importance of imagry on mental health treatment by professionals and also the need for acting programs, and improv sessions for patients. I hope you will read and understand why it is SO important to me and my meaningful life.There is a program in Seattle at the Tap Root theater that runs a program just like this but with dementia sufferers.However, I have found many of my symptoms to be similar to dementia. When I experience symptoms or let myself dive into that part of my brain that has sensory issues, I have found that I can have amazing experiences with those in advanced stages of memory loss and brain dysfunction.I think it may be helpful for you to hear some of my theories on why this happens so you can understand more the connection between mental illness and acting.I actually participated in this “improve class" with my father and others who had this memory disease. I will over the course of this post, tell you everything I learned, and how and what may be helpful to those with mental illness.Let me start with my own experience with mental illness and acting.As a young child, I had a desire to do theater. I went to my first audition at a community theater and did poorly. I just kept auditioning. Each time I did, I would perfect my audition to the point that later on in my career, directors would actually stop my audition because they already knew I had the role.I did a lot of plays and became successful at it, winning best acting trophies from my city's community playhouse, playing the lead in my high school production and then later after I graduated college, going to Los Angeles to try my hand at it as a profession. So, many would say I am very good at theater and have lots of experience.However, in the beginning as a child, I remember one of my first acting experiences very vividly. Specifically, I remember making up my own audition monologue when I was 9. I first laid down, closed my eyes and just imagined. I imagined a world I wanted to be in. I imagined myself there in that space. I really had to concentrate my mind to create the experience of being surrounded in a new world, that was not really there, but one of my own creation. It took mental effort, but I kept at it until my monologue was describing the world around me, and what was happening to me as I navigated in it.While at first I just imagined and did what I wanted to do, after hours of practice, I could get the experience down to well-rehearsed and memorized lines of my dialogue and actions and emotions. It was easiest to memorize the images I was seeing in a particular order, that way the emotions could just flow naturally from the images and ...since it was my monologue, the dialogue could simply be a manifestation of interactions of me in this imagined space.Here is the connection to mental illness. If you get good at this skill, EVENTUALLY, at least for me, I was able to simply think about the place and start to relive the experience I had there. Over time, the mental image of the place conjured up emotions on a biological level, so it was no longer something imaginary, but a real experience in my mind.This translated over to when it came time for me to audition, and all I had to do was think about the place and I would be transported there confidently enough to overcome all issues of stage fright. This also explains why children should not watch horror movies, or they will have too vivid nightmares, or how sometimes imaginary friends are more real to a child than real friends, or why imagery work is so useful for treating repressed or suppressed emotions.To further illustrate how those with gifts in imagination creation experiences aka ACTORS, are able to make their actual imagined experience a real reality, here is a later acting experience from my early twenties.Once, I was waiting in line for a new television pilot that was going to be shot. The line was huge, omg. I mean, it just snaked around forever and ever. Auditioners were given a paper with the lines of dialogue on it that were to be memorized and performed when you final reached the end of the que.I have never had so much time with dialogue. I had literally hours to immerse myself in it, develop my character, work out the backstory, imagine experiences and then live them in my mind. It was crazy. Memorizing the lines took maybe the first twenty minutes, so in actuality, I had hours to create the character’s lives and experiences together.The role I was to audition for was that of a girl who loved a boy. It was obvious from the dialogue. But since I had so much time and a passion for landing the role, I dove in hard and head first.Long story short, by the time I met the man who was to play opposite of me, I had already loved him. And what happened in real life was even crazier. I actually stood before him and felt real feelings of infatuation. I mean, I couldn't even remember the lines because I only remember falling literally into the role. I simply said whatever was natural for that time and place, feeling that emotion. I played the ideolized version of myself that I had developed but with real feelings for a man I had never met.My brother happened to have come towards the end of waiting and brought me food and so he got to see the audition. He had seen me in lots of work before this point, but he was amazed at what he saw. I think directors simply call this “real chemistry.” But I think the fact that real chemistry can actually be created to the point of reality can change how we view “real chemistry.”Anyway, this can also explain why many actors fall in love with their costars naturally and then later realize they are nothing like the assumed characters and break up. Or as everyone in the industry would say.....METHOD ACTING.But back to acting and how it can be beneficial for the mentally ill. If you cannot really tell the difference between imagined and actual experience, which is often the case in those mentally ill (often delusional, etc.), life opens itself up to more opportunities of existence. If your reality is more open to your own personalized interpretation, which honestly I think everyone is, you have to see the power and importance of role play, game play, improv, and simply immersing yourself into an idealized version of yourself.For those mentally ill, changing one's reality is very important. As is defining the difference between real and non-real and why often it doesn't matter. The truth for the individual is what is important and this is based on what the individual wants his or her reality to be.The gift of this open-ended possibility is that a different reality is possible for everyone, however shared realities are more advantageous. And that is why acting experiences for the mentally ill are so important.Because they create these shared experiences, which is often difficult for the mentally ill.I am so glad you are a part of the world and are trying to create shared realities, especially for those who struggle with this skill. Putting the time and effort into being the same place and time and being able to share an emotion is where all effort must be made.Another interesting aspect with acting and mental illness is how the sensory experience is utilized. If you think about the abilities of an actor, to "feel a room." To "play off the emotions of the crowd." To manipulate sound, project an emotional experience onto others and to sometimes completely disassociate with ones body or "get lost in the performance." These all speak to the characteristics of many mental illnesses.For example, I remember once being on stage and I was supposed to pretend to experience something. Well, once on stage, I had gotten so good at doing it that I actually created the experience for myself. Meaning, I was supposed to be stuck in a whirlwind but by the end of my performance, I actually saw, felt, heard and experienced a whirlwind. This was without any effects like a wind machine.Other times, I was able to connect with someone, even at the back of the theater as if the emotions they were feeling were exactly mine. You learn to recognize and be sensitive to true emotion, even in a setting full of emotions, such as a crowd. You come to understand and really know what it feels like and how they feel different.Postscript: I was going to talk more about dementia and acting and those insights, and how those can be understood in regards to other experiences. So here are my thoughts on that and how you might be a better instructor.So my dad and I took an improv class together when he was in his later stages of dementia. What I loved about it, was how it completely equalized the playing field. You can be good at it even if you have SEVERE limited mental processing. Because as Alzheimer's kills brain functioning, there is still sensoring processing in certain areas. So when you can’t add a simple 1+1=2, you can still connect on an emotional level and have a shared experience.This could be something as simple as make any weird sound you want and see how you can communicate with that sound. Because when everyone is making different sounds but still trying to communicate, a dementia sufferer can still interpret the interaction and join in.For the instructor to create these real interactions, the acting must be as true as possible. If you believe it, others will too and you can create shared experiences that can stay in their memories potentially forever.Finally, you can always call this theater and learn what you can about the program. If they can do something like this, why can't you?Here is my response for usually borderline personalities or anyone who suffers from anxieties and how to relieve them:I can only tell you what I do and what my family members do to relieve anxieties.I have found that I am never anxious for no reason. It is just a matter of taking the time to tune into what it is.After I pinpoint the anxiety, the specific worry or insecurity, I think about the deeper fears associated with it. I think about the emotions I may be holding onto, or the ones I may not want to experience.I dwell in those fears for a bit until I am more comfortable with them. I accept my worst case scenarios and acknowledge my nightmares as fantasy. Sometimes, I decide on a plan of action and other times I decide to wait. Whatever the direction, I usually find I can release the urgency of the problem.Meaning, I comfort myself with the fact that a few hours, or day, or even months will usually not make a difference.The truth is, typically, the issues are very minor, that are causing the anxiety. I have found that after I sleep, most don't even matter. So, I remind myself of this.Only you can determine how urgent and pressing your problem is. And this urgency will determine your coping mechanism if you have to wait.If I am having trouble letting go of an issue, because of it’s urgency level or strength of emotions attached to it, I try to “reset my brain" or “snap out of it” with some activities that typically leave my body in a more relaxing state.For example, warm milk, a bath, visualization exercises, or breathing techniques. I can then move on to stronger means of reset such as meditation, masturbation to orgasm, stretching yoga, and prayer.I could take some time to write down my desires and future plans regarding the issue, or I could go out and take a stroll with my dog and be alone. Finally, I can use a stronger medication that is reserved for higher stress situations.If I am under even more stress, I will consider a change of scenery, more intense exercises and call my doctor for an appointment.Each person has their own knowledge of what coping practices work for them. I am not promoting this but my own father, drank a pint of red wine, every evening to wind down. He was clearly addicted but since I have never seen him drunk and he never drank more than this set amount, who am I to say his mechanism is worse than my drug, a tranquilizer I use for higher stress occasions.Both drugs damage the brain. Severity of damage and degree of short term or long term damage is based on duration of use and dosage amount, and specific qualities of the individual, such as often hereditary factors.Alcohol, I believe can lead to problems with anger control, which my father had during the day, and other complications like obesity. And I believe anti-psychotics, the catagory many tranquilizers and anti-anxiety drugs fall in, can cause more frequent or intense periods of psychosis later.So ideally, one manages their stress without drugs, but at times, many have needed to resort to this route. Knowledge of health risks and dosage play a significant role. For example, in my father's case, a pint of red is equivalent to 2/3 of a bottle. He clearly had a high tolerance for me to not be able to notice a change in behavior, and was a larger man. He died at age 72 from alcohol-related liver disease.So I would say he picked his poison. One of my brothers is only 39 and is dying from cirrhosis of the liver from drinking. Though he has never been violent or angry during the day, just mostly unresponsive every evening. Other than that, his mood is pretty stable. He doesn't ever lash out, he just often checks out if you know what I mean. My sister uses food to calm her anxieties. She becomes so picky about her food that the littlest amount of carbs relaxes her. Being so skinny she also is then able to eat a large amount when she gets stressed to stretch her stomach and release feelings of contentment.Clearly this choice pisses me off. Not only does she look horribly sick, but she has aged a lot. I also find her too emotional to be around for very long. But this is at her sickest point when her hair also started falling out, she had to wear a wig and her skin looked all thin and creepy.Atleast, that was how she looked to me. I am glad to report that the last time I saw her, she was able to add some much needed fat to her frame. She found a job where she is outside landcaping in the sun all day, and said this has enabled her to sleep better at night. Her hair grew back and when she went to a family gathering she was happy to report everyone thought she was me as we are very close in age.The best course, however, is figuring out the steps to resolve your problem or accepting some problems cannot be solved, or solved immediately. Over time, you can then learn to have confidence in your ability to handle any problem that comes your way.I myself go for years without using an ant-psychotic but I am not afraid to use one either.Don’t give up.Here is a more recent post on how I handle issues like hypomania, haluccinations and sensory processing issues.Ko Martin's answer to Can hypomania manifest itself as extreme anger?On the bottom of my profile page, I have many links to posts I have covered on topics such as overcoming depression, anger, fears, anxieties, paranoia, PTSD and dealing with narcissists.