By Emalee Gillis, NAMI Spokane Blog Editor.
Dr. Kenneth Mondal suffered from mental health challenges his entire life. However, he became an eye surgeon and successfully performed eye surgeries for 36 years. After his retirement in 2016, he finally began dealing with his mental health issues.
Ken can trace his mental health issues to his early childhood. He believes that his mother suffered from anxiety, panic attacks, and agoraphobia. In addition, his parents had frequent loud arguments and he would hide and escape to his room.
“Is it any wonder that my response to this day is to flee at the slightest hint of conflict?” said Ken.
Ken started showing signs of mental illness at a young age.
“I remember organizing my things very neatly and symmetrically and then checking and tapping the items repeatedly. This gave me a sense of comfort and control,” he said.
Also early in life, Ken developed a sense of perfectionism and was only satisfied if he performed perfectly, an impossible goal.
As he made his way through college and medical school and started working as an eye surgeon, Ken dealt with his mental health challenges through avoidance and denial.
“It’s amazing what a person can get used to. My normal was being anxious and perfectionistic about everything in my life. I formed an uneasy truce with it.”
Ken used distraction as a way to get through life.
“It was very easy to sweep things under the carpet and be in denial. I was a busy professional. I was distracted with my profession and recreational activities,” he added.
In 2001, something happened in Ken’s career that he couldn’t sweep under the carpet. He had a panic attack in the middle of performing a major eye surgery. As his body was filled with adrenaline, he somehow was able to finish the operation. He cancelled the rest of the surgeries he had coming up that day and came to the decision that he could no longer perform major eye surgeries.
Ken was in management at the eye clinic he worked for and he was able to restrict his work to only performing minor eye surgeries and directed his partners to do the major surgeries. He never had a panic attack during minor eye surgeries. He continued through the last third of his career without incident.
Looking back now after making so much progress on his mental health issues including managing his panic attacks, Ken believes he might have been able to work through the attacks and continue with major surgery if he knew then what he knows now.
When Ken retired in 2016, the distractions of his professional world were gone and he could no longer avoid his mental health, particularly the deep depression he found himself in.
He went to see a psychiatrist and therapist and was diagnosed with OCD, OCPD, GAD, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia and Major Depression.
Since 2016, Ken has tried a number of different modalities. In addition to working with a psychiatrist and therapist, he has done a great deal of psychoeducation including reading and listening to podcasts. He has tried medication on and off. He has undergone TMS.
“Of all the therapeutic modalities I have tried, one of the most effective has been my spiritual approach,” said Ken.
He developed his spiritual approach by studying Buddhism and by listening to more secular podcasts including one that particularly resonated with him called Awareness Explorers. Through his spiritual practices, he began mediating on the fact that when you have a strong feeling of self, identity, or ego, everything becomes a threat to that identity.
“I realized that so much of my depression and anxiety was protecting those identities and the labels that we put on our selves that are artificial, not real. As soon as I started actually putting those teachings into effect, I could start feeling some calm and peace come through me,” he explained. “The whole basis of terms like enlightenment or awakening is the realization of our oneness with everything in the universe. When the separate sense of self dissolves, so does our fear.”
NAMI has also been a part of Ken’s recovery journal. Ken goes monthly to the Connections Support Group which is a peer-led support group for those living with a mental health condition. He also is a co-facilitator for the Peer to Peer training which is an 8 week training for those living with a mental health condition. With his medical background, Ken can help others with the physiology and pharmacology of mental illnesses. He is also active with the NAMI state organization and does a lot of things with regard to advocacy and public policy.
“Participating with NAMI is beneficial to me and it is also an opportunity to give back to others,” Ken said.
One of the benefits that Ken has seen from his work on his mental health over the past eight years is with his relationships. He can see that anxiety and depression were factors in his first marriage. He has been married to his current wife for almost 29 years. He can also see that mental health issues have impacted his current marriage.
“My wife is very happy that I am addressing my issues,” Ken said. “Friends and family can often see my difficulties way better than I can see myself.”
Ken sees his mental health issues as a work in progress.
“I am certainly not cured. Most mental challenges don’t have a cure. I am on a journey, a process, without an end destination. Each of the modalities that I’ve looked into has helped. You have to approach mental illness from all different angles. There is no silver bullet.”
What has Ken learned from a lifetime of mental health struggles?
“I am not alone. All us human beings are basically wired the same. Mental illness is just part of the human condition. I can learn to live with and manage my condition. I don’t delude myself into thinking I can ever totally eliminate all my symptoms. I have absolutely no room in my brain for guilt, shame or embarrassment regarding my disease. I see mental illness as a combination of genetics and childhood environment, neither of which I had any control over. Life is hard enough without adding blame for something I didn’t ask for. The only response that makes any sense when it comes to mental illness is empathy and compassion both for myself and others.”
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To be notified when the next free 8 week course for people living with a mental health challenge is scheduled, send an email to Amanda Kaplan at amanda@namispokane.org. To register for the in person support group for people living with a mental health condition which meets every second Tuesday from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, click here. To register for the virtual support group for people living with a mental health condition which meets every fourth Tuesday from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., click here.
Ken Mondal, MD, was an eye surgeon for 36 years. After his retirement in 2016, he began working on his mental health challenges. He has been active in NAMI for several years.
Emalee Gillis is a writer and blog editor. She is the author of the memoir Adventures on the Path to Living Well with a Mental Illness and has a related TEDx Talk.