“Experience is often the greatest teacher.” Kaajal Gupta, a 17-year-old, is a fighter of OCD. Her experience and vision are what gave birth to Liberate: My OCD Fighter, the first and only app in India that helps people with OCD-Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Having endured a traumatic experience, Kaajal felt a sense of responsibility to help the larger community of the OCD fighters.
As a major part of therapy, Kaajal had to track her compulsions by making a diary entry. While this might sound simple, she describes it as a “tedious and difficult process.” Performing the compulsion seemed easier than going to your room, unlocking your diary and making an entry. In her perspective, she felt that if it was a much simpler process, probably just in the click of a button, her therapy would have been more effective.
In addition, the fear of someone stumbling upon her diary haunted her, and thus writing down her entries was out of the question. Giving consideration to these thoughts, Kaajal concluded that an app which acts as a diary is best suited for therapy. A mobile is portable, provides privacy and making entries will be much easier with gentle reminders from the app. Determined to lend a helping hand, she set out to create one. Drawing help and insights from her psychiatrist and professors from NIMHANS, Liberate was thus created after much deliberation and research.
Liberate is an app that helps you to identify your obsessions, track your compulsions, set goals to achieve and measure your progress. Being a listener to its user’s emotions, the app’s diary entry feature allows the user to express their emotions. Helping with resisting one’s compulsions and thought analysis, the app also has a panic button in case of an emergency and a safety plan as its contingency.
Developed by a team comprising of talented teens, the organisation envisions the stigma around mental illnesses than aggrandising it. To further this cause, the team has taken several initiatives:
School Outreach Program
This is an initiative to create awareness about OCD and how and when to get help to cure it. It is a program where the team goes to various schools and hosts a seminar that aims to educate the students and to urge them to #Smashthestigma against OCD related issues.
Student Ambassador Program
This is an initiative where the organisation conducted a hunt for student volunteers from schools and universities to take up the cause and create a change in their community. It aimed at creating an OCD club/ chapter in the schools or universities of the selected ambassadors. The organisation helps these ambassadors in conducting at least one per month to raise awareness. These activities include fundraisers, competitions and educational sessions. This program is currently instituted in over 20 schools around the world.
Blog
The organisation has a team of blogging interns who throw light upon important aspects of OCD giving a holistic perspective of OCD to its users. Be it the OCD Fighters Series where OCD survivors are interviewed about their experience or the “All in the Mind” series where the author expounds about his own experience, the articles in the blog vary from the research to opinion to the interview category.
Internships
The organisation also holds various internship programs for the duration of 3 months. The internship programs that the organisation hosts are in the areas of – translation management, social media, social media art, iOS development, and blogging.
Video Campaign
With a vision to redefine OCD as a debilitating disorder that negatively affects people’s lives, the video campaign is a compilation of people of Indian origin with OCD talking about what OCD means to them. This is to break the misconceptions of people who tend to believe that OCD is just a quirk. It is an effort to reiterate that mental health isn’t an illusion but one that needs care and attention too. It is to be released by the end of July, Minority Mental Health Month.
The issue of mental illnesses is often stigmatised by society. Patients are looked down upon and often feared. The need of the hour is open deliberation and discussion about mental health in order to normalise it. These discussions are not something to be shunned, but a solution that provides confidence to the survivors of mental illnesses and makes them feel empowered. Liberate is one humble team envisioning to initiate the ripple of change that an informed society can bring about. Mental illness is not a race-specific issue, it is not a person-specific issue or even a gender-specific issue. It is of universal relevance and importance. It is real and needs care and attention.