Book Review : Life is What You Make it… 

Just finished an awesome book, may be lot of you have already read it, as it is in market since 2011.
Book’s full name is “Life is what you make it.. a story of love, hope and how determination can overcome even destiny.”

Just finished this, and I am really moved to read this book, presently in total emotional state as how some Mental Disorders can shatters a individual’s life and a career, how a person loses his trust on his own identity, on his own close ones, and how these mental disorders compels person even to take the extreme step to take his own life also.

Summary :

This book starts with the character known as Ankita. She with her family was living in Cochin, Kerala.

Story was weaved around 1990, when the major means of long distance communication was through letters and phones were sparsely used and had dials.

Ankita’s family was little bit conserved in terms of boys but open in terms of her career. 

After finishing schools, she had taken admission in a renowned college St.Agnes, and becomes its board member. Being a board member, she had to deal with various inter-college compititions, and through it she comes into contact with Abhi (who has fallen in love with her in a very first meeting, and yes she was already in a long distance relationship with her classmate who was in IIT-D).

Ankita fell in love with Abhi, as he was totally in love with her, but at the same time, she was also ambitious, career oriented, so after she had got selection in one of top elite B-school in Mumbai after her graduation, her family decided to shift there and the same time she decided to break up her relationship from Abhi, which leads to his death.This incident shocked her deeply, but she didn’t express this.

After coming to Mumbai, she was enjoying her college, and that was the time when something different starts happening with her.

Initially she was over energetic, over enthusiastic, highly creative, requires less sleep. But as the day progresses, alongwith the above features, she also starts getting depressive symptoms like not in a mood to do anything, getting panic attacks, a feeling a loosing everything, a feeling of darkness, a feeling of everything comes over her, starts coming. The disease called “Bipolar Disorder”.

These alternating features of hyperactivity followed by depressive symptoms, compelled her to suicide twice.

Her supportive parents then visited the leading mental hospital in Bangalore, where after weeks of treatment, she comes out of her grave disease (thankful to Dr. Madhusudan).

My Lessons :

  1. Love is precious, even if it comes from anywhere, take care of it.
  2. Always be ambitious, career oriented, but not so much that you do not think about your close ones.
  3. If you have some problem, which you are not able to solve, always ask help from someone, nothing wrong to ask for anything.
  4. Trust and Faith in one’s abilities, that’s what makes all the difference.
  5. Cherish relations, small things of life, as that’s what makes the life itself.
  6. Mental Disorders are like any other body disorders, there is no element of shame in it, if you feel that you have, than it’s always better to visit the Doctor.

My Final Take :

This book is must read, as it not only tells you a story but also educates you about the importance of Mental Disorders, and also about the power of love, faith, trust….

I am participating in #BlogOEmotion with #CreativeCurves.