From rape to vampires in the mind, Reshma Valliappan has endured it all. Her life is a tale of how a woman fought her mind, won, and lived to tell the story

She would frantically close the windows of her home to stop vampires from coming in. The house was surrounded by them, she felt. She would stuff towels in ventilators and in cracks under the door because the vampires could change shape and waft in, perhaps as spirits. She could feel their presence as they prowled outside the house, trying to kill her and her family. So, she would not let anyone open the door.

Life has been a fierce battle for Reshma Valliappan, a 34-year-old living with schizophrenia. “I felt my parents were poisoning my food,” she said. “I used to have delusions of persecution―of someone wanting to kill me. Once I ran out of the examination hall, got into my dad’s car and asked him to take me back home. I kept yelling ‘They are coming’.” The Pune-based woman is the protagonist in A Drop of Sunshine, a national award-winning documentary on her triumph over schizophrenia. The documentary won the Silver Lotus for the best educational film at the 59th national film awards.

“Valliappan has chronic schizophrenia of paranoid type,” said Arvind Panchanadikar, a Pune-based consultant psychiatrist. “The initial symptoms were fairly classical with hallucinations and delusions. There were mood fluctuations and occasional impulsivity. She would not turn physically violent, but was known to have verbal outbursts.” Valliappan has been under Panchanadikar’s care for a decade.

While hallucinating, she sees ghosts, too. Ghosts of men, women and kids. “I see them like I see you,” she said. “At times, they appear as shadows. Some do not really have a face.” Sometimes she feels someone touching her.

Panchanadikar said a schizophrenic’s brain handles and processes information differently. “They lose touch with reality because of imbalance in neurotransmitters, especially dopamine,” he said. Some researchers believe that changes in brain chemicals cause the disorder. Other studies hint at structural differences in a schizophrenic’s brain. The evidences are not specific, and, hence, clinically insignificant.

Experts say it is hard to pinpoint what triggers the onset of schizophrenia. It tends to run in families, indicating a strong genetic component. If a pregnant woman is exposed to viral infections like chicken pox and measles, the child has a higher chance of developing schizophrenia. Studies also link substance abuse to the early onset of schizophrenia. Stress can trigger it in people predisposed to the disorder.

Valliappan said environmental factors must have made her vulnerable to schizophrenia. An unhappy childhood and teenage could have been the catalyst. “My dad is from Tamil Nadu and mom from Maharashtra,” she said. “Cultural differences used to cause a lot of problems in their marital relationship. My dad, Vedhakumar Valliappan, was an alcoholic and there was not a single day when he would not yell at me, my siblings or my mom. I used to see food flying across the table. If there was a mark on the wall, he would make us paint not just that spot, but the entire wall,” said Valliappan.

When she was six, the family migrated to Malaysia. She still remembers her father buying canes from night markets there. Canes, with feathers on them. “Those canes were meant for dusting, but were also used to hit children,” she said. “The guy selling it would recognise regulars, and would ask, ‘Oh, you already broke the other one?’ With three kids and an angry dad, it was just natural. He would ask my dad to buy a few more, since he might not come [to the market] the following week. All kids would be standing there, and all parents would be buying canes. Very often, we would hide the cane and would get beaten up for that.”

In school in Malaysia, Valliappan turned rebellious. She defied her parents and broke things in school. “I could not sit still in class,” she said. “I would keep on distracting others. My teachers would complain to my parents and they were quite upset with me.” On the eve of her 15th birthday, her parents caught her smoking. Arguments ensued. “That was my first instance of hearing voices,” she said. “It was difficult to pinpoint whether it was my inner voice or external voice.”

That night, she ran away from home. She cycled across Malaysian state lines, disguised as a boy. “I wrapped my breasts tight, wore two T-shirts and cut my hair extremely short,” she said. She stopped at a cafe. Drunks and transgenders thronged a nearby night club. Every 15 minutes, a police car would pass by. She thought they were looking for her and tried to get further away.

It was 3am when she started cycling again. A car tailed her and nudged the cycle off the road. Valliappan remembers that after she fell down, men from the car jumped out and injected her with something. “When I woke up, I found myself lying under a bench beside a dog, who in a strange way made me feel alive,” she said. “My pants were somewhere else and there were bruises on my body. I guess I was raped. I had excruciating pain and was unable to walk.” In the morning she cycled back home.

She realised that she was injected with heroin that night. She recognised the drug only after she tried it herself much later. The feeling was the same. Memories of the night kept haunting her and she started hearing voices more frequently. She would hear voices of the perpetrators talking in a Malay dialect.

The rape was, in fact, not the first time she was sexually abused. “There was a place in my school campus which was like a hideout,” she said. “I would hang out there to bunk classes and play marbles. Once I was sexually assaulted by the senior boys. My private parts were injured and I bled profusely. They made me touch their private parts, too.” There was abuse from relatives, too. “While we were living in Pune, one of my uncles, too, would touch me inappropriately,” she said. All these memories became more vivid after the traumatic night and she started hurting herself more.

In retrospect, Valliappan feels schizophrenia could have been a coping mechanism. The painful memories were dealt with by her alter egos. “I can talk to you about it, without being completely connected to it,” she said. “I do not feel I was the person and I speak as if it is not my experience. I have other selves in me to deal with it.”

Valliappan has no reservations in talking about her life. She thinks it will inspire others with similar experiences to come out of their cocoon. “Everybody says ‘Hush! Home truths are home truths’,” she said. “Truths need to be out. There is no point in hiding it. A lot of people have gone through it. They are probably waiting for that first move. I can give them that first move by saying it is ok to talk about it.”

After the rape, Valliappan became more of a tomboy. Her parents sent her to camps to ‘fix’ her, increasing the trauma. The delusions and hallucinations increased.