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It was the middle of the night when Mahira (name changed on request) woke up for a glass of water and saw her sister, Naina (name changed on request), sitting “perfectly still” on the sofa. “At first, I thought she was simply lost in thought, but then I noticed she wasn’t blinking. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t flinch when I called her name. I must’ve whispered it five, six, maybe 10 times — softly at first, then louder. But nothing. Just complete silence. Her eyes were wide open, but it felt like no one was inside. She looked like a statue — frozen, eerie, unreachable,” says Mahira.

They called the psychiatrist the next morning, but even after they came, Naina didn’t move for almost two days. She was eventually laid down in bed, but she still didn’t speak or respond. “At the time, it just felt terrifying and surreal,” she adds.

Mahira was 15, dealing with the emotional struggles that often surface during teenage years, when this happened — when her sister stopped acting like herself. Naina would talk to imaginary people, hear voices, ramble about unrelated things, and sometimes get aggressive. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the first time the family began to understand what was troubling her.

Schizophrenia had entered their lives.

‘She was in front of me — and yet, completely gone’

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. It may cause symptoms such as seeing or hearing things that aren’t real (hallucinations), holding false beliefs (delusions), confused thinking, and unusual or unpredictable behaviour.

“Years later, when I was doing my master’s in psychology, I came across the term ‘catatonia’ (a state where a person may appear awake but is unresponsive or immobile). That’s when it clicked. That night on the sofa was one of her first symptoms of schizophrenia — one of many I would come to recognise, but none quite as haunting as that moment when she was right in front of me, and yet, completely gone,” says Mahira.

As their mother became absorbed in Naina’s care, Mahira quietly took on more than her share. From school runs to helping younger siblings study, she stepped into responsibility without being asked — and continued to shoulder it for the next decade, as if her life depended on it. “I didn’t think of it as caregiving back then; it........

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