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Mental health is more of an intersectional conversation than you might think. Read on to see how.
(Source: Investing in mental health, WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 2003)
Several myths float regarding mental health and related issues almost every day.
One of them that I hear is: “Mental health talk is so overhyped by the higher income strata of society. I see so many poor people or middle-class people every day; they struggle so much in life but never complain of any such depression. Mental health is nothing but a luxurious talk!”
But let me tell you something: It’s a BIG MISCONCEPTION. It is just unawareness about the facts. If you do some background research, the World Health Organization has numerous data where they have shown mental disorder is not only prevalent where there is poverty, rather they both form a vicious circle.
Firstly how mental disorder contributes to poverty?
As mental health disorders contribute pretty much in generating high costs for long periods of treatment and productivity gone off track, it can be stated that such disorders majorly give rise to poverty.
How poverty contributes to mental disorders?
There are empirical pieces of evidence supporting the statistics where it has been seen, that depression is more prevalent among the low-income population. The factors like malnutrition, low educational levels, insecurity, no proper housing facility, and many more together have been identified as major contributors to common mental disorders.
Poverty thus can be taken as a contributor to mental disorders and vice versa, quite significantly.
Source: Investing in mental health, WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, 2003
As you see in the above diagram, they form a vicious cycle affecting an individual as well as society in various segments.
Education
Several research studies have proven that the prevalence of common mental disorders has a significant relationship with low levels of education (Patel & Kleinman, 2003).
Low education levels keep an individual away from the access to well-paid jobs, creates feeling of insecurity, and makes it more vulnerable to illness. With persistent low capital, they get stuck in the vicious circle of poverty.
Work
The ones who lose their jobs tend to get depressed twice more than those who have managed to retain their jobs (Dooley & al., 1994).
Besides that, people who are unemployed tend to get higher depression levels compared to those who are employed (Bolton & Oakley, 1987; Kessler & al., 1989; Simon & al., 2000).
Violence and trauma
The poverty, trauma, and violence make people vulnerable to induced mental disorders aggravating them further, and creating the never-ending negative cycle.
This negative vicious circle of poverty and mental disorders can be broken only with well-planned and structured investments.
Image Courtesy: Lily Padula, National Public Radio
Pursuing Diploma in Community Mental Health, NIMHANS Former Forensic Psychologist Intern. Former content writer. Double Masters in Computer Applications & in Psychology. B.A in Hindustani Classical Music. read more...
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After some time, unable to bear it any longer, I signed off from the home lunch. My MIL must've heaved a sigh of relief because my portion of groceries would be saved!
Until I married I had never imagined even in my wildest dreams that my diet/ food intake could assume such alarming proportions and affect conjugal harmony. Having stepped into my marital home I discovered to my bewilderment that the four female inmates were frugal eaters. My spouse and his dad ate moderately well.
The family faced a dilemma: my requirement surpassed those of the ladies but most certainly couldn’t be clubbed with the men’s. Why? Simply because they were MEN. “How could you even think of it”? They snubbed me often. (Incidentally, the parents-in-law refused to accept contributions from either of us). They probably expected me to be demure and submissive since I was ‘‘eating off” their money.
So each morning as I left for work I was served three chapattis with a few spoonfuls of curry. Can you believe this curry catered to the ladies’ lunch the previous day, and dinner for all six inmates? The horror of horrors, it crept into my lunch box too. The chapattis made at the crack of dawn were fine till breakfast but by lunch, they turned leathery; the accompanying curry insipid, tasteless.
We can’t bombard impressionable young women in the name of enlightened entertainment to feed them the same drivel. At least let us not label misogynist movies as helping the cause of women.
I have watched at least 2 ‘purported’ trailblazing Bollywood movies in the recent past that left me with a feeling that I had taken part in the ice-bucket challenge all over again. This time around, however, without even the satisfaction of having supported a worthy cause.
Both the movies have about a 90% liking rate on IMDB/Rotten Tomatoes. Both are touted to ‘sensitively’ portray the taboo topics that seem to be mostly hidden underneath a layer of banana peels – dangerous to even tread nearby.
For anyone with a mental illness label, they know only too well that they are judged forever. Whether they are a functioning individual or not isn’t considered.
If she is singing one day, she must be manic. If he is quiet sometimes, oh, he must be in depression. It’s as if people are not allowed to have normal moods anymore, and worse is how the stigma attached to mental health diagnoses affects you outside, at work, in relationships, and how society views you.
I have a friend, who never discloses at work that she has an issue or takes medication for the fear of being judged. Or another who hides his illness from his children. All of these things are done precisely because of the constant judging, the stigma and discrimination that surround anyone with a mental illness label.
Talking openly about mental health is still a taboo in much of Indian society. This makes it even more imperative that we listen to what these Indian women who are mental health bloggers, have to tell us.
“Tu pagal hai kya?” “Why do you need a therapist? “What is wrong with your life?” “Why are you depressed, you have everything in life?” “Depression is such a first world problem” “I can’t afford to get depressed, my whole family will break!”
These are words we often come across we in our daily lives. Sometimes we ourselves are guilty of saying this to someone. But the question is, do we really know what it is to be depressed, the symptoms, causes and cures?