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Our answers lie in a space where communities figure out how to understand linkages and reinforce support.
Emotional wellness is one of the most overlooked issues in our society. It is an intense issue, and tragically only occasionally gets the consideration it ought to get. Each death or tragic incident brings all the focus on depression. Since the past week, social media is filled with messages and pieces of advice on tackling mental health and reaching out. It is amazing how mental well being is never spoken about until something like this happens and then people return to their own lives till a next headline pops up.
The more our society becomes involved with the present futile rat race of daily existence (a ceaseless yet unfaltering tryst for money, success, and fame) the more it creeps towards suffocating in a discard of unhappy mental state. An investigation by the World Health Organization and NCMH (National Care Of Medical Health) in 2019 had revealed that at least 7.5% of Indians experience depression every year. Yet ironically, psychological well-being and mental issue are still taboo in our nation.
Undo societal stereotypes
Why can’t we as a community worry for someone’s cry as much as we do for fever or any physical illness? They look mental health down upon in our society and there is no escape to the judgments and personal remarks . The problem is also that they do not educate us on how to face failures as how we handle success. This society doesn’t teach us to take risks or face rejections either.
The stigma associated with “depression” is extreme so much that people stay in constant denial of encountering it despite knowing deep down that everything is not roses. Individuals rarely realize that they are struggling and battle hard to open up about it. But it’s also the casual nature of this society who doesn’t think twice before calling psychiatrists as doctors for mad, which makes things even hard. It is unfortunate that an individual has to cross many hindrances of uncertainties and dread before really getting the opportunity to even meet the therapist because of societal pressures.
People usually associate “depression” as being in a lost state or directionless or a loss of purpose. They talk about the dark alleys of loneliness eating up the content of life. It’s time to move beyond these rough definitions and social stigmas of depression.
Understanding “help and support”
Social media posts these days are inviting people to pour their hearts and reach out for help. As much as it is essential for people to speak up if they are facing something, it is equally important to have people who can listen to them.
‘Please call me whoever you are, I will be there for you’ is so problematic because firstly a person dealing with mental health is very unsure of how will people react and secondly no one opens up to some random person because they put up a post. Rather, it is important to be kind to one another and be there for people who need us.
However, as I hear about Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, somewhere the hope has lost and I realize how we as a society have failed to create resilient ecosystems. Every such suicide is a reminder we have failed to create safety nets and how our social, economical, cultural realities consume the life of young people. A suicide goes past being a psychological wellness concern, its our obligation as a public to work at a macro-level.
We can together save a life
Our answers lie in a space where communities figure out how to understand linkages and reinforce support. We need to create an environment where equating failures and success in terms of career graph and materialism doesn’t exist.
Building sensitivity towards contrasting world perspectives, breaking the mesh of our stereotypes, greater awareness, peer guides, counselors, sharpening the educators and openings where voices of difference can be heard.
Instead of expressing grief let us value each other for who we are irrespective of physical features, financial standing, career graph, race, gender or sexual orientation.
Image source: Pexels
I am a Biotechnologist and Technical writer by profession with a passion for pen and knack for weaving stories. I frequently indulge in my passion for good tea, gardening, cooking, fictional novels and writing. I read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
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