Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
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...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address