You Need To Talk About It!
A school girl stopped coming to classes and went through a weight loss of 20 kgs. The reason which the other students were told was that she was going through some operation; rather the truth was that she was going through some serious mental disorder — a kind of depression, that her friends didn’t know about. This is how difficult it is for all of us to admit that we have been through bad times.
It’s difficult realising that the second major reason for suicides amongst the age group of 15–24 years is mental illness or depression. We are expected to hide our tears and are under the notion that nobody should see us cry. How many of you reading this believe that NOBODY SHOULD SEE US WEAK? Someone is knocking at the door of my room, I better wipe my tears. We were never taught how to react to a failure in life whether it be personal or related to our career.
How many of us are reacting to the current situation in our life believing “It’s okay not to be okay”? You might be someone out there struggling for academic excellence under high pressure of economic insecurity or trying to get over someone’s vacant space in your life or maybe just lost in life, but the moment you realise it’s totally fine because it is life, you realise there is always much more to achieve than what loss or gain you have been offered.
We need to admit our loss to ourselves first before we try to get over it. At some point of time or the other we all go through some kind of loss or we are afraid of loss. Loss of economic security, family, relations, friends, career or degradation of our public front, death; this all upsets us and has a deep impression on our conscience. Happening of loss is natural. Gain and loss both are inevitable. Loss is a phase of life and no loss can ever be bigger than life itself.
We live in a society where public display of mental illness becomes subject to mockery. This entire discussion of mental illness is so overhyped (mischaracterised) but trust these words, people all over the world, the reach, the aid, the care and the stigma to this is miserably underrated. It’s pathetic how 300 million people all over the world are suffering only from depression and million more suffer from Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Dementia and developmental disorders such as Autism, yet the Health Centre counts somewhere in thousands.
It’s sad to know that a patient can’t reach out for treatment. It’s a disability of the system that a psychiatrist isn’t the same way reachable as a doctor, whatever the reason is. This body functions, fails, dysfunctions, needs aid, gets cure — acceptable!! The same way, the mind also requires its cure, but it is not acceptable. This isn’t about realizing the significance of mental health. It’s about understanding this ‘not-so-talked-about’ yet exacerbating condition of mental illness over the entire world.
According to a report by the WHO, 7.5% of the population in India is suffering from some kind of mental disorder with less than 4000 experts available in the country.. Coming to the world, the same Health report by WHO, reads around 450 million people currently suffer from such mental disorders. This also pertains to further severe health issues and disability worldwide. According to the same report, two thirds of people going through the known mental disorders never reach out for any sort of ailment from health professionals. This condition evidently doesn’t fall into an individual’s baggage of ignorance.
Currently, in this world more than 40% of countries have no mental health policies and 25% don’t even have a mental health legislation. We have one psychiatrist per 100,000 people in half of the countries and 25% of countries are deprived of the most basic drugs advised for Depression, Schizophrenia and epilepsy, that too at a very primary level, where it’s advised by the health professionals that over 80% of people with schizophrenia can be free of relapses at the end of one year of treatment with antipsychotic drugs combined with family intervention. A major proportion of people of in depression can recover with a proper combination of antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy. Up to 70% of people with epilepsy can be seizured free when treated with simple, inexpensive anticonvulsants.
All this makes a strong argument for the countries to devise treatment plans and mental health as a primary health concern. This change won’t come alone by governmental formulated plans rather a whole widespread acceptance and modifications shall be promoted from the health care community.
India, being a low middle-income country, is more reclined to adverse effects of ill treatments to mental disorders as it has been shown evidently that there is a strong association between poverty and common mental disorders. For a second, it can be a dead metaphor between these two that the way an economy can’t be strengthened neglecting poverty, the same way mental health can not be neglected for improvising the health index and at the same time it should not be neglected as situation will only worsen down the line. This gives an idea about how we can’t just shed this off from our shoulders and be thoughtless about it. Yes, that’s the present situation all around.
This situation demands more awareness and people being affirmative to build better societal norms for those who are suffering through any sort of mental disorder, where it’s fine to talk freely about your anxiety attack as it is to put a cast over your fracture and an autism child feels more comfortable to stand out in public. All this will happen when we learn to accept that it’s okay to have a past struggling through depression and we accept this for the better.
We need to admit our loss to ourselves first before we try to get over it. At some point of time or the other we all go through some kind of loss or we are afraid of loss. Loss of economic security, family, relations, friends, career or degradation of our public front, death; this all upsets us and has a deep impression on our conscience. Happening of loss is natural. Gain and loss both are inevitable. Loss is a phase of life and no loss can EVER be bigger than life itself.
