How Seriously Does India Take Mental Health?
Mental health — a term that wasn’t taken very seriously in India, until very recently. Even now, it is only the metropolitan cities where one would witness an awareness about this issue; with a major chunk of the population yet conscious of the stigma surrounding it. With the help of an expert opinion and anecdotes from people who have struggled with their mental health, Shama Nimkar urges readers to address the growing concern towards the same.
Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, India witnessed what one would call a media circus. When actor Sushant Singh Rajput reportedly died by suicide, the entire nation went into an unyielding denial. There were innumerable theories that circulated around news platforms, some which suggested that the late actor may have succumbed to a drug abuse problem, others that pointed fingers at his girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty, accusing her of murder. This state of denial in accepting the fact that he lost his life to depression, spoke volumes of how incomprehensible it was for us, as a nation, to address mental health. There were a few articles which threw light on the fact that Rajput was suffering from depression and may have been prone to taking his own life. It was even confirmed by his doctor and close friends. Despite everything, India chose to believe otherwise.
Fighting Mental Illness and the Stigma Attached to it
Delving deeper into the reason behind this nationwide denial of actor Sushant Singh Rajput losing his life to depression, Husna Vanjara, a Clinical Psychologist based in India says, “mental health issues are associated with insanity beyond the metropolitan cities. In fact, even in the bigger cities, it is only now that people are slowly beginning to address mental health seriously. A certain percentage of the urban population yet associates it with a feeling of shame. This is what makes it difficult for people to come to terms with their problems in the first place.”
The fear of being judged or coming across as someone who is emotionally weak, keeps individuals from opening up. According to an online survey, fear is one of the primary reasons that causes an increased number of suicide cases in the country, especially among the youth.
Reiterating on this point further, Shriya Chandra, a 25-year-old who has been struggling with mental health for years, says, “this kind of perception of people with clinical depression, did not feel much different for me as a private citizen going through the same. The undeniable air of stigma around it first stung, when I was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 17. The fear of my peers mocking me or being labelled as ‘crazy’, left me dreading college.”
“Feeling depressed felt like an act of crime. Nobody understood the reason why someone from a seemingly privileged background like me, would want to spend all day in bed, feeling despair,” she continues.
People are seen spending thousands of rupees on professional therapy, only to receive generic advice on how they should pick themselves up and move on. “I would have approached a friend if all I needed was basic motivation. I was asked to be grateful for my life. In fact, my first therapist deemed the nature of my depression as ‘frivolous,” she adds in disappointment.
Chandra, who lost her father at the age of five, became a very sensitive child. She was bullied in school and as a result, never led a normal childhood. She still remains a rather vulnerable person. This is because she had seen her mother suffer at the hands of an abusive partner, a few years after her father’s demise. This incident further caused a negative impact on their mental health.
In India, people fail to understand the significance of treating mental health patients with normalcy. They are viewed through a lens of either pity or unnecessary judgement. “A few years back I confided in a friend on taking therapy and she broke my trust by discussing it with other people. As the word on my diagnosis spread, people weren’t exactly sensitive or subtle about it. I became a subject of gossip. Whenever I passed a group of people who knew me, I could hear them whisper in hushed tones and it was but obvious that I was their topic of discussion.
Eventually, any pretense of secrecy was done away with, and they would look me directly in the eye while indulging in gossip. I faced brash reactions from my batchmates in college as well. I was hooted at and essentially bullied during this very tough time. I would feel my cheeks burn up from shame and flips in my stomach. All my life, I responded to such situations by running away from them,” adds a teary-eyed Chandra.
Very often, families are seen severing ties with relatives who display any signs of depression. This is all because they don’t want to be seen with a “crazy” person in the public eye. Tarini Kulkarni, a 24-year-old residing in Pune, is also a survivor of depression and anxiety disorder. After losing her mother at a very young age, life took a drastic turn for her.
“My father immersed himself in work, my brother was sent to boarding school and I had nobody to talk to, at home. I started confining myself to my room and stopped attending school.”
Depression, if not treated in time can lead to serious repercussions and that is exactly what happened in Kulkarni’s case. At the age of thirteen, she slit her wrist and had to be rushed to the emergency ward. “I don’t exactly remember what triggered it, but life was getting overwhelming and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. However, once I was nursed back to health, my father put me into therapy. Despite so much happening, my relatives chose to stay away. The fact that a 13- year-old child was treated this harshly speaks volumes of the insensitive and negligent attitude, displayed by our society,” adds an emotional Kulkarni.
What makes things worse is that a large percentage of our population remains uninformed of basic facts pertaining to mental health. “Most people don’t know the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist,” says Vanjara.
A Psychiatrist is a medical professional who is qualified to diagnose a certain illness, prescribe medication and treat it while a Psychologist is someone who focuses on therapy, by talking to patients (providing psychotherapy), and helping them get to the crux of their problem.
“Not all mental health problems are related to depression. I have friends who think that depression, anxiety and personality disorders are all the same. People are ignorant and need to read up on how to treat someone suffering from mental health disorders. For example — it’s important to be able to calm down someone who is having an anxiety attack, rather than asking them to chill or relax,” adds Kulkarni.
Addressing the Issue
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 56 million people in India suffering from depression and another 38 million facing anxiety disorders. The root of this issue is a lack of funding for the improvement in the mental healthcare sector of India.
According to a study conducted by the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, the Government of India has implemented an annual budget of Rs 94,073 crore to spend on aid towards mental health, through the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017. As reported by The Hindu, the budget allocated to the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) was brought down to Rs 40 crore in 2019 from Rs 50 crore in 2018. However, the actual expenditure summed up to as little as Rs. 5 crores.
Vanjara feels that our country’s socio-economic status also plays an influential role in shaping its attitude towards mental health. “India is a developing nation and certain parts of our country can be quite progressive but the rural areas have a long way to go. It is the vicious circle of poverty and lack of education that gives birth to a rather narrow mindset, among the people living in villages. They resort to faith healers when feeling depressed or turn to shamans for treating epileptic attacks,” she exclaims.
“Most importantly, the absence of access to professional treatment makes it impossible to create an awareness on mental health and further destigmatize it. Urban India paints a different picture altogether, with top-notch mental health experts perched at some of the best hospitals, offering quality treatment and organizing awareness programs across the city,” she explains.
The Way Forward
With an increasing number of young adults speaking up about their past experiences and vocalizing issues like depression on social media platforms, things are taking a turn for the better. “The younger generation is definitely more accepting of one’s mental health. This kind of a progressive attitude needs to transcend metropolitan cities and reach rural areas. This can be propelled through mental health campaigns, social outreach programs and organizing awareness talks in villages,” opines Vanjara.
Since therapy is quite expensive, an increased presence of government aided clinics offering affordable therapy is much needed. This would make it easier for people from lower income classes to avail therapy. Keeping this in mind, actress Deepika Padukone who is a survivor of depression herself, started The Live Laugh Love Foundation (TLLLF) which provides economical treatment to mental health patients. It is a charitable trust which was set up in 2015 to give hope to every person experiencing stress, anxiety and depression (SAD). The foundation’s efforts to change the dialogue around mental illness in India are evident through their work and success stories.
“Lastly, educating students on the importance of mental health at primary and secondary levels in school shall instill an awareness about the same at a very young age. This will result in raising a more sensitive and responsible generation,” concludes Vanjara.
