Mental health is still a topic with a great stigma attached to it in our society. Well, maybe not just our society; it’s the same pretty much everywhere, with the degree of downplaying or outright rejecting it varying from place to place and from person to person. In our society specifically, taking measures to care for one’s mental health is looked down upon and associated with shame, with the most common argument against it being “You are not mad. Why do you need to see a psychiatrist/psychologist?” or “If people come to know that you are meeting a psychiatrist/psychologist, they will think that you are mad.” And since “people” matter the most in our society, those who need professional help most often shy away from getting it, opting to “fight it out” or pretend that everything’s okay.
One of the major reasons for the propagation of this mentality among our people is the loose talk that comes from people in influential positions, mainly public figures and celebrities. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard celebrities shutting down mental health issues as “a mountain made out of a molehill.” A highly followed guru once spoke about depression as nothing but a perceived issue made up by people because they give too much importance to themselves. He sounded absolutely appalled by the fact that people suffer from depression because, according to him, these people were just not “deciding to be happy.” Yeah right! Why didn’t I just decide to be happy when it is so damn easy to do despite a sickness that actively restricts you from doing it? I feel so guilty now!
Then there was a critically acclaimed Bollywood actor who thought that it would be great PR to use his humble upbringing in a poor background to squash depression as a made-up issue. His words of wisdom were that when he was younger, if he had ever told his dad that he had depression, his dad would have given him a tight slap that would have “cured” his problem. Because you know, they were poor people who had “real issues” and no requirement of made-up ailments. Sure! Misplaced humour, glorification of generational trauma and ill treatment, and shameless display of ignorance. That should help.
The last time (out of many) I saw such stupidity disguised as philosophical gems of wisdom was while watching an interview of a Malayalam actress who recently made a comeback after a hiatus. Her interviews are all supposed to be “sincere and genuine truths of life,” which is why I made the mistake of watching it. She was talking about how everyone has a side of themselves that they never show to anyone, not even the people closest to them, and how we are the only ones who know ourselves completely. Which was all fine IF she stopped with that. But no! What celebrity interview should end without a “thought-provoking blunder?”
So she went on to talk about how we are paying therapists for no reason when we are the only people who know ourselves completely, how we just want someone to listen to us, and how instead of paying a therapist, we can find solutions to our problems by simply sitting in front of the mirror and talking to ourselves. If I told this woman that I have spent thousands to just have a therapist listen to me, she would have called me a senseless idiot who wasted my money. Who is going to tell her that a psychologist is not just passively listening and saying goodbye when the time is up. They are helping us do the near-impossible task of bringing out our deepest feelings without inhibitions, confronting and processing these feelings, finding different ways of looking at these feelings, which all help in gradual healing and learning how to live life one day at a time, without these feelings disrupting our lives.
Under all these interviews, there were hundreds of comments from fans about how depression is nothing but a “rich man’s disease” because rich people don’t have anything to worry about and how they invent nonexistent things to entertain themselves. And an added sentence, of course, about how middle-class and lower-class people never have depression because they have real problems in life. The amount of ignorance and shaming that I found in these comments was alarming and kind of proved why people are reluctant to open up about their mental health issues or seek help.
The first myth that people have is that taking care of mental health requires a “condition” to start with. No, not at all. Checking in with a good therapist once in a while and talking about your life is something that can help everyone, not just people with disorders. But of course, that can’t happen because of the kind of money involved in it. Yeah sure, a one-hour session should definitely be more expensive than a five-minute consultation with any doctor. But, while it makes sense, it is also not financially feasible for everyone, and that is a harsh truth.
I am able to spend on my therapy only because I can afford to, without it sinking its claws too much into my savings. But even then, I now go for a check-in only once in a while, that too because my mental health battles are ongoing and I need an anchor to make sure that I don’t go into a complete relapse. I still calculate the cumulative amount I will have to pay every year and manage my sessions so that I am spending what is just enough for me and nothing more. From that perspective, yes, one’s financial standing does play a role in caring for mental health.
But does that mean that it is a made-up ailment? People from every class and every walk of life experience mental health issues at varying degrees. Some are able to somehow manage it by themselves. But there are many who could really do with proper professional help, either from a psychiatrist if it is a medical condition requiring treatment or from a psychologist if it something that needs an intervention. And not getting that help affects one’s quality of life. It is easy for others to talk about “being tough,” but handling mental health issues with no help takes a huge toll on the ones who do that. Add to that, the constant triggers from around.
If everyone could just “decide to be happy” or “slap the depression out of one’s head” or “talk to the mirror and fix things,” how much easier would it be? But no ignorant morons! That’s not how real life works. I can tell you that with absolute conviction as a person who has seen the worst of mental health issues like depression and anxiety and as someone who has been lucky enough to find a psychiatrist and a psychologist who have been instrumental in ensuring that I learn to manage my disorders without them affecting my day-to-day functioning.
Lack of access to mental health care is not something to be glorified as toughness; it is something that we should be sad and ashamed about. Telling people not to get professional help for mental health issues is and should be viewed as an equivalent to telling people not to see a doctor for physical problems. Instead of discouraging people from opening up about their mental health struggles, what we should be doing is thinking of ways to make professional help more accessible and affordable to all those who need it, irrespective of their class or financial standing. And if you don’t want to do anything to help, at least keep your mouths shut instead of coming out with absolute blunders that only make things worse for the ones who are suffering in silence.
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Also published on Medium.
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