Mental Health-What will people say?: Letters To The Editor

Mental Health-What will people say?

"Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude" - Anne Frank's diary. It is always better to be late than never muster the courage to face one's problems. We all know that this is for a fact; Sushant Singh Rajput was facing mental health issues before he committed suicide on 14 June 2020. Before he stepped into the scintillating world of Bollywood he aced many national level competitive exams. He was a national Olympiad winner in Physics. He secured 7th rank in the DCE exam in 2003 and got admission in Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering. In all he cleared as many as 11 engineering exams. Although he was extremely talented and highly motivated person I want to know what made him take this drastic step.

"What will people say?"

-In India this singular ancient social perception towards mental health issues is still relevant. It traverses over the lines of gender, religion, caste and socio-economic class. It rules in regulating people's choices because if people expose their vulnerabilities, they will go around in the public, they will invite judgement, gossip and drama. And unfortunately it suppresses much required psychological care.

A study conducted in 2011 sponsored by the World Health Organization found that 36% of Indians suffered from MDE (Major Depressive Episode) within their lifetime. No wonder WHO has labelled India as the world's most depressing country. Did you know between 1990 and 2017 one in every seven person from India has suffered from mental illness according to a study. Also, there is a grave shortage of mental healthcare work force in India. According reports published by WHO in 2011, there were 0.047 psychologists and 0.301 psychiatrists for every 1,00,000 patients suffering from a mental disease in India. It won't be wrong to say that our country is under a mental health epidemic. The social pressure to seem "balanced" manifests in deleterious pressure and stigma against getting help. Stigma is to appear balanced. Stigma is to keep the family melodrama invisible. Stigma to protect the family's prestige. Stigma is to coerce yourself out of the need for help.

A friend of mine once said this to me when I asked for his advice about getting help for the anxiety and panic attacks I was having few weeks ago, " Why do you need to visit a psychiatrist? Are you mentally so weak? You need to learn how to appear balanced." Needless to say this friend of mine thinks that by not seeking help about my panic attacks is the best way to handle it. The deep rooted taboo has prevented millions of Indians from accessing mental health care. It is difficult to expect a society like ours to show concern about mental health issues if they don't understand them. "The biggest challenge is understanding that mental health is a priority, should be a priority." Said Jyothi Ravichandran, founder of Thrive Foundation in India, which works for mental health awareness.

To minimize the stigma around mental health, we need to sensitize the society/community first. This can only be materialized when we persistently make a nationwide effort to educate the society about mental health diseases. We need initiatives to connect the patients with each other by forming a peer network like the AA meetings we often hear about so that they could listen to and support each other. Moreover, mental illness must compulsorily be put under the ambit of life insurance. This will help people see and treat mental illness the same way as they see other physical diseases.

Awareness about the issue, timely intervention, availability of professional help and appropriate government policies is the only way to tackle the situation. Hence we as citizens of this country have the responsibility to make ourselves aware about mental health diseases so that we could gratify the living ones as people with mental illness deserve to live their lives with dignity and confidence.

Panchi Changkakoty,

panchichangkakoty825@gmail.com

Monotonous

news bulletin

It has been observed that many intellectual people (non political) of the State are fed up with the news bulletin broadcasting by State's private TV channels. Most of the news are full of political hullabaloo and repeated showing of some videos relating to rape, murders etc. These news display negative thoughts and focus on the dark side of humanity, which bring depression effect on the youth. In many cases, these TV channels give some unauthentic news to increase TRP. For this reason, many people have switched over to Doordarshan news rather than private channels. In this context, Guwahati Doordarshan may play an important role. We are pleased to know that erstwhile Doordarshan Kendra of Guwahati has been upgraded to a full-fledged 24x7 DD Assam channel. But unfortunately, its news bulletin is not at all satisfactory to the public of the State. The channel has been continuing some age-old systems of presentation of news items. In this age of digital communications, it is not difficult to collect information easily for dissemination. We have been regular viewers of TV news bulletin from Dordarshan Kendra, Guwahati (presently DD Assam) for the last few months with dismay the daily repeating of same local news and continuing presentation of some same videos for days together get viewers irritated. We, through this letter of your esteemed daily, request the authority concern of DD Assam to take necessary steps to improve the standard of news presentation with up to date information such that more people get benefited.

PC Sarmah,

Jorhat.

Dirtiest city

The Guwahati city is one of the dirtiest cities of our country in the main category of one lakh to 10 lakh population in the country, according to Swachh Survekshan, 2020. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri announced this. The Guwahati city ranked 366 out of the 382 cities in the category and Shillong ranked 377.

I would like to request the Assam Government led by Chief Minister Sabananda Sonowal to look into the matter and take appropriate measures to clean the city.

Putul Sarma,

Biswanath Chariali.