What’s in your head?

My first inkling of things being different from how they used to be was when I started to weep while watching videos on YouTube This began to happen at moments I would once dismiss as cheesy so my change in demeanour was unnerving There were periods when I would find myself staring at my laptop in silence thinking about how the coming day would be exactly as fruitless as the last one It then started to happen while I read the news looking at reports from around the world about businesses shutting down jobs being lost and senior citizens struggling to cope with isolationI realised after a point that I wasnrsquot growing sentimental but that my coping mechanisms for dealing with the world were starting to fray at the edges I was depressed and I had simply conditioned myself to not paying attention because we have been encouraged to take life on the chin and move onAlmost no one I know gives mental health the kind of attention we allocate to say a fractured hand We think of our minds as reliable everticking organisms with a will of their own always at our disposal until the moment they cease to be In February 2020 The Lancet published a report on mental disorders in India placing it among the leading causes of nonfatal disease In 2017 apparently 197 million Indians had mental disorders including 45 million with depressive disorders and almost 45 million with anxiety disorders One in seven Indians were affected by mental disorders of varying severity that year a figure that has reportedly almost doubled since 1990 The numbers were startling but not entirely surprisingIn 2015 a study by the World Health Organization predicted that one in five of us would suffer from depression in our lifetime equivalent to 200 million people That wasnrsquot the most interesting aspect of the study though it was how respondents in India treated the subject of mental illness 87 per cent of them showed awareness but a staggering 71 per cent also used terms associated with stigmaThe fear of being labelled and judged by family and friends often prevented people from doing what they needed to protect themselves which saddened and frightened me because I assumed these respondents were educated and urban I couldnrsquot wrap my head around what this meant for millions outside the borders of our big cities where an ambulance is a luxury and potentially lifethreatening ailments are treated with home remedies Did they even acknowledge the presence of mental disorders Were they allowed to talk about it Did any of them have access to information that could helpA bit of research showed that this wasnrsquot a problem restricted to older people either In November 2020 a paper by the international open access peerreviewed journal BMC Psychiatry reported that 20 per cent of youth around the globe experience mental disorders It added that a mere 73 per cent of Indiarsquos 365 million youth reported such problems The study laid the blame for this on public stigma calling it an important factor in preventing young people from seeking helpNot a week goes by on social media platforms where someone puts out a call for affordable therapy What more and more of these people ask for however are recommendations from psychiatrists who wonrsquot judge them It says a lot about what those who summon the courage to seek therapy have to contend with after they find themselves in the presence of a professional Given the paucity of resources in urban India it makes one wonder how many people stop giving therapy a chance after being at the receiving end of unnecessary prejudiceThe pandemic has caused physical and emotional damage in ways that may take us years to uncover and fathom It has changed how we engage with the world redrawn the dynamics of relationships everywhere and affected families the world over We claim to be a resilient people but our boasts of imaginary immunity rang hollow as thousands of our countrymen succumbed to COVID19 If we can admit that our bodies arenrsquot as strong as we thought they were it may also be time to stop taking our minds for grantedIt is only when we introduce conversations about mental health into our everyday lives the way we discuss common colds and aching bones that we can evaluate the resources currently at our disposal and work towards making sure young people have tools and support that the rest of us were deniedWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper