Psychological Health – A taboo in Human Society!
Dealing with a deadly pandemic for almost 2 years, Depression, Stress, Anxiety, Psychosis, and other mental disorders are alarmingly increasing. We have youngsters and teenagers being diagnosed with mental illnesses. But what’s making it worse? Are we comfortable in disclosing what we think about? Can we speak about our mental health issues even with people who are close to us? No one wants to acknowledge the mental trauma people go through, nor is it reciprocated positively when someone is vocal about it. We have this common but baseless ideology that anyone suffering from a mental health problem is a “MAD MAN”. Unfortunately, Psychological Health is nothing more than a topic that we are not supposed to talk about.
But what are the causes of an unhealthy mind? Experts say there are 3 major reasons:
1. Inherited Traits
2. Environmental Exposure
3. Brain Chemistry
As per a clinical research held by WHO, approximately 264 million people suffer from depression, 45 million people are affected by bipolar disorder, 20 million people are affected by schizophrenia, 50 million people are diagnosed Dementia, and the rest being the development disorders like Autism and others.
All said and done, what are we doing about it?
With an increasing population, health systems are not adequately equipped to handle the number of treatments needed. 76% – 85% of the middle- and lower-income families don’t even get the treatment needed.
Poor quality of care and lack of social support is worsening the situation with the passing years.
Stress, genetics, nutrition, prenatal infections, and exposure to environmental hazards along with national policies, social protection, standards of living, working conditions, and lack of community support are some of the contributing factors.
It’s time for acknowledgment!
It’s time we see mental illness as something natural and can happen to anyone.
It’s time we start talking about it openly.
It’s time to start with ourselves.
It’s time communities, government entities and corporates start adopting wellness initiatives for employing individuals.
A little focus on building effective facilities to cater to the treatments needed, scaling up the infrastructure, improving the quality of treatment, enhancing the quality of living, upgrading working conditions and establishing positive engagements with the help of local, national and international communities can go a long way.
Corporate companies have a bigger responsibility and wider reach enabling the betterment of the people as it might be easier to shut an individual who wants the change, but it’s difficult to shun an institution leading a transformation.
Stressful working conditions, unwanted stress, unhealthy lifestyle, toxic environments, lack of facilities, degraded quality of living, or whatsoever it is, if we as individuals choose to stand with each other, it can definitely speed up the healing process.
Even after so many years of science and development, there is no cure for dementia, schizophrenia, and many such mental disorders. People struggle to live sanely in the current world. It’s suffocating not to talk about mental health when an individual is going through it.
It’s time we take it seriously, it’s time for us to act and not just be a mere mute spectator.
It’s time we stand for the good of humanity.
I may be cornered, I may be asked to be silent, I may be trashed, I may have to just ignore and move on, I may be tagged, I may be bullied, I may be forced to lay low – whatsoever it is – True Facts are True Facts – Our inability to act comes back to us sometime in future!
Mental Disorders are real and dangerous. The sooner we accept and talk about it and support each other, the closer we are to heal at least temporarily.
Mental disorders aren’t personal, the community has a role to play and approximately 80% of the mental disorders are because of manmade hazards. A set of people are ought to die insanely because of this. Let’s make an effort to make their shorter life easier and sane!