Silent Killer
| Date :21-Jun-2020 |
By ANSHUMAN BHARGAVA :
“Star status may look glittery from outside but inside it is a hollow world where everyone is for himself in an ecosystem of cutthroat competition. No one has the time and honesty to spend on someone. No one heeds to the worries or problems his peers and compatriots face.”
“No one comes to stand by someone until the disaster happens. Mental health is a serious issue in our country but we have perhaps the poorest redressal system in the world. It is not even discussed and awareness levels are low, even in the educated and informed. No one wants to believe he has depression.”
YES, depression is real and deadly. Most of us don’t even know about it until it strikes us hard. Those of us who know about it dismiss it as a minor aberration that can be cured easily. The tragic death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput has opened many questions before us. The promising youngster was taking anti-depressant drugs for quite some time. Did he finally take the extreme step due to depression which he or his drugs couldn’t control? Is Bollywood so much a lonely place that no one could come to his rescue and share his pain? If it is indeed chronic depression that killed Sushant, then it proves that all the achievements and riches in life cannot fill the inner emptiness of a person.
It proves that the road to success is lonely and cruel. It shows that the pressure to perform, to excel and beat others in the game, takes a toll on the mental health of celebrities. As stardom grows, expectations rise, both from the public and from one’s own self and so does insecurities. Eventually the mental balance tips; the fear of loss becomes a hounding reality and the struggle then is to maintain the position at any cost. That struggle sometimes breaks people and this is what leads to depression and suicide – we have a string of such unfortunate incidents in the recent past.
Star status may look glittery from outside but inside it is a hollow world where everyone is for himself in an ecosystem of cutthroat competition. No one has the time and honesty to spend on someone. No one heeds to the worries or problems his peers and compatriots face. No one comes to stand by someone until the disaster happens. Mental health is a serious issue in our country but we have perhaps the poorest redressal system in the world. It is not even discussed and awareness levels are low, even in the educated and informed. No one wants to believe he has depression.
The social stigmas attached to it further make it a closeted topic. Any mental health issue is equated here with madness and this affects one’s careers and personal prospects, which is why no one wants to hazard the risk of disclosing his problems and come out in the open to promote mental health awareness. This suppression over a considerable period has the potential to cause implosion at some point of time if rescue is not at hand and this is what we have seen with many successful celebrities who did not have the courage or opportunity to accept and/or treat their mental illnesses in time.
Time is crucial and it is fatal to allow depression to settle in and take hold of our mental faculties. It is a silent killer that is hard to diagnose and treat unless the symptoms are pronounced, which is often not the case. While the Indian medical setup to tackle depression is rickety, it falls on each of us to take cognisance of the behavioral changes in our partners, friends, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances or neighbors and even children, who live around us and interact with us.
Any doubt must be addressed and assuaged by openly talking about it. It is a part of our social ethics to help people out who are in trouble. It must be remembered that depression can attack any of us at any stage of life through subtle manifestations which we must keep track of. Humanity needs to be more humane towards each other and spend time on each other, something which we are gravely lacking in our times and something that has a decisively negative effect in society.
In our mad rush for career growth or other materialistic achievements, we forget our human purposes of love and unity, empathy, and assistance. We have reduced ourselves to machines and the value of humans has been restricted to their ability to earn and flaunt. India is one of the leading countries of the world in the number of suicides every year, with close to 17 such deaths per lakh population, which is second only to Russia. In contrast, the UAE has just 2.7 suicides per lakh population. On the other hand, the number of mental health beds in general hospitals in India is a bizarre 0.6 per lakh people, compared to 81 in Germany. This shows the intensity and depth of the problem in our society.
The government and private sectors must join hands to boost the mental health infrastructure in the country to cover more people in an effective manner so that the number of suicides could be reduced. The rising incidents of suicides point towards the fact that in India people are relatively less happy than their counterparts in other countries and our work culture, rigid societal traditions, excessive stress on material excellence and poor natural environment, etc. add to mental pressure that leaves most of us jaded and frustrated at the end of the day. We need to realign many things in and around us for a healthy mental state and for that we need a different perspective and approach at all levels of thought and professional power structure.
We need more recreation, we need mental space to think and rejuvenate ourselves, we need time for fruitful talks with friends and relatives, we need to hug each other and share, we need better salaries, more holidays and leaves, and more cooperative and accommodative bosses so that we can holiday, we can sleep, and spend greater time with our family. We need more gardens around us, lesser pollution and traffic jams, more friendly police, and fast track law courts. We need more love, more trust, greater security, and greater care. That’s the only way to go; the only road to a better future. But who will do it? Who will take the initiative? Unless our leaders and doctors come ahead, unless our business heads and big corporate systems change their outlook, nothing can be done. Unless our thought leaders, policymakers and intellectuals join hands towards a common goal of easing our lives and lifting off the undue pressure of everyday life we go through unless we individuals stand for each other, no one can take the country out of this rut and we will continue losing precious lives due to a preventable cause. By the way, when a society is in the grip of burgeoning suicides, there is absolutely something gravely wrong with that society. This indication should be enough reason for us to relook into our lives and plunge into progressive and constructive action so that the vulnerable and the left-out must feel assimilated and affiliated. We have to start now and here.