Some facts about Mental Health in India
I started writing this article as my thoughts on mental health in India. I did some research about it and realized that the facts are really ‘depressing’. So instead of writing just what I think and feel, I’ll try to put some facts. And hopefully, these facts might be enough to at least educate us about the severity of mental health problems. Please bear with me and read the entire article. This might give you the most required insight into the world unknown to many.
So first let’s try to know about mental illness. Mental illness or mental health disorders refers to a wide range of mental health condition or disorders that affects our mood, thinking, and behavior. Some of these are anxiety, depression, eating disorder, personality disorder, PTSD, OCD, schizophrenia, and many more. There are many causes of these disorders. Some of these could be genes or family history, traumatic life experience, brain injury, chemical imbalances in the brain, and many more. It can happen to anyone. A child or an adult or older people, rich or poor, nobody is immune. So it is serious and needs at least a bit more attention.
One of the mental health disorders that we hear about a lot is depression. Something that affects a huge number of population around the world. According to WHO, “Depression is a common illness characterized by persistent sadness and a loss of interest in activities that one normally enjoys, accompanied by an inability to carry out daily activities, for at least two weeks. In addition, there may be a loss of energy; a change in appetite; sleeping more or less; anxiety; reduced concentration; indecisiveness; restlessness; feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or hopelessness; and thoughts of self-harm or even committing suicide.”
Depression not only makes a person feel sad and dejected — it can also damage the brain permanently, so the person has difficulties remembering and concentrating once the disease is over. Up to 20 percent of depression patients never make a full recovery. There are physical changes in the brain which most of the time are not reversible.
As per the results of a large-scale survey conducted across India in 2019, young adults between the age of 20 and 29 years of both genders were the most depressed in the country.
In India, the National Mental Health Survey 2015–16 reveals that nearly 15% of Indian adults need active intervention for one or more mental health issues and one in 20 Indians suffers from depression. It is estimated that in 2012, India had over 258,000 suicides, with the age-group of 15–49 years being most affected.
In India, WHO estimates that the burden of mental health problems is of the tune of 2,443 DALYs(disability-adjusted life years) per 100,000 population, and the age-adjusted suicide rate per 100,000 population is 21.1. Studies indicate that two-thirds of people who have suffered from depression face prejudice at work or while applying for new jobs. The World Health Organization estimates that India will suffer economic losses amounting to a staggering 1.03 trillion dollars from mental health conditions between 2012 and 2030.
The ratio of psychiatrists to 100,000 people in India is 0.3 compared to 6.6 globally, the number (per 10,000) of mental health nurses (0.12), psychologists (0.07), and social workers (0.07) are also abysmally low. People not only find it difficult reaching out for help but even the mental health experts find it challenging to convince people that it’s okay to reach out for help and is really necessary, especially because of the stigma attached to mental illness in a country like India.
People don’t realize that brain is a ‘part of our body’, a really important one, and that like any other body part you can have problems and illness in the brain as well. Mental illness doesn’t mean being insane or completely crazy or a psycho. These are the severe cases. There are many minor mental illnesses that can affect you in day-to-day life. And it’s not a shame going to a mental health expert. You go to the doctor if you have any major heart problems or a minor fever. In the same manner, you can reach out to mental health experts for even minor issues like stress, confusion, or even minor anxiety. There is no shame in it.
People are also too irresponsible while dealing with anyone with any kind of mental health issue. First of all, they don’t even want to address that it’s an actual disease. Then they keep shaming people for going through any such thing and keeps calling them ‘attention seeker’, ‘self-victimizing’, ‘crazy’, ‘devdas’, ‘retard’, ‘over-sensitive’, and many more insensitive things.
It’s true that you cannot help everyone. But one thing everyone should start doing is stop stigmatizing mental illness. Stop making it harder for those who are already suffering. Stop calling them ‘weak’. They are not ‘weak’, they have a disease and are suffering. It’s true that everyone cannot know all the technical stuff about mental illness, but you can at least start teaching yourself the basics of mental health. Not much, just the basic things that you know about any other diseases. For example, you know that you should make no one with a heart problem run a lot, like you know you should not take an inhaler away from someone suffering from asthma, like you know you should not make someone eat something that they are allergic to, like you know you should not put colours on someone who has skin allergies because of colours. These are basic things, and we didn’t need to become a doctor or scientist to understand these. Just being empathetic and trying to understand is enough. It’s totally okay if you can’t help, at least don’t make it worse for the ones already suffering.
Mental Illness is a major issue being faced by our country. And it’s a failure as a society if we keep stigmatizing and are unable to even address such major illness affecting many.
