Much Ado About Nothing: The Perils of Trivializing Mental Health
By: Naomika Saran
Tags: Mental Health, Theatre

Time and again terms like ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’ are used figuratively, more often than not, to denote the mildest signs of discomfort, restlessness, and misery experienced by an individual. The concept of the state of your mind needing some sort of upkeep and being prone to illness just as much as your physical body, is something so radical in society, that it is shelved under the topics considered ‘taboo’. If one observes closely, over the years, there has been a gradual but definitive acknowledgment of ‘mental health’ as a concept. “Yes, of course, you need to take care of your mind just as much as your body”, reading: preferably mental health should exist as a dystopian concept and should not relate to someone among us or even associated with us.

The question that irks me as I am hopeful it does to many of you is, why does society collectively deny the damage that mental health can potentially cause and dismiss its importance? The answer is one that perhaps lies at the roots and requires a comprehensive study of the society at large. But, let’s talk about the present moment. There’s no denying the fact that a number of people have come forth and spoken about the importance and ramifications of mental health today. Given the burgeoning power of social media, now more than ever, there have been extensive talks on this issue and how to deal with it. Yet, we find ourselves unwilling to accept it the way we would in case of a normal physical ailment. There is still a long way to go before a visit to a therapist is de-stigmatized and seen parallel to a visit to a doctor when we’re feeling unwell. Why is it so?

A prime example of the dismissal of mental health in our society is exemplified by the lack and inadequate access to treatment resources and options as opposed to ‘regular’ healthcare. The sheer blatant dismissal of how depression and/or some other mental illness could potentially be fatal without proper treatment has made me question how far we have actually come in our road to acceptance of mental health.

Now, I am not going to delve into the statistics, but we all know the average rate of people who suffer from mental illness and ultimately succumb to it, per year. It’s easy to ask someone to talk about it and share their feelings but let’s be honest, how many of us actually take words like anxiety, stress, panic, depression, etc seriously enough to consult the person as a professional? Granted accessibility to mental health professional care is not affordable, and that’s a whole other tangent, but how many of us take the first step in addressing the situation seriously enough to consult the individual one? That is even if we are in a privileged enough position to discuss matters concerning our mental health, in the first place. The idea borders on non-existent in communities that aren’t. And as precarious as it is for people like us, imagine the effects for people who are not at liberty to acknowledge it. Perhaps they just don’t see it as an issue that needs to be addressed or perhaps they are forced to keep it confined lest they are considered ‘aberrant’. Herein lies the problem. We need to be speaking about this. More openly, more vigorously, and more frequently.