Mental Health: Hanging By A Rope.

This is something different from what we usually write here, but this idea was in our head for a long time and September being the Suicide Prevention Month, this could not have waited more!

On 14th June 2020 when the news of Sushant Singh Rajput’s demise came up, the whole nation went into a craze. By evening everyone, whether a fan or not was talking about him or more particularly, about his manner of death. A young terrific brilliant actor, extremely bright human, who had a certain level of warmth committed suicide! He was in depression! His tragic death paved the way for a greater topic of discussion, Importance of Mental Health.

At least for two weeks after his death, everyone talked about depression, suicide, mental health and how important it is for us to have this conversation. However, soon it faded in the background because a more interesting and less ‘uncomfortable to talk about’ reason came up for his death.

But with this blog, we want to bring back that ‘a day after Sushant’s death’ audience. The one who was woke. The one who was not afraid to have told their mental health struggles. The one was ready to listen and support others who are going through something.

The ‘No-Judgement’ humans!

It's been too long for us to be silent about this now. Everyone is talking about Sushant because he was famous but, according to WHO, one person commits suicide every 40 seconds. There are worldwide 300 million people worldwide who suffer from some form of depression.

I am probably not the best-suited person to talk about this. I’ve never experienced suicidal thoughts so it would be unfair for me to say, “I understand what you’re going through”. I am here representing the other segment of the world, the listeners.

Something happened a while back. I was scrolling through a colleague’s Instagram account and I came across posts of her talking about her struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. This shocked me. I had always pinned her as a happy charming person but what I was seeing portrayed a different picture.

I started to think about how many people do I know that battle the same thing but have never opened up. She is quite vocal about it and her friends and family support her but then there must be people who I am close with but I don’t know it yet. Maybe they’ve never told me or anyone for that matter and is secretly suffering? Maybe they did try but someone else or I have unknowingly shut down someone who just wanted me to listen?

On a daily basis, I meet people who tell me in detail, all about their health (read: physical health). It’s a very open comfortable discussion sometimes involving way too much information. But whenever someone has told me about their mental health issues, there’s always been this hushed comfortable strain in their voice. There’s this looming fear of being judged. Judged for telling what they are going through!

But the worst part is all of us, including myself, is responsible for this fear. When someone opens up about themselves, we just start looking at them differently, treating them differently. We start to limiting them just to their disorder. Imagine if you’ve had dengue. After you took the treatment and are well now, people continue to treat you diseased! Some may be still maintaining their distance from you or others might be handling you gently. After a while won’t that be irritating? I guess this is what stops people from opening themselves to us.

When the news of someone famous passing way, due to suicide, comes up, millions of us present our grief and condolences. We try various things to honour them, honour their life. But you know what would make, people like Robin Williams, Chester Bennington, happy? They lost a battle with themselves and even though I’ve never met them or knew them, I can say with a guarantee they would have not wanted any other soul to lose the same battle ever again.

When some celebrities open up about their struggle with mental health, it is not because they want us to feel bad for them. But so that we become more aware of our surroundings. Aware of people around us. So that we feel that mental health issues are real! If we can pour our love and support for our favourite celebrity when we have never met them, I am sure we have plenty of love for the people around us.

As it is widely said, Social Media is a boon and a bane! It is because of this Social Media that I am here telling you my thoughts but this social media has also reduced our average attention span to that of a goldfish. Unless something is juicy and trendy, no one really gives their 2 cents about it.

When the news of Sushant’s demise came across, everyone’s social media was filled with words like “Speak Up”, “I am there” but then what? It was overshadowed as more trendy topics came in the picture. The same cycle happened before too. We hear a story, we show our grief and then just jump up to a new topic.

This time though let’s just hold our thoughts for a second!

I can only imagine the happiness someone might have felt when they saw their friends post stories asking people to open up. Years and years of suppressed emotions and now finally they had someone they could share it with. Maybe this was their “No Judgement” zone. But alas! In just a few days, these stories were replaced with something different. For one whole week, we were empathetic to someone. We were not judging anyone and was ready to accept everyone as they were.

Yet now we are back to being our judgmental self. Judging someone who has not yet proven to be guilty. Harassing someone else because they spoke up their mind. And the worst of all? We do not even spare the dead from our judgy eyes!

A lot has been going around saying what depression looks like. Movies and cinema have glorified depression as someone who is sad and tucked up in a corner of the room. You never ever know what someone else is going through.

It’s the little things we need to look out for. In fact, not even lookout for anything, just be there whenever they want to open up. And they will when they will safe. All we can do till then is to take care of ourselves and keep a check of people around us. A little bit of empathy in all of us can make this world a much, much better place to live!

So, today on ‘Suicide Prevention Day’ let’s make a promise! A promise that we, the listeners, will try everything in our hand to create a safe environment. There will be times when you won’t be able to understand how they feel, what they feel or why they feel in such a way! But this doesn’t give us a right to undermine their feelings!

Lets us just promise to try our hardest not to judge someone!

We have to work together to remove that strain from our voice when we talk about our mental health. To remove that uncomfortable silence that lingers when someone is vocal about it. Today lets promise to ourselves that there will no one more like Sushant, or Robin Williams or those other 300 million nameless people.

If we can’t change the world, the least we can change is ourselves and the people around it. So today, take a stand to help those around you, those who YOU cannot afford to lose. You don’t need to do something. Just go up to them and give them the tightest hug, and tell them that YOU ARE THERE!

All of us has to change a little by little so that we can make a brighter future for those who are yet to come.