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GoYogiCulture. The thing that allows our world to be so diverse and colorful. Whether you’re trying tamales from Mesoamerica or kimchi from the Korean Peninsula, we love and adore culture. But when it comes to the topic of mental health, our perspective on different cultures suddenly polarizes. In some cases, we have a positive outlook, different from many others that enable a negative one. Different cultures, religions, and nations break apart on the topic of mental health because some see it as a concept that is hard to understand, where others find it prominent in the well-being of others and themselves. In this article, we will explore how Indian culture and mental health confront each other, the effects, and why the stigma is there in the first place – perspective.
When talking about different cultures and mental health, there is going to be some sort of stigma towards it. Stigma is a social construct or a shared assumption formed to explain things that people do not understand. So, where does mental stigma come from in the first place? Stigma originates from multiple sources that work synergistically and create serious implications for an individual’s life. It could originate from a single person, family, society, or the nature of the mental illness itself. But it can also arise from a lack of awareness, education, and perception. These causes and consequences are most often indistinguishable and lead to prejudices that influence attitudes, which increases the former. Culture. The thing that allows our world to be so diverse and colorful. Whether you’re trying tamales from Mesoamerica or kimchi from the Korean Peninsula, we love and adore culture. But when it comes to the topic of mental health, our perspective on different cultures suddenly polarizes. In some cases, we have a positive outlook, different from many others that enable a negative one.
There are also two types of stigmas; self-stigma and perceived stigma. Self-stigma is defined as areas of the stigma that is categorized as personal, social, familial, medical, and treatments of illness. Perceived stigma refers to how individuals perceive stigma that influences their coping style. Together, it becomes hard for people and communities, especially in Asia, to recognize that mental health is crucial while shrouded by stigma.
Speaking of communities, India is one of the countries that associates a large extent of stigma towards mental health. In a study done by the World Economic Forum, researchers found that when asked to describe a person with a mental illness, 87% of the respondents showed some awareness of mental illness. Only 71% of the respondents used terms associated with stigma. Some of these words were “crazy/mad/stupid, irresponsible/careless, and retard”. Out of the 3,556 respondents, 47% described them as a retard, 40% as crazy/mad/stupid, and 38% as irresponsible/careless. But lastly, 60% said the main cause of mental illness is the lack of self-discipline and willpower. These statistics are merely a precursor to the kind of exclusion people with mental illness face in India.
This stigma towards mental health has allowed the WHO to label India as one of the world’s most depressed countries. Between 1990 and 2017, one out of seven Indians have suffered from a mental illness, and those experiencing one are often tagged as “lunatics” by society. Not only does this make such Indians feel worse; they suffer and feel isolated, causing them to hide their mental illnesses, pretend as if they’re perfectly fine, while also being influenced by unhealthy coping mechanisms. There are a few people’s parents I know that say they will listen to their children, but when they do, they attack the fact that their mental health is struggling. They will tell them to get a job, work harder in school, or take any form of communication from them, such as a phone. They say that if they distract themselves with something, their mental health will become better and “back to normal”. This does the exact opposite. This only makes Indian teens even more depressed because they feel lonely and like no one is willing to listen to them.
But why does India have a stigma towards mental health in the first place? Well, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, something that was “observed regarding mental health problems… is the impact of the supernatural on the human mind”. Many people understand the word “illness” as an imbalance of humor leading to problems of the mind and body. There have been many Vedic descriptions of the human mind, the functioning, consciousness, and dynamics of human behavior and health. Vedic is an adjective relating to the Hindu Vedas, a large body of religious texts originating from ancient India. Since Vedic ideas are often associated with Hinduism and India’s rather dominant Hindu demographic, almost every Hindu/Indian conforms to these descriptions. Since humans are prone to spreading ideas and thoughts, many others will often conform to these values, and thus a domino effect takes place. However, with many Indians immigrating to more developed countries, these ideas sadly continue to exist outside the country. So when an Indian teenager living anywhere across the world confronts these ideas about mental health, most of them aren’t successful in finding healthy coping mechanisms or support since the ideology and stigma are rooted deeply into their culture.
This is why we must reduce the stigma around mental health. We need measures to train and sensitize such communities on a wide scale using developing nationwide mental health organizations. We need steps to connect the patients by forming peer networks so they can listen and support each other. People who experience mental health problems should get the same access to safe and effective care as those with physical health problems. We also must continue to confront the stigmas toward mental health because, as a strong and united force, we might be able to reduce the stigma in our community. Finally, mental illness MUST be put under the ambit of life insurance to help people see mental illness with the same lens they use for physical illnesses. Without these solutions, stigma in different cultures will still live and spread.
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