Mental Health and Trauma implications of Delhi Riots

5 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH #CauseAChatter

1. You can just snap out of Depression or Anxiety.

FACT - Not that is not true. The human mind is a complex neurological organ and in addition, there are hormones, physical health factors and outside factors like relationship and socio-economic stress that can lead to a mental health crisis. It is not something one can snap out off one morning suddenly. a survivor might feel absolutely helpless while the mind is almost on auto-pilot through depression or anxiety. Survivors need support and assistance and more importantly care and compassion.

2. Mental health conditions aren't real.

FACT- The human brain is an organ, so it can dysfunction just like our lungs or our heart can. If a person is under extreme or prolonged psychological stress they can reach a mental health crisis, similarly just like so many physical illnesses and pain mental health issues can have completely inexplicable origins but they are real and painful.

3. Mentally ill people are dangerous and violent.

The commonest perception attached to those surviving a mental health issue is that they can harm themself or attack someone for no reason. People begin to believe it is unsafe to be around them. The fact is that some patients might feel threatened and might attack in self-defense or sometimes might get violent but all survivors are not violent.

4.Mental illness is a sign of weakness in character. 

This is one accusation often thrown at people who face a mental health crisis. people tell the survivor that those with strong will power can overcome depression, combat phobia, fight anxiety. However, this is untrue and often people also fall into addiction like alcohol, nicotine and other substance of abuse. A mental health situation is certainly out of the scope of merely a strong will power, however, it can assist in the recovery process.

5. The symptoms of mental health conditions are all emotion-related.

Mental health conditions are not just emotional. It's usually a mixture of both emotional and physical discomfort. Depression or anxiety manifests in a lot of physical discomforts, including aches and pains, sleeping too much or too little, and extreme lethargy. 

This #MentalHealthAwareness post is in collaboration with Blogchatter's Blogging with a Purpose . If you are a blogger and want to join your voice for a cause close to your heart, do look up.

Mental Health: Blogging with a Purpose #CauseAChatter

 I live in a society where "mad" is still abuse, "mentally challenged" is conveniently used for criminals, murderers and rapists and mental health thus stands stigmatized.

Being a survivor and an activist I have witnessed this invisibility of mental health in the social discourse around me and the resulting insensitivity about both the survivors and their caregivers is appalling.

I am also a Psychological First Aid practitioner and in my practice, have come across so many people completely unaware of even basics of mental health here.

I also wrote an e-book Mental Health: A Primer with the same purpose. 

Still, I feel a lot of people are unaware of so much about mental health around me that more and more needs to be written, so I will be writing about mental health all this year for this campaign and if time and energy allows also doing Hindi translations/paraphrase of the same on my Hindi blog too.

This post is in collaboration with Blogchatter's Blogging with a Purpose  . If you are a blogger and want to join your voice for a cause close to your heart, do lookup.