India’s cricket’s talisman Virat Kohli bared his feelings and opened up about his struggles with mental health and how he coped with it in a tell-all interview recently. The star Indian batter has been going through a rough patch of late and has gone without an international century since last three years.
In the interview, he said that for the first time in 10 years, he didn’t touch his bat for a month, something he hasn’t done that in his life. He came to the realisation that he was “trying to fake” his intensity in recent times. His mind has been telling him to take a break and step back. He is looked at as a guy who has been mentally very strong, which he is. But everyone has a limit and one needs to recognise that limit.
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This entire incident tells us that we need to recognise that mental health is as important as physical health and we need to talk about mental illness, visit a professional mental health expert for health instead of suffering in silence.
The foremost reason for India to lose its mental health is the lack of awareness and sensitivity about the issue. There is a big stigma around people suffering from any kind of mental health issues. They are often tagged as “lunatics”, “crazy”, “possessed” and many more by society. This leads to a vicious cycle of shame, suffering and isolation of the patients.
Everybody gets upset, feels low or even feels anxiety at some point in their life. That’s not a disorder. The disorder comes when those feelings become intense, do not go away and hamper your everyday life. It’s when the feelings stay for weeks, months and years. It’s the intensity and longevity that classifies it as a disorder. It needs attention and interventions.
People consider mental issues as taboo and they try to hide them. They don’t discuss it openly with others and feel low and a sense of guilt for suffering from mental illness. As the world has modernised, we have been moving to nuclear families and social connections have been broken.
The expectations to perform 24×7 and zero tolerance for failure, adds immense stress on an individual. The immediate fallout of this stress is depression, which is a common illness characterised 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.
Other symptoms include loss of energy, change in appetite, irregular sleeping pattern, anxiety, reduced concentration, indecisiveness, restlessness, feelings of worthlessness, guilt or hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm or even committing suicide.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally, the total number of people with depression was estimated to exceed 300 million in 2015, equivalent to 4.3% of the world’s population.
In India, the National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 revealed that nearly 15% Indian adults need active intervention for one or more mental health issues and one in 20 Indians suffered from depression, with the age-group of 15-49 years being most affected. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide; over 800 000 people die due to suicide every year. It is the second leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds.
Governments, NGOs and other social institutes need to start educating about mental health issues and remove the misconceptions attached with it. Although the awareness levels is much more now than before, yet it is not enough as a large number of people suffering from depression still avoid taking professional health and indulge in substance abuse.
This is a dangerous situation as the individual is actually indulging in self-destruction and eventually not only destroys the affected person’s life, but also breaks the entire home. The families are left to deal with their loss alone.
The society at large also has to pause and slow down. We are running forward aimlessly, heading towards a big fall. We have to talk about mental health issues and give it the same importance as physical illness.
