Wake-up call on mental health

Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide on Sunday morning has left India shocked. On the face of it, Rajput had everything: good looks, talent, professional success and wealth. This makes it all the more difficult to understand why he ended his life. He was reportedly battling depression. So, while the film industry and the media gossiped and speculated about his ‘erratic behaviour’ and ‘temper tantrums’, Rajput was battling inner demons. Depression has claimed the lives of many celebrities. The very nature of their profession is partly to blame. Dazzling success and popularity are often fleeting and since celebrities live their lives in the public eye, when failures happen, whether on the professional or the personal front, their lives unravel under the media spotlight, making it all the more difficult for them to cope and come out of the problem. Many take to alcohol and drugs to calm their anxieties. Instead of seeing substance abuse as symptoms of a deeper problem, people distance themselves from the individual, making the struggle lonelier. This was the tragedy that ended the lives of Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, Nafisa Joseph, and now Rajput, to name just a few.

However, problems like depression and anxiety are not confined to the rich and famous. Mental health disorders, which often underlie suicides, afflict people across class, gender, age and professions; children are taking their own lives. WHO statistics reveal how widespread the problem is; almost 800,000 people die by suicide annually and many times that number attempt suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-19-year-olds. The problem of suicide in India is alarming. A NIMHANS study of data from a 2015-16 National Mental Health Survey that was published early this year reveals that while the prevalence of death by suicide among adults aged 18 years and above is 0.024%, the figure soars to 5.1% with regard to suicidality, that is, when people think about, plan, attempt self-harm/suicide.

India is particularly vulnerable to suicide as we refuse to discuss the problem or its underlying causes. Mental disorders are taboo subjects. Mental illness is severely stigmatised; people with substance abuse problems, for instance, are simply assumed to be of ‘bad character.’ Not surprisingly, millions of people who are grappling with depression and anxiety, avoid seeking professional help. Society’s stigmatisation of mental health issues drives them into a despair and depression so deep and intense that death seems better than life. This need not be the case as many mental health disorders are treatable with medical intervention.