Negative Emotions
It only takes one tragedy (that everyone will likely forget about in 6 months time) to get everyone talking about mental health issues like never before. The good thing is that people are finally talking about things they normally don't want to deal with. But unfortunately it also kind of shows how little even seemingly very educated people know about such a common problem.
One would have thought that in 2020, after several celebrities around the world have committed suicide and even in India where Deepika Padukone has opened up about dealing with depression, that educated people would be able to comprehend that depression and suicide ideation are not things that are exclusive to the poor. It's very easy to hide negative emotions in a society where very few people will be comfortable talking to a person expressing their pain.
It was only as recently as last week that one of my classmates from school shared a meme which said something along the lines of "You don't deserve to feel burnt out when there are other people in the world doing worse than you." Sure, that may make logical sense but human beings are neither perfect nor logical in how they function. I'm sure if the solution to depression was just "Hey, just stop being unhappy," then it would have been much easier to deal with it.
It's easy to criticise people in general but there's probably a reason why they think this way. I think most people create an idea of depression from some of the things they see around them. You see people faking suicide attempts in order to control another person in a relationship, people getting a low mood in response to transient life stressors. While these may be disorders in their own right, if your idea of depression is formed solely from these events, you don't really understand what depression is.
I've been seeing patients ever since I became an intern 3 years ago and I've already seen way more suicide attempts than I can count. Some of them were thankfully easy to treat but others still give me nightmares. It is neither easy nor pleasant to kill yourself and the people who find the motivation to do so clearly have deep rooted problems. Advise like "Just be happy, stop being sad" isn't going to be enough to save them.
The best description I've heard about depression is that it's a "cancer of the mind." It's not the normal response to a difficult life situation (although they can cause it to a certain extent). It's a state where you interpret all events in your life negatively. Where everything turns to black. External factors can contribute to this but once it starts, it is very difficult to turn things around on your own.
And if you do want to get better, it is very difficult to find acceptance from family as well as colleagues. Even in the medical profession, I don't think anyone really wants to open up about their mental health issues because they'll receive labels from colleagues which can be extremely difficult to shake off. I remember one of my colleagues call a patient "vattu" when in fact the patient was an elderly lady who had a history of depression (and was coming with fever, not something related to her mental health). One would have hoped that people with such primitive views would stay away from the medical profession but unfortunately that's not how the world works.
The hospital is a high stress environment. We deal with things like death, suicide, spousal abuse and sexual assault on a regular basis. It is only natural that some of us will find things hard to cope. We cannot blame the public without taking a good look at ourselves and what exactly we've done to address this problem. Whether we like it or not, people do look at the example we set and until we start setting better examples, things will not get significantly better.
One would have thought that in 2020, after several celebrities around the world have committed suicide and even in India where Deepika Padukone has opened up about dealing with depression, that educated people would be able to comprehend that depression and suicide ideation are not things that are exclusive to the poor. It's very easy to hide negative emotions in a society where very few people will be comfortable talking to a person expressing their pain.
It was only as recently as last week that one of my classmates from school shared a meme which said something along the lines of "You don't deserve to feel burnt out when there are other people in the world doing worse than you." Sure, that may make logical sense but human beings are neither perfect nor logical in how they function. I'm sure if the solution to depression was just "Hey, just stop being unhappy," then it would have been much easier to deal with it.
It's easy to criticise people in general but there's probably a reason why they think this way. I think most people create an idea of depression from some of the things they see around them. You see people faking suicide attempts in order to control another person in a relationship, people getting a low mood in response to transient life stressors. While these may be disorders in their own right, if your idea of depression is formed solely from these events, you don't really understand what depression is.
I've been seeing patients ever since I became an intern 3 years ago and I've already seen way more suicide attempts than I can count. Some of them were thankfully easy to treat but others still give me nightmares. It is neither easy nor pleasant to kill yourself and the people who find the motivation to do so clearly have deep rooted problems. Advise like "Just be happy, stop being sad" isn't going to be enough to save them.
The best description I've heard about depression is that it's a "cancer of the mind." It's not the normal response to a difficult life situation (although they can cause it to a certain extent). It's a state where you interpret all events in your life negatively. Where everything turns to black. External factors can contribute to this but once it starts, it is very difficult to turn things around on your own.
And if you do want to get better, it is very difficult to find acceptance from family as well as colleagues. Even in the medical profession, I don't think anyone really wants to open up about their mental health issues because they'll receive labels from colleagues which can be extremely difficult to shake off. I remember one of my colleagues call a patient "vattu" when in fact the patient was an elderly lady who had a history of depression (and was coming with fever, not something related to her mental health). One would have hoped that people with such primitive views would stay away from the medical profession but unfortunately that's not how the world works.
The hospital is a high stress environment. We deal with things like death, suicide, spousal abuse and sexual assault on a regular basis. It is only natural that some of us will find things hard to cope. We cannot blame the public without taking a good look at ourselves and what exactly we've done to address this problem. Whether we like it or not, people do look at the example we set and until we start setting better examples, things will not get significantly better.
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