I Googled to know the symptoms of anxiety attack and clicked on the first link that appeared on the home page. Here are the symptoms :
The very disturbing thing that I am witnessing being in home is that no one in the society including my keen do not acknowledge the mental health and forget about reaching out to doctor for help.
They have only pseudo consciousness that the person is doing drama to attract attention, but they are so pathetic and fail to understand the tragedy one is going through. Their lack of awareness and acceptance is doing no good but act as an anathema to the fragile mind who is already sick and in a great need of care.
But I don't blame them entirely .In my opinion , the brunt should be on the society at large. The society was structured such that there was lack of awareness about the mental illness and more focus was on the witch hunting thing and it is still prevalent in our society.
Today I am observing shift in the acknowledgment about mental health and thanks to the social media platform. But I don't appreciate the social media entirely because it has too become a toxic space filled with the troll army. They are spreading too much hatred, too much misogynistic comments and what not. Characters are assassinated brutally. Thus social media is a double edged sword.
There is a shift in the mainstream Bollywood too, for instance “Dear Zindagi ” has highlighted the mental health and OTT too, being part of digital revolution has brought in a dynamic change in the contents educating the public about different kinds of mental disorders that are real which has nothing to do with the ghosts and other imagination . Yes, OTT should be censored when it comes to the use of cuss words, violence or to be more precise sexual violence, but in the name of censoring these specific contents, there is a great fear of the creativity being muzzled.
Now the majority of our society who has access to the social media as well as OTT are us- our generation, leaving behind our parents generation but not completely. But it too has a digital divide in terms of accessibility .
A lot more has to be done to educate the folks about mental health.
It can be done through campaign, frequent seminars, meet up and so on via digital platform or traditional methods along with the strengthening of digital infrastructure and making it more cheaper.
When there is awareness , then only there is going to be an acceptance that mental disorder can be treated. The mental disorder is similar to other diseases. There is nothing much to hype about it and make it the gossip of town and in the process making the mentally ill more ill and prone to other severe condition
Let me know in the comment box about the movies or web series that you have watched spreading awareness about the mental health.
