Breaking taboos around mental illness

“I wish I had cancer,” shares Fatima Nisar*. “I wish I had a physical disease so that people could understand and help me get treated with empathy. Clinical depression is so difficult to explain or talk about in our society. It’s viewed as a weakness and makes the patient feel like they’re going mad instead of seeking treatment. But depression is an imbalance of certain chemicals in the body and one can be genetically predisposed to it. It’s a disease like any other which needs lifelong care and treatment like say diabetes. However, because of a lack of understanding of this disease, patients often get depressed about being depressed.”

‘We always thought he was just more sensitive and needy,’ shares Muneeb Munir,* while explaining his brother’s bi-polar disorder. “He struggled throughout his life. A part of him was really kind and innocent and then there was another part of him that was suddenly aggressive and self-destructive. He could never reconcile the two. Even though he started showing symptoms by the time he was 13, we only got him the help he needed in his late twenties because there’s such little awareness on this disease and the taboo around it is so deep rooted in society.” “If he hurt himself, we took him to the hospital,” shares Muneeb. “We were very supportive and tried our best to support him as a family but I’ve seen that in many cases families avoid the issue till it becomes a really big problem. In his last few days, he was going through a rough period but I was going through something myself. So when he told me he was sad, I thought this was just another episode, but we lost him. My advice to other families is this: sometimes you’ll see your loved one being manic or depressive but it’ll be momentary. At other times, they’re only looking slightly down but they’ll take their own life. Always take their words and moods seriously. Also, it’s important to note that people with bipolar tend to be overachievers, and so people around them can never reconcile that someone so intelligent or successful, could be so hopeless and conflicted on the inside.”

“People think it’s a personality weakness,” shares Beenish Nafees, a psychologist and co-founder of Taskeen, a mental health initiative, being led by experts and individuals who have been directly or indirectly affected by mental illness. “The big problem is that people don’t understand what mental health is and how bad the stigma is. Most family and friends ask the patient why they can’t just get up and stay positive. In dramas or movies, mental illness is portrayed under the umbrella of a pagal person, who is unkempt and violent. Most people are scared of being labeled pagal and are unable to seek help. We all feel depressed or sad. But when you’ve been feeling sad for over two weeks and can’t get out of bed, that’s depression and the sad part is that patients still think they can’t talk about how they’re feeling. The other big problem socially is that people think marriage is a cure for depression, which it isn’t.”

“The stigma around mental illness is a mark of shame,” shares Dr Taha Sabri, who is also one of the co-founders of Taskeen and lives with bipolar disorder. As a courageous step to fight stigma, Taha shared his personal experience as a survivor story on Taskeen’s website, giving hope to others who might be suffering silently.

“I initially felt that since it was a biological disease, I won’t be able to get better and that’s why I also contemplated suicide,” Taha wrote on Taskeen’s website. “Then I thought that it may be a chronic illness but I can do something with the skills that I have and with the knowledge that I have gained through it. I had to figure out how to convert this experience into something which could be beneficial for the world. As a result, I embarked on this journey of mental health awareness and, trying to make the world a better place. This really helped me a lot because I realised that I can add value to society and be a functional member. This realisation gave me a lot of courage and that’s how I overcame the self-stigma. Once you overcome the self-stigma, social stigma is much easier to overcome.”

As part of the general public, one of the ways we can help folks with mental illness is to help destigmatise diseases like clinical depression and bipolar disorder. We can do this by sharing these stories with #NoMoreStigma, #RaiseAwareness and talking about mental illness openly, without judgment and with empathy. For more resources and information on mental health, please visit www.taskeen.org

*Names have been changed to protect identity due to the personal nature of the subject matter

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2016.

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