The Stigma Surrounding Mental Health and Its Dire Consequences

The past few years have been nothing short of a roller-coaster for every person living on this planet; everything from climate change and COVID-19 to conflicts, climate change, and controversy has wreaked havoc on society and every man and woman living in it. Amidst the chaos of it all, though, lurked another monster that slowly ate away at humanity as a whole and continues to do so today, almost completely unnoticed; the worldwide pandemic that is the mass deterioration of mental health.

2021 arguably marked the peak of chaos around the world; Afghanistan and Ethiopia suffered civil wars that saw Afghanistan lose control over their country to the Taliban, coups toppled numerous countries’ democratic governments while countless more exhibited signs of the erosion of democracy, record droughts, floods, wildfires, and monsoons made daily headlines all while COVID-19 continued to wage a war on humanity that only a shortage of medical personnel could fight. Consequentially, 2021 saw the highest suicide rates of any year in a lot of countries, like India. In India, 164,033 people committed suicide in that year alone, resulting in a suicide rate of 12 (per hundred thousand) for the year, one of the highest in recent years. This was the highest number of suicides in a single country in the year. To add to the horror, suicide rates in the country have been increasing over the past 5 decades, and 2021 was the highest recorded rate in the country ever. In the U.S., 48,183 deaths were caused as a result of suicide in the same year: a horrifying average of one death every 11 minutes, and once again, it doesn’t end there. 12.3 million adults seriously considered committing suicide, 3.5 million took a step further and made genuine plans to, and 1.7 million took the final step and attempted suicide. Such statistics alone are tough to digest for most, as the severity of the issue is only recognised when you realise the sheer magnitude of it all; when you realise that worldwide, on average, someone ends their own life every 40 seconds, when you consider how excruciating life must be for every one of the thousands of people who attempt suicide every single day for them even to consider a step so drastic.

To worsen the situation further, despite the alarming nature of every one of those statistics, society still fails to rectify the root of this issue. Students are forced to bear the weight of academic pressure from unjustly young ages, people are told to bottle up their emotions and keep them to themselves, genders and races are continued to be discriminated against, and therapy and psychiatric treatments are continuously stigmatised. Such issues can be especially noticed when the statistics are anaylsed a bit deeper - for instance, out of all those that committed suicide in India in 2021, 72.5% were males. In the US, almost 80% were males. In the UK, suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50. In Canada, almost 1.7 million men admitted to having seriously contemplated suicide in their lives. For centuries now, society has developed a stereotype that idealises men as forever strong and independent individuals and this poison of a stereotype continues to plague us to this day, as the stereotype is continued to be used to shame the few who are brave and strong enough to step out and seek the help they need when they do. As a result, men are around a third as likely as women to seek help for their mental health, even when they know they need it. The stigma against seeking help to maintain a healthy mental state continues to be propagated by overly traditional parents, toxically masculine men, stereotypical and misandristic women, and countless other groups of people. Men like Andrew Tate continue to advocate such stereotypes and shun those who need help for their mental health, labeling them as ‘weak’ while in reality, they’re only sensible and they possess a desire to keep living, to stay available for those whom they love, to have their loved ones around them.

The problem is clearer than ever, and the stories have been retold repeatedly throughout history. People’s voices are louder than ever, and the severity of the situation is more obvious than ever before, and yet, nothing is being fixed.

As long as the people that propagate the stereotypes, stigmas, and shame that relentlessly surround the subject of mental health walk this planet while they fail to realise that they are the root of this toxicity that continues to eat away at humanity, this problem will continue to stay and worsen the same way it has over the decades, no matter how loud the voices that highlight this matter are. The only solution is for every single person to make that change to help the people around them, one person at a time, and until every single person alive adopts that mentality, this mental health pandemic will not be cured. By: Rian Devaiah