The death of the brilliant bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput on Sunday has kick started fresh discussion about mental health issues.
The 34-year-old actor was found dead in his Mumbai home, in what police said appeared to be a case of suicide which left many of his followers and fans gloomy. The reason of the suicide is yet to be disclosed.
However, it’s not the only case that took place; researches show that around eight hundred thousand people commit suicide every year worldwide. And an individual takes one’s life every forty seconds. It is the top fifteen leading causes of death in the globe, with more death rates due to malaria, cancer, wars and genocide.
In developing countries like Pakistan depression and mental health issues are considered as a big taboo. Owing to illiteracy and lack of awareness, people with mental issues are considered as “possessed”. Hence, rather than taking consultation and prescription from the psychiatrists and doctors people prefer to go to quacks and orthodox religious pundits for healing.
The factors behind committing suicide include; imbalance in brain chemistry, unemployment, financial morass, social pressures, family issues, loss of love affairs, hopelessness, loneliness and depression. Commonly people commit suicide by hanging on fan, firearm usage and ingestion of acidic substance. Although before committing suicide a person sends signals to the members of family and friends by showing irritating behavior, feelings of worthlessness, absurdity and maintaining social distancing yet people rather than giving attention and presenting solutions to them, pass jokes on their condition and call them ”Majnu”(crazy) and Psychopath.
The suicide rate in Pakistan is below as compare to the global rate of 6.1 per 100,000 while in Pakistan it is 1.4 per 100,000. This is not because we have low rates of such incidents but because there is no work on compilation of the cases and many such events go unreported. Irony is that Pakistan has only one doctor for thousands of patients with mental health issues.
In the modern time of the twenty-first century, though the world governments are busy working on science and technology and spending huge amounts of budget on bettering artificial intelligence yet they have ignored the development of the human mind and its day-to-day emerging issues. Pakistan is lagging behind all in this sector.
Therefore, the government needs to adopt a multi-sectoral approach to nip the ever-rising menace in the bud. Screening at primary care level, community mental health programmes to be run through lady health workers, strict restriction on access of common folk to toxic substances, awareness programmers through media and establishment of help centers for mental health on 24/7 hours service can be useful preventive measures.
Moreover, we need to change our attitude towards life and people. We have to have greater acceptance of failure. We must stop blaming ourselves for the unwanted and uncontrolled circumstance that we face in our day to day life. We should have the willingness to listen to the depressed and dejected people who need nothing but our attention.
As Victor Frankl, one of the great psychiatrists of the twentieth century writes in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” that, “People don’t always need advice. Sometimes all they really need is a hand to hold, an ear to listen, and a heart to understand them.”
Majid Hameed Rajput.
Hyderabad
