As 1st graders we are taught about May 1st being Labor's day and May 15 being the first day of summer vacations. May is celebrated as a month of ice creams, but be honest how many of you did know that May is also the month of mental health awareness ?
Even today, mental health is brushed off as a celebrity disease, or a disease for the rich then what about all the depression suicides that are committed every now and then in India ?
The Economic Times in 2017 reported about 5 crore Indians living with depression. India today in 2018 declared India amongst one of the most depressed country. I don't wish to do any political commentary here simply because I feel incapable of commenting on that. However, with economy, inflation, era of Instagram and this never ending pandemic believe it or not depression, anxiety are becoming more common than flu, despite that unlike our supreme efforts to develop its cure, we are busy about covering it. Unlike every Indian solution to any illness, "sleep" doesn't makes it go away.
Until you talk about it, it holds power over you. Until you don't talk about it to someone it doesn't goes away. It haunts you forever.
As if being compared your entire life to the 'Sharma ji ka ladka, jisne medical ki hai', we live in a world where we see others with rose colored glasses, thriving with their flashy cars and cool pictures on social media as if our own problems aren't big enough.
Just like posting photos of you in red ribbon does not solve AIDS, similarly you wearing a green ribbon is not going to help. The only way we can make this work is by talking, by de-stigmatizing it. By making it like a common cold. It is not a glamorized disease, but a haunting reality that needs to be acknowledged. That is the only way we are going to fight against it.