In 2017, 14.53% of Indians were diagnosed with Substance Abuse and Mental Health disorders, and on top of that, the same year, the suicide rate was 2.13%. After all the mental health disorders the country faces, why do South Asians, and Gen X South Asian-Americans, push away the importance of mental health?
We asked our audience why their parents would be against them from getting mental health help, such as going to therapy, or maybe getting medication. The results were no surprise.
“The stigma around it and the idea of making you look weak.”
“Because they’re scared of social stigma and ‘what others will say’.”
“What ‘society’ will say.”
“They are scared of other relatives’ opinions.”
In all four direct quotes, there’s an extremely similar message: the stigma. Many South Asian parents want what is best for their child, and they want their child to look good among a huge crowd. We’ve spoken about the pressure many Asian-American teenagers face in order to please their parents, and to look smarter or better than the other kids around them. Because there’s a lot of stigma when it comes to mental health, South Asian parents immediately associate it as a bad thing, and want to keep the illness hidden because they’re afraid of what others will think. They are afraid others will think their child is dumb, or belongs in a mental asylum. This of course is not the case, as many teenagers face mental health issues like anxiety, depression, or ADHD.
“Because their own parents gaslighted their mental health issues when they were young.”
“They never grew up with this support, so they expect us to just deal with it too.”
“It’s a stigma against seeing their child as weak and afflicted by a disease that was never diagnosed when they were children.”
“Because they went through it themselves (mental trauma, abuse, depression, etc) but as they weren't allowed to get help and still ‘got over it’.”
“They don’t think it’s real because it wasn’t a thing for them growing up.”
We have to admit that mental health is A LOT more normalized now than it was maybe a decade ago. With social media around, people have used their platforms to share their stories, and that they aren’t alone in these battles. Even schools push students to visit their counselor when facing issues, and schools provide various resources, like Psychologists and Social Workers.
None of these resources were available to our parents when they were our age. They definitely did not have social media, and they most probably didn’t have any on-site Social Workers. Because of this, whatever emotions and stress they felt, built up because they didn’t know who to talk to, since they were afraid that others would think they were insane.
The whole idea of Mental Health didn’t exist when they were younger. They went through intergenerational trauma and abuse, but finally escaped all of that once they came to the United States. Now seeing that what they went through has been given a label, parents think that our generation is overexaggerating our feelings and we want “special labels” on everything.
“They believe people are just being dramatic and it’s just a phase.”
“They are convinced whatever is wrong is their fault, and we (teenagers) aren’t grateful. They need to understand illnesses are chemical imbalances.”
“It is embarrassing. Like they think they are bad parents or something.”
“If one kid shows weakness then other people think that the parents are doing a bad job.”
As mentioned earlier, mental illnesses are viewed as an over exaggeration of feelings. Parents don’t understand that these illnesses are caused because the brain isn’t working as it’s supposed to. Again, they’re afraid that people will think that the parents themselves are doing a bad job in raising their child. Parents don’t understand that it isn’t their reason for our mental health issues, but because their mindset is this way, teenagers are afraid to even ask their parents for help.
We asked our audience if their parents think mental illnesses are real and 59% of people said yes. Although this number is a majority, we found that some of these answers meant only “yes” to an extent. For example, some parents might think mental illnesses are real until their daughter or son has one. They do not want to consider the idea that their child could have a mental illness because like we mentioned earlier it makes them look weak and it’s embarrassing for the family.
In a survey of 3,556 respondents from eight cities across India and of different socio-economic classes aged between 18 and 45, a staggering 47% could be categorised as being highly judgmental of people perceived as having a mental illness. Within this category, respondents were more likely to say that one should keep a safe distance from those who are depressed, or that talking to a mentally unhealthy person could affect the mental health of others. What’s worse is that 26% of respondents said that they were afraid of the mentally ill. A majority of the people in this group came from a higher socio-economic class, therefore more educated, and they said this made them simultaneously more aware of mental health concerns while also being more likely to stigmatise and be afraid of those with mental illnesses. Another part of this survey showed that 27% of respondents (between the ages of 18 and 24) said that they were supportive of people with mental illnesses and they come from lower socio-economic backgrounds and relatively lower education levels. 60% of total respondents surveyed said that “Mentally unhealthy people should have their own groups—healthy people need not be contaminated by them.”
Although our polls show that 59% of our audience believes that their parents think mental illnesses are real that might be due to a change of place of growing up in the United States. As shown from the survey and the data above, many people in India still do not think mental illnesses are real and that they can lead to bigger issues like suicide. The mindset behind mental illnesses is definitely a generational/societal issue that seems to be slightly starting to change in the U.S.
Once again we asked our audience if their parents are accepting of seeking help whether it be in the form of therapy, medicine or anything else and 63% of viewers said no. When we asked “Why do you think most parents are against seeking help?” most of the responses were about the stigma around it and the idea of “What will others think?” One quote that stuck out was:
“They don’t want to feel like a burden on anyone else. Whether it’s their own problem or ours.”
This goes back to the idea of many South Asian parents wanting their child to be the best and in order to do that they aren’t “supposed” to have other problems that could possibly portray them as weak.
In an article written by Tracy Ann describing how Indian parents refuse to accept that their child could need therapy, Neha Banik, who has an Msc in Counseling Psychology describes her experience with her South Asian parents and their mindset towards mental illnesses. Her dad said “I don’t understand the need to pay a stranger to tell you something that you already know… or something that I could tell you?” Her mother added, “Having a therapist is just fashion nowadays. It has become a business.” Banik also mentioned that every time she explored the idea of explaining to her father the reason he thought his generation didn’t experience mental illnesses was maybe because they were not aware of them. He responded with, “This is not a mental health disorder, this is all a lifestyle issue.” She goes on to explain how parents categorize mental illnesses as “lifestyle issues” they believe that a simple change in your way of living will fix all your problems and nothing deeper is going on. It’s easier for them to believe that a change in your lifestyle will fix everything rather than a medically diagnosed health condition.
Although a slight majority of people believe that their parents would not let them seek help for a mental illness they are experiencing, a third of our audience said that their parents would let them seek help. However, in India for those who do want to seek help there is a problem. In a country with a population of over 1.3 billion people, there are only 5,000 psychiatrists and less than 2,000 clinical psychologists.
Educate, educate, educate. Whether your parents like reading books, going on social media, or watching movies, there are PLENTY of resources for parents to learn about the reality of mental health disorders, and what causes them. There are multiple books written by doctors about the chemical imbalances of the brain. An easy mental health disorder to start discussing is PTSD. PTSD can easily be related towards veterans, and parents definitely can understand that it’s normal to have those scary flashbacks because of the trauma veterans went through when they were abroad. Talk to your parents about some of the hard times they went through, and maybe ask if they wished they had someone to talk to. Parents will not easily change their mindset, but by easing them into this new topic, they may slowly feel more comfortable.
There’s a high chance that parents may still deny the existence of mental health issues, or refuse to let you get help. If this does happen, know that there are many other resources available for you to get help.
We already believe that our generation is doing an amazing job advocating for mental health. It’s so important that we give ourselves breaks and time to destress. We honestly believe that our children will receive support from their parents when it comes to mental health, definitely much more support than Gen X parents. The most important thing we can do is to not invalidate our childrens’ emotions, and take time to listen to them and be there for them. Growing up is difficult, especially with pressure to look a certain way or be a certain way, and the pressure is only going to get worse.
We’d like to give a huge thank you to Waubonsie Valley TV for interviewing our blog! Click this link to view our interview!
Here is a link to some mental health resources!
There won’t be a new post next week but come back on November 8th to read our next post on the Desire to have a Boy vs. a Girl!