As an Indian and a person with anxiety and depression, I have undergone many trials by my parents to just reach out to a psychiatrist for help. Such as being called lazy because I lost interest in my academic responsibilities to calling me “sensitive” and “not bold” because of the fact that I used to get chest aches when I heard a little loud noise. After all these trials, finally my parents took me to a psychiatrist as they finally found me innocent. But I still remained as a sensitive person to them. When I wanted to talk about this experience to my cousin, my mother warned me not to as it was “shameful” to her. Well now that I think, my experience with the psychiatrist wasn’t the best. Now lets talk about how I ended up in front of him. Back then I had issues with myself. Issues with accepting my sexuality, Which don’t get me started was another huge headache in a middle class Indian family. If you aren’t straight like a pole, man, LGBTQ+ was decriminalized in 2018. Now you have an idea about the magnitude of my anxiety and depression. Back to what I was saying, yes the psychiatrist. As I talked about my sexuality and how I felt anxious and insecure because of my parents. Note that this is my first non-friend and the second person I’m coming out to, The psychiatrist was like “ uh why are you taking this as a huge deal”. To be honest I was actually whipped to fix all my problems Because this dude sitting right in front me was also a sexologist. I had trusted this guy because at that terrible time of my life, he was the only hope. I started thinking that I was overreacting and yes my anxiety was at its worst for some days. But then the serotonin tablets started kicking in and I was doing alright because I was numb. Even then my parents told to my relatives who caught me taking my pills that it was for my allergy. Countless other incidents happened, Which left a huge wound in me. What I learned from all these experiences is that, there is absolutely no awareness about mental health in our country. They consider people in the autism spectrum or like who are having trouble with controlling the alcohol intake, drugs ONLY goes to a psychiatrist. With this thought my parents my grandparents their parents everyone suppressed their problems because it was something shameful to them. They made violence or anger as their coping mechanism. This has to be changed. I would not have gone through any of this if mental health was not a stigma. This was my experience. There are many many stories, worse than mine.
