Mental Health Myths in South Asian Culture

Mental Health can be described as a human being’s emotional, psychological and social health. It emphasizes a person’s personal as well as physical capabilities when dealing with their environment and relationships.

Why Is Important to Have Mental Health Awareness?

When examining physical health, a person can appear to be physically fit yet their mental health which is just as important will be neglected as it is not apparent as physical health.

If the person is suffering from mental health issues, It will eventually affect the person’s day to day life, including physical health (the rapid increase or decrease in weight, fatigue and burnout are commonly sighted symptoms), social interactions and health choices (sleep patterns, eating patterns etc).

Unfortunately, due to the stigma attached to mental illness, people tend to avoid addressing these symptoms as they do not consider them as important as physical illness. Creating mental health awareness can help reduce this stigma and provide the opportunity to explore the mental health issues that are globally on the rise.

What Is South Asian Culture?

The countries that fall into the South Asian region include Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, SriLanka, Nepal & Bhutan. All of these countries have a rich cultural heritage in terms of food, lifestyle, religion, customs and traditions.

South Asian regions thrive on their indegenious culture, originating through thousands of years of communal living and intergenerational traditions. These cultures have been shaped through influences of mysticism, spiritualism, tribal and naturalism that have inetrgated themselves into the modern South Asian experience.

How Is Mental Health Viewed In South Asian Culture?

As mentioned above, these countries have been following their own respective cultures for centuries, and because they follow a particular kind of lifestyle, it is not easy for them to accept new and modern developments regarding lifestyle, health and social ethics. Therefore, mental health and mental well-being of a person is considered individualistic and alien as it does not match their communal and collectivist culture.

South Asian experience of mental illness is often categorised as a super-natural interference or metaphysical condition resulting from bad karma or evil spirits. This avoidant and neglectful attitude towards mental health is even found among well educated South Asian communities that choose to ignore mental illness and refuse to aknowledge it as a real medical condition.

To be concenred about mental health testing and mental health services is often criticised and seen as weak minded or flawed character and lack of willpower to overcome hardships. South Asian will choose to hide their mental health problems from friends and family due to the fear of judgement they might recieved for speaking truthfully about their emotions and mental health conditions.

What happens due to the lack of education, medical information, credible resources and awareness of mental health is that people choose to beleive myth over fact when deciding to seek therapy or contact a professional for help:

MYTH #1:

Being worried about mental health is the result of an imaginary fragment created only in the mind that manifests due to distance from religion.

In manjority South Asian families, religion has been viewed as a supreme force, anyone who diverges or deliberately distances themselves from it, can suffer negative consequences in the form of misfortune, depression, anxiety and in extereme situations even delirum and madness that requires a holy intervention (getting rid of evil spirits or ghosts from the body and home).

Religion is seen as the only real cure while religious practices and increased spirituality are viewed as forms of protections from danger. In certain senarious where the there is little information on medical conditions such as epilepcy, when an episode occurs, the person is immediately accused of being possessed by demons.

In a similar way, when someone is having a depressive episode, most who encounter such a person (including some local psychiatrists) would choose to recommend prayer or ritualistic practice as an immediate remedy to the problem.

MYTH #2:

Mental illness is a rich man’s problem.

Mental health care is not subsidied in South Asia as it has not been recognised by most official governments in the region as a medical condition leaving the common man to view these mental health care professional services as expensive and only catering to the higher economic segment of society.

The South Asian economic segregation comes in the form of a strong class or caste system, the hierarchy of disease and illness are viewed through this lens leaving it to be categorised as “rich people’s diseases” being mental health and “poor people’s diseases” being financial struggles.

The common man feels overwhelmed by their economic constraints to even begin to acknowledge or understand their mental health needs. When basic necessities such as shelter, water and food are not satisfactory, it is hard for the common man to imagine relief in the form of therapy.

For him, he can only rely on his brain, that he is certain will manage to overcome any hardship through sheer strength and self determinations undermining the long term damage that stress and anxiety may cause to the mind, heart and body.

Such a situation makes it impossible for him to understand the fact that the brain requires both physical and mental nourishment as it has cognitive and physical limitations, it is an organ that is one part of the whole body and not a singular supernatural force with the power to change reality.

MYTH #3:

No one should talk about mental problems, especially in front of people who are not a part of the immediate family.

Speaking openly about mental health is considered taboo in South Asian cultures. A lot of people belonging to South Asian communities will not speak about their mental issues with others due to the fear of judgement or being labeled as “crazy”, “unhinged” and “shameless”.

If someone in the family is suffering from a mental illness, the residents of that household will try their best to hide it from the public because of the possible judgment and shame that it could bring to the family, and because of that, mental issues are buried and ignored for years. The isolation that takes place due to this fear leaves people unable to discuss problems with their loved ones and family.

Sharing mental health problems is seen as complaining or burdening others with personal baggage. The fear of being misunderstood or misheard leaves people alone eventhough they might belong to a large family, they are unable to speak to anyone or ask for help. South Asians assume mental health education is not part of their cutlrue and usually disregard its importance in their daily life.

MYTH #4:

South Asian adults assume the youth cant have any mental health problems.

The social conditioning among South Asian adults is to perceive any and all problems their young and teenage children are facing are irrelevant and dismissible compared to their adult problems. They refuse to acknowledge that their children who suffer from stress, anxiety or depression by comparing their own economic or financial struggles with theirs.

They expect their children to validate their handwork and parenting by being obedient and normal. According to them, most of the time, teenagers use mental illness as an excuse to run away from their responsibilities (studies etc).

Young south Asians are expected to behave normally and not show irregularities, divergence or instability even though at this crucial stage of their life where their bodies are rapidly changing, parents expect them to out perform adults because they have the advantage of being young.

So, it is almost impossible for adult South Asians to see a young person suffer from a mental illness.

MYTH # 5: Therapy is taboo.

People who choose going to therapy and speaking openly about the process are immediately labeled as weak or unreliable. The common misconceptions is viewing those who seek therapy as “crazy” or “mad”. The South Asian family system is quite controlling and hierarchical leaving the elders of families as key decision makers and self appointed healers having the most experience in dealing with life.

These family structures assume that relying on their sole support and unconditional love will “cure any mental illness” disregarding the need for professional medical assistance. Such a stance often results in exasperating the situation and worsening of mental symptoms possibly resulting in suicide.

They only seek therapy when a patient’s symptoms are uncontrolable and dangerous towards others. Therapy is considered expensive in South Asian cultures as it is not prioritized as medical care for these symptoms. There is shame and guilt attached to going to therapy, as precious family resources are being allocated with little to no official guarantee of success which is then considered a waste of time.

South Asian family structures over the years have evolved and opened up to understanding mental health as an important part of improving the quality of life. With the rise of mental health education, more official programs designed to elevate and strengthen the poor health-care system, we have seen expansive development in mental health in the region.

Virtual mental health allows south Asians to access therapy in the privacy of their home allowing them the flexibility to choose their health care professional and appointment.

There is yet a long way to go to undoing preconceived biases towards mental health being a “Western influence” on south Asians as psychology principles are based on research and philosophy originating from the west. To counter the sentiment that psychotherapy and psychology has no bearing on south Asians will take time as more and more south Asian therapists are actively practicing across the globe.

We can hope that in the future these myths are debunked and stop hindering South Asians from seeking the mental health help they need to lead a happy and fulfilled life.