Stigma can be divided into public and self-stigma.” Public stigma occurs when the general public supports a prejudice about a stigmatized group. Self-stigma occurs when a member of a stigmatized group internalizes the negative views held by the general public. Stigma surrounding mental health is nonetheless disturbingly common. “Due to the stigma and lack of awareness and lack of accessibility to proper mental health care, it takes anywhere between one year to fourteen years or more for a patient to seek treatment after suffering from schizophrenia and psychosis,” wrote Dr Madhusudan Singh Solanki last year, in the case of schizophrenia. This phenomenon is sadly true of most – perhaps all – mental health disorders. For men, to talk about mental health is perilous. It can be interpreted as a sign of weakness, a repudiation of their own masculinity.
Here are four ways culture can impact mental health:
Cultural stigma. Every culture has a different way of looking at mental health. For many, there is growing stigma around mental health, and mental health challenges are considered a weakness and something to hide. This can make it harder for those struggling to talk openly and ask for help.
Understanding symptoms. Culture can influence how people describe and feel about their symptoms. It can affect whether someone chooses to recognize and talk about only physical symptoms, only emotional symptoms or both. For men talking about emotions is a difficult thing because they are always discouraged to do so.
Community Support. Cultural factors can determine how much support someone gets from their family and community when it comes to mental health. Because of existing stigma, men are not given enough attention or support.
Resources. When looking for mental health treatment, you want to talk to someone who understands your specific experiences and concerns. It can sometimes be difficult or time-consuming to find resources and treatment options that take into account specific cultures factors and needs.
STIGMAS
Men often aren’t encouraged to talk about their feelings. In fact, they’re sometimes discouraged from doing so. In India the same men are discouraged to talk about their feelings and if they do you this is considered a sign of weakness.
Also there is ignorance , a lot of people don’t even know what’s happening to them or why they are feeling down or are not happy. How can someone help the other person if they both don’t know what’s happening.
Men often use alcohol to deal with mental stress that they can not express to others. When a mental health problem remains untreated, the alcohol abuse problem continues to worsen. Other than trying to find the reason behind the guy’s alcohol dependency people consider it normal for them to over use alcohol.
Another stigma is that even if a mental disorder is discovered in a person like schizophrenia, people won’t get the person professional help rather take him to a temple claiming that the person is haunted by spirits. Very often people who suffer mental illness are taken to the religious establishment and the priest carries out the tradition of removing the possession from the person’s body. This is done by talking to the spirit who possessed the person and threatening it with the help of a stick or some other tool. Dr. Arti Anand explained that the possession is actually the person forming another personality because when that happens the person becomes free to act as they want and they can get the attention they desire. This possession is actually a psychotic breakdown where the person either forms another personality which is more aggressive and does what he wants to or starts having visual or auditory hallucinations. She adds “If you grow up in a culture where you have seen people getting possessed then you know how to get possessed”, by this she means that the person suffering from mental illness would unconsciously act like they are possessed to get the attention or break that they want. Men are pressured to be the provider of the family. This intense stress is one of the leading causes. The reason that this possession technique used by the priest works is that when the person is hit by the stick the brain directs the priority of mental pain to physical pain. But in most of the cases the symptoms start to arrive again after some time.
STATISTICS
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh account for a higher prevalence of mental disorders that manifest primarily during adulthood in depression and anxiety, according to the first comprehensive estimates of disease burden attributable to mental health from 1990 prepared by the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative and published in the Lancet Psychiatry. A study among elderly population of South India estimated the prevalence of depression to be 12.7%.
CASE STUDY
Stigma associated with mental illnesses is one of the principal causes for mentally ill people not receiving adequate mental health care and treatment. The study was conducted to assess the extent of stigma associated with mental illness and knowledge of mental illness among the community (South India). Of the total 445 respondents, the prevalence of stigma toward mentally ill people was 74.61% (95% confidence interval, 0.7057, 0.7866). The prevalence of stigma was high under all the four domains of CAMI scale. High prevalence of stigma was seen among females and people with higher income.
By – NAVNIDHI SHARMA