The Bell Jar of 2025

 – Avidipta

“Melancholy,” “suppressed agony,” “loneliness” — these themes are often glorified in poems, novels, and other literary works, yet we forget that fiction is merely a distorted mirror of reality. The truth about not being okay lodged itself in my throat the day I saw a friend holding a crumpled suicide note written by someone I knew. It felt like the last scream of a wounded soul — not in a poetic, tragic way, but in a raw, unsettling way that haunted me for weeks, making me question how someone could reach a point where physical pain feels like an escape from emotional torment.

Sadly, this isn’t an isolated incident. People are quietly bleeding in corners, letting the world drift by as they try to reassemble the shattered pieces of their souls. But the deeper concern lies with those who no longer have the strength to even try. That is where psychological counselling becomes absolutely essential. As that incident unfolded, I saw a larger picture of India, where prioritising mental health is still bound by taboo. India’s mental-health landscape in 2025 is a mix of rising awareness and deeply rooted challenges. But what exactly stops us from seeking help when we need it the most? The reasons are countless. I found myself arguing with armchair activists, pseudo-intellectuals, and performatively concerned acquaintances who dismissed everything as “attention-seeking.” Ironically, the only truthful thing they said was, “We all struggle internally.” And there’s nothing wrong with that. It almost sounded as if they had been programmed — or pressured — to conceal their suffering.

This reminded me of a scene from Dear Zindagi, where Kaira’s housemaid asks, “Why did you have to go to a dimag ka doctor?” Kaira replies, “When someone faces emotional problems, there are doctors who can help.” And Alka responds, “Fir toh sabko jaana chahiye na?” Indeed, Alka ji. Indeed. Struggling in life is inevitable; struggling to live should not be.

However, it is equally important to avoid self-diagnosis. Words like depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, trauma, etc., are casually thrown around today. Social media’s oversimplified takes on mental illness often encourage inaccurate self-diagnosis and trivialise the experiences of those who are genuinely suffering. Worse, mental-health issues have become meme material — yet that very “meme material” is the leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29. This is not a Gen-Z trend. Mental health struggles have always existed, even before the cognitive revolution described by Yuval Noah Harari, born from the mismatch between rapid societal change and slow evolutionary wiring. The difference? Back then, humans relied on communities for survival. They shared grief and stress through stories, myths, and rituals. Feeling helpless was rare because belonging was natural. Today, in our dystopian reality shaped by hyper-individualism and relentless capitalism, people bleed quietly and invisibly — forced to perform “okay” while breaking inside.

Mental-health struggles didn’t emerge out of thin air; they simply became more visible in today’s hyper-connected yet deeply isolated world. We are trapped in a paradox where social issues — misogyny, extremism, digital loneliness, bullying — and mental-health issues feed into one another. Mental health is both a consequence and a catalyst of the social chaos we endure daily.

This is my call to those who romanticise the struggle. We have come a long way, but we still have miles to go before we stop contaminating the warmth that teaches us to breathe, to hope, and to break out of “The Bell Jar” again — this time with hands ready to help. Maybe the world will feel a little less cold, a little more humane, if we stop normalising silent suffering and choose compassion instead.