Between Strength and Silence

- Priyam

The reaction of the brain to the word it hears is even less than a second, in this immensely short time it hears then interprets and comes to the conclusion to what a meaning of the word that is spoken to it can be. Also the duration considers the various meanings that one word or rather words that are shaped by various other factors like the surroundings, the experiences, the present and also to an extent a future that varies on the words spoken. So when the 2 words of mental and health come together to form the word of mental health then the mind that has been shaped by the hypocritical, flawed and ancient Indian society one goes to assume the extremes of one being either mentally unstable or insane altogether. But is it? Life is just more than just a detective novel by Christie or Conan Doyle where one has to identify the murderer who is the villain and the detective who is the hero. Life moreover lies on a thin patch between the white extreme of being solemnly good and the black being just the purely opposite bad side, so does the spectrum of health sciences. So one sprain in the leg does not end up as being considered as a fracture so why does need for psychological assistance gets considered for being utterly insane? Definitely not, depression and burnouts are part of the spectral window rather than the extremes of the window. The 2 inlets may be different but they both drain into the same river of medical sciences and the river never distinguishes, for the source from which it takes the water so who are the people to who drink its water. As one trudges along the path between opening up about their problems, going against the rigid system of social norms and customs and keeping silent about them as desired by the system, certain things change as one walks towards the silence the dark alleys they pass through start surrounding them, the darkness remains no more a non-living identity but a living one and engulfs a person as does the amoeba, and takes one completely into the hold of it where they are sucked out of the emotions and turned into a doll that may have fitted very well into the social system but the role of a human in a inter-human relationship turns into that of a cog that runs a factory in producing more cogs to fit the system once the old ones are taken out. Society is made for human and not humans for society so not fitting into one due to the problems that one has is not on the person but the rigid rules set by it. At the end of the day being a doll of the society suppressing one’s problems bottlenecking them into themselves and not telling a soul not asking for help isn’t a romantic thing or something fancy that should be told to all but rather a grave problem. Being someone who has lost all emotions doesn’t serve any good and when one stands in front of the mirror they can see themselves as the others do but not recognize themselves for who they are as they are deprived of the very emotions that define them. Sadness equally provides a part of the person someone is as does the happy moments in their life which one generally want to remember. Mental health as a taboo is not just wrong but maybe pushing someone a step towards something that they never wanted to do or just pushing them to a corner to shrivel under their own weight of sadness or other emotions until one day a breaking point occurs and they go really extreme, due to maybe a moment of darkness that scars or disturbs their mind and the fear of being judged by the people who surround them. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness as only the strongest have been able to open up about their problems throughout time immemorial.