Awareness regarding mental health has always been a perpetual spar in a country where psychiatric resources and services are available in a confined manner. In underdeveloped countries such as Pakistan, People do find themselves inefficacious when the time comes to face with the stressors like rising inflation and unemployment, erratic gas supplies, load shedding, political uncertainty, infringement of law and order and most importantly the social stigma and lockdown effects brought about by the wave of Covid-19. Consequently, mental disorders mainly depression is increasing at a considerable rate. Keeping the increasing suicide rates in view, it would not be futile to call mental illness, a time bomb that will clutch many innocent lives with it when it explodes.
Recently, January 2019 has been declared by The Pakistan Association of Mental Health (PAMH), a month to score out the long standing stigma associated with mental health. PAMH has attempted to run a series of seminars on emotional regulation, stress and anger management in the city of lights, Karachi.
The present time demands us to spread the message that mental illnesses can be treated and that the patients do not have to be racked in pain. We must not recognize depression as a weakness in character. According to Dr. S. Haroon Ahmad, a senior Karachi-based psychiatric, Karachi`s stress ridden environment has a death-dealing impact on the lives of individuals and community as well. He says that [Targeted killings, sexual offences including rape, barbarous and homicidal acts against young children, street offences are playing havoc with the mental health of our people]. He emphasizes that around 60 percent of depression is biological – meaning thereby that there is an involvement of brain chemistry in causing the most common mental illness i.e. depression. There are several avoidable stressors for which the state has to take responsibility. For example; Provision of basic amenities such as genuine medicine, clean water, unadulterated food, building the blocks of an hygienic and secure environment would definitely lift heavy burden off the shoulders of private individuals and thus this would make the place, a healthier place to live.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), depression will outrank cardiac disease, blood pressure, cancer and will become one the prevalent disease in the world by 2030. Studies have shown that children brought up by mothers fighting with depression are at a high risk of developing cognitive defects.
Alarmingly in Pakistan, the rate of depression is four times higher than the rates in the rest of the world. Despite the increased rates, we are still unschooled about the issues associated with mental health. But now it is the time to speak up on these issues and erase the societal stigma. We must take this issue seriously otherwise the impending catastrophic consequences will steal away the productive and innovative potential of our workforce and will largely disrupt the very fabric of the society in which we live.