By Adya Godboley
T/W Self harm
Every typical Indian family wants their child to become an engineer. It's a belief that has been passed down from generation to generation. This may slowly be changing, but there are still consequences.
Now think about a young boy from a poor family who failed his engineering entrance. It is the only profession he can get into which will be accepted by his parents.
He is going through severe depression, constant anxiety and so many mental health problems, he doesn't even realize or have time to make it better.
He tries to hurt himself, tries to end all his agony. He bleeds. The pain makes it better.
But then he realizes he shouldn't be doing it. It hurts, and not only him. He realizes what he means to his parents, his friends, and his younger sister. He understands that they will be traumatized, and no one should go through that, especially his loved ones.
He bandages his despair. No one should see his moment of weakness. He looks at himself in the mirror. He goes to sleep.
He goes out with his friends the next day, in an attempt to lighten his mood. Someone asks him about the bandage and he says it's nothing. Someone jokingly states that it looks like he was so done with "sad life", just like "everyone else", that he has attempted suicide. They say that he is not capable of suicide because he's a coward. They say the world will be a better place if he doesn't exist. They laugh. The next day, he's gone.
━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━
When we talk of joking about mental health, it could be viewed with two main
fronts.
The first is when someone expresses or suppresses their trauma or mental health problems through humour hence joking about it.
I won't say that's okay since their coping mechanism creates a negative effect on the people around them and for them themselves. Joking about your own mental health will eventually eat you alive and this hollowness only grows if not taken care of. For some people this humour may also pose as a trigger, sprouting unwanted memories which they have been trying to push away or better yet trying to work with.
If someone is working on their own past, their own traumas, it naturally takes time, albeit some things can trigger it. Speeding up a process that is meant to be taken slow never ends well, especially when it comes to one's mental health.
Secondly, it is when someone jokes about mental health without knowing the seriousness of what they're talking about and sometimes it expresses a filtered opinion to fit into a box.
Now, they might not know what feelings they are imposing on the other person. They could be blissfully unaware, in denial of their own problems, or not even be aware of matters of mental health.
In this case, think before you speak and always make sure that your "humour" isn't a trigger.
These days almost, if not everybody, goes through some of the other mental health issue. Assuming that the other person is fine shouldn't be one's first approach. We're all broken and believing that will always help.
Now for at least 1 out of 3 people, the problem could be recent and maybe on their minds. For some, it may be extremely serious as well.
When I was younger and much unaware of what or how important mental
health is, I would find myself joking about it as well. Looking back now, I understand it wasn't right.
Now I have spent some more time in this world, enough to have experiences and make bonds with people to better understand mental health.
I know someone very close to me who has been through depression, anorexia, suicidal tendencies, and much more.
I’ve seen people joke about those very matters in front of them, not knowing
what was going on and they had to pretend to be okay to not come off as a "mood spoiler". I would try to comfort them as much as I could, but that doesn't help every time.
When someone is suffering from anorexia, a minute comment on their weight and eating pattern might break and shatter them to a million pieces.
You never know what could be going on in someone’s head and assumptions can never be made about someone else's mental health, it is truly hard to feel what one feels in that position and the same situation.
I’m very reluctant when I talk about myself in these matters but,
I’ve realized that the world needs to know every story they can when it comes to mental health so that even if they aren't helping anyone, they make sure to not have the opposite effect either.
As a young girl, a tragedy made its way into my family and I don’t
believe that till date I have ever dealt with it the way I’m supposed to, or perhaps
the way it should be dealt with anyways.
Mental health is a very serious issue, joking about it worsens the matter. The very fact that you do not take them seriously affects someone else negatively.
Now that person can be someone close to you, or someone you don't know at all. They still go through things that can lead them to make rash decisions and your joke can be a trigger for it.
If they acknowledge their pain, their anxiety or their mental health issues, using humour, looking at memes related to that particular issue may actually cheer them up since they have successfully reached the first and one of the hardest steps - Acknowledgment. However, dealing with mental health through humour isn't the smartest decision either.
But for those in denial or stuck on the first step of acknowledgement, the same sense of humour or joke can be a source for a panic attack.
Laughing on even the smallest of matters when it comes to someone’s issues
is wrong because to them, those issues are much bigger than one could
imagine. You can’t comment on something sensitive without putting
yourself in the other person’s shoes.
When it comes to the negative effects of joking on mental health, I'm not just holding peer groups accountable. I'm holding all parents and elders accountable who make way for pain and suffering for their children and the youth by not taking mental health seriously. If you have tried talking to them but in vain, the most important and best thing to do is realize that a lot of elders deny their own mental health, thinking it to be frivolous, and their denial projects onto you. It's not your fault. This topic will be discussed in our upcoming blogs.
A different take on it is that a girl who has lost her father can laugh about her “daddy issues”. Someone who is obese may joke about their weight. So as long as we’re laughing at ourselves it’s okay? No, not necessarily. As long as they are comfortable with it, it’s okay. A stand-up comedian loves it when people laugh at him/her/them. It’s their joke, targeting them, about them, for them.
That is what joking on mental health is.
The world isn’t black and white, and the grey area in between is far too massive for people to ignore.
-By someone who lives in the grey area,
ADDY~ (Adya Godboley)
Adya Godboley is an advocate for neurodiversity with Project Inclusion'20.
This is her first blog, make sure to like and share!
댓글