The Burden of mental illness - The

neglected child
 A village called earth, inhabited by 7 billion boops, was ruled by
king Healthcare! Healthcare had over a 200 sons and daughters
who included Medi, Surg, Obstet, Cardiol and Psych. King
healthcare was a fair ruler , and loved his children equally. Thus
he gave them all boops to control. As years and centuries passed,
the children grew and so did the population of boops under them.
By this time the boops were also getting smarter, they understood
they could seek help from their rulers and the rulers were eager to
help the people under them. A boop with high blood sugar would
go to medi and one with stomach ache would go to surg.
 King Healthcare was happy with the way his children were
doing, however psych was stuggling to get boops to come
to him. These boops would rather spend their whole lives
suffering that come and see psych. But why? was king
healthcares question.

He had been fair in distributing boops among his children,

in fact he had given psych a little more than what he gve
the others.
 Non-communicable conditions Cancers 8,992 3.4
Diabetes 1,981 0.7 Mental illness 22,944 8.5 Blindness
3,699 1.4 Cardiovascular diseases 26,932 10.0 COPD
and asthma 4,061 1.5 Oral diseases 1,247 0.5 Others
18,801 7.0 Injuries 45,032 16.7 All listed conditions
200,634 74.6 Others 68,319 25.4
 Despite all the extra support from his father psych was
unable to make boops come to him, seemed that boops
did like psych or worse, boops did not need psych.

Some of his brothers also began ignoring psych, leaving

him alone to fend for himself, trying to help boops that did
not want to be helped.
The world health rganization defines mental health as a
state of wellbeing in which every individual realizes his or
her own potential, cope with normal strssors, work
productively and fruitfully and is liable to make a
contribution to the community. NOW consider that defenitio
n to be OPTiMAL mental health, going by what WHO says
most of us are , to an extent, on at the prime of mental
health.
Yet, we decide not to seek help!
 This brings us to Stigma,

Simply put, stigma would mean attibution of negative

charecteristics to a group of individuals based on a label.

for example - it would be stigmatizing, if i said all mentally

ill persons are violent and need to be put away.

Or all psychiatric medications would make you a zombie.

 And the word Madness, (meaning). Which is somehow
subconciously connected to mental health amongst other
things which which lead one to beleive that one must be
mad to consult a mental health professional.
 Stigma becomes public enemy number one - when it
comes to effective and open discussions about problems
of the mind.

Most people, even in periods of extreme distress, avoid

seeing a mental health professional out of the fear of
being branded as loony ! I am not going to see a
psychiatrist, i aint mad brah said the man who had
attempted suicide by overdose !