As per WHO, India is the most depressed country in the world. 6.5% of the Indian population suffers from some form of mental illness and it’s the young population who contributes majorly to it. The depression rates in the country have increased rapidly over the last decade and today 50% of the youth…
Amrita Tripathi heads the news partnerships for Twitter India and is a known mental health activist. She is the founding editor of The Health Collective and has authored two books, The Sibius Knot and Broken News. Anindita and Amrita delve into their teenage and discuss their struggles with self-harm, failing to find vocabulary for the conditions bothering them and how the SOS calls a few years back were not paid attention to. Both are glad that mental health is no more a closet talk but there are huge grounds to cover.
For a population of more than one billion, India has only 5000 registered psychiatrists. As most of these experts are based out of urban locations, no wonder people perceive mental illness a fad of rich. Dr Kamna Chibber heads the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare. She talks about what India needs medically to cope up with the rising cases of mental conditions and how schools are already contributing to the mental well-being of teenagers. Anindita also gets Dr Kamna to answer a very pertinent question, ‘Where do therapists go for therapy?
They are all in the age group of 20-25, their daily job is to either entertain or sell entertainment to masses and all of them suffer from one or the other form of mental illness. These are our millennials, and something is bothering them. Is it peer pressure or work pressure? Or a false sense of depression whereas it’s just mental fatigue. Anindita sits down with four of her young colleagues in the second episode of Mind Games and tries to figure out why our young achievers are sad.
Tanmoy Goswami is the Associate Editor of ET Prime and a vocal champion for mental health issues. Incidentally, he also suffers from depression and has been on medication for quite a while now. But what sets Tanmoy apart from others is his brutal honesty towards the condition and public acknowledgment of it. But how does he cope with therapy and panic attacks with a high performing job like his? Anindita and Tanmoy sit over a cup of coffee to explore how corporates deal with mental ailments and why depression is still a stigma in our country.