मन के हारे हार है, मन के जीते जीत
Doesn’t look like the coronavirus is going to leave us anytime soon.
ICSE has cancelled our boards exams due to the current condition so I am
officially done with my 10th exams after 16 months. Finally! Now I am
officially in 11th. It was a very confusing 3 months when I was stuck in
between. That has passed so let's move ahead with life (not like normal but the
new normal)
For my 11th and 12th, I have opted for humanities. A lot of you would
want to know why. If yes, then please read my older blogs to know why.
To help us get an Introduction to Psychology, which is one of my
subjects, our psychology teacher asked us to attend an Online
Summer Internship for Psychology Students by Fortis Hospitals. The agenda of this
internship was to discuss the topics - Clinical
Disorders, Psychological Interviewing, Applied Fields of Psychology, Health
Psychology and Experiential Understanding of the Self. This Internship shed
light on an important but largely ignored side of psychology- Mental Health.
About how mental illnesses are like any other illnesses. Our job as interns was
to advocate mental health and spread awareness through a social media project.
This is my project.
During the 2nd session, Fortis Mental health team Announced that
they are going to start a series of workshops in different domains of
Psychology. They announced that there is going to be one on Sports Psychology
too. If you know me, you would know anything that has the prefix sports
interests me. So, I had to attend this workshop. This workshop was conducted
by Divya Jain. I was always under the impression
that sportsmen and sportswomen need psychologists only if they are suffering
from depression or the pressure of competitive sport is affecting their mental
health. All these assumptions were only a part of it. A sports Psychologist can
actually help a sportsperson get prepared for pressure situations, help
condition a player so that they are equipped to face various other situations,
they help players get out of injuries and do a lot more than what I thought
they would perform. I also learnt that if a player was going through
depression, they would go to a clinical psychologist like all of us, not a
sports psychologist. A lot of my beliefs about mental health, sports psychology
and psychology in general were cleared, thanks to this workshop.
A sportsperson has to go through tons of struggles
and hardships and after all this if they don’t succeed, the pressure to perform
increases. Being a successful sportsman can be stressful as well as you have to
cope with the pressure of playing at the highest level as well as cope with the
expectations put up by the crowds. A lot of sportsmen and sportswomen’s
autobiographies, documentaries and biopics have a mention of it. You might be
thinking there she is, back to autobiographies and documentaries but don’t they
tell us a lot. Let me talk a little bit about A biopic most of you might have
watched, MS Dhoni the Untold Story starring the late Sushant Singh Rajput as
the lead. Even though MS Dhoni doesn't show many emotions (aka our captain
cool), you could almost feel the pressure from the screen. All of us go through
it, in different forms and shapes and it is not always bad. It makes us who we
are. But like everything else too much of everything becomes hard to deal with.
We can always reach out to a friend, family member or any loved one and share
it with them. But instead, we think that sharing problems will make us become
weak and vulnerable but instead, it actually gives you the power to fight your
problems. Speaking out helps to deal with it otherwise the pressure will add up
and cause problems.
The book Tuesdays with Morrie, one of my
favourites, is about the relationship between a student, Mitch Albom and his
teacher Morrie. Morrie is suffering from amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS) and is dying with hardly a few months to
live. Still Morrie is able to help Mitch with many life problems and makes him
a better person. Morrie is a huge believer of love. He says that we don’t
accept love as we think it will make us soft. According to him, we should learn
to let in love as “love is the only rational act”.
Mental illnesses are serious and real. While doing a little research on
mental illnesses I felt like the numbers are way higher than they should
be. This is from a WHO report-
“WHO estimates that one in four people in the world will be affected by
mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Around 450
million people currently suffer from such conditions, placing mental disorders
among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide. Globally, the
total number of people with depression was estimated to exceed 300 million in
2015, equivalent to 4.3% of the world’s population. Depression is ranked as the
single largest contributor to global disability (7.5% of all years lived with
disability in 2015). At its worst, depression can lead to suicide, over 800 000
people die due to suicide every year. Suicide is the second leading cause of
death in 15-29-year-olds.
In India, the
National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 reveals that nearly 15% Indian adults
need active intervention for one or more mental health issues and one in 20
Indians suffers from depression. It is estimated that in 2012, India had over
258,000 suicides, with the age-group of 15-49 years being most affected.”
I bring this up as we are all still mourning the loss of a very fine
actor Sushant Singh Rajput who we very unfortunately lost a couple of weeks
earlier due to depression. Everyone is finding it even more difficult to accept
his death as his movies taught us to never give up and that suicide is never
the option. He might have gone to that path but we shouldn’t. I will tell you
why I am even more sure of it. Foremost was Watching his family and close
friends deal with his sudden death. It is heart-wrenching and we should look at
that, we should look at how much pain they are going through. He,
unfortunately, felt like he didn't have an environment where he felt like he
could get help. This teaches us that we should always be approachable, empathetic
and kind to everyone. We don't know their story and what they are going
through. Right now, everyone is objectifying his death and talking about
nepotism and depression and putting up stories on Instagram saying that they
are there for us if we are facing any problem. This will go on for a week or
two and maybe for a month. Then we will be back to normal. We should not take
this as a celebrity death but as a wake-up call that fame and wealth isn't
everything. Little things matter. Things like Surrounding yourself with people
that you love and care about is as important, if not more. This quote from Tuesday with Morrie sums it up well
“This is part of what
a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there
watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not
work.”
Stay safe, Stay happy.
Wow Aru really appreciate your thoughts..!!👏👏
ReplyDeleteGood work Aru! I was a humanities student myself and aspired to take up psychology. DU cut offs got in the way and ended up picking Political science. Work super hard! The subjects are really fun to read. :)
ReplyDelete