Questioner: Pranam Acharya ji. I am Ritu Tiwari. I am an alumnus of this college. My question is related to defamation of mental health problems. I’ll give you three examples – first comes from a recent murder case that happened in the capital of our country where a man named Aftab, killed his live-in partner and chopped her body into 35 pieces and spread them all over in the forest.
There were some people that I saw on Instagram. A few of them were psychologists and psychiatrists and they were supporting his deeds under the name that he was mentally ill, he did not do that deliberately, so that was one thing.
Then secondly, there are people I have met and they do not have a genuine problem, they are just lazy about the things that they have to do. They procrastinate a lot or maybe they just don’t want to do it but then they will color all of this with the paint of depression or some other names like ADHD, OCD and all other diseases disorders. And what they do is they search like I have fatigue, I have anxiety and what do I need to do about this and Google will give them a result that you have this-this disorder and they will make sure to tell it to everybody that I have this disorder though they do not want to come out of that situation.
And third scenario happens with people who have actually went through some trauma in their childhood or in their teenage and because of that they suffer from depression or some other disorders, mental disorders and they aren’t hurt. They are not given the treatment that should be given to them medically as well as on therapy and spiritual level.
I was one of them and through ads and other things I came in touch with you and Prashant Advait Foundation since 1.5 years, and I have seen what transition has been there. But then due to this defamation of tarnishing of the word ‘depression’ or ‘mental health’ or ‘mental illnesses’ by so many people at so many levels, like you are covering crime of a criminal, a heinous crime under the name that he was just mentally ill, which is not at even not at all justified. This I think shouldn’t be done. And my question to you is how can we just make a normal definition of mental health and mental illnesses and help can reach the people who actually need it and it is not misused? That’s all, thank you.
