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The plight of mentally ill in India

Today when I was reading the article on twin prejudices that mentally ill women face in India, a whole array of incidents flooded my mind.It reminded me of my interaction with such-differently abled people or with people around them.There are at least 3-4 instances where I happened to visit or listen to those people.When such incidents happen, many thoughts come to my mind on how can I influence those situations for the betterment of those people.
INCIDENTS:
  1. This is a boy from a village where I happened to visit a school.He is probably not mentally ill but the growth in his cognitive capacities seem very weak compared to others in his age group.But people there told me not to bother about him because he is MAD.
  2. A boy of 20yrs: In a village which I already mentioned when I wrote about SWAPNA.He is born Muslim, initially, he was well but due to unknown reasons, he lost his control over his actions.He started to dance or visit temple or mosque, utter random words.The villagers started to brand him as a person under the influence of spirits.His family abandoned him after some unsuccessful attempts to get rid of the so-called devil.In the course of time, he was dead.A similar case is with another boy of the same village now.He too lives in the temple the whole day-reason being there is no home for him to live in.People tease him, his condition is so unhygienic-people fear even to touch him. Innocent boy-he smiles at anybody who looks at him.
Oh my god, I thought it would be three or four incidents but as I am writing, I am getting more and more incidents.So I stop this list here.
MY CONCERN:
My observations made it clear to me that, those people with mental illness are not humanely treated at all.They are abandoned and ridiculed.This is happening because of the lack of awareness for us as a society about the special needs of mentally ill people.There is a need to recognize mental illness like some other physical ailment.The superstitions, taboos stop us from getting them treated.It is the responsibility of those people aware of these needs to spread awareness and stop discrimination and ridiculing of mentally ill people.
As a person, we can start this by instilling humane attitudes in our home.
  • Tell our kids to treat such people respectfully and explain how it hurts those specially challenged people when we ridicule them.
  • We must set an example by helping such persons with special needs.By educating his/her family members and relieving them from the trauma that they face out of social stigma.
Don't you think it's our responsibility to extend our helping hand to those attending people?Yes right??
Start respecting them and attending to their needs.
Bye.
References:http://www.livemint.com/Politics/SlKraXuG0cJf2ui9WI5ygN/Indias-mentally-ill-women-face-twin-prejudices.html
image source:google



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