Finding yourself surrounded by tons of happy faces and still not feeling cheerful enough?
Finding yourself unable to muster up the courage to carry out your daily chores?
Finding yourself uninterested and discontented with everything in life and rather hoping for death?
Finding your little son, rather ‘different’ and unattached from everyone at home?
Finding your wife unexpectedly detached with the newly born kid?

There certainly are a myriad of people, battling with some of these questions but are either unable to understand the sole reason behind it or unable to accept and seek help for it. Mental illnesses have, unfortunately, with time, emerged as a commonly faced but scarcely admitted issue around the world.

It can very rightly be compared to an ICEBERG, a lot deeper than what is perceived from the surface! According to WHO reports, more than 800,000 people are fighting with some sort of mental illness, but what comes out to be a bigger concern is the taboo or the bias attached to it. Initial symptoms of depression or generalized anxiety disorder may often be ignored by the patient itself and the lack of awareness in the society keeps them devoid of any immediate help that could have been provided.

The stigma has rendered a lot of vulnerable folks, clutched in the claws of hopelessness, abandonment, and despair. The dire need of today is to spread the awareness that just like any other organ, the brain or mind can be unhealthy too and it is extremely important to seek for right support at the right time. The main reason why those suffering, tend to stay tight-lipped and rather shroud their miserable condition, is a result of this insensitive society that utterly fails to comprehend that depression isn't a dramatic act, bipolar disorder isn't just about "despondent phases", anxiety is not escapism, schizophrenia is not just an imagination, suicide isn't an act of cowardice and PTSD isn't something you can simply wake up from! All of these are called mental illnesses for a reason.

Why are we, as a society, failing to accept that a person can get diseased both physically as well as mentally?

Why can’t a mental health disorder be considered equivalent to any other ailment?

Why is it that the ones who need utmost acceptance are being ridiculed and marginalized?

This 10th October (World Mental Health Day), each one of us needs to understand that conquering the stigma attached to mental illness and having the courage to converse about it unabashedly, is the only solution we're left with. If there's one thing we should do, it is to stop being a paradox, stop being biased and de-stigmatize mental illness. 

Hear them, understand them, bolster them, help them, and approach them with a deference not with disgrace or dread, because believe it or not, nowadays suicides cause a greater number of deaths than sicknesses. To save those who're suffering every second, the onus lies on me, you and the each one of us.