“Acha, therapy? Are you psycho or something?” “Oh, you’re on antidepressants? Have you tried yoga?”
Why are people so skeptical and hush-hush when therapy comes into the conversation? Why is there awareness about mental health nowadays but not about therapy and medication as an accompaniment? Social media is doing a pretty good job at normalizing some parts of mental health. However, older generations still frowned upon treatment and cure, and it’s solely societal based.
Earlier, only people with severe mental disorders or long-term psychotic illnesses were given medication and psychotherapy. Still, all this changed around the 1950s when private clinics offering therapy services started opening up in India. There has been a lot of development in psychology since then, and it’s proven that regular psychological check-ins, therapy and medication, in some cases, can prove to decrease the prevalence and duration of both mental and physical disorders. Therapy can be really fulfilling and liberating and help young adults deal with the stress of fitting in with their peers, families, and colleagues in a socially dominated world that controls our emotions so much.
Everyone has their own pace of healing, and we have to remember that trauma is a very individual thing. General advice can only work so much, and having a professional guide you according to your personal experiences is something that we need to push, like how we push yoga, exercise, and healthy eating. You can’t guarantee an immediate improvement, as that’s just not realistic. However, you can learn how personal and liberating therapy can be with time, professional help, healthy coping mechanisms, and without the negative stigma around mental health.
Yes, it isn’t easy to normalize therapy, considering how conditioned we’ve become to believe that it’s only for ” abnormal ” cases. We’ve seen and read many awareness articles about the normalization of therapy, but the fundamental question remains, how do we do it?
It starts with you and I. No matter how small, large or significant, any change begins with us.