Back when I was 15 years old, one of my friend opened up to me about a close family friend who tried to take advantage of her. Both my friend’s and that boy’s (who would be about 20 years old back then) family were thick friends since childhood. It was really disturbing for my friend who would visit their house so often, consider that boy as her rakhi-brother to realize what was on that boy’s mind.
A lot of us our conditioned to think about our parents, the relationships maintained since years and the people. Most of the time, when facing harassment, the society has conditioned us to first feel guilty as if we are responsible for it. We try to justify or reason why it happened at first place, what went wrong, what did we do wrong. Even if we reach a point to process that we are the victim, we then think of the effects on our loved ones by calling out the abuse.
When she opened up to me, she required someone to listen. I don’t think I was really matured to address this as my instant reaction was to force her to confess to parents. It seemed like the most logical reply but timing was the issue. My friend knew the solution, she knew she will need to tell her parents but at that time, she just needed a ear.
As time went by, she slowly reduced talking to me and eventually cut off all communication for almost a year. It was only 3 years later, that I realized what had I done to push her away. At a time when she needed someone to talk to, someone to listen to her, I kept turning a deaf ear to her situation and kept talking. I can’t fathom how lonely she would have felt back then, would she have felt like talking to someone else or would have feared that the next person will also refuse to listen.
Today, sometime back the news of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide came on the news. The reason as I gather is that he suffered from clinical depression since sometime. To that, my entire social media is flooded with people asking everyone to talk to your family, friends and open your heart. Some even calling out that suicide is not the option.
This is probably the same mistake everyone does which I did back then. Ready to talk but not listen. Ready to advice but not understand. Ready to conclude but not feel. You can’t really blame people for this ignorance. Mental health as a public health emergency is ratified by people only now and we are far behind the race on trying to control it as compared to how it is speedily affecting.
But we need action and just talking is not a solution when most of people have not learnt to listen. Social media has further widened this gap as communication in person is a trait lost by people to electronic banter. Which is why, how badly we need sex education to address the rising physical crime, how badly we need sports in schools to address the reduced phyical activity for children, we must be pushing hard the mental health awareness sessions to address people’s ignorance on the causes of the issue and improve the ability of people to listen, sympathize and empathize. We are a country that teaches children but doesn’t listen to them and hence, today we are a population that is best at teaching others on what to do but not remotely good at listening to them.
There will never be ‘someone to talk to’ for people who wants to be heard, unless we really come out with ‘someone to listen to you’. This is probably the easiest first step that we can inculcate ourselves. If you are that someone today, trying to process this news of someone so popular, good looking, giving beautiful performances in critically acclaimed movies having lost battle to depression, please do not go out typing – you should go talk to friends, family, but lend out a ear and say, I’m there to listen to you. If nothing, in this Covid-19 lockdown, help with virtual stress-eating – Trust me ice cream is the answer 🙂
One Life, Million Stories. 