Understanding Mental Illness

Understanding mental illness: Examining the relationship between self-doubt and sanity

Fear of uncertainty is very human. But the ability to stand on shifting sands – and our sanity – depend on how flexible our perception of ourselves can be

Understanding mental illness: Vulnerability is essential for the mind's well-being and a sense of community

We underestimate the role of being in touch with more invisible sources of strength and renewal that connect us to something larger than ourselves — art, sport and our connection with each other. Without the ability to turn to each other for succour, we are hamstrung, cut off from ourselves.

Understanding mental illness: Integrating our fragmented minds in a fractured world, by looking inwards

Mental illness or not, each of us must do what we can to integrate the different parts of ourselves to whatever extent we can. Emotional integration is always a journey and never a destination, and when we learn to live with our feelings, we might just conserve a lot of energy.

Understanding mental illness: The all-consuming nature of anxiety, and why we should relax into it

When you have chronic palpitations from anxiety, you’re forced to know that your heart is beating — which makes anxiety, in a sense, a sign of life.

Understanding mental illness: Metaphors that cause you harm, and metaphors that help you heal

Is metaphorising – some might even say romanticising – mental illness a privilege of those who have access to private psychiatry, medication, therapists and readings? Or does it belong just as much to those who travel from all over Karnataka and beyond, wait hours in the NIMHANS out-patient department and then stand for 90 minutes in the three-pronged pharmacy queue?

Understanding mental illness: Depression as comfort zone — and why we shouldn't normalise it

Apart from the usual factors that contribute to non-recovery – being enabled, the foregone conclusion of a lifetime diagnosis, etc – depression is especially crippling because the desire to get better is hamstrung by depression itself

Understanding mental illness: The question of identity — and allowing oneself to be defined by suffering

Those diagnosed with a mental illness often ask themselves: What if my sense of self is dependent on my illness, even decades after diagnosis?

Understanding mental illness: The question of perpetrators' minds — and why they need therapy too

When the mental illness at the heart of our society is diagnosed, perhaps a solution to violence can finally be found – and this is why the trauma of perpetrators warrants attention too

Understanding mental illness: When Psychology fails to politicise, socialise its understanding of trauma

The mental health sector, with its flawed language and perspectives, regularly helps the system wield the weapon of 're-traumatisation'

Understanding mental illness: Internalised stigma is real — and psychiatry must change its approach

There is an inherent shame in taking psychiatric medication for many of us, no matter how well-informed we are, how scientifically we view the topic, or how much compassion we have for ourselves