Published: 07:01 AM, 26 June 2026
We Don’t Care About Mental Health Unless Dire Ailments Glare Up
Rifat Munir
Every year the 10 October is celebrated as mental health day. Seminars, symposiums and conferences are held. We talk loudly about mental illness and emphasize mental healthcare services, as body and mind both go side by side and the trouble on one front naturally hampers another.
The most important part of our discussion goes on the treatment of those who go under mental disorders. It is true, none of us can live a life without stress as we have to go through so many different things everyday, face the difficulties around us, and solve the problems which sometimes seem beyond our control. And we do, we learn how to endure all these and how to manage our emotions.
Well, but before that one important question is, how do we look through it? I mean mental illness? Do we really consider it as a disease? A thing that everyone, nowadays can go through? Is it a thing that really needs attention? Do we really care about those who are suffering? Who actually needs mental support, especially from the family.
Let’s look back on nearly six hundred years back. Francis Bacon in his famous essay ‘Of Parents and Children’ observed, ‘A wise son rejoiceth the father but an ungracious son shames the mother!’ And now, what we see in the family, in society and other places. First we look at them as special. Even some parents forbid their own children not to mix with them. The parents sometimes feel ashamed, they are not allowed to bring outside the home, we often become more curious to know what happens and tag it as the parents’ curse. We do not talk with those children, their social gatherings become limited, our birthday parties, weddings and other occasions are prohibited for them though they are our children, cousins of their own aunts or uncles.
Those children, though mentally handicapped, are the members of our society. They have the same right to play, to mix, to study and to do the natural things that other children have. But how many of them really get those simple favours? Do they really get it? Why shouldn’t we change our attitude towards them? Why shouldn’t we explore the extraordinary qualities that are provided naturally? Some can go with the mainstream children if they simply get the opportunity to learn and to work.
It should be noted that in this current situation, nearly 60 to 70 percent of adults are working in some important sectors of administration and other industries who are suffering from schizophrenia. It is such a difficult condition where the person himself or herself cannot distinguish the dream between realities. This unnatural mental state, though hidden, often poses a threat to their family and professional lives. How do we treat all those people? Do we ever care about their mental state? What about their feelings? We judge them through their deeds, their anger, their constant mood changing, and their actions. They with a huge mental as well as physical pressure try to serve the state as well as the family.
It is our attitude that matters before applying our sensibility towards them.
Rifat Munir teaches English
language and literature at
Dhaka State College.
