Coimbatore: World Mental Health Day: Early intervention, counselling and awareness can revive an ailing mind
World Mental Health day: For the third consecutive year, Tamil Nadu, with at least 13,349 suicide-driven deaths, stands second in the number of suicides all over India.
Coimbatore: With an overall objective of raising awareness of mental health issues globally and coercingefforts in support of mental health, October 10 of every year is celebrated as World Mental Health day.
Nitya Gurukula, a team that stresses on crisis resolution and suicide prevention, addressed about how counselling and training programmes through phone calls help disturbed minds.
Associating with the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP), an international governing body for suicide prevention under the World Health Organization(WHO), city-based N Damodharan Centenary suicide Prevention - ND Prana Lifeline, was launched on January 7, 2020.
So far, we have received as many as 202 calls including 36 follow-up calls and provided supportive care, direction and hope to callers suffering mental issues especially suicidal thoughts, said Sudha Sundharam, Executive Trustee of NG Chandran Charities.
Suicide, fear and anxiety issues are on the rise due to the pandemic, they opine. Experts from the centre say that these days, many people approach them through phone with fear of COVID-19. While youngsters and others do call us for fear of exams, addiction, financial crisis, difficulty in decision making, relationship issues and sleeping disturbances, she added.
According to National Mental Health Survey’ data of 2015-2016, over 30 million Indians within the age group of 17 and 35 years have had suicidality. When questioned on the appalling numbers, Psychiatric experts opine that unable to deal with various pressures of life including rejection, torture, abuse etc, many women and students attempt or end their lives by suicide.
Psychiatric experts from the centre also stresses on early intervention and emphasises the need for mental health fostering strategy, through which they instill optimism, hope, resilience and compassion among the affected suffering from mental illnesses.
There are plenty of psychological problems among students and youngsters which is why self killing among them is on the rise in India, says another mental health expert. He added that addiction to social media among younsgters also attributes largely to mental issues among the youth.
"They get whatever they want in no time in social media, while in real life the situation is diametrically opposite. They fail to spend time with their closed ones and relatives and end up in relationship issues and depression", he added.
It is to be noted that for the third consecutive year, Tamil Nadu, with at least 13,349 suicide-driven deaths, has secured second in the number of suicides all over India, while Maharashtra tops the chart with 18,916 cases. Majority of the cases reported in Tamil Nadu are related to family-related issues.