13
Dec

HIV vs. Schizophrenia

   Posted by: aman   in Other

On December 1, I was playing the radio in my car and it was flooded with messages about AIDS and HIV. That is World AIDS Day, wear a Red ribbon.  Each message or conversation revolved around how AIDS is a limited contagious disease, it does not spread by touch or eating meals together, how we must learn not to discriminate a carrier or victim, and so on. Another important part of the messages was: practise safe sex. Very right. With 2.8 million people suffering from the illness we must do our best to spread the messages and educate ourselves.

But I also wondered. What about Schizophrenia? Or Bi Polar Disorder? Or Depression, Stress, Anxiety Disorder, or sheer inability to handle our lives. Those do not spread through touch, or meals together, or even through sex. Are we doing enough for them?

I have always felt that there is an essential difference between the two kinds of disabilities: mental and physical. When one is physically disable one can make a plea for better attention from the state or society. One can stand at Gandhi Statue in Bangalore or Jantar Mantar in Delhi and hold black flags to influence policy and compensation. But when one is mentally disabled one has only one place to go to, hide in a dark room in one’s heart and go silent.

We do not hear the voices, we do not know the sufferers. But there are many. I am no expert but at least one in every five people I meet I learn of someone in their family suffering from a mental breakdown. See this: Mental Illness 

Wonder if we can do more for mental illness while we try to work on AIDS.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 13th, 2008 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One comment

Pooja
 1 

I guess, whether it is physical or mental illness unless you seek help, you cannot get it. Physically disabled people get help because they seek it, they do not want to live with it unless they have to. They make an effort to get help so that they can enjoy the nise things that life has to offer.
Mental sufferers are not in a condition to seek help, they create their own world in themselves. It is our moral duty to help such people since they won’t seek help. Fortunate people like us who have been blessed with a stable mind should come forward to help them out.

You are doing a great job by bringing these issues up. This just awaits an action. What say?

March 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm