A review of a newly launched book – Shh! Don’t Talk about Mental Health. Why being quiet is no longer an option.

Background:

Sharing the mutual passion for spreading the Mental Health Awareness, I could not resist when I learned about this newly launched book on Mental Health and the title of the book was so attention-grabbing that one just cannot resist to give it a read. Shh! Don’t Talk about Mental Health.

I have read the entire book with deep interest and I must say he has done a commendable job. He has beautifully managed to present his thoughts in a very different perspective supported with deep research, facts, statistics and history.

The most interesting part of the book is the historical facts about the Mentall Illness, the treatment, the stigmas attached to it and the prejudice. I have been writing a lot about Mental Illness and its effects, I do not hold any degree or accolade so I usually stress upon self-help ideas and spread the awareness about the different forms of disorders and how it effects an individual.

I have been through that space while I was fighting a critical illness and the feeling of depression had caged me, honestly I still feel jittery but I was not clinicaly depressed so I could manage to swim across all my inner demons and reach the shore after a year. ( I hardly speak about it)

Reaching the shore and experiencing the withdrawal symptoms was the exact point I realised “IT IS FOR REAL”.

The author of the book exactly conveys the message supporting with historic evidences and facts supportive enough to prove that how Mental Health is still stigmatised and how difficult it becomes for the individual to seek for the coping mechanisms.

About the Author:

The author of the book Arjun Gupta, aims to make this world a better place and tries to spread some sensitivity towards those battling their own minds, hence he started promoting Mental Health Awareness through his blogs and Youtube Channel.

Arjun Gupta is a Mental Health Activist and have battled severe clinical depression between 2015 and 2017. He hails from Hisar, Haryana and is presently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Applied Psychology from Delhi University.

His first book was published in 2018, The A-Z of Mental Health.He feels highly obliged for the support he has got from his family and friends.

The Review – Shh! Don’t Talk about Mental Health

Don’t Talk About Mental Health. But why? Says the author loud and clear with his each word in this book. This book is a story of a 19 year old Yashasvi battling clinical depression and overcoming it, no stop, it just doesn’t end here, the book takes you back at 13th century. Now can you imagine how long we have been fighiting to spread the word?

Today we are in the 21st Century and yet we are discussing that we should be more open about discussing Mental Health issues, activists, pychologists, counsellors are trying their best to spread the word but still it needs more attentiveness.

People still lack awareness and they ignore or avoid talking on the issue often. The author has mentioned about the famous case of the Bethlam Hospital, London, You will be surprised with revelations he has made in the book.

” There are many persons now living who can remember passing the gates of old Bethlam and hearing, as they passed, the cut of the lash and screams of the victims” – Mary Lamb( A famous English writer suffering from Mental Illness,1796)

The ill-treatment to the mentaly sick people was very distrubing, it was no less than a prison. While reading this chapter I remembered one very old incidence, I was in sixth standard at that time and my dad was posted in Bihar.

Many of you in this field might be aware of the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke,Ranchi. Since it was in Kanke it was called as Kanke Pagalkhana, literally and bluntly. My school was somewhere on the Kanke Road and I remember people talking about it and it was later when I learned that it is officialy known as Central Institute of Psychiatry and not a pagalkhana (Mental Hospital).

I am quoting this incident here just to add and support the thought that it is indeed a very deep rooted issue, a stigma which is prevailing since ages and now coming back to the book, it says the same thing that claiming someone has psychological problems immediately brings about the LABELS like ‘crazy’ , ‘unstable’, ‘dangerous’, and even ‘psychotic’. This is somewhere the change should begin from.

From various psychological theories like one of the Great thinker Hippocrates, who said that the mental illness was caused by the biological factors neither by any spirits or supernatural things. Then diving into to Anciet Indian texts, Veda Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, the book tries to touch the psychological aspect of each era.

Importance of emotinal intelligence and benefit from talking is something everyone should understand and here I would like to quote few lines from the book emphasising the same, ” The future of Mental Health care is rooted both in prevention and cure. Prevention will include building resilience in young children and improving their emotional intelligence.”

Chapters like Unneccesary romance, stigma,poverty and mental health,superpowers of media, those people, throws light on how society and media portrays a image in our mind about mental illness and present it as per their limited knowledge or no knowledge at all.

Final Words

Right from defining the history of psychology, providing facts and examples of the famous personalities, defining Mental Health and its causes, and how a movie could be a source of surviving or just a support group can plant a ray of hope in the the individual, author sums up it all so well and you will be discovering a heart-warming fact towards the end of the book.

Read this book with your heart, understand it from your mind and don’t try to find logic in the theories, just try to connect the dots.

Rating :5/5

Grab your copy now!! Happy Reading!!

This book review is a part of Blogchatter Book Review Program.

Much love and gratitude

Priyanka Nair aka Virtual Siyahi