Mental Health: Let’s Talk About It (Part 1)

In alignment with SAMHIN’s mission to foster open dialogue about mental health within the South Asian community and highlight the meaningful contributions of those advancing this work, we invited Shruthi Srivatsan, BA, a healthcare researcher with a strong dedication to improving mental health outcomes, to share her experiences taking about mental health.

Mental health is an issue in the South Asian American community. To be clear, it’s an issue that holds importance in every community, but ours certainly faces unique challenges discussing it. Though there has been an incredible push to change the way we think and talk about mental health, the subject remains stigmatized. Many Desis can recount times they’ve experienced the uncomfortable silence that washes over a room when someone brings up mental health or noticed the obvious avoidance of charged words like “psychiatrist” and “anxiety.” When we’re directly confronted by mental illness – someone we know reveals they’re struggling – we hesitantly broach the subject but avoid doing so otherwise.

From the outside, it can seem like South Asian American families just don’t want to talk about mental health. But is this true? Why aren’t conversations on mental health a regular part of our lives, both at home and in our broader community? I sat down with my close friends and family in the hope of candidly addressing these pressing questions.

I began my conversations by directly asking why our community shies away from talking about mental health. Ruhna, a 25-year-old Pakistani American, started by pointing out the age-old phrase, “Log kya kahenge?,” or “What will people say?”

“We’ve heard that a lot,” she noted. “A lot of South Asian American families think…’Oh, this family member is going to judge us.’” Though a community can be a source of support during challenging times, we too often believe our peers perceive us through a lens of judgment and criticism. I heard this echoed by my mother, who has lived in the United States for almost 35 years, and pointed out that this fear of judgement is felt deeply by parents in particular, both in India and America.

“We are hesitant to talk about [mental illness] because we’re not sure how that will be reflected on us as parents or how our kids will be viewed.” She explained the great importance that is placed on what others in the Desi community, strangers and friends alike, think about us and our families. However, the things we worry they might say are often just a projection of how we ourselves see mental illness.

Ruhna identified two common perceptions, saying, “I think people confuse it with being weak or lazy. That’s one extreme. Then the other extreme is ‘Oh, you’ve gone crazy!” Though the specific terminology we use to discuss mental health may change, it is important to consider what might motivate dismissing someone with such pejorative labels. My father, a 61-year-old originally from Tamil Nadu, offered one potential explanation.

“Everything is labeled as ‘crazy,’ which is categorizing or tagging something as an easy way of dismissing [it], without spending too much time thinking about it,” he remarked. In other words, it’s easier to “otherize” someone rather than face a potentially uncomfortable truth, whether that’s the reality that we too are vulnerable to mental health challenges, or the admission that we might not fully understand mental illness. The inclination of some to reject or alienate rather than empathize is also tied to the second “extreme” identified by Ruhna – that those struggling with mental illness are weak.

This belief frames mental illness as a minor challenge capable of being easily overcome. In this case, someone unable to successfully do so is viewed as ineffectual, a thought process my mother elaborated on: “Somehow, we… feel that you can be stronger – ‘Come on, divert your mind, everything will be okay’ – not recognizing that a person who’s struggling isn’t capable of making those changes.” Rishika, a 25-year-old Punjabi American, noted that this dialogue frequently plays out between first-generation South Asian Americans and their immigrant parents, with the blame sometimes placed on “Western culture.”

“[Parents] say, ‘Oh, previous generations didn’t have these problems, so why are they happening now? Why are people talking about them now?’ There’s a lack of acceptance – ‘You guys are just making it up because of American culture.’” This kind of response is indicative of both a discomfort in engaging with the unfamiliar, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of mental illness as a “new phenomenon.” “There’s not much awareness about how these conditions arise and how they actually can be serious…[That they’re] just as important as any other aspect of health,” she continued.

Though it’s easy to point fingers at the older generation, there is more that all of us have to learn. More knowledge on mental health, its role in our overall wellbeing, and ways to address potential challenges is key in promoting greater acceptance. Education enables us to move closer to a future in which, as Rishika described, “You can go see a professional for help with these types of things, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

To read more, see the next post in this two-part series: Mental Health: Let’s Talk About it (Part 2).

By Shruthi Shrivatsan
Shruthi Srivatsan earned a B.A. in Neuroscience from Swarthmore College in 2022 and has since worked in healthcare research, driven by a deep commitment to advancing mental health. She is also a dedicated SAMHIN volunteer.