Vanshika Talus*
The problem with the stigma around mental health is really about the stories that we tell ourselves as a society. Is mental illness a myth? Well, even if it was, a myth is not merely an age-old story told from generations to generations, it is a reality lived. Since ages, mental illness has been associated with negativity be it the demonish behavior or the possession by a witch or simply being crazy. The sensitivity of the issue of mental illness has increased following a decrease in society’s sensitivity towards the mentally ill. It has a norm to label everybody in some or the other way in order to define their identity in terms of whether they are normally functioning and of use to society or simply abnormal. So the greater question of reality is whether it is the people in the society who are really sick or is it the notions and norms of society that are sick. Is it that psychopathology arises out of sociopathology, or that psychopathology turns the society sick?
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