HYDERABAD: Depression is one of the leading causes of suicides across the world and WHO has decided to observe April 7 this year to address this epidemic. As talking will help depressed overcome the situation, the theme for this year’s World Health Day is “Let’s Talk”.
Dr. Shiva Raju, Sr Consultant Physician & Diabetologist, KIMS Hospitals, tells us how to tackle this issue. Case study: Our society surely is made up aspiring and career oriented parents. There is a couple who are seriously dedicated to their professions, absorbed in making careers for most of their time. The father is busy advertising professional while mother is a banker. Both of them work late hours, slog on holidays and Sundays, talk work and think work.
They have a child who is growing fast, something they don’t have time for, to notice and experience. The young boy is aged around 18 and is very studious. He just knows to read books. Over a period of time, he used to spend more time over phone and television since his parents were so engaged with their work in the mornings and they came exhausted in the evenings because of their work. The boy loves his parents because they never say no to him when it comes to giving him what he wants, whether it is money or mobile phone or car, he gets what he wants from them as they love him a lot. But they failed to give him what he actually wants - their time and attention.
As they didn’t have time to spend with him, he began to spend more time on phone, sit lonely most of the day. Gradually his performance in studies began to go down. He was admitted to the top ranking college but has failed in exams. He was not talking well with parents now and has not been sleeping properly too. Inspite of being asked repeatedly asked and advised by the parents about his falling standards and disturbed mood, nothing much came out as he was ignoring their questions and stood silent always.
Then the parents took him to a psychiatrist and on repeated questioning he accepted that he is in love with a girl but she didn’t accept his love. The parents after knowing this tried every means to convince him and put lot of money and time. He was put on antidepressants to elevate his mood but with continued medicines over months and couple of years, he just managed to sleep and read to some extent. He lost his bright career and was not interested in anything. He is just managing his life unlike others in his age group. The parents were now worried and frustrated about this. Every effort of theirs to bring him back to normal went waste.