Prioritise Mental Health

When one feels compelled to make one’s suffering a public appeal for help, the issue at hand cannot remain confined to what has happened to that individual. Recent cases of extreme distress in Nepal cannot be explained in a single sentence, or dismissed after media coverage fades. Rather, it poses an uncomfortable question: What do these incidents tell us about the circumstances in which the country’s citizens have to survive?

Recent tragedies, including the deaths of workers in Tripureshwor under severe economic and administrative pressure, underscore how strain on lower and working classes continues to build. Even though each case is unique, collectively, they set off an alarm across the nation, an alarm that concerns the issue of mental health.

It would be misleading to assume that any case of public suffering happens because of pre-existing mental illnesses. As the World Health Organisation (WHO) says, intense distress and harm caused to oneself is a result of a combination of social, cultural, psychological, and environmental factors. Issues such as poverty, unemployment, family conflicts, embarrassment, and administrative pressures might bring about a crisis, either by themselves or in addition to existing psychological disorders. Hence, the question we need to ask first is not whether the person was "mentally ill" but what was happening to the person at the time of the crisis and what means were available to the person.