Mental Health Condition Of Students During The Pandemic

Note: The following article has been written by Neelam Rao, a young changemaker who had joined us for The Youth Leadership Programme during the summer of 2020.

I’m all alone; will I ever be going out? I want things to go back to normal but will I be able to catch up with the changed environment? I bet everyone has been productive to their maximum capacity …. And look at me!
These are the few thoughts which have crossed everyone’s mind at least once during this pandemic and it’s all but natural.
But not everyone who has had these thoughts would have got a helping
hand or at the least an assurance that they are not alone and we have got their back.
Hence, there an alarming need to make sure everyone is alright not just physically but moreover mentally, for the well-being of the society as a whole.
From the very start of our educational journey, we all have had classes like physical education where we have been thought things to make us physically strong but never once did they teach us the concept of mental health let alone conduct classes for that. Mental health is an area which we students, explore on our own. We learn that it is not only important for us to be healthy physically but also mentally, for instance when you were younger, maybe someone unintentionally body-shamed or bullied you in school but then that comment always remains with us, no matter what we do, that is stuck in our minds. So, I personally feel that mental health is a concept that should have been taught to us from the very beginning.
We, in today’s generation, are facing a lot of mental health issues, may it be something related to stress, anxiety, fear, anger, depression and in the most extreme cases suicidal behavior.

For instance, take this example of a young girl who gave up her life. This is not the last case we had to witness. There have been many students giving up on their lives due to the lack of privilege of something as basic
as education
The first-ever suicide case India witnessed in the pandemic was that of a 15 year old girl from a small village in Kerala. The girl who was brilliant in her studies and would now be studying 10th grade committed suicide because she did not have the means to study during the corona virus pandemic. According to the media, the girl thought that her performance would be affected because she had not attended classes due to the lack of resources and gradually she became depressed and took her own life. The mental health of students who do have access to these facilities is of
a great concern.

CONCLUSION: AN OPINION
All these tragic and dreadful accidents continuously remind us why mental health and its awareness is a must in today’s world.
They also scream out our discriminatory approach towards health of the mind and brain as a weakness and the fact that we treat it different from the rest of the body’s well being. We together as a world are trying our best to eliminate discrimination round the globe and it’s undoubtedly commendable but it’s equally important that we keep mental health at the top of our pyramid and eliminate any discriminatory approach.