Last month, I finally decided to pen down my childhood experience as a sexual assault victim. I don’t have anxiety, and yet I was shivering and sweating the whole time. It was difficult and almost physically painful to remember every detail of the assault- almost like going through it again. With the recent momentum of the #MeToo movement in India, a lot of stories are spilling out in the public domain. These detailed narratives are not just impacting the accusers and those accused, but also everyone consuming all the information that’s brimming their social circles. This made me think about the mental health implications a mass movement like #MeToo could have.
There has been a spike in the number of people visiting Clinical and Trauma Psychologists, as past memories can act as triggers for those with mental health issues. Dr. Seema Hingorrany, in a recent interview with the DNA Magazine said, “Many people, who are witnessing the constant barrage of revelations and are completely hooked to it, are having their unprocessed memories of what they have faced similarly in the past, triggered. Patients who are seeing me for other reasons are calling me to discuss their sexual harassment traumas. They are confused about whether they should or shouldn’t call out their perpetrators. They feel anxious, angry and have a lot of bottled emotions in this high-intensity atmosphere.” Even for those who are not sharing their personal stories, and just listening to or reading about someone who has gone through something can be extremely traumatising as it can make them relive their own abuse. Open conversations around such issues, however, are imperative as they take away the shame and discomfort associated with talking about such sensitive and personal matters.
While many people have spoken up about the impact of these incidents on survivors and understanding why women take time to come out in the open with their narratives, there has been a big component of mental health in the narratives themselves. Mayank Jain, a journalist at the Business Standard, comedian Utsav Chakraborty and Abhishek Upadhya, an editor at India TV, attempted to use their mental health issues as a defence after being accused of predatory behaviour by several women. Words like “struggle”, “disease”, “seeking help” and “therapy” were littered on their Twitter timelines. Putting bad mental health on the table when you’re accused of misconduct is a common gambit. Author Junot Diaz also spoke about the repression of his childhood abuse and linked it to the accusations of assaulting and harassing multiple women. These ‘illnesses’ are often used during the trials and blamed for the abuser’s actions.
All these incidents force people to draw connections between mental health and abuse. However, the intersection of abusers with mental health issues is very thin. Sadaf Vidha, a Mumbai-based psychologists asks, “Think about it while reversing the roles – when women or minorities suffer from mental health issues, do we see them automatically abusing or assaulting other people?” The association of mental illness with abusive behaviour isn’t new; the ‘insanity defence’ is probably its most famous byproduct. Researches have been exploring this relationship for decades and have found prevalence of mental illness in convicted sex offenders, but no signs of a clear cause-effect has been found.
Mental health issues and predatory behaviour can coexist in a single mind but with some distance between each other. There are people who do suffer from a mental illness and are abusive towards women – and there are also people with a mental illness who do not engage in such behaviour. This is where human psychology takes a step back and calls value systems to the stage. Movements such as #MeToo should also bring to the table awareness about Mental Health and discussions around sensitive issues such as its relation(of lack of) with predatory behaviour. Unless the movement is holistic with the issues it is touching upon, it can aid in propagating stereotypes and further stigmatise mental health issues.
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