It's okay for men to cry and show emotions, say mental health experts

Harry recently revealed in an interview that post his motherrsquos death he had behaved as if nothing had happened He sought professional help four years back PicsAFPLook up Prince Harry on the internet and among the links that pop up are his best bad boy and most controversial moments mdash wearing a Nazi Swastika to a gathering partying nude in Vegas getting into brawls with the media and so on Spoilt royal brat or was that his way of dealing with loss Earlier this month the 32yearold royal revealed that after the death of his mother Diana Princess of Wales in 1997 he behaved like nothing had happened literally sticking my head in the sand It was only four years ago that he sought professional help after continuous urging from his older brother Prince WilliamPrincess Diana and her son Harry watch the march past on a dais as part of the commemorations of VJ Day on August 19 1995Prince Harry isnt alone While we in India struggle with freeing the mental illness of taboo mostly brought about by its depiction in our movies it is still easier for women to cry out their mental or emotional traumas Indian men arent luckyRony DCostaRecognise acknowledge and deal Rony DCosta 40 a media professional who suffered from depression a few years ago says his low phases had started during his teenage years My parents werent equipped to deal with it Being depressed then meant being sad I would become antisocial snap out of it eventually and get on with life he explains Later in 2007 when he felt stagnated in his job at a TV channel the symptoms hit harder Waking up and going to work became impossible But like in my teenage years I simply took some time off and later rejoined work It was only in 2013 when there was a personal setback that DCosta acknowledged that he needed to seek professional help For a year and a half he attended the sessions religiously meditated thrice a day went for walks until he felt braced and ready againToday DCosta says he is a lot more resilient and ready to take on challenges headon unlike his earlier self He adds that if he had found help in his growing years he would have had a less complicated mindset The damage that occurs in adolescence should be recognised and dealt with right then or it ends up affecting you later in life he says This doesnt often happen which DCosta puts down to lack of awareness and the general expectation of strength from the Indian maleOnly girls cryClinical psychologist Sonali Gupta agrees The general conditioning is that men are not supposed to deal with emotions she explains Not just Indian culture Prince Harry thought talking about his mother would make him sad so he ought to embrace life and move on instead Maybe that also had to do with the fact that he belonged to an illustrious royal family famed for their stiff upper lip and not prone to emotional outbursts Or maybe not The average Indian male is similar in some ways Vaijayanti Albal Sharma 38 writer and mother of a threeyearold talks of when her sons classmate once cried after a fall in school The father of the boy chided him because you are a boy not your little sister to cry Sharma says I didnt approve of the comment I instantly told my son his friend wasnt wrong If one is hurt physically or mentally its okay to cry Bottling up emotions only makes people aggressive she assertsWhich probably accounts for the numbers as well The national mental health survey released in October 2016 by NIMHANS National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences reveals that one in every 20 Indians suffer from depression and that the mental morbidity is higher among men at 139 than women 75 Both men and women suffer from emotional problems requiring psychological attention but in men seeking help is equaled with weaknessThrough his emotional characters Shah Rukh Khan told us that it was okay for the Indian male to ventPsychiatrist Anjali Chhabria feels sexist conditioning affected the Indian male until the last decade Then Shah Rukh Khan began crying on screen and men decided it was okay to come clean with their emotions she says Earlier expressing emotions was seen as a feminine thing to do while men would resort to other means to deal with sorrowAnjali ChhabriaWhen women talk of themselves they also analyse but men usually talk of their problems in one line never as conversations Gupta agrees with this and emphasises that there has been a positive trend in the past few years Today I see 25 clients a week nearly 10 of them male The reasons why men seek help are also heartening Some suffer from depression or mental traumas but many also come to me to become emotionally sensitivein their relationships she saysPrince Harrys coming out of the emotional closet has no doubt sparked off an empathy towards male emotions One hopes that an Indian male celebrity will come out too in the near future Deepika Padukone spoke of her depression a couple of years ago Until then we have SRKs tears to fall back on