“What mental health needs are more sunlight, more candour, and more unashamed conversation”~Anonymous
Mental ill health among women is on the rise. One in five female (19%) experiences a Common Mental Disorder Percent of Women in India are suffering from poor mental health, we have always highlighted the physical features of men and women as being different and unique with different capabilities but when it comes to mental health and illness we barely drag the aspect of gender in it; gender has different roles attached to it that one has to play every day.
Mental balance is determined by a number of factors like environmental, social, physical, and economic. Females in rural areas are likely to have a higher scale of mental balance issues than females living in urban areas.
The most important thing slides in as there is no awareness about mental health issues and disorders in rural areas, female continue to suppress and bag all of their traumas with a series of daily life events where society pulls females in rural areas down and it affects their individual growth, self-esteem, and personality development.
Cases of domestic and emotional abuse also take place because an alcoholic and manipulative partner cages the woman. In rural areas education amongst women is rare and the knowledge about how to be a homemaker is provided in childhood itself, Child marriage and responsibilities to female in most villages are still getting practiced.
As to the lack of knowledge about mental illnesses, people from rural areas identify mental disorders as demonic possession, and the only cure that they find is a temple that helps to detach the demon from the people affected, through prayers.
When one is identified as affected by demonic possession which is usually a sign of a mental illness; they scream, tend to violate the social norms, they may seem ‘out of control’, and verbally and physically more abusive to everyone around. People at this time are expected not to work. Cases of demonic possession are relatively higher in females than males, especially in pregnant female living in rural areas.
Reasons of unstable mental health among women
The question arises why women have a higher rate of this possession. As the gender slides in rural lives. Life of a woman is much more mixed with unequal ways of living basic necessities like education, safety, and health care are unknown to them; days of pregnancy are the one even where they are expected to overwork and poor health care is provided to them which disrupts with the child’s development
Women when it comes to accessing and displaying their emotions, find barely any other way to vent out due to a lack of awareness about mental and physical health care and in most cases vent out their emotions in the form where they tend to refer to themselves as possessed, rates of possession are high during pregnancy also as females are expected to work more and take less rest.
From mental balance issues to disorders, females are still suffering in the rural areas through big and continuous transitions in their lives like emotional and physical abuse, early marriage, responsibilities of family members, and even early pregnancy and absolutely no time for their own selves conditions like these push them into a state of poor mental balance which is reported as a case of demonic possession.
Read More: Men and the Stigmas Attached to Mental Health
