DEPRESSION IN THE BRIT-ASIAN COMMUNITY: A SOCIAL INTRODUCTION by CALM Ambassador Rikesh ‘RKZ’ Chauhan
In September of this year I made one of my fortnightly trips to CALM’s awesome London HQ, and the topic of depression within the Brit-Asian society came up. Furthermore, the increased stigma of ‘depression’ within Asian society. My name is Rikesh, but I’m commonly known as RKZ, a 22 year-old R&B musician. I have Indian heritage, with my father and mother moving here from Africa and India, respectively. I have found it difficult to talk about my feelings in the past, and have only recently found solace in opening up. In the last few months, my family noticed some changes in my behaviour. I was a lot quieter, I kept to myself and my conversation was muted. I couldn’t help what I was feeling, and couldn’t do much to stop it taking over. After slowly being reassured that talking was okay by a great friend at CALM, I began expressing myself more and it helped. It still does. I have a very open-minded family, so talking to them about how I felt was an easy process once the proverbial ice was broken. However, this is not always the case with some Asian families. After a long discussion with my father regarding depression, he mentioned a few things that resonated with me. “We often underestimate the stronghold that depression can have on our minds.” Within the Asian demographic the concept of depression can sometimes elude people, usually because we do not know much about it - thus immediately dismiss it. This habit is something we need to break. We need to understand how serious depression is, and how much it can affect someone’s life. Yet, more importantly, we need to know how to spot it in others. After witnessing first-hand the importance of talking and expressing thoughts, I wanted to get a deeperrooted understanding as to why depression has so much stigma associated with it in Asian society. I decided to
RKZ conduct a social network experiment via Twitter and Facebook to find out exactly that. I posted the following: Guys rarely open up about their feelings. Am I right in saying with ASIAN men, you just DON’T talk about it, period? Why? I know of so many guys (in my family too) that have suffered from depression. But it may as well be taboo talking about it. I followed that up with: Why are Asian people (I’m not saying ALL Asians, but the overwhelming majority) afraid to talk about their feelings? Suicide is most definitely preventable, but self-alienation through stress and depression is one of the biggest catalysts against. This caused a surge of notifications and replies: ‘It’s quite sad, I think because they’re expected to be strong male figures that they feel they can’t seem... weak, but it’s far from weak to be able to express yourself in any way. Ah, Asian community just don’t seem to grasp suicide I don’t think, like it’s so brushed under the carpet! We seem to kind of have ‘unity’ among our families but we fail to properly talk about things, about problems and things we’re going through.’- @Majinbibi, Shabana Musaji.
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