MENTAL health illnesses are more common than Malaysians realise. Survey after survey are showing an uptick in the psychosocial disorder. Both adults and adolescents are affected.
The calls received by the National Mental Health Crisis Line, also known as the Heal Line, paint an alarming picture of the increase.
Almost 60,000 calls have been received since its inception in 2022, according to figures disclosed by Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad on Thursday at the launch of the World Mental Health Day celebration. The details of the calls are disturbingly worrying. Of the total number of callers, 336 displayed suicidal tendencies, with 138 attempting suicide.
We have no way of telling if any of these callers were medical professionals, but surveys by CodeBlue, an editorial arm of the Galen Centre for Health & Social Policy, a public policy research and advocacy organisation, do point to public healthcare workers facing overwhelming stress at work.
The Malaysia Youth Mental Health Index 2023 (MyMHI'23), a collaborative study between the Institute for Youth Research Malaysia and the United Nations Children's Fund, tells an equally distressing story.
The index, which assesses our youth's mental health on a scale of 0 to 100 over several domains, scores it at 71.9, meaning they are at a moderate risk of falling victim to some form of psychosocial disorder.
MyMHI'23 gives three domains — surrounding environment, social support and healthy mind — scores in the 60s, ratings which are of concern to medical professionals. "Moderate risk" doesn't mean mental illnesses are a safe distance away. On the contrary, it means the risk of succumbing to such illnesses is there.
All this suggests urgent action on two fronts: curative and preventive measures. One such is to make the surrounding environment — be they homes, schools or workplace — supportive.
Those who experience psychosocial disorder feel alienated by a toxic environment, wherever they are. Home, community and workplace cultures must change if we are to recapture the humanity we have lost. Drowned in the technological language of connectivity, we have forgotten what it means to be human.
The irony is robots are trying to be human, but we humans are turning into robots. Curative measures can only control but not curb mental health illnesses. Preventive measures can. Here, policymakers bear much responsibility.
They direct the nature and shape of the places we live in and around. These must be designed with making people a human community, not to be dwellers in concrete cubicles. Put differently, policies must have the human touch. We lost it as we moved from rural settings to cities. Worse still, concrete cities are slowly swallowing rustic villages.
This requires a major reset of policies to help us recover what we were meant to be: communal beings. One who will be good to all and sundry. And the planet, too. A reason why this is a great reset is because we may have to redefine what success means to us, as many are beginning to suggest.
Those who are calling for a redefinition of success may have their metrics, but being a good communal being must be the place to start.