MENTAL HEALTH SERIES: TOXIC FAMILIES AND ABUSE

BY: BAIBHAV RATH, RIVANA SRIDARAN, SANIA HYDER, OOJAL KOUR, MEDHA KHITOLIYA

TW: ABUSE, MENTAL HEALTH

PHOTOGRAPHER: ANJANA KASHYAP

The words ‘abusive family’ bring up a discussion that has been left idle in the Indian society. A topic of controversy, this term reflects the state of the society and how people choose to not react to this prevailing destructive cycle of toxicity. And mental health always ends up becoming the scapegoat amidst all this.

The most common belief parents have is that mental health disorders are a myth. They cease to believe that issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc exist. Terming us as the weaker generation that lacks the will power and strength to deal with life, they believe that we choose to rebel against the life they once lived, making us wayward and disobedient. This is where abuse starts to grow its roots.

A lot of kids are spending this lockdown period with their parents. Things have been tough for those who have mental illnesses of any sort. Parents end up dismissing the changing patterns in their behaviour as them just being lazy, disobedient or ignorant. At the time when their mental health is deteriorating, they are more often than not told to stop giving excuses and do something productive with all the time they have on their hands now, rather than being talked to about what is actually going on in their heads. This further makes it difficult for the kids to open up to them about what is bothering them and seeking help for the same.

In a typical toxic household, children are not treated as an individual and are not given any respect. Parents refuse to compromise, take responsibility for their behaviour, or apologize. In such cases, parents fail to realise that they are projecting their distorting mental health on children. They tend to overreact on problems, use emotional blackmail, be controlling, try to manipulate the child and blame/attack you. The restrictions in such households are almost always very strict and highly unreasonable. They always doubt you and tend to blame you for everything that goes wrong in their lives. As a result of their denial towards the difficulties faced by our present-day youth on the pretext of ‘mental illnesses’, conflicts begin to crop up at home.

Home, often and supposedly considered as a ‘safe haven’ to all, that ensures shielding from the rough world outside, unfortunately morphs into a torturous and wretched atmosphere, leaving no escape. Parents strongly affirm that we are using these ‘excuses’ as nothing but crutches to dodge the adversity of our responsibilities in every aspect of life - be it academics, chores or family as well as personal obligations. This leads them to believe we are more lethargic and undetermined as they come. This infuriates them, cumulating their rage which altogether forces them to lash out. The severity of their’ lashing-out’ varies from each household ranging from simple scolding to aggressive violence.

The crux of the issue is that they fail to understand the cause-and-effect relationship that is applied here. In their mind, their actions are titrated as per their convenience; they never see how much harm is caused to their child. It becomes much worse as children rely on their parents to fall back on physically and emotionally. They damage the child's sense of self and ability to have stable relationships in the future. They tend to develop a feeling of self-hatred and have trouble regulating their emotions. At such a tender age if they aren’t granted what they deserve, it could ripple out into many major thematic problems later on in life.

Having been brought up in a society where gaining acceptance is predominant, a lot of mental baggage gets drained whilst coping with struggles that parents have had to encounter in their own lives. Often trying to help their children grow, parents end up deterring their mental growth. Effective ways to prevent this is by empathising and accepting that both of you come from different cultures and generations, with a wide gap that has been filled by many aspects of life they may not be familiar with. Parents need to make their child comfortable enough to come to them, and discuss matters which they otherwise would not have. Only when they realise that their child may have been struggling and that they want to help them by accepting who they are, do parents take one step closer to helping them heal.

Childline is India's 24-hour telephonic helpline service that is accessible to anyone calling on 1098.