Labelling – At what cost

Each and every one of us would have experienced being tagged with labels at some point of our life or the other.

Tags based on our gender, nativity, caste etc.

We also would have experienced stereotyping due to the above tagging.

Some of these are not harmful. But some are very harmful.

The simple, “You are a good child”, “You are a bad child” puts so much pressure on the young minds.

Every human being has a good in them and a bad in them.

Instead of labeling the child, if we label the action. For e.g. “You took care of your sister. That’s a good thing” or “In your anger, you broke the pencil. That is a bad thing”. The child learns what action they should avoid and what action they should repeat.

These labels are small compared to the bigger ones I am going to talk about – The labels given by the world to denote difference in behaviour

I have personally been there and have fought it out and all those who are near and dear to me know how much I have struggled because of it.

Let me tell in brief my struggle.

My father is no more. I remember arguing with him a few years back saying “Even a murderer gets a chance to argue his case in the court but a psychiatric patient gets none”

Once labelled, the world only looks at what treatment to give. Very less on what we should do to make her feel better. That’s because everyone feels that it is the medicine that helps.

If you talk more, you are a patient. If you talk less, you are a patient.

You all may ask, what should we do?

Please listen to them…not just to the words…but also the body language and facial expression…

Please look at the person while conversing. This has become a lost culture.

Looking at the person gives them confidence that somebody cares and will also help the listener to truly understand the emotions behind the words

I am no longer on medication and my family has supported me to come out of the psychiatric label “BPAD”. It was a very painful journey. And I wish to help whoever is facing similar journey and these blogs are the result of that.

Unfortunately, it is done not to adults, but to children. Especially those who have different learning tendencies. They are affected very much psychologically 

Thus change in the society is very much needed.

I am one…I cannot do everything. Yet, I am one…I can do something. That something, I shall do