As World Mental Health Day approaches on October 10, 2026, this year’s theme—“Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change”—deserves more than an awareness programme, a poster or a social media message.
It asks us a rather uncomfortable question:
We talk a lot about mental health in Kashmir. But have we really taken the time to listen to those who live it?
Over the past few years, mental health has become increasingly visible in our public discourse. Schools, colleges and universities organise awareness programmes. Healthcare institutions conduct seminars. Mental health professionals speak about depression, anxiety, suicide prevention and substance use.
That is undoubtedly a welcome change.
But awareness and understanding are not necessarily the same thing.
We may know what depression is and still judge the person who suffers from it. We may talk about anxiety and yet tell an anxious student to “just be confident”. We may call addiction a disease and still look at a person recovering from substance use with suspicion.
And somewhere between awareness and acceptance lies the human being whose voice often remains unheard.
We meet them every day
As psychiatrists, we interact with patients every day. Sometimes it is dozens of patients; sometimes hundreds of voices pass through the doors of a busy mental-health service.
Each arrives with a diagnosis, perhaps a prescription, perhaps a family member sitting beside them.
But behind every diagnosis is a story.
And increasingly, we realise that patients do not merely need medicines. They need their voices to be heard. They need to be understood. And they need to have a part in decisions about their own care.
In medicine, we are trained to identify symptoms, make diagnoses and prescribe treatment. These are essential parts of clinical practice.
But mental health often demands something more.
It demands that we listen to the story behind the symptoms.
A young person with examination anxiety is not merely an “anxiety case”. A person with depression is not merely a “depressive patient”. A person struggling with addiction is not merely an “addict”.
There is a person behind every diagnosis.
There are dreams, fears, relationships, disappointments, expectations and circumstances.
Sometimes, listening to that story is itself therapeutic.
A student, three attempts and a few marks
A young student once came to us after facing repeated difficulties with the NEET examination.
She had attempted the examination three times.
She had worked hard. She had the academic ability. She wanted to become a doctor.
Yet, when the examination came, performance anxiety became overwhelming.
On more than one occasion, she missed the qualifying mark by only a few marks.
For a young student, such an experience can be devastating.
One unsuccessful attempt can be explained away as a bad day.
Two can create self-doubt.
Three can make a person begin questioning their own abilities.
In our society, where academic achievement often carries enormous expectations, the pressure can become even heavier. An examination can gradually stop being just an examination. It can become a judgement on one’s intelligence, worth and future.
Eventually, she found the courage to seek psychiatric help.
That step itself deserves recognition.
For many people, walking into a psychiatric clinic remains difficult because of the stigma attached to mental illness.
She received a simple, focused intervention, including medication for a limited period around the examination, along with support and reassurance.
There was nothing dramatic about the intervention.
But sometimes mental-health care does not need to be dramatic.
Sometimes a small intervention at the right time can prevent a young person from losing faith in herself.
And then she came back
Recently, she returned to the same hospital.
But this time, she did not come as a patient.
She came as a young aspiring doctor who had qualified NEET and secured admission in the very hospital where she had once sought help.
There was something deeply moving about that moment.
The hospital that had once witnessed her anxiety was now witnessing her achievement.
The student who had once walked into a psychiatric clinic worried about an examination was now walking through the same institution with a dream of becoming a doctor.
Her story is not simply a story of examination success.
It is a reminder of what can happen when we replace judgement with understanding.
Imagine if, instead of listening to her, she had simply been told:
“Study harder.”
“Everyone gets nervous.”
“You have already failed three times.”
“Just be positive.”
Perhaps she would have continued suffering silently.
Instead, she was heard.
And that listening became part of her journey towards change.
When a child’s depression is called “drama”
A few days ago, we encountered another story.
A school-going boy was battling depression.
But around him, his illness was being dismissed as drama.
His parents and siblings interpreted his difficulties as an attempt to escape studies. What appeared to them as avoidance was, in fact, a young mind struggling under the weight of an illness.
He did not necessarily need another lecture about studying.
He needed support.
He needed somebody to say:
“We believe that you are struggling.”
Sometimes that simple validation can do wonders.
A child’s suffering does not become less real because adults cannot immediately understand it.
And when a young person repeatedly says that something is wrong, perhaps the first response should not be suspicion.
Perhaps it should be listening.
“Doctor, nobody listened to me.”
Another young woman presented after a suicidal act.
When asked why she had reached that point, her answer was painfully simple:
“Doctor, nobody listened to me.”
Behind her presentation were significant emotional and interpersonal difficulties, including features of a personality disorder.
Her anger outbursts had been noticed.
Her behaviour had been noticed.
Her reactions had been noticed.
But had anyone stopped to ask where that anger was coming from?
We are often quick to judge behaviour.
We call someone “difficult”, “attention-seeking”, “dramatic” or “angry”.
But behaviour is sometimes the visible surface of an invisible struggle.
If we only judge the behaviour, we may miss the pain beneath it.
The girl who had so much to say
Another young woman with severe depression and recurrent suicidal thoughts had made multiple attempts at self-harm.
Despite treatment, her symptoms showed only minimal improvement.
We decided to sit with her and have a one-to-one conversation—not simply about symptoms, but about her life.
She had so much to tell.
There were parental disputes.
There were marital difficulties.
There were allegations of extramarital relationships within the family.
There was emotional turmoil that had never found a safe space for expression.
Perhaps some of those things could not be changed overnight.
But something changed when she was finally able to speak about them.
This is why listening matters.
A patient is not merely a diagnosis that needs to improve. A patient is a person whose circumstances may need to be understood.
And when patients become part of decision-making about their treatment, we may understand not only what treatment we want to give them, but what treatment they are able—and willing—to live with.
The invisible battles
Think of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
From the outside, repeated checking, washing or reassurance-seeking may appear strange—even amusing.
People may make fun of them.
But inside that person is a relentless battle with intrusive thoughts and anxiety.
A person with depression may experience what Winston Churchill famously described as his “black dog.”
How can someone who has never experienced that darkness completely understand the fight?
A person with psychosis may hear voices that nobody else can hear or hold beliefs that others find impossible to understand.
A person with bipolar disorder may move between extremes of mood, energy and functioning that can profoundly alter life and relationships.
From the outside, we see behaviour.
From the inside, they are fighting a battle.
Every day. Sometimes every hour. Sometimes every second.
And all of them have stories to tell.
Sometimes, even a song can open a door
Mental-health care is not always confined to a prescription pad.
Sometimes we suggest a patient a song, a ghazal or a piece of poetry—not as a replacement for treatment, but as a way of connecting with feelings that may be difficult to express in ordinary conversation.
Recently, we suggested a song to a patient struggling with suicidal thoughts.
The song, from Aakhir Kyun, carries a message of hope:
«Aik andhera, laakh sitare
Aik nirasha, laakh saharay
Sab se badi sogaat hai jeevan
Nadaan hai jo jeevan se haaray»
The song continues:
«Beete hue kal ki khaatir
Tu aane wala kal mat khona
Jaane kaun kahan se aakar
Raahen teri phir se sawaaray»
Sometimes words reach places where clinical language cannot.
A patient may not remember everything we say about neurotransmitters or diagnostic criteria.
But they may remember a sentence, a poem, a song—or simply the feeling that someone sat beside them and understood.
Perhaps that too is part of healing.
Kashmir’s mental-health paradox
There is an interesting paradox in Kashmir today.
We speak about mental health more than we did in the past.
Yet stigma has not disappeared.
We organise programmes from schools to universities, but how often do we invite people with lived experience to tell us what they actually went through?
How often do we ask a student what academic pressure feels like?
How often do we ask a person recovering from substance use what makes returning to society difficult?
How often do we ask families what prevents them from seeking psychiatric help?
And perhaps most importantly:
How often do we change something after listening to their answers?
This is the real challenge posed by this year’s theme.
From awareness to listening
Awareness tells us that depression is an illness.
Listening tells us what depression feels like.
Awareness tells us that examination anxiety exists.
Listening tells us what happens inside the mind of a student who has spent years preparing, only to find herself unable to perform when the moment arrives.
Awareness tells us that addiction is a disorder.
Listening tells us about the loneliness, stigma, family conflict and social exclusion that may accompany recovery.
We need both awareness and listening.
But listening is where empathy begins.
Let lived experience shape mental-health care
“Lived experiences heard” should not mean simply giving patients an opportunity to speak.
Their experiences should influence what we do next.
If students tell us that academic pressure is becoming overwhelming, educational institutions need better systems of psychological support.
If patients tell us that stigma prevents them from seeking treatment, mental-health services need to become more approachable and acceptable.
If people recovering from substance use tell us that society refuses to give them a second chance, rehabilitation must include social reintegration.
If families tell us that they do not know where to seek help, our services need to become more visible and accessible.
And if patients tell us that certain aspects of treatment are difficult for them, we should listen to that too.
Listening without action can become another form of tokenism.
The second half of the theme therefore matters just as much:
Real voices. Real change.
Perhaps we need to change one question
Mental healthcare has increasingly moved beyond asking only:
“What is wrong with you?”
We must also ask:
“What happened to you?”
The difference is profound.
The first question looks for a disorder.
The second seeks a story.
And mental health is often inseparable from the story.
Sometimes the story is of examination pressure.
Sometimes it is grief.
Sometimes unemployment.
Sometimes family conflict.
Sometimes trauma.
Sometimes substance use.
Sometimes loneliness.
And sometimes the person simply knows that something is wrong but does not have the words to explain it.
That is when listening becomes especially important.
From patient to doctor
The young woman who returned to the hospital after qualifying NEET offered a quiet but powerful lesson.
A psychiatric consultation is not merely about prescribing a tablet.
It can be about helping someone reclaim a dream.
It can be about giving a frightened student the confidence to face an examination.
It can be about helping a person return to work, family and society.
And sometimes, the person who once sought help may eventually become the person who helps others.
Perhaps one day, as a doctor, she will meet another student sitting anxiously before an examination.
Perhaps she will recognise that fear.
Perhaps she will remember her own journey.
And perhaps she will listen.
That would be real change.
Let us not only hear them. Let us act.
This October, we will once again speak about mental health.
There will be seminars.
There will be posters.
There will be speeches.
But perhaps this year we should also listen a little more.
Listen before advising.
Understand before labelling.
Ask before assuming.
And when someone tells us what they need, try to change something.
The success of mental-health awareness should not be measured only by the number of seminars conducted or posters displayed.
Perhaps it should also be measured by how many people felt safe enough to speak.
How many felt that someone genuinely heard them.
And how many lives became a little different because somebody listened.
The voices of lived experience should not remain confined to consultation rooms. They should reach our schools, colleges, hospitals, rehabilitation centres and families. They should reach the people who design mental-health programmes and frame policies.
Let patients tell us what the problem feels like. Let their experiences inform our solutions. Let their voices influence our policies.
Because the person living with the illness often knows something about the illness that textbooks cannot teach.
The young student who once came to us with examination anxiety returned as a future doctor.
The depressed schoolboy needs someone to believe his suffering is real.
The young woman who said, “Nobody listened to me,” reminds us that anger may have a story behind it.
The girl who had so much to say reminds us that sometimes a conversation can uncover what months of treatment could not reveal.
The person with OCD is fighting thoughts we cannot see.
The person with depression is fighting a darkness we may not understand.
The person with psychosis may be living in a reality that frightens them.
The person with bipolar disorder may be fighting battles that change with their mood.
They all have voices.
They all have stories.
They are all fighting something.
So, this October 10, perhaps we should do something very simple.
Let us hear them.
Not merely to complete an awareness campaign.
Not merely to fulfil a theme.
But to understand.
To involve.
To change.
Because when we truly listen to people, we do not merely hear their stories.
We may become part of their healing.
And perhaps that is what “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change” is really asking of us:
Listen to them.
Believe them.
Include them.
Act on what they tell us.
Let their voices be heard.
Let their experiences shape our care.
Let real voices bring real change.
