Please join me and my co-host, Dawn Helmrich, for the fifth episode of “Shining Light on Shadows: A Candid Conversation About Mental Health.” Our guest will be Indira Somani, an independent documentary filmmaker. She is currently finishing a documentary about her mother’s 20-year struggle with depression and Indira’s role as her primary caregiver.
Our conversation will focus on mental health in the South Asian community, and separately, the challenges of caregiving.
We’ll be live Thursday, April 11 at 7pm ET / 6pm CT / 4pm PT. If you can’t watch the show live, you can watch the recording at your convenience on this website or the links below.
You can watch the recording here
or watch and comment on the recording on social media:
As Indira wrote in her blog post, “I am making this film because I want people to understand that South Asian families also struggle with depression, struggle with figuring out caregiving, struggle with adult siblings trying to figure out how to manage long-term plans for their parents. I want people to understand that with proper psychiatric care and medication, people can still lead fulfilling lives.”
As Dawn wrote in her blog post about her mom, “My silent hell as a caregiver was always there. The anxiety, deep fear, and depression were once again nearly unbearable. I felt selfish for wanting her to not leave me. I felt selfish for making it about me and my feelings. I felt selfish for wishing it wasn’t like this and that I didn’t have to see her suffer while she was the one who was doing the most suffering.”
In the blog post I wrote for this episode, when I first heard about Indira’s film, “I immediately thought of older female relatives, the aunties in the community. I thought of several who had lost their husbands years ago (like Indira’s mom). How many people do I know are suffering or have suffered from depression?”
Dawn and I launched this twice a month show (the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month) in order to help reduce the stigma associated with mental health. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be joined by friends and colleagues who are working through or have worked through their own challenges, practitioners who can speak to some of the issues faced by their clients and advocates who can talk about a range of different issues.
The show is produced by Digimentors on a pro bono basis.
Here's a link to help Indira Somani raise funds to help finish the documentary:
Resources
South Asian Public Health Association sapha.org
South Asian Mental Health Initiative & Network
Family Caregiver Alliance
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline
800-950-6264 Or text "HelpLine" to 6264; nami.org
Mental Health America Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org; mhanational.org Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) National Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-HOPE (4673); rainn.org