Скачать или смотреть Dealing with Mental Health & Divorce in a British South Asian Family

Usha is part of the generation in which an arranged marriage was the norm for South Asians born in the UK. Usha’s own arranged marriage ended shortly after the wedding and the cultural stigma attached to divorce at that time had a profound impact on Usha and her family, especially her mother.

Usha felt her Mum could not walk with her head held high in the community, because her daughter had come back to her parental home. This made Usha feel like a failure and resulted in her withdrawing from her community. During this time, she felt isolated.

“After the divorce, the community made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I went through depression and a great deal of deep anxiety to the point where I didn’t leave my house for two years. I didn’t want to see anybody. With the mental health professionals, I couldn’t open up and be honest about my experience with divorce and the impact it had on me because I felt I would be dishonouring my family, and in our culture, it is ingrained from young that we mustn’t speak about our problems. It meant that I couldn’t get the right support from the mental health services because I felt this sense of shame and dishonouring the culture and I feel that this notion of ‘honour and shame’ is so misplaced in our community.”

The lack of support and understanding from the Asian community resulted in Usha feeling ostracised and shamed for something that was not her fault. After many years of challenges and battling with depression, questioning the God she so strongly believed in prior to marriage, Usha made the choice to live life on her own terms as an independent woman. Eventually, Usha turned her pain into purpose and set up a holistic service to help educate others experiencing difficulties with their mental health and give them the tools to thrive. For the last 12 years, Usha has been delivering talks and presentations to the mental health and care sector about the deep aspects of mental health to the South Asian community in the local and surrounding areas.

“In our culture we don’t talk about our mental health or depression, but we do need to talk about mental health in an honest form of light. I didn’t even know what I was going through at the time was anxiety and depression. When you’re unable to articulate what you’re going through, it has a great impact on you, to the point where your life just stops. That’s what happened to me. That time was quite a lost moment for me”.

Watch Usha's full story on Part 2 of 'Home is Where the Hert is' Documentary on Sunday 11th September at 7pm.