British-Indian student launches mental health website to fight stigma, show there's 'light at the end of the tunnel'
Tanya Marwaha was barely a teenager when she first began struggling with her mental health, affected by one bereavement after another over a six-year period, through accidents as well as natural causes. That time is still so raw that she struggles to talk about her anguish.
Growing up in Britain in an ethnic Indian family did not seem to help, as mental health issues are often pushed under the carpet in Indian culture for fear of stigma. When Tanya, now 20, also developed chronic physical illnesses - which took some time to diagnose - she spiralled even further down.
During the pandemic, though, she realised that there were many other young people like her who were suffering, and somehow she gathered the strength to launch a website to help others with their mental health problems.
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Many of those she has helped are students like her, a significant number of them from South Asian backgrounds. Setting up "Championing Youth Minds" has also helped Tanya's own mental well-being.
"It helped me during a difficult time in my personal life to open up about my struggles in a way I knew was helping others too. I really found peace in that," she said.
Tanya, who is studying International Relations and Mandarin at the London School of Economics, was born and raised in the seaside town of Worthing in southern England, but has always had strong connections with India.
Her father came to Britain from Chandigarh in 1993. Her mother was born in Britain to Indian parents from Punjab. Tanya says she herself is so connected to Indian culture "that growing up I never used to fit in. People still think I was born in India".
She speaks Hindi and Punjabi fluently and has visited India many times. Until recently, Tanya and her parents often consulted an astrologer, a temple priest in India experienced in reading birth charts, to try to improve her health.
He said the problem was her planets were badly aligned and suggested various measures, including wearing a silver/black onyx ring. While Tanya still does that, eventually, unwell and frustrated, she discarded much of the priest's advice, such as sleeping by a bowl of water and sugar to "catch negative dreams".
Though Tanya has found life hard - living with chronic pain and fatigue, a connective tissue disorder, and depression - she has managed to maintain her stellar academic performance, including receiving a two-year scholarship at a prestigious fee-paying school and being a summer intern at Britain's Houses of Parliament. But it is her work helping young people improve their mental health that really drives her.
Tanya set up her website in April - amid what she calls a "mental health pandemic" - from her bedroom in her parent's home, providing a free platform where she and a few other young volunteers support mental well-being, signposting resources and offering workshops and personal advice.
Many of the 4,000 visitors to the site so far have South Asian backgrounds. "They often say how hard it has been to speak up," Tanya said. Others at university had told her they wish they could talk about mental health or "wish their parents understood", she said.
Older generations must be "more open to conversations around mental health", she added. "There needs to be a better focus on listening in our culture rather than a hierarchical structure where young people cannot express themselves."
Aditi Mehta, 21, a student and blogger who was born in India and moved to Britain aged five, has struggled with her mental health. "The younger me was so used to the idea of perfection within the South Asian community, especially academically, I let it become a trigger and sank into depression," she said.
Aditi was pleased when Tanya asked for her help to design the Championing Youth Minds website and co-host podcast episodes. Ultimately, she hopes to help eradicate stigma about negative feelings and thoughts.
It is not just the Indian diaspora interested in Tanya's project.
A 20-year-old international student from China studying in London, who wished to be known as Jennifer, said she had not yet shared the "amazing" website with Chinese friends as "mental health is a topic Chinese students won't discuss".
But the site reminds her to care for her mental health "and for people who are suffering it is a community. They know they are not dealing with difficult situations alone", Jennifer said.
There is a lot of suffering in the world. More than 700,000 people take their own lives every year, according to World Health Organization statistics, with suicide the fourth most common cause of death among those aged 15 to 19.
Tanya said a woman contacted her website recently, worried that her 15-year-old daughter was showing signs of depression and anxiety.
"She wanted to see how our resources could help her daughter or have me talk to her," Tanya said. "I offered an initial chat but said if that was too much, she could drop into our workshop the following week."
The girl took part and her mother wrote again saying that it had helped, boosting her daughter's confidence with the knowledge "she is not the only one".
Tanya was invited to talk at the "Hope for Life" suicide prevention conference in the English county of North Yorkshire last month. The youngest speaker, she helped to promote the idea to a captivated audience that much more could be said and done, by many in society, to help others who might be struggling.
"If someone from the South Asian community had spoken to me about mental health when I was younger, that would have helped," Tanya said. "More people need to know there is always light at the end of the tunnel."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
