Why Do Indians Glorify Struggle but Ignore Mental Health?
India often carries an unusual relationship with its past and future we bury one and unknowingly burn the other.
We have learned, as a society, to quietly tuck away our problems rather than confront them. Pain is hidden, not healed. Difficult conversations are postponed, not processed. But what we refuse to face does not disappear. Instead, it lingers resurfacing years later, shaping our choices, our fears, and sometimes, our destinies.
For much of India’s middle class, life today is deeply influenced by generational trauma.
The previous generations were not villains they were survivors. They lived through scarcity, social pressure, and limited opportunity. In their pursuit of stability, many suppressed their own ambitions and personal desires. Yet unfulfilled dreams rarely fade away. Instead, they quietly find new vessels.
Their children.
Many parents, consciously or unconsciously, began to see their children not as independent individuals but as extensions of themselves carriers of unfinished dreams, correctors of past failures, and bearers of family pride. The result was a cycle: suppressed aspirations passed down like heirlooms, emotional struggles pushed deep into silence, and individual desires often sacrificed at the altar of duty.
This silence became inherited. Pain remained unspoken. Emotions were internalized. And mental health, as a conversation, was often dismissed as weakness, indulgence, or unnecessary distraction.
Yet change is happening.
A new generation is beginning to question inherited beliefs. Young people are speaking openly about anxiety, depression, and identity. Families are slowly learning to listen. However, this transformation is neither uniform nor accessible to all. The shift toward emotional awareness and mental well-being is more visible among economically privileged sections of society those who can afford therapy, education, and exposure to global conversations. In many ways, the change is top-down, almost locked behind a literal paywall.
Still, it is a beginning.
India has long celebrated the romance of struggle the idea that suffering builds character, that endurance is virtue, that survival itself is success. But perhaps survival should not be our highest aspiration. Perhaps we deserve more than merely enduring life.
Maybe the real progress will come when we learn to let go of our pride in suffering, when healing becomes as valued as resilience, and when future generations are allowed not just to survive but to truly thrive.
