THIS IS A TEST SITE
Mental health concerns in the context of faith:
A Sikh Perspective
Meet Maninder Kaur:
Maninder (Mani) grew up in Vancouver. She is the oldest of two children of an amrtidhari Sikh family. Mani’s parents were involved in the local Gurdwara committee, and she and her brother attended Gurmat camps growing up. In her last year of high school, Mani was introduced to Crystal Methamphetamine (Crystal Meth). Although the influence of her upbringing dissuaded her from drugs, Mani’s inability to cope with stress and the pressure of provincial exams and university applications made her seek out relief through experimenting. All of a sudden, Mani had trouble giving it up. Her grades began to drop and she was not able to complete her chores at home. When she wasn’t sleeping all day, she felt like she could achieve anything, no matter how unrealistic. Mani had deep feelings of shame and self loathing. She felt like an embarrassment to her family. Despite trying several times to quit, the withdrawal symptoms were unbearable.
Doing Seva as a leader in the youth camps at the Gurdwara Sahib was an integral part of Mani’s identity, but she found it difficult to wrestle with her own feelings of unworthiness. She was restless about why she was struggling so much and why her friends were no longer comfortable around her. All her life she believed that if you do Seva, Waheguru would look after you.
She got up the courage to share her addiction struggle with one friend in her Keertan class. She was told she needed to “do more Paath” to get over it. This was very confusing for her during her time of distress. Mani says, “no matter how much Paath I did, my cravings did not go away.” She felt judged and dismissed by the youth in the Sangat. She began to believe the reason for her addiction was that she was not being a good Sikh and that she was helpless against temptation. People did not want to be around her when she was experiencing her highs and crashes. They were afraid of her skinny and nervous appearance. This led her to feel even more isolated and depressed at the loss of friends in the Sangat. Even though Mani wanted to have the support of her community, she felt she did not have the ability to maintain the relationships. Everything would start to go well for a week or two, and then fall apart.
Mani needed medical and psychological help. She needed the support of Simran, Gurbani and Sangat. Instead, she lost all connections that could lead her in the right direction.
How can the Sikh community be better at helping people with addiction? Can we break down the stigma of addiction and mental illness? How do we incorporate the teaching of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji that every human being, no matter what their actions are, is worthy of compassion and forgiveness?
