VADODARA: Fifteen-year-old Rittam Shah (name changed) came out with hands oozing with blood, leaving his parents shell-shocked. Thinking that the boy must have injured himself with a sharp object, the parents got him treated but were aghast when they later took him to a counsellor too. The counsellor told them that he was depressed due to Covid-induced self-isolation and had actually inflicted the injury on himself.
Introvert by nature, Rittam even had to prodded at school by his friends to start a conversation. Over the last one year, he hardly met his friends and spent most of his time in his room as he is a single child.
“All of this led to anxiety and the boy couldn’t even vent it out. So, the boy inflicted a wound on himself. It was his way of asking for help,” Dr Jalnidhi Nanavati, child and adolescent psychiatrist, told TOI.
Dr Nanavati further said that many cases of adolescents facing depression and anxiety due to Covid-related restrictions have surfaced of late.
Child psychiatrists and counsellors said that children and adolescents socialize with friends at school or in sports clubs. But for more than a year now, they haven’t been able socialize freely leading to depression among them.
“They feel numb and to vent out their feelings, sometimes children inflict pain on themselves as they have no one to talk to. I get at least three such cases every week wherein the adolescent either inflicts wound or sometimes attempts suicide,” said Kanan Parikh, a professional counsellor.
Rajkot’s 18-year-old Dhaval Gokani’s (name changed) addiction to mobile phone and other gadgets during the lockdown led him to a suffer from bipolar disorder due to sleep deprivation. The teen became so aggressive that one day he even assaulted his father.
Dr Chetan Hansalia, a Rajkot-based psychiatrist said, “The boy was put under medication for three weeks. Many teenagers have become aggressive as they couldn’t socialize with friends during the pandemic.”
Surat-based psychiatrist, Dr Mayank Agrawal, said he treated a 14-year-old girl who got so addicted to Instagram that she began skipping classes to be on the app all the time. “Gradually, she started losing her temper if her photos didn’t get enough likes and once even consumed phenyl in anger!” he said.
(With inputs from Jay Pachchigar and Nimesh Khakhariya)
