An Interview with Fuad Hanif, MD of "The Fortune Pakistan".

Q: What is your magazine about?

Answer: My magazine “The Fortune Pakistan” which i started a few years back basically aimed to empower and promote the youth of this country and to present Pakistan as a peace loving country. Our nation is a young nation, so we also need to make sure of the physical as well as the mental health of our youth to ensure the best possible outcome for our nation.

Q: What triggers you to work on the mental health awareness?

Answer : It’s actually my son, he was a victim of some mental disease and since that time I knew I had to do something through which I can channel a very vast audience and spread awareness about this issue. Back then there was zero awareness. Also every person in the current times is stressed one way or another. A student, a father who needs to take care of a family, an unemployed person and they all tend to act unusual under that pressure, at times by anger. So that also comes under the criteria of mental health. Someone needs to talk about them too so our magazine basically portrays the stories of distressed people and how they feel and what cause them the stress.

Q: What do you think of mental health conditions in Pakistan?

Answer: Unfortunately, what I see is a very bad picture here. It’s a social taboo when someone talks about it. People who claim to know about mental health issues don't know the complete dynamics of it. A lot of work needs to be done in this direction to spread awareness and that is what we seek through our magazine. We have a long road ahead.

Q: Do you think majority of people in Pakistan are aware of mental illness but they choose to stay indifferent because of stigmas attached to it?

Answer: As I said before there is no such thing as a through understanding of this issue in Pakistan. People who know, only know a little and yeah, a lot of people stay indifferent because of the stigmas attached to it. We live in a society where majority of people before saying something and standing for something thinks that what would people say about this ( what they are about to do ).

Q: what sort of stories do you come across ( regarding mental health) while putting up articles for your magazine?

Answer: There is a variety of different stories that we cover although the aim is constant i.e the empowerment of youth. Regarding mental health we come across stories of general public families, middle class families, specials kids, people who suffer stress and anxiety because of their financial situations, emotional breakdowns, unemployment, bad relationships.

Q: In your opinion what are some of the causes of increasing depression anxiety and stress among youth?

Answer: The main cause that I see is the role of media. The things we see on our TV sets all day long, lets take the news channels for instance there is violence, destruction, killings shown all day long. If not that then profanity is everywhere. Our prime minister got dismissed from his seat by the apex court and then you go on TV and what do you see? He doesn't accept the decision, and so many other cases like this. Our youth witness injustice all the time and injustice gives birth to intolerance in a society, which further leads to mental restlessness. Other than that the unstable economic conditions of out nation, joblessness. Everything is affecting the brains here. Being an Army man I believe “ if a nation is defeated physiologically, there is no need of physical intrusion”. If we are on war and we start thinking that the enemy is going to defeat us no matter what, then no matter how many resources or man power we have we can never win. Or another simple example of that is “ if a person decides in his head that I don't want to live anymore, you can never make them live ,life like one should”.