Utilizing artists and celebrities to promote various causes isn’t a novel phenomenon. The practice has been in vogue, equally, both on domestic and international fronts with palpably fruitful results. This of course is subjected to a celebrity’s level of involvement and their research into the concerned subject before hopping onto the job and promoting the corresponding cause. An ill-prepared individual could lead to futile efforts or even negative results.

Sonya Hussyn, whose upcoming drama project Saraab, revolves around her character that suffers from schizophrenia, made an enlightening post on her Instagram. While her intention behind the post was commendable as it listed symptoms of mental illnesses in an attempt to normalize having a conversation about them, her one rather uneducated comment under the post ended up doing more harm than good.

Autism and Schizophrenia

One of the conditions included in Sonya’s post about mental illnesses was “autism” which is not a mental illness. What could’ve been passed as a mistake ended up being a show of ignorance from the actor’s part as she defended her stance and said that autism was a symptom of schizophrenia when the comments called her out on it.

In medical science and psychiatry, both autism and schizophrenia are separate entities. Autism or more accurately Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurotic disorder that manifests in early childhood and is characterized by qualitative abnormalities in social interactions, markedly aberrant communication skills, and restricted repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities (RRBs). ASD is a group of conditions with deficits in social interaction and communication.

The patients are completely different from those suffering from Schizophrenia which is a brain disorder that affects how people think, feel, and perceive. The hallmark symptom of schizophrenia is psychosis, such as experiencing auditory hallucinations (voices) and delusions (fixed false beliefs).

Why is it problematic

One of the major problems that our society faces when it comes to mental illnesses and is the way all the complexities and nuances of mental health are often clubbed as being the same thing. Just like our human body gets inflicted by different diseases and illnesses, our brain too is susceptible to different illnesses. Each illness and condition demands separate diagnosis and treatment.

The struggles of autistic people demand separate conversation and carelessly clubbing it under schizophrenia, which is the topic most relevant to Sonya currently due to her upcoming drama, is belittling those struggles. Sonya’s post was clearly in good intentions but it is high time our celebrities learn to first properly educate themselves about the topics they choose to talk about. With the kind of reach and influence they have, these mistakes followed by the defense of them instead of rectification, end up causing more harm.

While there is no doubt social media users tend to be cruel and rude in their comments more often than not, the comments under Sonya’s post took a justified stance that a little research or a more prudent selection of words while promoting a certain cause holds utmost importance. Acknowledging her mistake when she was called out for it would not have done any harm to Sonya. But seems like our celebrities still have a long way to go in owning up to their mistakes.