When the US Treasury initiated the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers’ collapse, they imposed one condition on banks – banks were forced to borrow money under the scheme irrespective of how they were doing. So you had banks that weren’t doing badly such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan taking TARP money, and getting flak for giving fat bonuses (“from TARP money”, as the press claimed) to their employees who had helped them survive the crisis.
The reason even well-to-do banks were forced to take money under TARP was for the signalling effect. If only banks that really needed the money were to take money from TARP, then banks who really needed the money would be loathe to take it, for it would them mark them out as being ‘in trouble’. By making the well-to-do banks take money under TARP, this stigma of borrowing under TARP was removed, and the American banking system was “saved”.
The reason I got reminded of this was this piece on actor Anupam Kher coming out with his depression. This is on the back of actor Deepika Padukone coming out with her depression, which was reported yesterday. From the article on Kher’s “coming out”:
Kher says what Padukone had done is a very brave and wise thing to do. “People look up to her. When they know that she is consulting a therapist, they will understand there is no problem in getting help, and it is an okay thing to do,” he says.
The thing with depression is that it affects people from all over the spectrum – some of them are wildly successful despite their depression, like Kher or Padukone, while depression ruins some others. And then there are others who are ravaged by depression, and lead mostly “middling” lives.
Depression is an illness to which much stigma is attached. Especially in India, if you are consulting a therapist, or taking psychiatric drugs, people assume something is “wrong” with you, and discriminate against you. This gives people with depression a strong incentive to hide their illness, and appear to the world as if they’re fine.
The consequence is that people end up not seeking help even when it is prudent for them to seek help, and this leads to their depression possibly consuming them, sometimes even leading to fatal consequences.
In this context, when you have people who have had successful careers despite being ravaged by depression “coming out”, it makes depression a little more “normal”. On the margin, it can lead to the depressed person seeking help, and potentially getting better, rather than letting depression continue to waste them. Thus, successful depressed people owning up to depression makes it easier for less successful people (who might be worried about the stigma attached to mental illness) to come out with their condition and seek help.
In that sense, “coming out” with depression is similar to banks that were not in trouble taking TARP funds! Oh, and while on that topic, here is my “coming out essay”, from almost three years back.