Thanedar seeks to bury mental health stigma with film about wife's death
Washington ? Detroit U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar produced and acted in a short film about the suicide of his first wife that was screened Saturday evening at the DC South Asian Film Festival.
The 15-minute film, "Dear Pra," is a dramatic retelling of the days before and after the death of Shamal Thanedar, a neurologist and mom of two who took her life in 1996 at age 37 when the family was living in St. Louis by overdosing on anti-depressant pills.
About 400 people attended the showing followed by a question-and-answer session, Thanedar said.
Shamal Thanedar had hidden her struggle with depression from her husband, who said he was shocked and traumatized by her death and left grasping at how to talk about what had happened with his young sons, ages 4 and 8 at the time.
"There’s a lot of shame and stigma associated with mental illness, and it’s certainly prevalent in South Asian communities. People would say they have diabetes and not mental illness because of how the society looks at it," Thanedar told The Detroit News on Friday.
"But it's an illness, just like any other illness. This film is to say, Hey, this doesn't need to be hidden. There should not be any shame associated with this, and it can happen to anybody. It's a medical condition and not anybody's fault."
Thanedar said he spent about $18,000 to fund the film's production earlier this year after he was approached by a director and others with the idea of writing a script and submitting it for consideration to the North American Film Association Marathi Film Festival. Marathi is the language that Thanedar, 69, grew up speaking in India.
The Detroit Democrat, who is a millionaire entrepreneur, said it's not a profit-making venture but meant to educate and raise awareness.
"I hope that this will help some people," the congressman said. "The very first time I wrote my memoirs was in 2004 and talked about her death and suicide. Even today, people are reading that book, and I get calls or emails from people who say how that helped them in their situation."
Thanedar is using the film's release to talk about legislation that he's introduced in the House related to mental health parity ? the equal treatment of mental health conditions in insurance plans.
One bill seeks to repeal a provision prohibiting Medicaid from providing financial assistance to patients in an institution for mental illness, and another would allow service members receiving mental health treatment while in the military to keep seeing the same provider when their care is transferred to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
This week, Thanedar introduced a resolution recognizing September as National Suicide Prevention Month.
"I need to carve out some areas that I particularly feel very passionate about, and this is the one area that I want to spend some of my public work in this area to try to make things better for people," he said.
Thanedar appears in the beginning and the end of the film as himself in scenes shot outside the U.S. Capitol, speaking to a group of actors who are portraying members of the press corps. In the rest of the film, Thanedar is played by a younger actor.
The film title, "Dear Pra," is inspired by Shamal's nickname for Thanedar and refers in the film to how she addressed her suicide note to him. In his book, "The Blue Suitcase" and in the film, Thanedar at first blames himself for not recognizing Shamal's depression and feeling guilty that he could have done something differently to save her.
Thanedar said he went to a therapist to help cope with his grief and sent his son's for counseling too. He remarried in 1999.
"I really focused on my own mental health, my own coping with this and being there for my children," he said.
"It's really still a very traumatic thing, and the question really is, should we talk about it, or should we just say nothing? I tend to feel that I should talk about this."
Thanedar is running for his second term in Congress in the Nov. 5 election against Republican Martell Bivings. He won his Democratic primary in August with nearly 55% of the vote.
mburke@detroitnews.com
Editor's note: If you're struggling, help is available. Dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
By: Melissa Nann Burke
Source: The Detroit News