Masking, Molecules, and the Weight of Silence: Inside the Mental Health Youth Summit - Adaiyalam'26 Chennai Mental Health Fest

The Mental Health Youth Summit opened with the MC welcoming the audience and introducing the day's keynote speaker, Manojj Dhinakaran.

The Molecular Cost of Masking

Manojj's keynote, titled "The Molecular Cost of Masking," began with a simple but loaded question: what does it actually mean to mask? He described it as the everyday act of hiding emotions and suppressing what we feel — something so common it's almost invisible.

But he pushed the conversation further, asking whether masking can change our biology. Psychology, he argued, isn't confined to thoughts alone, it lives in the body too. He introduced the audience to psychoneuroimmunology, the field that studies how the brain communicates with the body, and to allostatic load, the cumulative wear caused by chronic stress. Left unchecked, he explained, this can leave the body stuck in permanent fight-or-flight mode.

Drawing on ideas from The Body Keeps the Score and Meyer's 2003 concept of minority stress, Manojj spoke about what it costs to conceal one's identity, how the immune system doesn't just register stress at the level of the body, but remembers it molecularly. He grounded this in real examples: autistic individuals camouflaging their traits to fit in, often leading to burnout; and people with ADHD masking symptoms out of rejection sensitivity.

His takeaway was clear: masking can be protective, but it becomes harmful the moment it stops being a choice. He closed by asking the audience to commit to building spaces where people don't have to mask to survive.

The Panel: Youth, Culture, and the Systems Around Them

At 1:00 PM, the panel discussion began, bringing together four voices: Zakya K Palicha, a student eager to pursue psychology; Rajkumar KR, a digital transformation leader; Dr. Nivetha Vasanthan, a consultant psychiatrist and Dr. Pavithra Arunachaleshwaran, Clinician and Researcher from SCARF.

Asked about the state of youth mental health in Tamil Nadu, Zakya offered a mixed picture: "The picture is both saddening and good. Mental health disorders are highly prevalent among the youth, and the state has also started taking steps to address this."

Dr. Nivetha spoke to the differences between treating young people and adults in a clinical setting, pointing to how much weight the physical space itself carries, and how sharply a child's needs can differ from a parent's.

Rajkumar was asked where AI genuinely fits into mental health support. His answer: the field is still evolving, and AI's usefulness depends entirely on context, as there's no blanket answer.

Dr. Pavithra addressed why prevention strategies in Tamil Nadu need to be rooted in local culture rather than imported frameworks. Some practices have been part of the culture for generations, she noted, while others are worth learning from elsewhere — the key is contextualising rather than copying.

From there, the conversation opened outward, touching on youth participation in policymaking, integrating mental health into primary healthcare, and what effective implementation actually looks like on the ground. The discussion stayed practical throughout, pushing past theory toward what accessible, inclusive mental healthcare could realistically look like.

Breakout Discussions: What the Youth Had to Say

By 1:35 PM, the summit shifted into small-group discussions. Participants split into teams, each paired with a moderator and handed a shared question to reflect on individually before presenting their answers to the group. Moderators created space for attendees to speak in whichever language felt most comfortable, and the conversations that followed surfaced real friction points within the system.

Where have you felt silenced, and what did you wish you'd seen instead? Several participants pointed to psychology graduates being unable to express themselves freely, often boxed in by stereotypical labels. Others spoke of the pressure to conform limiting how they could live, and criticised tools like the TSF5 for reflecting a Western framework poorly suited to the Indian context.

Where have schools and colleges failed? The group agreed that teens are searching for identity at exactly the age when schools and colleges give them the least room to find it. They called for more student counsellors, and more workshops and awareness campaigns to make mental health support genuinely accessible.

The generational gap between parents and therapists - This discussion ran deep. Participants pointed to assumptions and misunderstanding at the root of the gap, and raised concerns about therapists disclosing information to parents without a child's consent, or being pulled into the role of mediator in family disputes. They called for mass psycho-education, queer-affirmative access to care, and greater value placed on counselling alongside clinical psychology. Several also noted how thin the line between privacy and surveillance can feel — and suggested therapists themselves should be more open to seeking therapy. Ultimately, the ask was simple: kids need real conversations with their parents, and parents need to stay open to having them instead of brushing them aside.

Where have public systems let down mental health? The numbers came up first — only 1.18% of allocation goes toward mental health, even as related issues continue to rise. Participants pointed to the pressure-cooker effect of exams like NEET and JEE, compounded later by the stresses of corporate life. Tele-MANAS was recognised as a valuable government initiative giving people somewhere to turn, though the group questioned how school counsellors are actually perceived by students day to day.

The summit closed with each group's reflections still hanging in the room, not neatly resolved, but honestly aired.