Islamabad: In drawing rooms across Pakistan, and much of South Asia, the conversation often ends before it truly begins. All it takes is one question: “Log kya kahen gy” or “What will people say?” Positive choices, difficult conversations, and even deeply personal decisions are often left unspoken or abandoned for fear of crossing social norms. It is rarely argued with. It is simply repeated from generation to generation until it stops sounding like a question and starts sounding like a verdict, one that often leaves a lasting psychological toll.
A 2022 study published in the Journal of Pakistan Psychiatric Society found that fear of social judgment was among the top three stressors reported by young adults seeking therapy. It ranked close behind financial pressure and family conflict and often overlapped with both.
“In our culture, the self is never just an individual. It’s an extension of the family,” said Dr. Hamza Siraj, Clinical Psychologist at Pak Medical Center, Kahuta, talking to reporter .
“When a client tells me they’re depressed, I don’t just ask what’s wrong with them. I ask what they’ve given up to keep other people comfortable.”
That sacrifice plays out in ordinary lives, not headlines.
Ayesha Tariq, a 29-year-old graphic designer from Kahuta, turned down a fully funded scholarship abroad after her in-laws raised concerns about “what people would say” regarding a married woman living alone overseas.
“I told myself it was my own choice,” she says. “But really, I was just tired of being the topic of conversation at every gathering before I’d even left the country, she expressed herself talking to this news agency.”
For others, the pressure shapes decisions that last decades.
Bilal Ahmed, 34, from Faisalabad, stayed in an unhappy marriage for nine years.
“My mother said if I left her, no one would marry my sisters,” he recalled talking to this news agency. “So I stopped being a husband and became a sacrifice instead.”
Sociologists say this fear is not entirely irrational. In tightly knit communities, one family member’s choices can genuinely affect siblings’ marriage prospects and social standing. That is exactly what gives “log kya kahen gy” its grip.
Ayesha Farooq, a Sociologist who studies family structures in Punjab in response to an reporter query said, “The sad part is that most of the fears people carry exist more in their minds than in reality.”
“The tragedy is that the people most afraid of judgment are rarely judged as harshly as they imagine. They’ve simply been trained to expect the worst.”
Shayan Ahmed, 24, from Rawalpindi, left an engineering degree to pursue music professionally.
“Relatives still introduce me as ‘the one who wasted his degree,'” he said talking to this scribe.
“Nobody asks if I’m happy. They ask if I’ve ‘settled down’ yet. As if happiness is a side effect and stability is the only real goal.”
Women often face more judgement.
“Mothers delay leaving abusive marriages, young women turn down promotions that involve travel and brides diet aggressively before weddings. All shaped by an audience that’s mostly imaginary,” said Ayesha Farooq.
“But psychologically, it functions like a very real law.”
Parents feel caught in the system too.
“I want my daughter to choose her own path,” says Nadia Hussain, a schoolteacher and mother in Kahuta.
“But the moment she does something different, I’m the one fielding questions from relatives for months. It wears you down, even as a parent.”
Employers and educators are beginning to notice the toll this takes on confidence and decision-making in younger employees.
“Fresh graduates often hesitate to take career risks, not because they lack skill but because they’re terrified of how failure will look to their family,” said Uzair Alvi, a career counsellor at Comsats University responding to an reporter query.
“We end up coaching people out of fear before we coach them into the job.”
Pakistan’s mental health infrastructure remains thin relative to need.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly flagged the country’s psychiatrist-to-population ratio as among the lowest in the region. This leaves many people who internalize this pressure with little structured support to process it.
Experts say breaking the grip of “log kya kahen gy” does not require rejecting family or community. It requires renegotiating the terms.
Dr. Hamza Siraj recommends therapy that addresses collective shame directly rather than treating it as a side issue. He also encourages family conversations that separate love from control.
“Healthy families ask if you’re okay,” he says. “Unhealthy ones ask what the neighbours will think.”
As Ayesha puts it while looking back at the scholarship she didn’t take:
“I used to think that was the dream I lost. Now I think the real loss was believing strangers’ opinions mattered more than my own life.”
