As Africans, most of us have grown up caring only about our physical health more than our mental health.
I mean! You can’t blame us, we come from places where they told us being sad is a weakness, and depression was not for us.
Where I come from, we used to see people with mental disorders and accuse them of witchcraft or laugh at them. People used to call it white people sickness.
I knew someone who was to be a psychiatrist and treated people with mental disorders. But he had no right to speak out about it, and he was treating them secretly just because in Congo it is a “ thing” that you should be ashamed of or something you are not supposed to have.
I have known a lot of people that went through depression or just a small phase of it but couldn’t speak to their people about it because they were afraid of not being understood or taken seriously. Honestly, it is so sad that in 2020 Congolese people still don’t understand that. I see a lot of people posting on my social media status about drowning soul but don’t understand what it means because if you know what drowning means, you wouldn’t judge or walk away from a drowning soul?
Mental disorder such as depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, melancholia is real. People that have it don’t choose to feel that way. For most of them, the simple fact of walking out of the bed is a big step. Being in a dark place and getting out of it! Its achievement.
People must stop giving their opinion on other people’s lives sometimes, try to listen to them, and please stop all the comment such as:
- You are too much
- You are too dramatic
- You are too emotional
- it’s nothing
- You don’t do the effort
- You are crying a lot.
And stop minimizing other people's feelings or issues, you are not helping at all.
Guys, mental disease can end someone's life as much as physical disease, please keep your comment or jokes for yourself if it is not going to help.
Do you know that African also commits suicide? And what makes me sad is that “my” generation does not take it seriously because the moment you try to tell someone that you are seeing a psychologist, they ask you (why don’t you pray?)) or you when telling someone; why don’t you see a psychologist? They tell you “I am not a fool“, but it's like having cancer and not going to hospital.
I don’t get the fact that we pray for our physical health and still go to hospital, but we pray for your mental health, but you don’t want to go to see a doctor.
Because it's a part of us as much as the body, we must take care of it.
I always tell people that mental = physics. Because at the moment you are not fine physically, it affects your mental condition. If you are not fine mentally, it affects you physically.
Example:
- people that have physical issues always go through depression
- the moment you feel down, you feel lazy and tired
- when I go through emotional pain, it affects me physically (I can’t breathe, I vomit sometimes, my body is shaking strongly).
Be kind and helpful on your daily basis, try to consider other people's feelings, and if you don’t understand, educate yourself.
I hope that we are the generation that will make a change, make our children understand mental health from low ages, not fear it, being afraid of it. To teach them that they should be free to talk about it, that depression is not a weakness, teach them to talk about their feelings.
HERE IS SOME VIDEO ABOUT THE SUBJECT :
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