MENTAL HEALTH IN AN AFRICAN HOME

article by Mulila Shadrick

The feeling of gloom is bone-crunching and seemingly inexorable in its devastating impact. it abates self-confidence of arguably the most confident human beings on this planet. it is Depression.The odd feeling of sheer despondency and rejection is a silent, lethal killer. The grim feeling that's ignited in your stomach which alters your mind, body and behavior. It sometimes deprives you of your sleep at night. It makes you vasillate between positive living and suicidal thoughts.

As a topic, mental health has been overlooked in Africa. Mental health has historically been neglected on Africa’s health and development policy agenda. And the reason to this cause revolves around three terrible factors: ignorance about the extent of mental health problems, stigma against those living with mental illness and mistaken beliefs that mental illnesses cannot be treated. Those three factors have done more harm to people when it comes to tussling mental health related illnesses. Owing to the fact that households in most African homes turn a blind eye to mental health, which ultimately leads to depression, the numbers of suicide cases have been shooting up at breakneck speed. Therefore let me take time to marry the two--depression and suicide.

I'd like to take this fortuity to talk about the various issues that bring about depression, how it correlates to suicide, and how this terrible issue can be put to a halt. One of the many situations which may lead someone into committing suicide is losing a loved one. It is very touching to lose people you're in close touch with. Deplorable as per se. Worse still, if they are your parent or guardian. So if an individual loses his/her parent(s), they end up being sad, traumatized, agitated et al. This may be as a result of extreme pain that comes with death, loneliness, pressure, Insecurity, to mention but a few. Hopelessness and Isolation. Well, a lot of people are scuffling depression in different areas of life. So many emotions are attached to that and only a handful of people know how to handle those emotions. When someone is feeling hopeless or isolated, so many thoughts flow into their mind. And without any doubt, suicide is one of the thoughts and seems to be the super-perfect solutions to such problems, more especially among African victims. But on a coin's flips-side, suicide is never the answer!

The other factor contributing to increased suicide cases is substance abuse. It, too, is very much common among youths in Africa. The drugs that these youths abuse distort the normal functioning of the brain. Coincidentally, they begin to think in odd ways. After abusing drugs, some of the terrible effects they may have on you are; feeling tiresome and helpless. And what do people think is the solution to this? Suicide !

Furthermore, loss of work, property, finances and failure of relationships are also some of the factors. Even worse, lack of access to mental health treatment, aligned together with stigma and belief in the unthinkable dogmas that are built around the topic, is one of the topmost factors that tremendously lead to depression and other mental health related illnesses. Thankfully, even though these factors have a toll on people, there are some practical solutions that can used to slump the suicide cases on the African continent.

suicide has always been seen as a taboo in the typical African home. Mental health related illnesses simply do not exist to African parents or guardians and dealing with depression or another mental health related illness could be draining. Thankfully, todays young people are more intentional about their own mental health and raising awareness for others mental health too. Many people have used the “parents” excuse before, quite frankly, yes they may have caused your bad mental health but they didn’t know, they don’t know but you do! Mental health in an African home is a topic that should be stressed to its full. Your take away from this article should be that your parents are learning too. Mental health related illnesses are hard to understand regardless of age, experience or the number of children one could have.