This topic reminds me of a statement I made yesterday. Funny enough it had to do with depression but it was a statement I made as a joke. I say it was a joke cause it’s the third time I’ve said that. A lady at the workplace jokingly said I am short( which I am) and I didn’t find it offensive. I’ve never ever found someone saying that I am short offensive cause I know I am and I’ve never been sad that someone stated the obvious.
She said it as a joke actually but I replied saying if I was a different race I would have been depressed by now. I said that cause in Africa most of us don’t care about mental health and the only time we care about mental health is when someone goes mad to the point where the person is roaming on the street.
Growing up we used to laugh at mad people we saw on the street for things they did which we thought were funny. Now that I am old now I actually don’t think they are funny now cause boy they are not funny.
This reminds me of the time I was in senior high. We were writing an exams off campus at the time and each time we were on our way we saw a mentally challenged man who always carried a big rock to and fro. The only question that went through my head each time was how? How can someone carry a huge rock for that whole day just cause he’s mentally challenged?
Funny enough most of us at that time found it funny and we laughed it off each time. But as we grow and the education is getting better it seems we tend not to laugh at people who are mentally challenged.
We tend to tag mental health challenges with witchcraft or something else in my country. The problem with this is that a lot of people don’t think or believe that someone count just have a mental breakdown and it could go worse at any point in time.
Why is that?
First of all, mental health education in this country for a long time has been bad and people don’t know a thing about mental health. We only tend to go with superstitious beliefs which have been around this topics for a long time.
It has been around for a long time that even when someone who has more knowledge tried to educate us we tend to think he or she is lying or doesn’t know what they are talking about.
This days I’ve realised that education on this topic is better in my country but we still have a long way to go before things become better for us as people need to know more whether you are literate or not. Instead is just assuming we need to be informed so we can inform others.
Secondly, how we have been brought up has caused a lot of damage in some situations than some. I say this not to mean we have been brought up in a bad way but then most of the things we were taught as children concerning certain topics have turned out to be lies.
I agree that some of these things were supposed to protect us but then some of them are too extreme and we need to do better to correct those mistakes.
Lastly, the conspiracy theory around depression in my country has caused a lot of harm than good. I call it a conspiracy theory cause I didn’t know what to call it.
There was this that a popular musician in Ghana came out and said she was depressed for a long time and people didn’t know. Well, as you will have it some people said she was going through heart break and said she was depressed. The thing is that, we have a long way to go with this topic in this country.
It’s going to be a long battle and I hope we can get past it soonest. Mental health is important and any one can suffer from mental health crisis.
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