How does culture affect mental health?

Yesterday, there was a campaign focused on Mental Health with a theme of Time to Talk. We were encouraged to talk about Mental Health and speak to people by asking them "how is your day".

After a lot of interesting talks, I started reflecting on Mental Health and what it means to me as a person. Two things occurred to me; culture and community. Before I continue, I would like to take you back to my experiences as a child and what Mental Health meant to me. I spent most of my early years in Nigeria as a child. My experience of Mental Health was in movies. There was often a recurring theme of a "mad" woman in those movies. Someone who had finally snapped as a result of different factors. There was no explanation as to the causes or the series of events leading to her losing her mind just a presentation of a mad woman.

Fast forward to my time here in the United Kingdom a few years later, what struck me was the feeling of loneliness I felt in such a big city. Loneliness at school, loneliness at football and loneliness at home. The loneliness at home was attributed to not having "sociable" neighbours. To my adult life, I do not remember my neighbours names from our first house in London. I can however remember the names of our neighbours in Nigeria where I lived at till I was twelve years old. Neighbours we only lived next to for two years but I could not remember the neighbours we lived next to for over 5 years.

Forward some more to my adult life, and I hear a lot of talk about mental health so I started to compare. The notable difference between here and there was the sense of community in Nigeria. whilst we do not talk about mental health a lot over there, I rarely heard of suicides, I rarely heard about people being institutionalised and I never saw a mad woman on the street.

A chat with one person during the talk day was interesting as they called it "corporate jargon". Why did they feel this way I asked, and they responded that all they always hear is "talk". Something finally clicked, that is the major difference between here and Nigeria, we talk so much. However, if we do not move and if we do not start to take action, and start to say hello to our neighbours so they do not succumb to loneliness, then we are just as bad as those who do not talk about Mental Health.

My plea to you is not to talk but to take action, to make your new neighbour feel welcome, to have regular visits to those you love as you never know when they just need someone to be there with them as it may not necessarily be the time they want to "talk about it".