Mental Illness: Time to make a difference!

On Monday 11 October 2021, I was in front of my psychiatrist for my usual review.?We got talking about the mental health month.?He pointed out it would have been a good idea for me to share my “lived experience” with mental illness with the crowd of mental health professionals who were in attendance at the virtual conference the week before.?He has been treating me since 2013, so he was speaking from a place of knowledge.?The conversation got me thinking and I decided to visit LinkedIn to see what was being said about mental health and mental illness during this month.?I mean, LinkedIn is the professionals` village with employees, employers, entrepreneurs, global opinion leaders, etc.?So what better place to talk about a subject as sensitive and pervasively impairing and debilitating as Mental Illness.?

I was pleased to see many people share their testimonies and involvement.?I was however disappointment by the lack of African testimonies. ?Our environments are rife with ingredients for mental disorders to blossom: political instability, poverty, unemployment, civil wars, etc.?It`s true, hard facts about mental illness incidence are very scarce for African countries, but estimated average per country is more than 20%.?We only whisper about mental illness in the continent; it is still a taboo and a crime to be mentally ill. ?A father in one African country locked away his child for seven years because he was mentally ill.?He dreaded the ridicule the condition of the child would bring onto him.?We are also used to hardship that many mental illness symptoms don`t seem out of place until it`s too late.?Worse, we struggle with shortage of professionals and institutions to assist those who are plagued by mental disorders.?Our behaviour towards mental illness doesn`t empower patients to be comfortable with their condition and seek the much needed help.?This is rooted in our history and culture, and I will come back to it in a future article.

As I was preparing this article, I received news that an acquaintance of mine had committed suicide.?When I checked in with her at the end of August, she had informed me she had been struggling with a lot, but in her words “…I got a job so that`s a good start”.?I couldn`t help the guilt; I had been blindsided.?We met in June and July.?In the first meeting she was pitching a business idea to me.?In the second, we talked about everything, particularly her professional activities and financial challenges.?Then she told me about her learning disability that had made her drop out of junior secondary.?She was worried her lack of any academic or professional certificate was killing her chances of getting anything worthwhile.?This was actually news to me, and I told her.?I had met her for the first time in 2013 in a multinational business setting.?And for the years that followed, she was always into one venture or the other.?A very kind-hearted and friendly person who attracted people of all classes and races, like bees to a honey comb.?Together we charted a plan of action to get her back to some financial stability.?The job she told me she had gotten was step one of the plan, so I was happy and hopeful.?The next step, after she felt she had enough to look after herself and her twins, and could spare something, was for her to seek some formal training to better her chances of finding more decent opportunities.?So hearing she had killed herself just a month and a half after our last chat was eating me up.?I had been so much focused on her being able to fend for herself and her kids that I had not dwelled much on the other cues she had thrown my way that pointed to the potential of deeper concerns.?I remember joking that she seemed to have one of the mental disorders I have, but because I didn`t want pile on her worries, I told her to ignore me.?She was always having a new business idea without completing the one she had earlier told me about; that was cue number 1.?A close parent of hers had committed suicide not so far back, plagued by depression; that was cue number 2.?She was using lots of wellness apps, and recommended some to me when I shared my struggle with mental illness to encourage her; that was cue number 3.?But because she was a lot into martial arts, using wellness apps seemed normal to me: big mistake!?That she finally took her own life is telling of the pain and distress; she loved her kids too much to bail out without fighting like the lioness she was.

I was devastated and hurting so badly!?Once more, mental illness had won, and I had lost!?It had stolen four and a half decades of my life during which I self-sabotaged, self-destroyed, and was repeatedly at the brink of committing suicide myself; fortunately, I had doctors to save me. ?Regrettably, in the process, aided by the failure of the executive function of my brain, I had committed professional suicide, giving people the wrong image of me as stubborn, inconsistent, abrasive, and quick to anger.?Now from under my nose, it had taken the life of one of the most benign and good-natured human beings I could think of, leaving children without their mum for life.?It had failed some years back in the case of another person close to me whose overdose on prescription drugs had not reached the intended tragic end.?This was too much!

Towards the end of 2020, I discovered that I had a third mental illness.?It is actually turning out to be the main culprit for most of my life and professional shortcomings since childhood.?Just like the two others, it went undiagnosed and untreated for decades.?While I continue working with my psychiatrist and psychologist, I had to postpone the release of my book to the later part of 2022 to give me time to understand this new disorder.?More and more, I am asking myself, how we can help managers and leaders pick cues of mental struggles in their team members.?This will not only help the affected person, but will boost the team ambience and improve overall productivity.?Aside from the personal pain, shame, and tears, there`s enormous personal and general economic loss due to the disability caused by mental illness and the distress of sufferers.?How do we embed understanding and handling of mentally challenged colleagues in management and leadership best practices??There is the popular use of the word `ACCOMMODATION`, particularly in school settings, for children with conditions like ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).?What kinds of accommodations and/or policies can we or should we make in the work place, in schools, and at home?

Follow me as I continue writing on this invisible disability, with focus on Africa.?We are very undereducated and tight-lipped about mental illness, and acutely lacking in resources to handle the conditions.?With my “lived experience”, treated by 06 psychiatrists and 02 psychologists in 05 different African countries, I am working on helping the situation as best as I can.?My hope is that many will achieve the improvement I am experiencing.?The stigma needs to stop, and we need to create enabling environments in which people feel empowered to freely talk about their mental disorders and get the help they need.

Should you be struggling mentally or know someone with a mental disorder anywhere in Africa, please send me a mail to [email protected].?I have been there: a heartbeat from killing myself, chronic unhappiness, and slower career progress capped by an atrocious crash-out just a step away from getting the CEO top job in major multinational companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. ?The regrets, the pain, the shame, the tears, the confusion, the distress, and the loneliness, I have unfortunately been too intimate with each across decades.?I can thus relate easily to your struggle. ?I am not a professional, but I use my network in various African countries to help anybody who reaches out in need of assistance.?There may be 3rd party costs in some cases, but please, do reach out.?Just talking with someone who can listen and empathise is a great step, so give us a chance.

I also give motivational talks, using my experience.?Feel free to book.

NB

• While everything in this article is a verifiable fact, I had to tweak one or two elements out of respect for people connected in one way or the other
• None of the images used was created by me. I couldn`t find authors of some to give due credit.

Watch out for the next article.

Mental_B (aka Brain AZEMCHAP)

[email protected]