The shy and unspoken nature of mental illness within the Black African community

I aim to write and reach out to everyone who is suffering in silence with any form of mental illness or emotional troubles and have no one to speak to or are even uncertain as to where to seek help and validation on a chronic persistent emotional feeling or behaviour that seems not to go away.

I write particularly addressing the Black African community based on my observations and personal experience as a black child and expert in the psychology fraternity. I am sad to say that with the past injustices of the apartheid era and inequality, we have come to a place as a black community where there is lack of resources in poverty-stricken communities that offer psychological services and pay attention to interventions addressing psychological illness.

Moreover, from personal experience I found that parents, relatives, and friends play a huge role in contributing towards the shy unspoken nature of mental illness. Most times, mental illness, or symptoms of depression and anxiety are often confused by black society as being non-existent, a sign of weakness, bewitchment, or even a sign of being lazy or spoilt. As a result, I have seen that black parents would either subscribe to beating their children, and friends would resort to teasing such victims as outcasts of society or label them as "attention seekers". The saddest part of this dilemma is when an individual gives in to mental illness and succumbs to suicide and only then do people ask questions and try to reach out to the family when it is too late. I would like to encourage our community not to make fun of this situation but rather seek wisdom and understanding on this topic as harsh words and stereotypes can contribute to harm and verbal abuse in the case of a mentally ill person.

I further write this article with concern and hope that even though we may not all have access to seek psychological help. We can always act as a community in practicing Ubuntu and being there for one another which was our primary strategy before technological advancement. I would also like to extend concern and encouragement to black African parents to take mental illness seriously while also breaking away from the stigma of being called “crazy”, “dramatic” and “spoilt”. There might not be a definite definition of Depression and Mental Illness in our African languages however this does not stop us from identifying the symptoms that help define this pandemic that we are going through.

I would also like to reach out to our community to make use of spiritual, traditional and government institutions that offer toll free psychological services that aim towards addressing suicide and mental illness.

Last but not least I would like to extend that “I Care” and if ever you need to talk or obtain understanding on the subject of mental illness or the feeling of being emotionally unwell. I will always be there to listen and guide you to the proper channels.