Mental health is the state of one’s cognitive wellbeing. I think I first came across the term in 2015 at a Fatuma’s Voice function in Nairobi when we hosted mental health advocate, Sitawa Wafula. The term did not leave a lasting impression in my mind until early 2017 when I came out with my story of depression and suicide ideation.
I felt cheated that then at 29, nobody had taught me the value of taking care of my mind, or ever explained to me how the mind or the brain really functions. Coming out with my story gave many others the opportunity to share with me their predicaments – in numbers. And I wondered how come so many of us were in that pit but nobody was talking about it.
Getting online I couldn’t find African mental health stories. I figured that is where it should start. As an activist, storyteller and creative, it picked my interest to commence documenting my own healing journey to bring the message home to my people.
One of the biggest challenges with mental health conversations here is that sense of a lack of empowerment through language. Yet our indigenous communities have similar words that could help us explain our emotions and feelings; though I reckon that because systematically we’ve been separated from being comfortable with our feelings and emotions, language around it also dies. This is what I want to change.
Africa’s contribution to global mental health perspectives is widely overlooked because we lack focal statistics on mental illnesses and the complexities of their causes. Yet our rich cultures can be a massive source of wisdom and direction for the world to learn just how powerful communities are in mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
I think there ought to be units in early school that teach children on mental health. The earlier they know the better.
The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]
Dad was exceedingly brutal on my body, man. Sometimes the beatings were spread out, sometimes bundled in a week. He’d hoist my tiny body to the air and throw me to the wall, like a ball. Only I couldn’t bounce back. He’d stomp his feet on my head like he was eliminating a snake. He’d […]
In neuroscience there’s something called ‘neuroception’. This describes how our nervous systems distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life threatening. As a form of healing, social support like having safe and healthy relationships enable us to ‘co-regulate’. This is connecting to another safe nervous system that helps us rewire our brain to […]
About orgasms: When I became sexually active, it did not occur to me that pleasuring my partner is an essential process of intercourse. I modelled sex from porn and the machismo spewed by movie stars on TV. Only one man in my life, a doctor at a Ugandan school I attended, attempted to issue me […]
The goal is: Slow down. Even if you got all the answers today you wouldn’t be able to hurry time. There is more to your faith or lack of it than what they’ve written in religious books. Search for it. Have you heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls of 1946/7? They found more books that […]
The first time I had sex I was 20. With 5 years’ experience in masturbation. I got an STI. She manipulated me into sleeping with her. With mandazi. Yes, mandazi. I was a nervous wreck in that bed. Called me a coward for not ejaculating inside her. It hurt. But I was used to insults […]
Daddy and me, first years Unspoken traumas. When I was 5, daddy would put me up on our living room table whenever he was home, switch his Sanyo radio on and ask me to dance for him to soukouss and rhumba hits. We took evening walks around the neighborhood, visiting his friends’ houses while holding […]
Here’s a list of common mental health conditions. Anxiety Anxiety is a normal and often healthy emotion. However, when a person regularly feels disproportionate levels of anxiety, it might become a medical disorder. Anxiety disorders form a category of mental health diagnoses that lead to excessive nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worry. These disorders alter how a person processes […]
At The Bar My partner and I entered a bar to catch a drink one evening in 2018. We had spent some incredible hours facilitating a gender workshop and thought it fine to enjoy a band over some light conversation while supping some refreshments. The band strapped the evening with their vast swathes of Congolese […]
How much about your mental health do you know? I’ll tell you one thing; both birth and death are painful. In between them is a window of opportunity. A moment in space where you exist in the physical realm. We all get different time. Some stay for hours, some days, some for years. What do […]
