Months ago, I watched a recommended video by a Nigerian YouTuber. The headline read, “I Was Diagnosed with Manic Depression”. I clicked quite fast because I had already begun my journey to understanding and hopefully dissecting the current plague of mental disorders – having experienced my fair share.
The video went into detail of how the condition was triggered by extreme mental and emotional stress which caused her to act irrationally, forcing her loved ones to send her to a psychiatric facility. Listening with empathy, her story seemed familiar.
I was awakened to a buried memory from my childhood.
I was barely 6-years-old when I heard my neighbour screaming frantically. She, like the YouTuber described, was acting irrationally and demanding to be allowed to leave the house. As a little girl, I had seen “mad people” on the streets and I was told that their condition was caused by diabolical interference (or something relating to metaphysical ideologies that my developing brain hadn’t fully grasped). All I knew was, my childhood friend’s mother wasn’t well and no one knew why.
The screams continued until able-bodied men deemed it fit to tie her to the bed while her church members were en route for a demon-casting prayer session. The problem was, she wasn’t possessed by a demon, she wasn’t mad either, she was just extremely stressed. But, no one knew this. (Perhaps, if they had treated it like any other physical ailment, a prayer of healing would have sufficed.)
More than ten years have passed and despite the amazing efforts made by several mental health groups in Nigeria to sensitize the public on the importance of caring for our mental health as much as (or, I dare say more than) our physical health, many are still oblivious of this fact.
This year was that turning point for me. I learned several things:
- Our minds are like sponges that soak up information faster than any computer can. The more wrong information it soaks up, the more it creates an output after its kind. Hence, it’s important to mentally consume the right things.
- The mind needs rest. In our current fast-paced world, it’s quite easy to fall into a mental rut of ‘do’s’ with little time to take a step back and breathe. This is detrimental to our mental health. There should be time to take a break.
- Live in the present. The temptation to incessantly think of what needs to be done tomorrow, next week or next year is one that comes in the manual of being human, however, if these thoughts aren’t productive they could trigger anxiety and no one wants that.
- Lastly, the Bible has given us the right mental script to fashion our thoughts by in Philippians 4:8 which reads: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”