Focusing on Mental Health: Breaking Emotional Taboos and Social Stigmas Among African Men

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Last year was hell. It was my first time eating Nigerian Jolof. Actually, in all seriousness, I was going through a lot of personal turmoil. Faced with enormous stress, I suffered an anxiety attack. On some days, I could do no work. On other days, I just wanted to lay in my bed and cry. My doctor asked if I'd like to speak with a mental health professional about my stress and anxiety. Mental health, I clammed up and violently shook my head in protest. I felt a profound sense of shame. I felt the weight of stigma. I have a loving, supportive family and incredibly loyal friends. Yet I could not entertain the idea of speaking to anyone about my feeling of pain. I felt suffocated by the rigid architecture of an African masculinity. People have real problems, Sangu. Get over yourself. The first time I encountered mental health awareness, I was a boarding school student, fresh off the boots from Ghana at the petty school in New Jersey. I had just gone through the brutal experience of losing seven loved ones in the same month. The school nurse consented about what I had gone through. God bless her soul. She inquired about my mental health. "Is she mental?" I thought. Like a concord and things fall apart, we African men need a process of not expressing emotions. We deal with our problems on our own. I called my brother and joked about white people. And they are strange diseases, depression, ADD, and those weird things. Growing up in West Africa, when people mentioned mental illness, what came to mind was a mad man with dirty, dreadlocked hair, bumbling around half naked on the streets. According to the World Health Organization, mental health is about being able to cope with the normal stresses of life, to work productively and fruitfully, and to make a contribution to your community. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Globally, 75% of all mental illness cases can be found in low-income countries. Yet most African governments invest less than 1% of their healthcare budget on mental health. Even worse, there is a severe shortage of psychiatrists in Africa. Nigeria, for example, is estimated to have only 200 psychiatrists in a country of almost 200 million. Across Africa, 90% of people lack access to treatment. As a result, we suffer in solitude, silenced by stigma. We as Africans often respond to mental health issues with distance, ignorance, guilt, fear, and anger. In a study conducted by Aboleda Flores, directly asking "What is the cause of mental illness?", 34% of Nigerian respondents cited drug misuse, 19% said divine wrath or the will of God, and 12% witchcraft and spiritual possession. Few cited other known causes such as genetics, socioeconomic status, war, conflict, or the loss of a loved one. Distigmatization against mental illness often results in the ostracizing and demonizing of sufferers. Photojournalist Robin Hammond has documented some of these abuses in Uganda, Somalia, and Nigeria. For me, the stigma is personal. In 2009, I received a frantic call in the middle of the night. My best friend, a brilliant, philosophical, charming young man, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I witnessed some of the friends we grew up with recoil. I heard the snickers and whispers: "Did you hear he has gone mad?" They started the regulatory, demeaning commentary about his condition, something we would never do with someone with cancer or malaria. Somehow, when it comes to mental illness, our ignorance eviscerates our empathy. I stood by his side as his community isolated him. But our love never wavered. Tastefully, I became passionate about mental health, inspired by his plight. I helped found the mental health special interest alumni group at my college, and during my tenure as a resident tutor in graduate school, I supported many undergraduates with mental health challenges. I saw African students struggle and unable to speak to anyone. Even with this knowledge, when I faced my own anxiety, I struggled and could not speak to anyone. So deep is our fear of being perceived as the madman. All of us, especially Africans, need to realize that our mental struggles do not detract from our virility, nor does our trauma taint our strength. We need to see mental health as important as physical health. We need to stop suffering in silence. We must stop stigmatizing disease and traumatizing those afflicted. Talk to your friends. Talk to your loved ones. Talk to health professionals. Be vulnerable. Do so with the confidence that you are not alone. Speak up if you are struggling. Be honest about how you feel. It does not make us weak. It makes us human. It is time to end the stigma associated with mental illness. So the next time you hear "mental," do not just think of the madman. Think of me. Thank you.