By Adesina Fikemi Adedunni
Dear Nigerians, people with depression are not the villains. Depression is common worldwide with more than 300 million people affected.
It is one of the leading causes of suicide. According to the federal ministry of health, 30 per cent of Nigerians suffer from depression. Most Nigerians are not well-versed on the concept of depression, they assume it is a myth which only applies to the white.
Depression like other mental health issues in Nigeria is shrouded in secrecy. Social stigma and tradition push people to hide their condition from the world or keep them from seeking help.
The response of those who admit to being depressed isn’t very helpful. People have a way of trivializing things they don’t understand, deciding it doesn’t matter because they have no experience of them and have not been educated on the topics, so they just ignore them.
People keep their condition from others’ knowledge due to the stigma associated with going to a psychiatric hospital.
In Lagos, suicide is punishable under Section 235 Cap C17, Volume 3 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015. Yet the state cannot boast of any Comprehensive Mental Health Policy. The youth are mostly affected by this problem, but are silently suffering because they are afraid to be judged or frowned at because cultural traditions hinder us from taking mental health conditions seriously.
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We Africans perceive ourselves to be strong and being able to handle whatever comes our way.
We also hold on to religious beliefs instead of going to a certified therapist in mental health, parents or guardians would only just take them their places of worship for prayer and conclude that it is done. Granted you can be religious and pray, but people believe it is a spiritual problem, they attribute it to witchcraft whereas depression is a mental health illness that needs to be treated like a physical illness is treated, but with a mental health specialist.
Research has shown that Nigeria is by far Africa’s most depressed country. Seeing different cases of suicide everyday; we need to open our eyes and find a way to curb this development.
We need to find ways to educate ourselves about mental health, and eradicate the stigmas associated with it
because people can’t empathize with what they don’t understand.
Depression is hard enough, overcoming it in Nigerian setting is harder. Parents should be more attentive to their children and more involved in their lives to figure out if they are depressed or are leaning towards it, people should understand that sadness is not equivalent to depression and it doesn’t just go away in a day, it takes time, patience, effort and a lot of help from people affiliated
with the mental health patient. Having a Mental Health illness, doesn’t mean you’re defective or doomed, it just means you’re sick and need help.
Nigerians must remember that it is a medical condition that can be cured or with time and the right treatment.
.Adesina is a 200 Mass Communication student of Babcock University
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