An average Nigerian who takes medical check-up seriously in any hospital, whether home or abroad, is passionately interested in every organ except the mind. We are relaxed when specialists of various disciplines run their tests and pronounce us fit and healthy.
Unfortunately, very few bother to know whether their minds are functioning well. Nobody disturbs their personal physicians about the possibility of a mental assessment. Unfortunately, the mind is the most crucial organ in the body. I have seen folks physically handicapped, blind, deaf and dumb achieve prodigies but not when the mind is sick.
A good number of marital separation or divorce issues may have been prevented if the partners had approached a mental health expert. Conflicts may be traceable to a partner in the union who is already having mental illness. Children, especially teenagers, may manifest the first episode of mental illness through a disobedient act. This is very common with children who are abusing drugs, especially marijuana, who may start having poor grades apart from being audacious and reckless.
Behavioural attitudes such as undue social withdrawal, coming home late, receiving frequent phone calls from new friends, radical change in dress sense and unruly behavior are all tell tales of mental issues. However, most times, parents dismiss the seriousness of these behavioural changes on the ground of their being a part of growing up.
I advocate the reintroduction of guidance and counseling unit in every of our secondary school, which could serve as an active psychology clinic to proactively manage this group of students by inviting parents and instituting appropriate counseling and referral.
The girls may come up with confrontational behaviour, lousy, inappropriate dressing and unnecessary withdrawal from family interactions; coupled with recruitment of strange friends to hang out with. There is no hard and fast rule about delineating these pointers, but the doctrine is being proactive to institute early intervention.
For the adults, prolonged disturbances in sleep patterns in the absence of a physical illness, explosive and often abrasive interaction with spouse, colleagues and employees may be pointing to a serious mental health challenge. A good number of newly married couples waking up into real life from the honeymoon period may require professional help. The first few years of marriage are often turbulent and challenging, since the couple are two different individuals that require a process of adjustment to each other. This knowledge is not commonplace and if mismanaged can snowball into a separation, with either of the partner developing mental illness.
Pressure at work may make the head of the family more impatient as he transfers aggression and avoid intimacy with his wife as a result of psychological pressure from work; just as he drinks more alcohol or may start risky behaviour that may affect his health, especially at midlife.
A middle aged woman concentrating on fashion not appropriate for her age may be the manifestations of a cry for help. Our general practitioners should pick early signs of mental distress often disguised in Africa as physical symptoms and do appropriate referral.
Setting unreasonable goals, undertaking grandiose projects, even in the name of religion, may signal the early onset of mental illness.
Africans have always had their way of handling psychological distress before the colonial masters came. Religion, through the priests, has always been a primary source of succour, even up till now. Unfortunately, a good number of our cultural belief system in Africa takes responsibility away from the doorstep of the client to some foreign, external agent. This makes rational intervention difficult and the client may be immersed in a system of delusions that may invariably complicate life rather than liberate.
Life has different phases, with each phase having its own challenge; even promotion, which is a good thing, also has its own mental health challenge; but the bottom line is that each challenge must be rationally engaged, analysed and sorted out as we learn to seek expert mental health intervention.
Where this rational engagement is avoided, folks excuse themselves of responsibility for caring for their minds, thereby laying the foundation for frank mental illness.
Faith is a rational engagement of the challenges of life by invoking the power of omnipresence for solution; while delusion is a denial of the reality of the circumstance in the process of invoking the power of omnipotence. The latter surely and steadily leads to illness, while faith aids mental health.
We should be proactive in the care of our minds by being sensitive to their functioning, first in ourselves and also in our loved ones. We should endeavour to be sensitive to each other as family, as colleagues and institute interpersonal engagement that can help folks unburden their minds, such that appropriate help can be instituted.
Let us take time to visit our mental health experts before we experience a full blown mental illness.
campusflava
No comments:
Post a Comment