On Monday, when I heard that Robin Williams had committed suicide. My first reaction was shock because he made most people laugh and I could not imagine him being sad and depressed. When you see people on television all the time, you feel like you know them when all you know are the characters they portray. One thing I have learnt is life is not as it often appears.
I had an uncle who passed away a couple of years ago. He suffered from mental health issues, I do not know the technical term of the disease he had. He had no problems until his late twenties; he suffered from head injuries apparently through a robbery and was never right again without medication. It was difficult for him to hold a job whenever he defaulted on his medication, he would become belligerent and difficult to talk to. Some people would tell him he was the way he was because of witchcraft and he would refuse to take his medication. Before he died, he got sick and did not say anything until nothing could be done to help him get better. It hurt that we could have helped him but he did not know how to ask.
In Zimbabwe, mental health is something that people like to make fun of. I can not tell you how many times I wanted to punch someone for mocking my uncle. Nowadays, people take pictures of people who have mental health problems and post them on Facebook to laugh at them. I do not understand it! Why people think this is normal behavior, is something I am yet to understand. It makes it hard for someone who needs help to seek it.
There are many kinds of mental health issues from depression, anxiety to schizophrenia. If you have a problem seek help or if you know someone who does help them. Some people do not even know they have a problem and that for me is just heartbreaking. You can not fix something that you do not know is broken.
Someone complained on a Facebook Group that she was suffering from postpartum depression and she was told to get over it. Really? You are not doing this person a favour by telling them to toughen up. Depression is not a western problem, anyone anywhere in the world can get it. It is also very unhelpful to blame the person who has mental illness for their situation. To me it’s like letting someone bleed out because they were drunk driving.
We all need to educate ourselves more about mental illnesses so that we will be able to recognize them in ourselves and others.If you do not know how to help someone find someone else to help.
I found these infographics with more information about mental health, most of the information in particularly from the United States but I believe the information is still relevant.
Be a friend to someone today, you never know you might save their life.