Raising Awareness to Empower selves

Introduction: Time to stop the stigma

Hello everyone! Welcome to my new blog Raising Awareness to Empower Selves (RATES)! My goal is to raise awareness for mental health, mental health challenges and knowledge that most mental illnesses are treatable, just as physical illnesses.

This is the first part of the introduction to this blog. In today’s entry, we will cover the inspiration for the blog. The next will be to delve into the concepts of health, mental health, and wellbeing.  

According to World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in 4 patients visiting a health service has at least one mental, neurological, or behavioral disorder, but most of these disorders are neither diagnosed nor treated. A very prominent reason, among others is fear of disclosing due to stigma. Other major reasons include limited understanding about mental illness, the difference between mental health and mental illness, decreased understanding on what to do, decreased awareness regarding treatment of mental illnesses, and limited access to care. When there is a lack of understanding about a subject matter, there is a tendency to avoid talking about it. This opens the door for misconceptions to run out of control.

During one of my trips to my home country in Nigeria, I had gone out with my family to a convenience store. As we walked into the store, we saw a lady painted with dark soot all over her face and arms. I observed this lady as she stood outside in one spot, for a long time, without moving nor uttering a word. I asked the store owner and others nearby, who the lady was, how long she had been standing there, like that, and why she was there in the first place. They all laughed at me, surprised that I asked those questions. It felt like I should have known who she was. One of the ladies then replied, “oh you don’t know?” She asked this question again, two more times and then calmly said “she is the Agent”. I asked her, “What Agent? Agent of what?” She replied “Agent of the Devil! She comes here occasionally and then sometimes regularly, to take our things by force. We give her and then she goes and comes back at a certain time….”

This encounter prompted a reflection about the extent of the stigma and challenges people with mental illnesses go through, in low resource areas. I could just feel the need for public health education to raise mental health awareness and reduce stigma, in my country. It may be a drop in the bucket for one person to talk about such a challenging topic like this. However, when done collectively, it may go a long way towards producing a change in these beliefs, that have been held onto for so long. This has become a major driving force towards the creation of interactive and educational mental health blogs. With RATES, I hope to create a better understanding of mental health, mental illness, and the differences between the two.

I encourage you all to spread the word and take part in the many discussions we will be having on here, moving forwards. Please sign up to receive notifications of these free and future blogs!