If you are from here, you don’t need anyone to tell you that crazy things happen on a daily basis. Creaking news constantly assaults your sensibilities in an atmosphere that has become the scene of the absurd. You try to suppress your emotions but they keep erupting like fountains. It also doesn’t help that we live in a culturally disgusting society with mental health, it is seen in some circles as a sign of strangeness, some equate it outright with insanity.
Personally, October has been a very dark month for me, not just for the collective trauma we have suffered and had to relive, but a cocktail of other incidents has just conspired to push me to the limit. What used to be a birthday month has turned into a battle to keep my sanity. For a writer who produced between three thousand and five thousand words a day, I could barely conjure up to ten thousand words all month. A friend of mine told me his poor heart couldn’t take living here anymore and true to his word, a few days later he was at Justin’s house – running through the Six. When life keeps throwing curved balls at you, it’s easy to assume you’ve still got your gloves on, but you need to pause and examine your headspace to make sure you’re still on top of your game.
Talk about it
One of the ways to overcome any challenge is to expose it to someone or a community who can support you. Especially for the men, it’s instructive to know that you won’t always be Superman, a high-flying hero with the cape and all. Most of your life will be like Clark kent, do normal things and take on challenges just like any other person. You don’t get any extra points for acting like a macho, your recovery depends on your honesty. I have friends that I share my challenges with when I hit the rocks and they always help me in more than one way.
But you have to be careful, some people don’t care about you, they’re just curious. They just want all the details so they can share your business with their gossip partners. You don’t want to share your vulnerable moments with people who will blog your story for the world to feast on. You don’t just need comrades, you need confidants. I recommend organizations like Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI), She Writes Woman (SWW) and other organizations that do the Lord’s work consistently.
Take a break
The battlefield is in the mind, if it’s not in the right place – there’s not much you can do productively. Your daydreaming could be anything, taking a vacation, a break from news content, or even work. Read books on mental health, especially those that have first-hand experiences or are very familiar with the subject of mental health. From dust to dew through Betty Irabor, The magic of emotional intelligence through Salami ‘Champ’ Abiola and Deep expression by dr. Maymunah Yusuf Kadiri easily come to mind. Drawing strength from the victories of others strengthens your conviction and your will to come out of this funk of depression. Your experience may be unique to you, but in the larger context of humanity, there is nothing new under the sun. Know in your heart that there are people who have been there and done this. Your experience will be no exception.
Double your body
Scientifically, it has been proven that there is a link between your physical health and your mental health. Exercise regularly, eat well, get enough rest and in Aproko Doctor’s voice: “be sure to say you drink lots of water!” Start seeing your body as a vehicle to achieve your goal on earth and you must learn to put a premium on it. There are fitness clubs, gyms, online programs, and even trainers that can help you with simple workouts that can increase your mental toughness. Your motivation for exercising shouldn’t be primarily due to the body-shamer vitriol, it should be you first. Haters will always hate and potatoes will always be in pots; there isn’t much you can do to control their venom. Kiss yourself and double the positivity of the body.
Register for therapy
Coaching and therapy are two sides of the same coin for me. Coaching looks to the future while therapy looks back and tries to connect the dots. You need a professional who knows the tools of the trade, especially neuro linguistic programming. Many of us suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder on so many levels, and these wounds go back a long way and go deep. Instead of indulging in drug addiction which will eventually make matters worse, you are better off hiring a consultant or seeking professional help. There are a lot of experts like Oyinkansola Alabi of Emotion City who are skilled at identifying those pain points and reusing your heartbreaking experiences for good. “Yaba is gone” and other medical facilities like this are not places for the mad, don’t be ashamed to suffer in silence.
Do what you like
Writing for me is not just a hobby, an art or a skill, it is something that I use to deal with the vagaries of life because it has cathartic value. That’s why it’s important to do what you love, because stressors are mostly things that drain you of positive emotions. Anything that robs you of your peace and quiet costs too much. It can be a tough call, especially in light of our economic reality, but you need to know when to give up on people, jobs, things, or whatever feeds your phobia, paranoia, or dysfunction – it’s a small price. to pay for salvation. My emotions are on a budget right now, I have resolved to jump and move on anything or anyone that is not moving properly. It’s not about empowering people but choosing to love them from afar. I don’t want to reason about the wrong things anymore, that no one stresses me out. As you see me like this, it is only the customers who will give me the joy that I find now.
The conversation about mental health should be ongoing. Whether as individuals or as a collective, we must continually question the triggers of trauma and deal with them decisively. In addition, in the future, we need to make very informed decisions about who in all spheres of our life is fueling the dysfunction around us because that is not the content we signed up for. We should also be more human and empathetic to those who go through things instead of tearing them down more. Normally we all mess up, but around here, whoever catches it is a thief. So when the next time there’s a vawulence and dear ear on the timeline, resist the urge to be wild.
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Featured Image: Dreamtime
