DIGNITY IN MENTAL HEALTH

“If I can remember one hundred and thirty lines for my part in a movie, then why can't you see my ability.........."

These words from a person with ‘Down Syndrome’ rang and echoed in my head like the chiming of an invisible clock for ages.

As someone who believes in ‘Judgment day, and in ‘life after death’, I’ve tried countless times to understand how, just how people with mental health challenges will give account of what they have done, but I’m yet to decipher, though I catch a glimpse in those crazy moments when we all get mad, yell, and scream, throw things and end up having a lot to be sorry for because for one minute, we just couldn’t get it together, in those moments that all the explanation we could give amounted to - “I don’t know what came over me”.

Those hours we get on the bus from the east of Nigeria to the far north, the times we are stuck up in the traffic after work, those days we get through the busy and ‘linefully’ strenuous process of registration in the camps before we settle down, do you know what they all have in common? - We all end up with sticky bodies, and more than food we all want the feel of water on our skin (like our sins could be washed away by it), and do you know one person who wishes to be like us after that, that man on dreadlocks who we passed by on our way back from the market, that very popular one.

Dear leaders, isn’t it unfair that we let our brothers, sisters, parents and children roam the streets when we can give them homes and rehabilitation, when we have the option of equipping our psychiatric centers and giving these people a life? Isn’t it iniquitous that the rest of the public have their lives endangered because we can’t do what is right? How do we manage to get some sleep on our beds when they have their crib on a pile of dirt? I wonder how we lost it all- OUR FEELINGS. Don’t think you are left out. You have a mental challenge when you don’t treat those who are open with theirs right.

You know those movies we watch, where one forgets his name, and where another keeps getting lost cos they can’t remember their way back home, those movies are real, they happen too. These people aren’t faceless or nameless, they aren’t non-existent either, We have them everywhere around us, even in our families. They need more love and care than we need.

Let us give them something that isn’t impossible, let us give them DIGNITY,

If you can smile at everyone you meet on your way to work, do you know that you will end up happier?

If you will seek confide in someone when you feel low instead of trying to keep it all together, do you know what you will save yourself from?

If you know when to stop and get some rest when all your head says is “there’s more work to be done”, do you know you’ll have one less person to be bothered about?

If we can get high on some deeds and not ‘high on some weed’, then a lot can be avoided.

Eat right, keep fit, exercise your brain (puzzles and games), live, love, smile, talk.

Anxiety, Stress, Depression, Alzheimer’s, Down syndrome, Schizophrenia, Substance abuse………….

 Let’s stop the abandonment, let’s stop the isolation, let’s stop the discrimination and stigmatization. Let’s all give love, let’s all gift DIGNITY.

It’s WORLD MENTAL HEALTH day 2015, it’s all about DIGNITY IN MENTAL HEALTH.