Would you see a Therapist?
“It’s a white thing to do”. This was my answer to the above question, and this is because as a Nigerian, no one will ever tell you to see a therapist when you are depressed or going through something you can’t seem to handle on your own. You will most likely be told to see a Pastor, who knows little or nothing about mental health. This is the society we live in today, the society that believes seeing a therapist is a luxury, one that does not see the value of talking to someone who understands mental health better than you do. But it is funny how we see the value in seeing a doctor when we fall sick and still choose to ignore the state of our mental health.
The funniest thing I ever heard from a fellow Nigerian is “depression is spiritual” and so you should either pray about it or see a Pastor. I laugh in British English fam. I laugh at the ignorance and what we have limited our scope to. I am a believer and I believe in God, but God wants you to take responsibility and I strongly believe that is why God’s purpose for man is to have dominion. It takes a responsible person to dominate, we should therefore not pass on the responsibility of taking care of our mental health back to the one who expects us to take care of it.
I needed to get that point of view off the way before diving into the root cause of depression. Mental health awareness is growing amongst us in this part of the world today, this growth can be attributed to the increase in suicides amongst us, the youths to be precise. The numbers keep going up, university students committing suicide for one reason or the other like it’s a cool thing to do. I think by now we should all know depression is real because DEPRESSION IS ACTUALLY REAL!
I believe a major root cause of depression is the internet. The internet has done so much good that the mental havoc it is causing is very subtle yet very harmful. Social media to be precise has been able to connect people from all over the world together but also dissociate people from their immediate environment. So, I get on twitter and enjoy a conversation with a total stranger but then I hardly talk to my immediate family members. That’s a major problem right there.
I listened to a TEDtalk this morning and I realized the same way bees are supposed to stay together in a beehive is the same way mankind is supposed to live together in a tribe, communicating with his immediate environment. But this is not really the case today, to a large extent we have lost the concept of togetherness and actual communication. No wonder it is difficult for a daughter to discuss her boy problems with her mother, she is left to figure out how to relate with a boy on her own, even though she has a mother she should be able to talk to. So, she gets on twitter to seek for solutions to her boy problems. When in all honesty, we all know she won’t get good advice on there. Don’t get me wrong, there are good people on the internet, but we all know what we celebrate on the internet (men are scum), it takes conscious effort to filter out the bad eggs.
I think phones should be banned at “Social” events; we should actually have one social event where people are not allowed to come with their phones. Families should have movie dates where no family member can hold their phones, maybe this will help us regain the concept of communication and togetherness. This is because I have seen people come for social gatherings, where there are actual human beings you can talk to but they still choose to text someone who is 10,000 miles away.
The point is, the fight against depression is a collective action, we all need someone to talk to and one of such persons that understand mental health adequately is a therapist. This is the best person to talk to when you are mentally sick because, in actual fact, depression is an abnormality in your mental state of health.
My friend is building a community of therapists and trying to help people book sessions with therapists at affordable rates in Nigeria.
Now, back to the question, would you see a therapist?
