Hello everyone, it’s a good day to be alive. I want to talk about something that’s very important but undervalued in this area of the world, this is because it is, like many other things, highly stigmatized, even people who should know better i.e. the medical practitioners don’t behave any better. To be related to anyone with this disorder is to be seen as genetically flawed, to be the object of another’s pity and direct/indirect bias but this oughtn’t to be the case, mental disorder is as much your fault as being the sex you were born is, if we’re to be our brother’s keeper, shouldn’t we start with these ones? Here’s someone’s story I have been permitted to share with you.
‘Since I grew to know my right from my left, she has always seen visions, of course the first thing she attributed it to was her spiritual growth, she could now dream these horrible nightmares and see visions about people coming for her and her loved ones, to suggest that her gift was neither from God nor was it a curse from the devil was to stand against her and by extension identifying with her enemies. She once labelled me possessed, till kingdom come I would never forget the terror I felt from the pit of my stomach, I had always obeyed her instructions, no matter how strange, just so it wouldn’t be my turn one day, I would bath naked in the rain, I would allow her rub a goat all over me, at the behest of the leeches who fed off her in the form of prophets, I would bathe with cold water because something told her hot water wouldn’t work well with Psalms, I would do all these things knowing how illogical they were just so she wouldn’t label me possessed like she had her mother, father, siblings and once upon a time, her husband.
She’s all hollowed out now, she used to be so beautiful, the one who sat and watched my infant head, she had this head that was beautifully adorned with the fullest afro at that time, she was tall and willowy, but now she starves herself, day in, day out, fasting and praying to God to kill her enemies, now she hears voices, voices that talk to her and about her, every night she sees them and keeps ringing bells to chase them away. I tried to pray away my mother’s sickness, asking God to please show her the light, but alas, the heavens were silent, I want her to see a physician, but my fear is if my mother is labelled mentally ill, will her disease not become my curse?’
There you have it, I think in the grand scheme of things, let us be kind to one another in things we say and do, let us pray for the ones around us going through stuff we don’t know about and let us end this asinine thing called stigmatization, it prevents people who need help from seeking the help they need, encourage people around you to go get help instead of beating them down for things they cannot help. That’s my two cents, God help us all.
Gloria
