How to tell them mental health is not mental illness as we know it

Last week, I participated in a U-Report engagement survey in celebration of World Mental Health Day and I must say it was impressive seeing the attention this day was getting in Uganda this year. Thirty years on, we are catching up. It was nice seeing the issue of mental health get all that airtime on TVs, radio and engagement on social media. But the initiative that took the flowers for me was the directive from the ministry of Education that mental health be prioritized in learning institutions.

In the guidelines issued, the ministry mandated that there be an hour every week dedicated to mental health awareness; counselling, psychosocial support, talks, not just for the students but also teachers.

As we all know, the Education sector is among those that were greatly affected by the Covid-19 lockdown and need we mention the toll today’s school schedules is taking on children these days?

However, if we are to be totally honest, many people throw around the world ‘mental health’ but how many truly understand what it means?

There is a misunderstanding around mental health, which has created problems in people accepting they have a problem and admitting that they need help.

The problem could be in the word ‘mental’ because well, for long, the word ‘mentally-ill’ colloquially means ‘mad’ (mulalu) in Uganda.

So, how are we going to change this stereotype to make it make sense to our people and have a society that is more accepting of mental health issues?

So many times at workplaces we are guilty of colleague-profiling and using adjectives such as ‘drama queen’, ‘horrible boss’, ‘weak’ etc without going to lengths to understand the battles these people are fighting.

Partly because of this, we are seeing a whole trend of young people mentally checking out and quiet-quitting their jobs because ‘the job doesn’t deserve much of their time anymore’. After experiencing the value of family during the Covid-19 lockdown, some people flipped the coin and realised that work-life balance makes more sense with 60% life and 40% work - who cares. Or how the Gen-Zs are resigning two weeks on the job because… ‘the vibe in that workplace is toxic or isn’t giving’.

What measures are people in leadership positions taking to address mental health in their spaces… if they are at all?

Beyond just sharing a counsellor’s contact on the office ‘All Staff’ email, what moves are human resource personnel taking to ensure employees are kept ‘sane’ on the job? If you asked your supervisor for a mental health break today, what are the chances they would grant it with concern and a follow-up call of how you are fairing after then? As a supervisor, are you treating this request with urgency or are you writing an email; SUBJECT: REQUEST DENIED!

Also, how do we get men to feel no shame in speaking up about their mental health battles? That the phrase ‘be a man’ has been revised to mean feeling things and expressing those things? Then there are people like me who suffer from occasional boardroom anxiety because somehow there is that one boss in the room who has a way of awakening the imposter syndrome you are silently battling.

What I am trying to say is that ending stigma around mental health begins with you as an individual; how you choose to treat people, your choice of words when relating with others but most importantly normalising speaking up and listening to others without the intent of making their cases content for reels and memes.

Initiatives such as the U-report by UNICEF are doing a tremendous job addressing issues such as mental health, but they can only do so much if they stick to using mostly analog techniques to reach out.

 Ms Amodoi is an editor at the Daily  Monitor.