-
Last year ...
-
was hell.
-
(Laughter)
-
It was my first time eating
Nigerian [jollof].
-
(Laughter)
-
Actually,
-
in all seriousness,
-
I was going through a lot
of personal turmoil.
-
Faced with enormous stress,
-
I suffered an anxiety attack.
-
On some days I could do no work.
-
On other days,
-
I just wanted to lay in my bed and cry.
-
My doctor asked if I'd like to speak
with a mental health professional
-
about my stress and anxiety.
-
Mental health?
-
I clammed up and violently
shook my head in protest.
-
I felt a profound sense of a shame ...
-
I felt the weight of stigma.
-
I have a loving, supportive family
-
and incredibly loyal friends,
-
yet I could not entertain the idea
-
of speaking to anyone
about my feeling of pain.
-
I felt suffocated
by the rigid architecture
-
of our African masculinity.
-
"People have real problems, Sangu.
-
Get over yourself."
-
The first time I heard "mental health,"
-
I was a boarding school student,
-
fresh off the boat from Ghana
-
at the Peddie School in New Jersey.
-
I had just gone through
the brutal experience
-
of losing seven loved ones
in the same month.
-
The school nurse,
-
concerned about what I'd gone through --
-
God bless her soul --
-
she inquired about my mental health.
-
"Is she mental?" I thought.
-
Does she not know I'm an African man?
-
Like Okonkwo in "Things Fall Apart,"
-
we African men neither process
nor express our emotions.
-
We deal with our problems --
-
(Applause)
-
We deal with our problems.
-
I called my brother and laughed
about [oyinbo] people --
-
white people --
-
and their strange diseases --
-
depression, ADD and those "weird things."
-
Growing up in West Africa,
-
when people used the term "mental,"
-
what came to mind was a mad man
-
with dirty, dread-locked hair,
-
bumbling around half-naked on the streets.
-
We all know this man.
-
Our parents warned us about him.
-
"Mommy, mommy, why is he mad?"
-
"Drugs!
-
If you even look at drugs,
-
you end up like him."
-
(Laughter)
-
Come down with pneumonia,
-
and your mother will rush you
to the nearest hospital
-
for medical treatment.
-
But dare to declare depression,
-
and your local pastor will be
driving out demons
-
and blaming witches in your village.
-
I called into the World
Health Organization.
-
Mental health is about being able
to cope with the normal stresses of life.
-
To work productively and fruitfully,
-
and to be able to make
a contribution to your community.
-
Mental health includes our emotional,
-
psychological
-
and our social well-being.
-
Globally, 75 percent
of all mental illness cases
-
can be found in low-income countries.
-
Yet most African governments
-
invest less than one percent of their
health care budget on mental health.
-
Even [West,]
-
we have a severe shortage
of psychiatrists in Africa.
-
Nigeria, for example,
is estimated to have 200
-
in a country of almost 200 million.
-
In all of Africa,
-
90 percent of our people
lack access to treatment.
-
As a result
-
we suffer in solitude,
-
silenced by stigma.
-
We as Africans often respond
to mental health with distance,
-
ignorance,
-
guilt,
-
fear
-
and anger.
-
In a study conducted by Arboleda Flórez,
-
directly asking what
is the cause of mental illness,
-
34 percent of Nigerian respondents
cited drug misuse.
-
19 percent said divine wrath
and the will of God.
-
(Laughter)
-
12 percent --
-
witchcraft and spiritual posession.
-
But few cited other known
causes of mental illness ...
-
like genetics,
-
socio-economic status,
-
war,
-
conflict,
-
or the loss of a loved one.
-
The stigmatization against mental illness
-
often results in the ostracizing
and demonizing of sufferers.
-
Photojournalist Robin Hammond
has documented some of these abuses.
-
In Uganda,
-
in Somalia,
-
and here in Nigeria.
-
For me,
-
the stigma is personal.
-
In 2009,
-
I received a frantic call
in the middle of the night.
-
My best friend in the world --
-
a brilliant, philosophical,
charming, hip, young man --
-
was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
-
I witnessed some of the friends
we'd grown up with recoil.
-
I heard the snickers,
-
I heard the whispers.
-
"Did you hear he has gone mad?"
-
He [suffered through] derogatory,
demeaning commentary
-
about his condition --
-
words we would never say
about someone with cancer,
-
or someone with malaria.
-
Somehow when it comes to mental illness,
-
our ignorance eviscerates all empathy.
-
I stood by his side as his
community isolated him,
-
but our love never wavered.
-
Tacitly, I became passionate
about mental health.
-
Inspired by his plight,
-
I helped found the Mental Health
Special Interest Alumni Group
-
at my college.
-
And during my tenure as a resident
tutor in graduate school,
-
I supported many undergraduates
with their mental health challenges.
-
I saw African students struggle,
-
and unable to speak to anyone.
-
Even with this knowledge,
-
and with their stories in tow,
-
I in turn struggled,
-
and could not speak to anyone
when I faced my own anxiety,
-
so deep is our fear of being the mad man.
-
All of us --
-
but we Africans especially --
-
need to realize that our mental struggles
-
do not detract from our virility,
-
nor does our trauma taint our strength.
-
We need to see mental health
as important as physical health.
-
We need to stop suffering in silence.
-
We must stop stigmatizing disease,
-
and traumatizing the afflicted.
-
Talk to your friends.
-
Talk to you loved ones.
-
Talk to health professionals.
-
Be vulnerable.
-
Do so with the confidence
that you are not alone.
-
Speak up if you're struggling.
-
Being honest about how we feel
-
does not make us weak;
-
it makes us human.
-
It is time to end the stigma
associated with mental illness.
-
So the next time your hear "mental,"
-
do not just think of the madman ...
-
Think of me.
-
(Applause)
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)