The struggle of being a somali with mental illness Waaqnation Follow Feb 29 · 4 min read

Discussing the intricacies of mental illness is always to a certain extent taboo but one would assume that in a community with disproportionate amount of members suffering from psychiatric disorders that there would be some understanding to the plight of such people instead a pervasive stigma persists which replaces our lived experiences in favour of myths, creating a faulty basis for addressing the matter to the detriment of those who need support and understanding the most.

Collective misunderstanding

The most widely held myths include the denial of mental illness as being anything more than the works of dark magic for which the correct recourse is to subject the mentally ill person to exorcism and the occasional ritualistic cleansing, trough the power of placebo it might even lead to improvement in the short-term but rarely if ever does it address the underlying issue as such it is wholly inadequate in tackling the various manifestations of psychiatric disorders. A malfunction in the brain does not respond to chanting neither does life-long behavioural patterns that lead to distress as well as impairment, for that is needed medication and therapy, preferably in conjunction with each other.

Therapy especially in the form of cognitive therapy is paramount in both addressing the many coping mechanisms deployed while experiencing the illness but also to address the profound sense of loss one is left with in the recovery phase. The illness leaves in its wake a carnage of destroyed relationships and lost of opportunities, and the individual is left to pick up the pieces afterwards however they needn’t do so all alone, for their and societies sake giving support in this difficult time is critical, otherwise the risk for relapse and the subsequent retraumtisation which will occur increases many fold. Sadly as is the case for mental illness at large so too is therapy stigmatised due to the thinking that only broken and weak persons seek it out but nothing could be further from the truth, for it is only the strongest among us that can confront our inner demons and greatest fears.

More distressing than any of this however is the lack of accurate and scientific facts in regard to mental illness within Somali discourse which leaves a vacuum to be filled by misinformation about the illnesses and their presentations in practice. As a direct result of the misrepresentation of mental conditions we have the dichotomy of a person either being “crazy” or neurotypical in behavior and thought with nothing in-between, missing is therefore the recognition that most illnesses range in severity and impairment, this then leads to individuals suffering in silence as their outer-appearance does not reflect their inner turmoil and it makes the community less inclined to believe those of us that appear functional who are in no less need of support.

A bipolar experience

My own journey from onset to treatment has reflected the myths and prejudices cited above in the form of being sprayed with holy water and having Quran read to me to combat what at the time was seen as behavioural and cognitive changes caused by evil eye, unfortunately however it had no discernible effect likewise for the relative who later would be hospitalised for a more severe case of mania than I ever had, having been in religious focused treatment betterment first came to this person in the form of a pill, but with them as the quintessential example of mental illness my own experience was questioned and at times invalidated by family and friends.

After all I seemed “normal in appearance” but the thing with appearance is they can masquerade the truth. I had build my life around an artful display of pretence by. mimicking wellness to a fault, my deceit was so complete I had fooled myself into thinking that my depressions was merely symptoms of physical exhaustion, at most an expression of my own propensity to being lazy, similarly my elated periods with project-creating, reckless expenditures with the accompanying and overpowering compulsion towards sex were not as any textbook will testify to indicative of an hypomanic episode but rather the creative. aspects of my personality coming to light against my will no less.

I was engaging in a process known as under-identification, whereby my atypical behaviour was explained by internalising them as rooted in my atypical personality instead of seeing them as interlinked with an underlying illness, namely bipolar type 2, and in large part what contributed to my denialism was the many myths and falsehoods I had been taught, in particular the thinking that if you are functional then it is not possible for you to also suffer from mental illness, as such it took my being incapable to properly function to seek the help I have been needing for the better part of a decade. In some ways it is a feat of admiration for my past self to have persevered trough crushing depressions, horrifying and anxiety fuelled mixed states and the madness of euphoria but the struggle continues, a different kind of journey begins towards a state of wellness.

As recovery sets in, I wish to along side others make the tools available for more somalis to actually experience mental well-ness instead of having to fake it, for it is the case that too many are suffering in silence ashamed of even asking for help, it is the duty of the current generation to replace the atmosphere of shame and prejudice with an embrace of hope and an educated approach to these pathologies, for our mentally disadvantaged brothers and sisters deserve nothing less.

Nabad Ruqyo