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While there is room for telling someone that they are behaving irrationally or that they don’t make sense, there is something particularly scathing about casting doubt on their mental stability.
Granted, mental illness has some frightening manifestations that are unsettling to witness. However, the misinformation around mental challenges has created a society of certifiably “sane” but behaviourally “insane” people who are wreaking havoc in the lives of those around them, or confusing those who want to help and support them.
October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we cannot relegate dialogue about this critical area of health and wellbeing just to formal psychiatric patients. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 450 million people worldwide suffer from mental disorders and one in four will be affected at some point in their lives.
Many forms of psychoses and neurological diseases present in an obvious manner, but depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder tend to be interwoven with genetic, social, cultural, economic, nutritional and other environmental factors, making diagnosis harder.
A few months ago, I heard a spine-chilling story about a fight between a couple that left me wondering who in their right mind would act that way. The pair were having a physical fight where the husband was beating the wife with a stick and she was attempting to fend off the blows. She ran into the living room, where their children were watching television. He pursued her. The mother then grabbed one of their children and used her as a human shield. Blind with rage, the father ended up striking the child.
It was only then that he came to his senses, stopped all the beating and attended to the wounded child. The mother told the child that she thought her husband wouldn’t hit her if the child was physically in his way. The husband is a chief executive of a finance company and the wife is a medical doctor. This scenario and its variations is commonplace in their home, yet they are the epitome of rationality in their circles.
Another more general story is that of the functional alcoholic, though it’s somewhat of a misnomer to label someone functional while they engage in a dysfunctional habit. At any rate, the functional alcoholic is able to fulfil their occupational duties and, for all intents and purposes, appears responsible and reliable – the dysfunction manifests within their personal and social spheres. Some binge on alcohol specifically to get drunk and even black out. Alternatively, they have a steady, daily intake of a certain amount of alcohol, similar to those who take chronic medication.
In moments of honesty, they will explain in various terms that the alcohol helps them to cope with life, helps them forget, gives them confidence and numbs the emotional/mental pain. However, the soothing effect is short-lived and the tolerance developed over time requires the alcoholic to increase their intake to reach the desired effect.
South African pioneer hip-hop artist Jabulani “HHP” Tsambo sadly took his life on Wednesday. This is barely three months after the country’s black middle class was shaken by the suicide of cardiologist and professor, Bongani Mayosi , who was based at the University of Cape Town. Like HHP’s death this week, Mayosi’s also left people wondering how someone so highly accomplished and living the “post-apartheid South African dream” could have succumbed to suicide.
I added my two cents to the social-media discourse about Mayosi by drawing on the theory in The Highly Sensitive Person by Dr Elaine Aron – that approximately 20% of the world’s population is born more sensitive than the rest. This means that they feel things faster, deeper and for longer.
I am not implying that the 20% are doomed to mental instability or death by suicide right from birth. Rather, I see this as one of the checklist items to consider when assessing one’s overall mental wellness as it could be a mental disorder risk factor.
Also, by Aron’s recommendation, people who identify with the 20% should try to arrange and manage their lives so that they do not add excessive stress to their inherent sensitivity.
Our society, on a layman’s level, is unable to spot everyday mental instability in the so-called “normal” interactions we have with each other. Even a child will laugh hysterically when witnessing a man running naked down the street, but if that same child was the human shield being used by her mother as her father rages, she would not be able to see the “madness” in her parents.
I have heard some of the most unnerving accounts about how the bottle actually whispers promises of joy, peace and happiness, which are just one sip away. Rehabilitation centres will normally assess a new patient and sometimes inform them that they have a dual diagnosis of alcoholism plus a mood, anxiety, personality or other psychological disorder. The alcoholism is a symptom of a deeper, more pervasive problem.
We owe it to ourselves to take inventory of our mental health so that we can take the necessary precautions or seek appropriate interventions to find our equilibrium. I am not qualified to prescribe what that particular equilibrium should look like. What I can say is that mental health is an everyday issue, much like bathing, eating and going about our business.
Monitoring thoughts, emotions, behaviours and habits gives us an indication of where we are at any given moment on the continuum of equilibrium. There is no shame in being on the negative side of the continuum because, just as we arrived there, we are able to leave there.
Patent mental illness is easy to spot, diagnose and treat because it is glaring. The latent, covert, insidious variety is what is plaguing our societies, and it is the bedrock of the unspeakable cruelty that we suffer at the hands of each other.
Even with the non-malevolent manifestation of mental instability, people go through life with an itch that won’t go away or a stone in their shoe they can’t remove.
If we have the presence of mind to see a doctor when any part of our body is malfunctioning, is it not an injustice to fail to attend to an unquiet mind that governs that very body?
Setlaelo is an author, writer and personal development practitioner
