'Abodam', a derogatory discrimination we must stop

All are ‘Abodam’

“Why is it okay for a person to be sick with his body but it is not okay for another to be sick with his mind”. This statement has changed my perception about people living with mental health conditions.
People living with mental illness are considered the inhuman and deserve no dignity. Some group of professionals, care givers and people living with mental health conditions are trying to change that assumption. 

While interviewing Sitawa Wafulaan, a motivational speaker and Mental health activist living with a bipolar disorder, I was privileged to have learnt my most profound lesson in journalism. She granted a rare interview after her presentations entitled “The Power of One” delivered at that first Mental Health and well-being conference in Ghana (10 – 13 October 2013).
The phrase “mentally Ill” was in itself a form of stigma that ‘they’ (people living with mental condition) have to endure form journalists and the society, Sitawa explained. The most appropriate in her view was “people living with mental condition”. With this new way of classifying them we lift the negative labels we place on them.

A psychiatric nurse of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital highlights further, “we need to separate the person form the condition”, they might be challenged yet they have their dignity and personality.

My reflection got me to the discovery that people living with mental conditions go through a lot just to be the way they are. Sitawa described her condition as having a ‘council of elders’ in your head arguing on just a simple issue we take for granted like “should I brush my teeth or should I bath”. This gives a rare insight into the world of people living with metal illness and also highlights the special needs and attention they deserve. We know how exhausting an argument can be, yet they had to be going through this entire situation all at the same time. Whew! That is even a lot to process for me.

There are different types of mental health conditions. Ordinary people disdainfully generalize them as “Mad”, ABODAM. 
 Well the ‘sack’ is huge enough but what happens to the individual entities of that bracket? Will the solution offered for one, be the solution for all?

The most worrying discovery at this conference was that, the old mothers we accuse of being Witches may well be suffering form Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease; symptoms including lost of memory or memory laps. You can accuse them of witchcraft and they will gladly confess. That is a cognitive disorder, they just don’t know who they are.

Let me stop here to tell you about the new campaign called “HUG SITAWA”. This is a campaign that tries to show empathy and tolerance toward people with mental conditions. Show compaction to anyone you see suffering  from a mental challenge just as you will like to Hug Sitawa when you meet her.