The unspoken trigger

By Tafadzwa Chipochashe Deliwe Nadine Marunda

A controversial popular series called 13 Reasons Why recently released its 3rd season that was being strongly encouraged to be its last following the noted increase in the number of teenage suicides. Some people say it’s overrated, that it exaggerates depression and bullying in American schools and although that may have an element of truth in it… the show has created a starting point for so many controversial topics. Conversations about mental health in relation to; sexual abuse, parents triggering depression and most importantly how parents and guardians can get involved and make a difference have been started due to it.

No doubt we’ve come a long way in raising awareness on mental health and the best ways to deal with it. However there is something we don’t like talking about or we’ve avoided it for far too long and I believe it’s because it’s something we’re afraid may awaken emotions that we have to confront. We’ll be forced to come to terms with things we’ve ignored for a very long time. So here it goes… Brace yourself.

Like 13 reasons why I’m about to become controversial buy starting a conversation nobody wants to start…

Let’s talk about it… How the people closest to us are the primary triggers of our mental health issues, particularly parents. I’ve been in quite a number of spaces where people talk about depression and very few of them dive into the concept of depression among youths that is triggered by parents. More than half of the people who have trusted me with their depression survival stories highlighted the active role of their parents in triggering it. For some they were talking about it for the first time and showed a significant level of discomfort and unease. Some would say they wouldn’t even tell their therapist of the parts where their parents were involved. I pondered on it for a while and it was shocking to me how we just never talk about it. Why? Why don’t we want to talk about it? We can talk about depression and avoid this issue with ease and intention… Maybe because talking about it in itself is a trigger, but not talking about it is an even greater trigger. Depression is equal parts deeply boring and difficult to talk about. Everyone is always like ‘reach out’ and ‘you can talk to me anytime’ but let me tell you from the wealth of my experience that 96% of people don’t want to hear you rehash your unstable self- image for the 371st time but we know that conversations of us talking about our depression are like ‘hi yeah i hate myself, same as yesterday. I feel I’m very incompetent at everything’. We add a few fresh details to the catechism of why we’re so unhappy but never really talk about what or who triggered it. People love hearing about the dramatic bits stories about hospitalizations and surefire as long as you can maintain the balance of seeming like a credible narrator but never the root of the problem that is so often normalized in the African society that it seems almost silly to say it triggers your depression. The things that parents and relatives say and do push people to the door of their mental illness. Sometimes it even opens the door and pushes us right in. The high expectation of perfection in the rest of your life stemming from your intelligence in primary school and that one prize you got way back then. As if you aren’t allowed to make a mistake all because of that one prize. The fear of talking about how something has been really hard for you because you’re lucky you’re even in that space in the first place. The constant reminder that you are not expected to have any problems because you don’t work, your school fee is covered and there’s food in the fridge. So what on earth would make you unhappy? The comparison with cousins, siblings and peers and having bars set for you that you have to reach or you just haven’t succeeded. The pressure of picking a certain career path because your parents know best and just have your best interests at heart. These pressures  dance on the surface of emotional abuse at a tender age and extend into ones’ adulthood where you’re a failure to your parents and guardians because you’re not yet married, you don’t have kids or your salary just isn’t good enough for them to brag about to their workmates and church friends. The normalization of these daily pressures and reminders in the African society has led to consistent emotional breakdowns thus mental instability to anyone who just doesn’t meet the set standards. We don’t talk about it though because talking about it makes it real. Talking about it means we have to confront it. Deal with it. It brings me joy to see people getting rid of people who disrupt their mental health. It’s easy to avoid a classmate or cut off some people we spend time with voluntarily. But now how do you avoid your parent and how do you explain that as a solution to anyone really? How do you sit down with a person you respect so much and address how their behavior triggers your depression…sometimes they may not even know what depression really is. Then there are just further layers of thinking ‘ is talking about this a brave disclosure or am i just doing it for attention. Am i wallowing or working with my trauma. Is this person going to overreact if i tell them i can’t stand my parents or does everyone think I’m such an ungrateful child who doesn’t see the sacrifices that are made for my wellbeing?’

Essentially, so many young people are afraid of the judgment that will come from people that insist that parents are to be respected, loved and allowed to share their energy no matter what it is they’ve done or do. In an African society, it is more important to maintain the image and integrity of parents than address their toxic nature. It is time to address it. It is time to confront those feelings because we’ll become the African parents we complain about. We will trigger our children’s depression and let the cycle continue because if you really look at it, guardians and parents have mental health issues of their own that they do not understand and fail to address. The pressures of being an adult leave no room for them to breathe or get into spaces where they can talk about things. This can often cause them to act out and trigger us. The solution is not to point fingers. It is essential to involve adults and parents in mental health issues that their children may face but do not tell them about. It is important to start the conversations with friends, siblings and mentors and move up to our guardians with sensitivity and understanding that they too haven’t dealt with their childhood traumas and are unaware of how they become generational. The next time we are talking about mental health, let us bring it up and share solutions on how to best tackle this issue. Only then can we tackle mental health in its complete and bare state so as to move forward and face our problems head on. Perhaps some people may not be ready for this conversation and that’s okay, but to those who are ready let’s talk about it, let’s make it easier for them.