By Rukudzo Nyakanda
Issues to Do with Mental Health, Depression, Sexuality and Identity as a Medical Student at the University of Zimbabwe, plus cultural differences.
Many of you don’t know me, and those who do only know me in a very limited capacity as a student. That’s the way it should be. We are colleagues after all, our personal lives shouldn’t come into the equation. Some of us might become acquitances , some of us long term friends and others friends that last a lifetime but the idea of the professional image has persisted and is increasingly creeping up. With the birth of social media, we have the fragmentation of character. Who we are with our friends is completely different to who we are with Colleagues , and is completely different to who we are with family. Social media facilitates this. It allows us to present ourselves in a certain way, that in some cases may indeed be counter to factual solid reality, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing .
In this Covid season, I’ve taken the time to rediscover myself but more than that to boost my social media, and one thing I learnt is that in most cases its not the substance of something that matters but the presentation. Queue in “Empty” by Juice Wrld
Presentation has become the mainstay of this generation. We don’t have enough time to look at each individual character and weigh it, so we make quick assumptions based on mental logarithms. We do this everyday without thought, We look at the number of followers, the ratio of following to followers , then the most recent post and then make a quick decision as to wether we should follow this person or not, even in life, we look at the persons clothing, their mannerisms and their posture and we make quick conclusions. But how is this having an effect on the mental state and are we starting to neglect real legitimate, intimate relationships for the convenience of quick , mutually beneficial interactions.
For a really long time, Ive been suffering from depression, at least three years. Living day to day in a fugue state in which I sometimes don’t know whats coming and going, but just living to survive and suffering from negative body image and self-consiousness. Who I am, has always been a question that has molded my day. And when I arrived at the UZ I was shocked by the difference in culture, and the latent peer pressure. In this hyper-sexualised society at the University, value is sometimes determined by the number of exploits you’ve had and attractability. If you’ve had none , then you’re termed a meek individual, weak and indeterminate and if you’re a female and you’ve had many, youre termed a hoe. This is complicated by the tension between the Western perspective and the African one, which is pseudo-Christian.. The African one telling you, especially for women , that its good to remain sexually immature until marriage and the western one telling you that sexuality is complicated and is something that has to be fiercely celebrated. This sort of tension , leaves people living two lives, or as I personally like to call it , two lies , in which they are neither white nor black but grey and leads to internal turmoil. That’s why we have questions like “ When does it stop being just “fun” and turn into fornication or other such questions
But this is not the only one aspect in which people are defined , it might be something minor like race, accent, likeability or even grades. But this one dimensional means of determining an individuals value sometimes leaves people feeling insufficient. As a generation , we spend so much time looking into developing the image of something , rather than the substance and on a daily basis we are bombarded with images, so we send our own, creating a vicious cycle of artificiality. Think about it, when was the last time, you did something, just for doing something and not for the image and how many times on a daily basis do you write someone off before they have even uttered a word.
Most of us probably have deep seated issues with identity, not knowing who we are or who we want to be and it leaves us hollow, feeling empty and dead inside and so we look around and see other people who we see as “lving the life” but what might shock you is that they look back at you and do the same. There is a genuine lack of the real substance, especially with the make belief values of western society that’s creeping into us through series and for mental health it does a number you, that I’ve personally experienced.
The characters that we become for the audience becomes the characters we’re locked into, and the longer we wear them, the more it becomes increasingly stifling to remain in them. Should this be celebrated or should it be stopped .
Another question is if that artificiality is creeping into our syllabus and are we still bonovide doctors or simply doctors on paper.
But that is a question for another day in general this article is about Mental Health And Depression.
Personally this Covid period affords lots of time with family, and friends or sometimes a lot of time isolated which might lead to a lot of introspection. In general, WHO recommendations for maintaining a Healthy mind in the covid time is that
1. You should settle into a habit anda fixed time table
Ive seen that doing this on a daily basis, even in the small things might afford a bit of sense of security or predictability that’s lacking at this point in time. If during pre-covid time , you talked with person A at X o’clock try to maintain that through a call
2. Find a hobby
It doesn’t have to be something big or significant , it can be just watching birds or looking outside at people, or going for a walk, or it could be chess. Anything that just takes your mind off things
3. Try and avoid news and where possible spread a little positivity
Whatsapp was initially loaded with lots of doomsayer messages, its getting better, but I’m trying to channel my focus away from the phone but when possible and when im on it I always try to gravitate towards the positive.
4. develop yourself daily and focus on earning your own respect. Everything else should follow
If you’re going through depression or any issues to do with Mental health, don’t keep it to yourself, tell someone, Somebody is bound to listen and understand
Plus normalize doing things at your own pace. Life has no formula.
Queue in “ Something About You” by Shasha
Thanks
ZIMSA HEALTH BLOG 