 Y254. Imagine. Good evening and thank you for joining us on Y254 news updates. And tonight we talk about suicide prevention. And we've been here to help us tackle this topic for the night. It's Shalind Enus, who is a counseling psychologist. We have Maureen Kada, who is a mental health blogger. And we have Karos Tanli and Belinda Kadambi, who are four-year students at the Kenyatta University. Don't forget you can be part of this conversation by sharing your views and your comments on our social media platforms that is on Y254 channel. Hashtag Y254 news. You can also reach me at Patricia Moriuki. My name is Patricia Moriuki and let us start our discussion. According to the World Health Organization, one person still dies every 40 seconds from suicide in Kenya. One in four Kenyans is likely to suffer from a mental health disorder at one point in their lives. So this is a point whereby I now bring you guys in. And my first question would be, as any of you, what has been your experience with mental health? Specifically, let's talk about depression, which is the most cause of mental health in our country. Let me start with the expert on this, Shalind. So suicide in any form is a tragedy for anybody. Sometimes it can also be a mystery. You've heard so many people say, I don't know why he or she decided to do this. I don't know what could have led up to suicide. It can be that mystery, but there are things that you need to look out for. There are many warning signs for somebody thinking about suicide. I feel like I'm a burden. What is my purpose in life? Why am I here? Why is it always a struggle? When people start talking like this, these are some of the manifestations that may be considering. Before actually going into the act, they may be considering suicide. So when you're busy talking to people, just listen to what they're saying. So let me bring you more in. So have you had any experiences either directly or maybe someone around you having gone through depression or even attempted suicide? First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity. Yes, I have experienced both direct and indirect mental disorder, I would say. Back then, when I was in high school, there was all that pressure. When you're around people who do not really understand that it's a phase you're going through, if you have people around you who don't know how to properly deal with it as you're going through that phase, you could actually lose yourself. But at least I got someone to help me walk through it and I was out of it. And when it comes to indirectly, I have had friends who have actually committed suicide. Okay, sorry for that. Bring you in Karo, what has been your experience with mental health? Okay, thank you Patricia for this opportunity. First and foremost, I'd like to say the ideology of committing suicide has always come up in my mind, maybe personally, am I directly? And for example, when you're back in high school, when you're in high school, I had a friend, a classmate who committed suicide and that was so sad. So in my point, I want to say, for example, if you hear a friend, a person who keep on saying one day I'll commit suicide, don't take it for granted. Talk to that person, follow up, know the reason, how are the purpose, how and why he or she would commit suicide. Personally, I've had the idea, maybe one or another. Okay, so Belinda? Thank you. As for me, I have experienced the depression directly and also directly, but personally I have not thought of any day that I should commit suicide. But I had this friend who lost her both parents when you were in high school and she was the only girl, she was the only one in that family and she was rejected by everyone, not even the uncles and the aunties did not pay her school fees. And at this point she felt like she did not have any capacity life but she was able to talk to people, to teachers and she did not commit it. So I think you should always talk to someone where you feel like you're suicidal. Okay, so Shalit, before you get to the point where we get to address what these people would have done because we can hear that every person's experience is different, but it all ends up too, the thought of wanting to commit suicide, how would you say we are doing as a country as far as mental health is concerned, are people even able to assess mental health as a service only? As a country right now, there are mental health practitioners out there, but there is so much stigmatization around mental health and some of it is driven by our cultural beliefs. When someone begins to manifest something like schizophrenia and says this one has been bewitched, this is something that is still going on. When we come to depression and someone openly comes out and says I am feeling very sad, I don't want to get out of bed, you'd find the type of response you are received with is all of us feel sad, all of us feel tired, all of us don't want to do it, but we have to get up. So just quote and quote in Swahili atapu jifanya amka. So pretending, get up, move. So you'd find when it comes to mental health a lot of the issues surrounding mental health people would just say we've overcome, we've overcome, we've overcome but we haven't truly overcome. It still bothers us extreme levels of stress feeling like people just don't understand you any time you want to express yourself how it comes out, the response that you get, none of it seems to be working and when you actually openly express that I'd like to talk to someone even to your friends they'd be like oh my god you're seeing a therapist they'd think something so like a very big problem that you have, that you actually don't have you could be just experiencing really high levels of stress but because it's not dealt with appropriately at that time then it starts to continue into depression because you have to understand that before you get suicidal you started from somewhere you started from somewhere and when the help you received at that particular time then it's just a continuation but gets to us, gets to us until you lead up to depression hence then suicide. Okay, so I want to bring you in more in on this you're a mental health blogger and I've actually visited your blog that I've seen some of the posts that you share do you say that you've been able to send a message or to spread a message on mental health and how would you say so far based on the articles that you put up on your blog you've been able to impact and create a change on mental health? Yeah, for that I would say I am so sure that I have been able to reach someone somewhere who is so depressed someone, someone who thinks that the only ones going through that phase this I did because I discovered depression is as a result of piled up stress and stress it's you just decide to piled up emotions within you and you don't have someone to give you the space to air them out so in the blog I give people an opportunity to tell your story, speak up because I don't want that those emotions to keep piling up within you so I've opened up a platform for someone who thinks you have so much inside you, you feel like you want to explode so to avoid that I give people a platform to speak up and I believe by speaking up at least the load is a bit lighter from their side So between Karo and Belinda who are students at Kenyatta University we know that the young people especially Kampa students are people who have found themselves going through depression, sometimes they don't even understand what it is that they are going through what would you say Karo are the causes of depression among your peers? Okay, first of all lack of self esteem most of the Kampa students lack self esteem, you have to trust trust in yourself you have to believe in yourself for you to make it in life these are put that says even the darkest nights even for the darkest night the light will always shine so the should not give up I would say lack of self esteem stress which most of us have experienced stress hotels stress lack of self esteem What do you think are the causes of mental health in your peers? Okay, you know in universities we are different people we come from different backgrounds so when you come and meet there you meet that you're just different in a way and some come from very poor backgrounds they don't have school fees so you can find a student want to commit to say just because they have not paid school fees that semester and other relationship issues you have had those issues in universities when someone leaves you or you are broken you want to kill yourself you don't know you can move on and be with someone else so those are the major causes Okay, so Shalene having had what could be the cause of mental health among the young people that is just a feel we also have drug abuse we have peer pressure itself we at a certain level we also have lack of understanding people don't really understand when you want to talk to them so Kara has talked about self esteem so how do you address that to young people out there struggling with self esteem to make sure that they don't hit rock bottom and feel like the only solution for them now is taking away their lives I think the first thing I'd say is be okay with who you are do not look at other people watch up or get to their own level we all move at our own pace we all have our own dreams so when it comes to self esteem it can be coupled up with identity formation you'd find especially right now for somebody who is transitioning between high school coming into university there is this whole thing about independence you know I want to be free I want to be able to do A I want to be able to do B but I also have to get to class and I need to be able to spend so how am I going to be able to do that and keep up with peer pressure and all my friends at the same time so how do I balance all of this and in the process of doing all this I still have to decide who I want to become because I'm not in school just to waste time so I'm here to learn to build my dream so first be okay with who you are if you don't like something it's okay just because other people like it and you don't don't necessarily have to like it if you prefer to go a certain route with everything then you do that because as a human being you have a right to be yourself so don't go around with following peer pressure and saying I'll have to do this and I'll have to do that if you don't understand yourself if you're not okay in your own skin if you're not comfortable with who you are then you are majorly susceptible to going with the wind like a flag friend A says let's do this alright let's do it friend B says let's do this let's do it and eventually it will come to bother you because if it's something that you're not comfortable with and you didn't speak up for yourself then now you start asking yourself why did I do this remember what works for friend A will not work for you what works for friend B may not work for you so then now it also comes back to rewards if you're doing this because friend A got A and you did it and you ended up getting D so then am I not worth it I did the exact same thing why didn't I get the exact same reward so you find you're creating stress in the sense that you're not okay with who you are and you're trying to fit into something and of course if your friend A was being true to themselves and they got A and they were happy about it then they were true to themselves you tried something that was not for you didn't get the same return and then what happens stress questions about am I not good enough am I not okay why did it work for A why did it not work for B things like that so B okay with you it's okay to be yourself it's okay to say my route is road D you take A and it's also easier for you to be able to pick what works for you and what doesn't okay so bringing you Karo how do you deal with pressure whether it's positive pressure or negative pressure how do you get to balance how do you make sure that you don't get to a space whereby falling into depression or you cannot control everything that is thrown at you whether positive or negative first of all first of all what people don't understand when you are in stress you have to do what you like most if it's music listen to music if it's dancing go dance if it's staying with friends go stay with friends so personally when I'm stressed I prefer listening to music and sleeping and yeah sleeping listening to music and visiting friends when I'm depressed personally spend most of my time speaking to my friends calling them telling them these has happened and this is the cause how can I deal with it and how has it been calling someone and telling them that you feel depressed do they understand you or do you feel like you have to go to them with this long list of things that you have to explain emotions that probably you don't understand yourselves as how has the experience been really breaking down all that to you okay first of all people are different people are so different some of them you'll approach them you'll call them I'll let me quote it in kusaili uta mbe anikona shida mahali then they'll start telling you like shida like in this world who came to a stress but trust me everyone has his or her own problems so like people are different some of them you approach them they'll help you deal with your situation others you just approach them and nothing will happen but I just want to encourage people if you have stress please make sure talk to someone Maureen in one of your blogs I saw the hashtag speak up so are people really comfortable as a society created an atmosphere or a space whereby people go into depression or people go into mental health are free to speak up do you feel that has been achieved from the society's angle I don't think that has been achieved yet and I'm really fighting hard to make sure people who are depressed people who are stressed have been given that space to speak up they feel so comfortable speaking up without being judged according to the world health organization the director said that countries should incorporate prevent suicide prevention strategies so to you as a psychologist what do you think what strategies do you think our country Kenya can put up to make sure that we prevent we don't only get to speak about suicide when someone jumps from a 24 story building that we are ready that we don't get to hear someone has taken this type of drug we don't get to hear someone has hanged themselves so to first it's the stigmatization mental health anybody anybody is susceptible to mental health if you have high stress levels then you're stressed there are different types of stress if you're experiencing chronic stress you may slip into depression so start talking about mental health there's nothing wrong with admitting that you are overly stressed there's nothing wrong with saying I'm having trouble or difficulty with this or my thoughts are all over the place come and seek out mental health practitioners you do not have to be schizophrenic for the layman's term a madman to go and seek out a therapist or a counselor or anybody okay talk about it step 2 is talk about it so many of our people so many of the youth the guys in the job market are committing suicide in high school in primary school in university when you start working parents grandparents there are some people every age group has suicide cases why why do we have suicide cases in every age group start talking about it because when people are stressed we are a nation human beings are supposed to behave as one so when we shun you because you have a hard time adjusting to the world then what are we doing talk about it the next thing is be aware of the causes of suicide listen to how people are speaking learn what the telltale signs are understand what type of words people would use I feel like I'm a burden I feel like I'm useless and I'm hopeless I don't want to do anything why questioning why they're existing in any form whatsoever why should I be alive those are telltale signs listen to if somebody is suicidal they'll tell you how they plan to kill themselves listen because it's not a joke they're not joking when it comes to maybe step 3 or 4 is in institutions talk about this suicide understand what a suicide contagion is because like Carol had said somebody in high school committed suicide and when she was thinking about it maybe it wasn't so bad because understand what happens to peers when their friends commit suicide understand the consequences understand group mentality because these are serious issues that nobody wants to talk about and our people are killing themselves every single day over things that could have been discussed over health that could have been offered and given but when they come to us we tell them what you just stressed out all of us are stressed out before we just to really talk about when now does it stop being stress when we stop calling it stress to now this person is depressed I want to bring in Carol say that someone in high school committed suicide what did the school do after that was their counseling for other students or did it just happen and life went on as usual that time you know we were young it was like 5 years ago back in 2014 a friend of mine she was informed too it was a family related issue that made her commit the suicide so after committing the suicide whatever happened the other students who were called for a meeting they understood that everyone is passing through these so you should be courageous love yourself actually that's what you are told love yourself and try as much as possible to avoid such an occasion again so whatever happened we just talked to and we took heart and life moved on because you see most of the times when someone commits suicide that person is gone but the pain the grief is left with those who are left behind so now at what point does stress stop being stressed when you just like you get from the office today's job was too much I feel too much stress at what point now what do we look out for to know that this person is not stressed anymore but this person is actually falling into depression okay so for that it's so broad so first it starts with understanding stress there's a type of stress that motivates you that makes you want to do better makes you want to pass and achieve something in life there's a type of stress that we call acute stress this is stress that can't bother you for about an hour then disappear chronic stress this is everyday stress every single day you find you have very high stress levels everything is bothering you constant troubles left right and center when you start sleeping into depression after the chronic stress you'd find things that you are interested in things that you like to do you're no longer interested people that you would reach out to and you know just jokingly tell them by them I'm stressed out you don't want to talk to them as well you start isolating yourself you start googling or getting more information about death different types of death talking about death your existence on the planet you start feeling very hopeless like you're beyond any help nobody can help you you start questioning if you are actually worthy of receiving any help whatsoever so by that time you find you've already started sleeping into depression you're constantly crying you're constantly unhappy you can't even remember the last time you smiled or even had any fun whatsoever so that time you're in depression when you're coming into suicide like now you've gotten no help from the initial stress to acute to chronic straight into depression when you start slipping into a suicide mentality now you start actively thinking about how you are going to be able to take your own life so we have the stage one which is thinking about it talking about it researching about it then these affirmations it's okay whether I'm here or not it won't make any difference I don't need to be present people don't require me on this planet I'm not important enough so now you convince yourself that you know what I really don't need to be here then now it is the method how would I like to do it would I like to strangle myself would I like to take pills should it be painful should it be painless am I supposed to write a note am I supposed to say goodbye and they'll always talk about this even if they're not directly telling you that I'm about to kill myself when you listen to them speak these are things that you look out for because that is leading straight into suicide so let me now talk about some of them let's talk about stigmatization some of the mids that you've had around mental health maybe for example in your blog and your interactions with people what are some of the mids that you've had people tell you on mental health some of the mids some of the mids okay first there's been this myth of you go to someone you'll speak to them and they will never help you these would like to tell someone out there to speak to someone we actually have people who are genuine they will genuinely listen to your problem you can visit a psychologist who will genuinely listen to you and give you help without any fear of stigmatization without having any fear of whatever you're passing through being spread out there so that's a myth that we actually have genuine people out there who are very much willing to help you okay so for you Belinda what now do you think for you if you find yourself with the person probably you've been able to identify that this person is not doing okay how can you tell someone out there a person is watching us today on how to relate with someone they feel might be depressed or maybe going through a tough time and is even thinking of committing suicide if you find someone who is being depressed I think it's good you just listen to them if you cannot help them even if you won't give them answers just listen to them and tell this person to talk to someone if you cannot talk to your friend you have a family you can talk to your mother this is someone who is very close to you you can talk to your sister to your brothers that is if you cannot talk to your friends that is what I could tell someone and if you find someone who is depressed just try to be with them okay so yesterday was the wild suicide prevention day and the wild health organization in cooperation with other institutions was able to bring up a campaign that is called the 40 seconds of action whereby just encouraging people to take 40 seconds of action to reduce stigma associated with mental health what do we think Karabi should do because people have so much hooked into their phones you text someone and they'll be like I'm okay but if you really interact with this person at a personal level this person could be going through the worst situation in life so what do we think as Kenyans as individuals we can do to make sure that we are also playing part in making sure that we live in a mental health free country okay people should be proactive you should be proactive when you tell me when I call you I tell Patricia I have this issue I can't solve it I'm giving up you have to be proactive don't tell me call me come visit me you have to take action so you have to be proactive take action don't wait for when I call you I tell you Patricia have an issue don't wait until I commit suicide come talk to me visit me I'll tell you more and it will help so you have to be proactive based on that Shelly now from an expert point of view based on what the World Health Organization is trying to do 40 seconds of action what now do we do as a society as we wind up our composition for the night it starts with you remember before anybody reaches out they are reaching out for a response so the response you give as a society whoever you are start with yourself because you can give a response that can push someone overboard or make them feel like they cannot get any help at all and that one time that they tried or the second or third time that they tried and they kept getting a response that they were not anticipating then now they start to believe that they are truly helpless everybody they tried to speak to has not had a solution for them and appropriate response so start with you remember if you are the type of person who has a negative mindset then you probably be seeing the world in a very negative way so if someone who is severely depressed is coming to talk to you and all you are giving out is negativity then guess what you are just adding you are actually helping them to come to that decision so take responsibility because the people who are reaching out because we are a community we live together in unison so start with you make sure personally I am okay if I am not happy find out why what can I do to make sure that I am okay what can I do to make sure that I am genuinely smiling and not faking a smile all the time so that when somebody comes to me with their problem I am not really taking it as my own remember if you are sympathetic you will cry with them and there is no solution if you are empathetic then you know to help you be objective but you are not carrying their problem with you so it is not bringing you down as well so when you start with you and there are so many of us out here mental health practitioners like I said you don't have to have a very severe problem if you just feel like you are not okay talk to someone fix you first so that when someone reaches out to you you are prepared you have the strength you know what to say you know how to be positive and you are not just putting all your negative burdens on them as well and say even me I went through this even me this is happening okay so thank you very much ladies for really finding the time to come and talk about this issue tonight it was really a very great for you joining us now that I hope that every person was watching us from home so let us speak out let us get out of our phones for a minute just the 40 seconds of action can be made by the water organization can do a lot in our country so that is all we hand for you tonight on why my name is Patricia Mogyoti do have yourselves a very good night