 We're glad to know that you're still there and it's the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Now we're talking mental health. Someone said that as many as there are bus stops in Lagos state, there should be mental facilities to take care of people because living in Lagos alone will do some things to your mental state. But today we're talking about coping with mental illness, whether you know you have it or not, what you should know that is something that needs attention. So coping with mental illness and understanding suicide prevention is what we're discussing now. There used to be a time if you go to the social media and someone is saying that I want to commit suicide, people will be saying I will offer you a knife, I will offer you poison, I will offer you that because it was a joke. Nobody ever thought it will get to a time where you will believe almost 99% of the time when people post some things that they may actually be planning on taking their lives. So it's a matter of concern now. So how do we cope with mental illness and then how do we understand how to prevent suicide? We have an expert who will be talking with us this morning all the way from Maryland in the US, Kumbi Oyedeli, as Executive Director, Living Vines Mental Health Foundation. Good morning and welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much. Yeah, we know that the time difference is so much, but here it is morning, like past eight or to nine. We're glad to have you. So now we live in Lagos. We live in Nigeria. Everything is testing us. Just talk to us generally about mental illness and what, how important it is to have an evaluation from time to time. Well, mental illness is different from mental health, right? Mental health is the ability for you to be able to function well properly, to be able to relate, to be able to have social interaction, no absence, absence of any mental crisis, basically. A mental illness arises when there is an issue. It could be a factor of environmental stress. It could be a factor of an event that happened or it could be a biological or medical or a physiological or chemical imbalance in your brain. So mental illness can happen and it can happen to anyone. And it's not, it's not a respecter of persons. This is one of the things that I say. So it's important that we understand that we have to take over mental health in order to avoid mental illness. And so, yes, mental health is very important and mental illness can happen to anybody. OK, just as we know that if you expose yourself, for instance, to mosquitoes, you're going to have malaria. You're likely to have malaria. We also need to know some of the kind of things that if we expose ourselves to or if we are exposed to could lead to mental illness. Because you said some of the factors could be hereditary family issues, but not all of them environmental and all that. Let's get some of these things listed out so that we get to know that these are things we need to either avoid or just stop doing. Is it possible to avoid everything in life? No, I think that one of the things that we need to do, yes, he said some of these things are hereditary, some of those things are environmental. So that there will be stress is or there will be challenges. Those are things that cannot be avoided. However, that's one of the reasons why you have to learn to cope with stress. And so what are the ways to cope with stress? Every society, every issue, every society has their own level of stress. So the most important thing is to focus on yourself and learn how to manage stress every day. And then stress can be built up. It can be a single event and it can be built up over time. So learning to, for example, eat well, exercise, sleep well. Those are things that you can do to cope with stress. Of course, taking care of your spiritual life, your physical life. You know, we are not just we are made of body, soul and spirit. So we have to take care of every of those aspect of our life to make sure that we are coping well in our mental health. So that there's no we are not immune to challenges. Nobody is immune to challenges. It's just it's very important for you to know how to take care of your mental health. Yes, in order for you not to cause in turn into a mental illness. OK, so according to the United Nations, about 700,000 people commit suicide every year. And you have said it can be hereditary. How can someone who knows it runs in their family avoid it? How can they disinherit it from their their own system? I don't think you can disinherit it. I think that you can be aware of it. So one of the things that you can do is being aware, right? For example, study the pattern of of of illnesses or how your parents address issues. So sit down and think about, OK, how is this happening? And so, you know, history, right? So the way that you go to a medical doctor and they find out your physical, your history to know how you are so successful to certain illnesses is the same way you want to find out your history. So once you do that, you now have to figure out how to tailor make some kind of coping skills for yourself, right? That includes and is not exclusive, right? It's not just it's an exhaustive list. Make sure that you are, like I said, exercising, eating well, surrounded by social, have a good social support. Make sure that you are your your spiritually taking care of yourself all around. You cannot disinherit yourself from that. You can just know how to manage. Also know your triggers, know that some things are some things that trigger me. And so I'm not going to I'm going to try and avoid the things that trigger me. What are some protective factors? What are some risk factors? So the more you have protective factors are things that protect you from stress as much as possible. The risk factors are things that increase your risk. So, for example, a risk factor could be the fact that eating not eating right can cause you stress. So that's a risk factor. So you will find out for you to be protected. You have to make sure that you have a very strict diet that can help you balance and make you feel more healthy. And, you know, so it differs for everyone. So that's the most important thing. You have to sit down, reflect and say, OK, this thing runs in my family. How do I increase my protective factor so that I can reduce my risk factors? Now, if you if you want to seek expert advice, do you always have to go to a mental facility? I'm talking about this because a lot of people find it stigmatizing. OK, you are going to a health facility and everybody just sees you this man don't call. And that's how we are. We are going to see it in Nigeria and all that. Are there alternative places you can seek help, you know, in case you just don't want to go to an outright mental facility for that help? There are different ways, yes. And, you know, like you said, there's a lot of stigma to mental illness everywhere, not just in Nigeria or in Africa. It's just it's everywhere. Mental illness is not well understood. And so there's a lot of stigma attached to it. But the most important thing is, yes, you can go to you can find support, support groups can work. You can have your own people that you can reach out to. You have to create your own kind of plan, right? You can create let's say these are the people that I can I can talk to when I need help. These are the people and they also have to know at a certain stage where people cannot help you, right? Maybe your friends or your family can help you and you have to go into see a therapist who is licensed and who is skilled to help you with those things. It depends on what you're dealing with. It can be if you're someone that deals with mental illness and it's something that you're accustomed to and you're able to cope with it. Maybe you can have some support networks. You can have some coping skills. You have a plan. But if you're someone that it's, you know, maybe this is sudden and it's very traumatic and you don't even know how to handle it. I would say, please go to someone that is licensed mental mental health specialist, a therapist that can help you identify things you can work on, talk to you about it, process different things and and and you don't have to go. There are a lot of now this, you know, virtual, you know, the world is very virtual. So you can you don't have to. You can sit in your home and have a therapist and have a therapist through Zoom or in any part of the world actually provide services to you. So you don't have to go to a mental health facility to receive help. And they said it's also depending on what it is that you're dealing with. If you have substance use, you might, you might and you need some people might need to go into rehab to help them with their substance use. So it depends on what it is that you're going through and how you're able to manage it. But regardless, if you feel like you're not able to make please go into sick mental health services and by a trained mental health specialist. As Niamgut said, when he started this conversation is society is not something that it's common what used to be common in our society. But today it's become so common that almost on a monthly basis you hear a story or two about attempted suicide or suicide that's taking place. Recently we saw on social media a very popular socialite that almost took her life on third mainland bridge. Thank God she was stopped and so she didn't die. But over the weekend I saw a story of video that went viral of one Baba on one of the bridges. Unfortunately for him he had already climbed the railing and they couldn't stop him. They tried, they spoke to him, talked to him. And so there are different stages, right? The stage where you can actually seek for a counselor, seek for help from the comfort of your home is different. And then the stage where you've gotten to third mainland bridge and about to take your life is different. Talk to someone watching right now who is probably... Contemplating. Contemplating or encounter someone who's about to take his or her life. There's some tips you can give that would help one counsel anyone at that point in time to help them stop taking... To stop them from taking their lives. So there's two factors to this. I think you wrote about somebody contemplating and somebody trying to stop. Somebody contemplating suicide. I would say please reach out to help. Wherever it is that can help you. And suicide is a big issue, right? It affects not only, it affects the whole society. It affects the family, it affects everyone. So if you're struggling and I want to also say this, please you're not the only one I'm struggling. I think there's the reason why a lot of people do not reach out for help is they feel like people would say that they're crazy or the people will stigmatize them. So having suicide thoughts is very common to a lot of people especially when they're going to stress or having a stressful situation that it cannot handle. So reaching out to a support network, reaching out to, it can even be your pastor, reaching out to somebody that you feel like will take you seriously and receive help. And if at any point in time, if you can't reach out to anybody, go to a hospital and check yourself into a hospital so that you can receive the help that you need. Life is very precious and life should be taken seriously. So if you are contemplating, please reach out. And I know there's suicide prevention hotlines and around that you can use to receive help when you need help. And then somebody that is trying to, that is trying to stop someone, I would say the most important thing is to be present with the person, right? If the person is at the point where they are about to jump the bridge or they are about to, you know, hand the signal to harm themself. You know, first of all, the first thing is to try as much as possible, like you said, to remove every form of anything that it can use to harm themself, you know. So remove this, if you see that as any safety object or anything, that's, you know, you try as much as possible to keep them safe. If somebody is about to jump the bridge at that time and you can't hold them back, then that's, you know, that's very tough, of course. But the thing that you can do is talk to them, try and find out, you know, what it is that is going on with them, try and find out if there's anybody, like I said, increase the protective factor. Is there family that they need to talk to? Is there, you can use religion, is it, you know, you can use, you know, what are the, you know, can you tell me your story? The most important thing is being present with the person that you're with and trying to reassure them, provide support, reassurance to them that you are there for them and that you can, you are going to support them through this, that, you know, this is not the end of the road. You know, I know that it might be like you're overwhelmed right now, that's not the end of the road. There is the light at the end of the tunnel if you can just let us, if we can just stay together and we can find help and support for you. So, of course, we never wanted to get to this point where the person is already about to die by suicide or the person. So we want to, as much as possible, try talking to people, even at the point where they are checking in on people regularly. So they never get to the point where they're already, they have already contemplated, they're contemplating suicide or they're about to complete suicide. Yes. Well, that's the challenge because once someone is depressed, first thing is that they want to cut off from the entire world. They don't want anybody to know. So they will never tell you that I am depressed and this and that is just the grace of God and may that grace also be, you know, so that we can identify people that we need to talk to. So we need to, like she said, check on people. But let me ask you this, Kumbi. How would you assess the facilities and the manpower in Nigeria to address the issue, the rising issue of suicides and the depressions and deteriorating mental health of Nigerians? Because we just had on one of the newspapers this morning that they are, for instance, 84 pediatric dentists in the entire Nigeria. So they will cater to the needs of over 200 million people. So in that sector, in that part of the, when we're talking health, mental health, how would you assess the facilities and manpower in Nigeria? Of course, like you said, you know, they have a lack of and even here in the US, there is not enough mental health services, mental health providers to take care of everyone going through mental health challenges. So yes, there is, it seems like there's a lack of, or there's not enough, but I also want to say that they have been improvements, right? You know, coming into this and I have, you know, from when I left Nigeria to now, I have seen that there's more awareness about mental illness or mental health. And there is more, there are people that are willing to provide services. Do we have enough? No. And it starts with training people. So like I said, we want to provide support for people, but we have to move into the stage of training people, more people to provide services in mental health services. We have to go to the approach of going to schools, right? When people, when I remember when I studied psychology, people, my father said, oh, what are you going to do with psychology? And, you know, that's the thing, right? When, you know, the aspect of starting from school, educating people, letting people connect people to services so we can build up our professionals so that it can train them enough to provide services. To be honest with you, mental illness is not going anywhere. It's going to continue to rise and that's the truth. So that's the reason why we need to equip our, from the school, going back into university, equip people and we can also look about, look at this as a way of providing employment. A lot of people want to provide, want to be, they want to help people, but they don't know how to. So we need to start bringing trainings, providing trainings, going back to those that study psychology and making it more, regularizing and making it more easily accessible to provide services. The people that need it the most are not able to afford it, unfortunately. So we need to figure out how we can go to the grassroots and grassroots and train people to provide services. That's one of the things that we need to do. So there's a lack of, lack of, Hello, Kumbi. That we're doing now and then training people to receive, to provide services. Do you think it's something that needs a deliberate policy? And if there's a policy that should be done, what do you think that policy would be? Because we have a new government now and they're thinking of ways to improve the country. Normally that's what happens. So if it is a matter of policy, what direction do you think that policy should be? Well, definitely. I believe, I think that the first thing is to, so that's a body. I think it's the national for counselors. I think as a national body counselor, I'm sorry, I don't know the full acronym of the association. So I feel like one of the things that needs to be done is that they need to regularize it. They need to control it. I feel like this is more of the, for social workers, I don't think this for social workers, I think it's more for counselors, for guidance and counseling. So like I said, there has to be a policy where we can train people what are the code of the key? Come back to... Oh wow, sorry. Did you hear me? You hear me? You was cracking, but go ahead, we can hear you now. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. It's not your fault. Okay, so as I was saying, I think that the government needs to do more of providing, working with people that are in the field right now to provide, for a policy to regularize the institution. And also partnering with international bodies that can bring trainings into the society so that people can learn. For example, one of the things that they have utilized or they're utilizing in the US right now is peer recovery specialist. And that is a very great way to increase a mental health services. Those are people that have experienced mental health services, mental illness themselves and they are willing, they have overcome and they are willing, they are licensed, they are trained and they are willing to help other people that are going through what challenges, mental health challenges. So if the government can't actually train those people that would be great because as much as we have mental health therapists, we have psychiatrists, we also need people that have lived experience that can say, see, I went through substance use, I went through mental health challenges, I have been able to overcome it and because I've been able to overcome it, I can help you walk you through and guide you through that process. So the government needs to figure out how we can, the bodies, bodies that can come together to sit down and say, how do we break things down? Policies, how do we break things down so we can get all these services to the grassroots? Especially with substance use, substance use is such a big issue in Nigeria and we have youth that are dying because they are using. So we need people that can work together, organization, partnerships that can work together to help address the mental health and substance use issues that are going on right now. Quite scary, that mental illness is something that has come to stay, whether we like it or not. I was going to ask you, but I guess it's cliche. Is it on the increase? Yes, it's on the increase. Is it because of social media or is it that it's something that used to be an issue even before social media? Yes, it used to be. So social media is just projecting and people are made more aware of social media and people are actually talking more about it. So but it had always been, we've always had people that have struggled with mental illness and what we have done is hide them, we don't talk about it. We keep people, we have kids that are, we've had kids, we have uncles, aunties that have had depression, they've had anxiety disorders, they've had schizophrenia. I know family members, I know people that have had family members that have bipolar and they keep them, they keep them because of the stigma, they keep them at home because they don't want anybody to know about what it is that is going on with them. So this is not just people that I know, people have heard stories. And so because of that, we need to talk about it. And social media, what social media has done is just bring more awareness to it. And now we can't hide it anymore. We have to talk, we have to address it head on. Okay, just a final one. You have a foundation, which means you do a lot of these things, but what is it that can be done to make it easier for whoever wants to access the help that a foundation like yours can give? Be it within Nigeria or outside? What are the basic things that need to be done in order to enlist the services of a foundation like yours? Well, first of all, like you said, using social media, right? Connecting with people. Our hope is that we provide more awareness, want to create more awareness and to, so that people know that we are available and that they can access it. So we want to do more of that. One of the things that we want to do more of is talking to people. There's not enough, and I think, okay, I think this also goes back to policy, right? I feel like there's not a lot of, there are people that are providing services, but there's not a body that is regulating where everybody can easily just go to the website or go online and access and pull from a list and say, okay, this is it, right? So right now, I think social media is the best aspect to find out and also talking to people. I think that legal states and other states have like some kind of, they have social, they have offices that have contacts. And so people can go through their, I'm assuming maybe through their local government. But for now, what I have seen is that through social media, if you can find out about, not only about our own mental health foundation, but from other mental health foundations back in Nigeria as well. So social media is one of the best things to do. We're talking to people, but we need to, what we need to do though is to have a place where people can just go into click things and easily access and know, okay, this is where I can provide social, I can get mental health services through this place. So that's one of the things that we need to do. The more we talk about this, the more we are able to be aware. So people know that there are services that have been provided. But for now, I really do believe that social media is one of the best ways to find out services that people are providing. Okay, Kumbi, thank you so much for your time this morning. It's been really enlightening talking with us. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, we've been talking with Kumbi Oyeidele, Executive Director, Living Vines Mental Health Foundation. We were talking about coping with mental health illness and understanding suicide prevention this morning. And that is how we wrap it up on the show this morning. It's been a pleasure being with you. We do hope that we can do it again tomorrow. My name is Nyamgul Agadje. I am Maureen, no easy way. Don't forget to follow us on social media. And let's continue these conversations there.