Adesola (not real name) was a brilliant 400L Engineering student at a federal university when he had to drop out on account of his mental health struggles. He was clearly unable to stay well enough to cope with the challenging rigor of his university education. This was very disappointing to his lectures as he had clearly maintained a strong first-class grade in his four years as an undergraduate, and he should easily have landed outstanding job opportunities if he had managed to graduate with a first class in Engineering. For someone brilliant enough to secure admission into a top university, sustain excellent grades for nearly four sessions until he was within touching distance of qualifying as an engineer, this was truly a sad turn of events.
He became estranged from his family at some point, because of his persistent belief that they were conspiring to kill him. Due to his faulty thinking process (paranoid beliefs) in the context of his mental illness, he ran away from home, abandoned his education, and ended up living on the streets. After nearly two decades, some of his old classmates came together, contributed funds and paid for his hospitalisation, treatment and subsequent rehabilitation.
Discussion
The numerous challenges faced by persons with mental illness are legion, especially in our environment. They include shame and stigma, discrimination, human rights abuses – especially in traditional or faith-based healing houses where they may be chained, beaten, deprived of food and water, or even sexually abused. Ignorance and superstitious beliefs about the causes of mental illness also prevent many affected persons and their families from seeking medical interventions that will help them recover and return to normal functioning.
Another glaring challenge is the poor social welfare services of the government that does not step up to provide services when citizens are affected by mental illness, and they gradually fall through the cracks – until they start roaming the streets as homeless persons with mental health challenges. Thus, the burden of care and providing social support is almost exclusively on the individual families to provide. And when they become exhausted or simply do not know what to do, things go south very quickly for the affected person. We need the Ministries of Social Welfare in each state to be proactive and intervene by covering the treatment and rehabilitation costs for homeless persons roaming the streets in their locations. They can be treated and rehabilitated successfully.
Back to the specific story of the young man above: several commentators have argued that the stress of Engineering and wanting to achieve a first class were what broke him down. While that may well have been an additional stressor, many serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, mania, depression, bipolar disorder, drug abuse and so on, often rear their head for the first time between the ages of 15 and 25 years. Which is why it is not surprising that many young men and women, during their university days, will experience a mental illness for the first time in their life. How it subsequently pans out, depends on availability of social support, access to quality mental health care and the school authorities showing understanding and flexibility. If any of these critical factors is missing, the outcome will be poor.
Reality check
Mental illnesses are quite common with the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimating that one in four persons will suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. Thus, the implication is that in every family with at least four members, one family member may struggle with a mental health problem at some point in their lifetime. So, it could happen to me or you. My reality check question to you is this: What will happen to you if you start hearing voices, experiencing abnormal thoughts, and behaving abnormally today? What will your family do? Where will you be taken to? Will you be chained and hidden away? Or taken to a hospital? How confident are you that you will be treated decently?
Conclusion
Many young men and women develop mental illness every day. Several of them drop out of school, stop their business or craft and never recover. Several of them never make the headlines. Indeed, we have all become desensitised to seeing homeless mentally ill persons on our streets. But every citizen deserves access to quality mental health care services and a life of dignity. We need to nudge governments at all levels to invest in mental health care services. The Asido Foundation (www.asidofoundation.com) has been running a pilot project called Project Hope since 2022, which aims to rescue some persons with mental illness from the streets and document their journey to recovery as an advocacy tool that demonstrates that recovery is possible – with treatment and support.
