Who’s Really Crazy?
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
by Liya Endale
EA4C Guest Blogger
click to see blog
Mental health is a profession just burgeoning in our community and has not acquired the respect a medical profession has. I want to know why. How much is misunderstanding of the benefits of psychological services and how much is legitimate frustration at the types of problems – or lack there of- that send people in American society to a mental health professional?
My theory is simple, yet untested. “Feel good” chemicals are naturally released in our brains but only when something happens that gives us a sense of accomplishment. We work towards a goal, sacrifice and finally attain those things which matter most to us. Having to work hard for things we can attain helps shape our values. However, if we are in a situation where we can have most things we want, we do not work hard to reach goals and these “feel good” chemicals are not released in our brain. Furthermore, one can be confused because he/she doesn’t even know what matters the most in this life.
Could it be that here in the U.S. resources are so much more attainable that we do not truly want for at least basic necessities to survive: clean water, food and shelter? 99% of the population is literate and most people still have jobs, in spite of the economic state we are in. So are we really depressed or are we just looking for another reason to throw our money at?
An Eritrean/Ethiopian friend of mine who rents units in London said she had a tenant from America once. We’ll call my friend Senait. The tenant’s parents paid her rent and gave her spending money and so this girl had no job. She became so depressed that Senait went to go check on her out of concern that the tenant had not left her room in some time. When Senait heard that the tenant was sad, she asked, “But why? You have everything in the world that anyone could want. What could possibly make you feel so sad?” The girl said that she did not know why she felt so depressed and wanted to kill herself.
Dumbfounded, Senait sincerely did not know what to say and spoke the honest truth that was laid on her heart. “Well, if you have everything in the world and you are still sad, maybe killing yourself is the right thing to do.” Then the tenant proceeded to cry hysterically and eventually ran out of the 2nd story flat window. She survived. In fact, she did not receive more than a couple of scratches and bruises which she came back upstairs to nurse.
You see, Senait had spent her life fighting. She grew up in Nairobi as the eldest of six in a family which knew no boundaries for physical discipline and a neighborhood which had no regard to human life. She protected her brothers and sisters and barely had time to fend for herself. Through her own blood, sweat and tears she made her way to London to own and rent out flats while working a full time job downtown. She was happy. In her world, depression for no apparent reason did not exist. It could not exist. In her mind the tenant might as well have said she was depressed because she ran over a leprechaun while riding her unicorn to the store. It was simply impossible. She did not understand how someone who had never had to fight or work to attain what she almost died to get could be unhappy.
This phenomenon is not isolated to just Americans. There is an alarming rate of suicide among immigrants who make it to the States after a long and arduous process of attaining papers here. What is causing so many people to give up after getting what they had hoped and prayed for all their lives?
I recently got accepted to a professional counseling masters program and I am bracing myself for the funny looks and disappointment I will face when I announce my new profession in our community. My dream is to create a job for myself where I can travel back and forth between Ethiopia and the United States. However, I’m willing to face the music and accept that this is not the profession to do so in a country where a single phrase like ‘hod kurtet’ could potentially describe anything from a stab wound to severe emotional unrest due to a tragic event. Emotions are not meant to be explored or even acknowledged in our community.
I am currently planning a trip back home. I haven’t bought my ticket, so I may chicken out. However, if I do go, I want to explore the mental health help that is available to learn more about this value discrepancy between my home in the States and my home in the motherland. And I would love to hear your opinion on the matter as well. http://neatorama.cachefly.net/money-happiness.htm
This blog submission was written by Liya Endale. The views of guest bloggers are not the views of Ethiopian-Americans for Change. Guest bloggers represent the broad dissection of views and outlooks within our community.
click on pic to see Liya
Very interesting read about a topic that needs much needed attention in our community. Here is my two cents, the reason why I think immigrants have a high rate of suicide could be explained by the loss of hope. As the infamous and dark line in Dante’s Inferno goes “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”. Not to compare America to Hell, but for many immigrants America is an idea, a figment of hope, and a resurrection of sorts. When the idea becomes reality, and when that reality manifests itself in long aching hours of working one, maybe even two jobs just to make ends meet, hope could be lost. As a result the fantasy land of America that many disenfranchised foreigners once held is replaced by a realism that drowns the “feel good ” chemicals as you put it.
I do think about that as another source of hope. Sometimes the most devastating things in life occur when there is a great rift between our expectations and reality. This happens in marriages, careers, and migrating to the U.S. Thanks for the insight!
Working in the mental health field I recently wrote an article for an Ethiopian magazine on suicide. In my research for this I found an interesting thing: a recent article found that immigrants in host countries tend to statistically have lower rates of suicide than people in their home country. In other words – statistically speaking those who are living abroad are less likely to commit suicide than those who still live back home. The article did not discuss why that is, but I imagine those who are strong enough to leave their home, family, culture, and life are generally those who overall are strong anyway. I imagine anyone who is susceptible to depression/anxiety is less likely to make a such a large change in their life.
Things that do contribute to suicide in immigrant populations: role loss (example being a respected physician back home but coming to the host country and having to drive a cab because the thought of recertification is daunting), lack of a support network, increased stressors of immigrant life without the “natural” help avenues a person is used to back home (family, church, friends, etc.). These are just a few reasons – bottom line as the Doug above stated: factors that cause you to lose hope that things can get better.
As for people who get depressed for “no reason” – I want to make sure we differentiate between situational based depression and biological depression. Certain mental illnesses are caused by a naturally occurring imbalance in our brain chemistry. These are people who tend to have a family history of mental illnes, who get depressed early and often never fully “beat” the illness, etc. For these people life circumstances have nothing to do with how they feel – their internal system of good/bad feelings is already calibrated wrong and they really need medication to right it. Not the best analogy but imagine trying to carry water in a cup with a hole in it – you can move the cup around, keep pouring more water in the cup, etc. but the water is going to keep spilling out unless you plug up the hole. Similarly, those with biologically caused depression have a structural problem with their brain – unless that’s fixed you can make all their dreams come true and they will still likely return to a depressive state. Unfortunately psychtropics are not an exact science and even medicine sometimes don’t help. Now there is a true moment of helplessness…
I have a lot of opinions on this topic. I’m really glad you brought it up. However, I look at it from a different angle than you seem to.
I agree with all that the previous commenter noted. Suicides happen in Ethiopia- plenty. They are neither as well recorded nor as well reported as they are in many developed nations.
I think you simplify mental illness far far too much. It is a very complex science and field of study that is woefully understudied and often misunderstood.
As an Ethiopian in the diaspora with a long family history of mental illness I will tell you from my experience, the facts are not that there is a remarkably small number of people with such problems in Ethiopia. Rather, the culture has yet to accept mental illness in the same way it is accepted in our host countries. In Ethiopia, the people who are considered mentally ill are “crazy” and roaming the streets, talking to themselves. — and even their behavior is often attributed to the work of the devil or hard times. Many Ethiopians won’t admit that Itiya so-and-so spends so much time alone in her room because she is depressed. Or that Gashe whats-his-name’s angry outbursts are a sign of an unstable mind. Few Ethiopians believe that it is ever due to a chemical imbalance, often triggered, but not caused by life circumstances.
I’ve seen how these things can go untreated and ignored in Ethiopia and how they can lead to very, very tragic ends that are rarely relayed back to people in the diaspora through news or media sources. I hope that some day things will change.
Congratulations on your acceptance to the professional counseling program. Mental health is a field that is greatly overlooked, yet mental stability is what allows us to truly enjoy life. Various factors affect our perception of our lives and who we are as people. If we are not stable without the necessities of life, we may still struggle with stability while having an excessive amount of what we need, want, and desire at our fingertips. Many people across the world have developed a mentality of never being satisfied and always wanting more. To a certain extents I feel that we are all guilt of wanting more than we have, at lease I’ve been guilty of it. I also believe that sometime the lack of experiences and financial gain often save us and keeps us sane and appreciative of what we actually have.