Breaking the Stigma Women Mental Health
[Applause]
this year
2020 has been a roller coaster ride you
agree
it’s been very hectic the coping
pandemic
has caused there’s been an increase in
fear and uncertainty remember most
likely because of the contagious nature
of the disease
the high mortality rate death rates
but most importantly the economic burden
on us as individuals
so the increase in that causing us a lot
of psychological distress
and depression and anxiety and the least
chronic stress i mean in our society
we’re kind of used to chronic
stress but this has taken up it up a
notch
for many of us some of you will ask
why is a gynecologist which is a woman
health provider
talking about mental health this is why
this year i have seen a lot more
women with symptoms of depression that
i’ve seen in all my years
of practice and that’s more than 10
years
the world health organization says
depression
is not only the most common women’s
health mental health problem but it’s
also
more persistent than women than in the
men twice
actually and you know when mrs harry was
talking
i connected them because one of the
biggest reasons we are
more have more depressive symptoms is
because of the burden
of care responsibility of caring for
others
there was a complication that put out
there that
50 of women that come to see us
gynecologists will have symptoms of
depression
so that means that as i practice i most
likely
will see women with that symptom 50 of
the time
this is why i cannot ignore
mental health as a woman’s health
provider
and what makes it more significant maybe
you don’t know
is that sometimes this depression
actually
relates to or connects to the symptoms
that present to us physical symptoms
gynecology systems and i want to give
you some examples
a few years ago i met a woman who was
maybe in the mid-forties
and she came to meet me which was
referred to me because of
chronic pelvic pain that’s pain in the
lower part of the abdomen
she’s had it for years she’s gone
through batteries of tests
procedures of procedures she now sees so
many other doctors
on so many other medications just trying
to
battle with this pain that will go away
when she met me i looked at all her
tests and all the history and i now said
to her is that you know one this one
area we haven’t looked at
and i’m going to do what we call the
depression questionnaire
to evaluate the state of your mind and
we did it and of course she did have
symptoms of depression
and which is obvious because when you’re
in pain for a long time
you will be depressed but what i wanted
to find out if that pain was also
related to why your symptoms would go
away
so i went here and i said now i’m gonna
try and refer you to a mental health
professional
and she gave me what i call the nigerian
answer she said
god forbid it’s not in my family no no
no
don’t don’t even say it i’m gonna leave
you i won’t come to you again no no no
this is wrong in my mind
and i used my sweet nature to engage her
a little bit more
and eventually she did agree to see a
mental health professional
and we started in therapy started some
medication and let me tell you
her pain went away it literally went
away
and she was so glad and this is what we
call self-stigma she had prejudice
against her own symptoms and struggle
that limited her recovery
of this pain for so many years
another example can relate to a lot of
women in the society
and cuts across all cultures and all
society and all
other societies and that is infertility
infertility is one of those things that
affects about
10 15 of couples but somehow in this
society i see it more often
so i’m not really sure if it’s true
infertility or the result or products
of external pressures sometimes i see
one walking to see me and say just check
me out
so i can know if i’m good before i even
get married to make sure i can have a
baby
that’s the beginning of stress sometimes
you get married and one month later
you’re in the office and saying
i haven’t got pregnant in one month i
want you to do something for me
that’s another stressor why because our
society places a lot of pressure
on having to conceive after you get
married
and so i had a young patient of mine
very young in her early 20s come to see
me because she
married those who were like three four
years and having yeah
there was a lot of family pressure you
know when you get married and because
everyone is here
that attends wednesday when you go for a
while the main prayer will be
you will conceive twins not every single
time
so every month every day after that they
look at you when they meet you are you
pregnant
are you somebody in there that is what
we feel that will be
exerted impression so she came and met
me and said look at very much
ibfs ibm is a process of trying to get
pregnant
and it hasn’t worked i am depressed and
i don’t think
i can cope with doing another one but i
know i have to
because it’s not working any other way
i’m struggling
i’m really depressed so when i went
through with records i said
again i brought up my very favorite
questionnaire the depression
questionnaire
and we did it i mean it was obvious that
she was depressed she couldn’t quote
ibm or infertility is a significant
emotional journey
ask anybody who has gone through trying
to get pregnant
and they will tell you that every time
they see their
period in a month they cry they
literally weak
all right so when i did this survey she
was clearly surprised and i asked her i
said
while we go through this process would
you like to meet somebody and have
therapy counseling so you can share your
views she said i’ve always wanted to but
my husband
and his people do not want me to share
anything i don’t believe
in depression and all these things and
that’s why i
took them all out and i can’t share it
with anybody
that is an example of external stigma
public stigma
and it’s worse when people close to you
stigmatize your mood you know why
because isolates you
you end up feeling like there’s so many
people around you
but you’re alone and when that happens
it’s dangerous you know why this can
lead to
suicide that’s when you hear about them
taking a sniper
or jumping off the third main language
because they just felt
i can’t cope anymore there’s nobody to
talk to
she went on got the count i went to meet
her i said bring your husband in we’re
going to have a meeting here
i’m going to prescribe something
straight from the doctor you know an
idea when the doctor says something
they can’t follow it so i said i want to
prescribe something from the doctor that
would help this situation
and when he sat down i told her you know
what let’s take a three-month break from
trying to conceive
you deserve a break let’s just just try
to spend three months
and go through counseling during that
three months
of course i’m sure you know what
happened she can see naturally
that shows you the psychological impact
infertility
occurs with infertility and the pressure
that young ladies like you suffer
even before you get married so i was
very pleased with that and
and so you can see from these examples
what stigma really does it limits and
inhibits
your path to full recovery
what what is stigma i’ve used the word
what is stigma
in my opinion i define stigma as
a mark of disgrace set upon somebody
that sets them apart right
and this builds up or leads to negative
attitudes and beliefs
people start looking at you as you know
as prepared you as your disease
and do not see you anymore as an
individual
that stigma now if you think of your
emotions
when you think you feel
thoughts generate emotions if i tell you
to think of something very
happy you feel happy if i tell you to
think of something really sad like when
you lost a loved one
you will feel very sad
without your thoughts you can’t really
feel emotions
and so depression is the most times
negative thoughts
that ellis really deep emotions or sad
emotions
that some of us can cope with some of us
are really good in nigeria
we have developed coping mechanisms that
are so popular like humor
i mean you’re going through a common
pandemic and sars protests
people are literally dying but there’s a
what’s up picture that comes in and you
have to laugh
yeah we deal with humor also religion
right we use worship the normal
diversity we can
relieve or move three socializing
we love to party we love together
covet protocol was not stopping us to
meet together and
party because that helps our mood
but again there are people that can cope
and i’m saying that because i see a lot
of women
who come to me that cannot sleep without
sleeping tablets
like dice japan and lecture time they
sell more
next time here than a cell top part of
the panel as far as i’m concerned
everybody seems to be on sleeping
tablets insomnia
is the sign that you’re not coping with
the way you feel
you can’t sleep your mind to school or
you sleep for hours and still get up
tired
that is a sign that you’re not coping
very well but because of stigma
so nobody says anything you will not
seek out help
you know and i say to them when i’m in
the us can sit down someone says oh i
saw my psychologist yesterday like
never can say that in nigeria because
you’ve been blocked put aside you saw
your psychologist pretty much put this
wrong what’s wrong with it
trying to repeat it but it didn’t work
you know so so that’s
that’s what we see in terms of stigma
why do you think
sigma is so prevalent in our society
i’ll give you two reasons that i think
of that one is culture
culture has taught us not to express
our mood to be silent and many times i
meet women who are going through really
bad situations
and i said be spoken to anybody i said
no i did to my pastors that have faith
i spoke to my parents you know just hold
yourself
hold yourself and they’re there
crumbling
in emotional pain when you’re going to
get married they’re going to investigate
the other family to see if someone says
yes this person has seen a
mental health expert like leave that
family
find another family right that’s our
culture
that’s our culture another one is
religion people
think if you’re a person of faith you
cannot be depressed
that’s a policy because the same way you
can have high blood pressure
or diabetes is the same way you can have
mental health
condition it’s part of your body mental
health
physical health social health emotional
health
is all part of you actually being well
so
don’t think there’s any different the
same imbalances in your body that make
us treat you to get better is the same
imbalance in your mind
that will treat you to get better all is
wellness
so that being said i i wanted to say
i want to share my story a little bit
because one of the things i’ve seen
is that emotional pain is worse than
physical pain in my opinion
physical pain you can take panadol or
pain medications right
and it gets better with the pain on
emotional pain you need to
work through it it’s a process to get
through it
to talk to yourself to say things to
yourself it’s a process
my experience emotional pain was in 2017
when i lost my mother to cancer
she was my best friend my angel on earth
my beginning and you see her listen to
me
and she passed away from cancer and it
threw me into a place
of grief that i’ve never known before
emotional pain paralyzed me affected my
work my
creativity affecting my relationships
with people
because it does affect relationships
when you’re always in pain people don’t
understand it
and i remember in nigeria after the
funeral going through the months of
grief
i would talk to somebody and they’ll say
don’t worry she’s in a better place
you’ll be fine and you know that really
hurt me when they said that because
that’s not what i really wanted to hear
so i stopped talking about it you know
because
what they were saying made me feel worse
when i went to the stakes as you can see
i practice actually the two continents
when i went to the u.s and i told a
friend of mine i said we’re going to get
you through that don’t worry we’d like
you to do that
and we went through and i have my
friends down by me there in the u.s and
i’ve gone through grief if not i’m sure
i would have ended up clinically
depressed
so how do we break the stigma one
let’s speak up like i’m doing right now
less on
every platform let’s tell people that
mental health condition
is pretty much the same as any physical
condition and we shouldn’t stop people
from speaking up about
that the more you know about mental
health awareness
the less stigma you can attach this with
two
let’s share the story i’ve stood here as
vulnerable as i can be to share your
share my stories
let’s share our stories and you know
that people can everybody can suffer
this crisis three
let’s refrain the way we think if you’re
struggling with depression
depression does not identify who you are
and fourth let’s change our vocabulary
stigma power lies in our words you
sit down and say that person is crazy
that person is not well
that person is out his head is not
correct someone decided you could be
struggling
then i ain’t just looking for help and
you say that and that changes the
person’s course
not to speak up and to suffer an
emotional pain
so i look forward to the day we see
parity
in treating mental health and physical
health
the same way because it will save
lives i will leave you with this
powerful quote
from val rankin who is a wellness mental
wellness advocate in a sense do not give
into stigma
your diagnosis does not determine who
you
are or what you can do thank you