Mental health matters |28 July 2014

Mental illness may be one of the most misunderstood and difficult illnesses for a person to deal with. It becomes even more difficult to deal with as a result of the stigma within society and the community.

On Saturday morning, the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health commemorated international youth day celebrated under this year’s theme ‘Youth and Mental Health’. The slogan was ‘Mental Health Matters’ and this was a way to promote healthy living.

Present at the event was speaker of the 11th Seychelles National Youth Assembly (SNYA) Angelique Pouponeau and other members of the 11th SNYA cohort; youths from different districts, secondary and post secondary institutions; Dr Louine Morel and Dr Daniella Malulu; as well as health workers from different sectors of the ministry.

Speakers from different health sectors talked to the youths about teenage pregnancy and other health concerns they may have.
“Today’s activities are sure to educate these young adults and we have faith that they will use this newly acquired knowledge to share and educate other youths,” said SNYC coordinator Jeanetta Ali.

Representative of the Point Larue district and student at the School of Advanced Level Studies, Kelly-Mary Annette said that besides mental health, they managed to focus on other health topics that young people are more interested in.

Psychiatrist Dr Malulu’s talk covered various topics such as how a healthy mind works, factors which affect mental health, and exactly what consists of mental health disorders.

She also explained how some people may be more vulnerable to mental disorders than others but may not show any symptoms until they are exposed to a stressful life event.

Some of the symptoms of mental disorder are self-blame, talking to him/herself, hearing voices, fear, chronic sleep disturbances, or sadness, palpitations and panic attacks, fatigue, mood swings, lack of motivation, too much or too little talking, attempting suicide, planning suicide, poor judgement, seeing things that aren’t really there, and much more.

She also said it was important for people to realise that mental disorders are not the result of possession by evil spirits, curses, astrological influences, character weakness, laziness, Karma or black magic.

Instead the causes can be from a chemical imbalance in brain genetics, brain injury, chronic illness, or medications. Psychological factors can also play a role if the person has low self-esteem or negative thinking.

Other cause can be from social factors meaning family conflict/ poverty, unemployment, poor housing, and having a child. In addition, childhood events such as violence, abuse, emotional neglect, or death of a parent can also result in mental illness.