The Emotional Maturity of an Agbalumo Seed
Hi, my name is Funmilade Taiwo, founder of PsyndUp — the online directory for mental health professionals in Nigeria. Like LinkedIn, but cooler *insert emoji with sunglasses*.
Recently, I decided Nigerians needed a more effective and efficient means of accessing mental health care. Mental health in Nigeria is not a priority. The stats on how many government resources are allocated to mental health care are appalling and more or less indicative of their priorities. The stats on how many Nigerians are dealing with one mental issue or the other, are even more shocking. Watch this short video to blow your mind
Now, let’s start with a short and simple definition of mental health and how that relates to physical health. Mental health is the sum of your social, emotional and psychological states. It is how you deal with stressful/negative events and positive situations. 1 in 5 people will have a mental illness- a medically diagnosable condition like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. However, everybody has mental health. What scares most people and scared me for a while, was whether I had good mental health or bad mental health :(. What helped me understand good and bad mental health, was relating it to good and bad physical health.
This diagram helped me understand how you can have a mental illness and good mental health, or not have a mental illness, but have bad mental health.
Good physical health in the simplest of terms, is your body functioning as it was meant to function. In equilibrium. Balanced. Bad physical health, can be understood as your body’s inability to cope with and/or fight off diseases.
Easy right? Good mental health then, is a balance in these three areas of your life:
- Social
- Emotional
- Psychological
I imagine this would look like a score of 33.33 on each of these aspects in your life. A+. 4.0. 1st class upper. You have joined efiko gang! Bad mental health on the other hand would be an uneven distribution of “points” to these areas. Similar to physical health, experiencing “bad” mental health is not properly coping with or fighting off stressful situations.
Take Nigeria for example. This country is mentally unhealthy. But I will not go there so, take me -Funmilade Taiwo- for a more politically correct, less likely to be attacked by Buhari’s boys, example. I would probably score a 50 on my social component, but fail the emotional and psychological areas with a score of 25 on each. What scares me is that this looks more like my university transcript. Anyway! My emotional deficit comes as a result of my difficulty to effectively deal with, and the ease with which I rationalize complex emotions like love, sadness and anger. These difficulties trickle down and cause tiny explosions in the more minor emotional interactions in my life. I can send you a list of people that can testify. Just ask. But, look, I blame hegemonic masculinity for this. GUYS, IT’S OKAY TO TALK AND TO LOVE O! IT WON’T KILL YOU. I do want to say to everyone I’ve offended in my bid to be the manliest of men, this is my sorry for 2004!
If you know, you know.
It’s just that I had the emotional maturity of an agbalumo (African Cherry) seed. No lie. But I’m growing. The seed you guys threw away is now Hans and Rene’s top selling agbalumo sorbet. #Godgomakeyoubigger.
Agbalumo seeds, aka young emotionally immature Funmilade.
The agbalumo sorbet, aka the more mentally aware Funmilade after his glow up.
Next! Psychologically, I scored a 25 right? I thought I used to deal with stress and negative experiences so well untill I recently developed a nervous tick every time I thought about a painful memory. Wild right? It started off with me blinking, then clenching my fists, now it’s a bloody tick! It’s like my brain saying, “look man, you’re not coping well enough, but I gotta let this stress out so, WHOOTTSSSSHHHHH! There goes ya neck!
I’m not certain it really makes that sound, but you know how babies turn their faces away when you try and feed them something they don’t like. Yeah, that’s me when my brain feeds me painful memories. I don’t eat that bruv. Apparently, my macho won’t let me because, I..uh..will be…less…of a man? #Masculinitysofragile
I’ll tell you how this played out in my life recently. I tried to have an honest and open discussion with two “born traditional and conservative, trying to be liberal” Nigerians. It’s odd because besides our different points of view, I always imagined they understood me. It was traumatic to say the least. They told me my emotions and how I chose to express them were “textbook”. They did not forget to add that Nigerian youth are never grateful for what they have. Then, my one of them uttered my trigger phrase in the most disappointed tone, reminiscent of the many times my exes realised Ftaiwo was an ain’t s*** guy.
“Funmi, you need to change. You’re cold and dismissive. You don’t treat people well at all.”
I slept it off and acted like it was nothing. Two cold and tense days later, they tried talking to me again. It was another lecture about my abysmal behaviour. I sat there, avoiding eye contact, pinching my arm, whipping my neck, trying to contain myself. I probably looked like I was recovering from a drug addiction. But alas, my coping mechanisms failed me. I broke down. I cried. I sobbed. I shed real tears. It reminded me of the time I bought gala in primary school and my parents beat me because they thought I would turn into a tuber of yam. Wild!
Basically, everything I buried inside burst out. All the memories. The emotions I thought I so healthily dealt with. The trauma of being repeatedly told I was a terrible person. The fact that people did not see the progress I made on the inside because it still did not fit what they wanted me to be. It all erupted at once. Bottom line, I decided I need to go to therapy. Not because friends broke me or anything. They’re not bad people. They are human and their reactions were just that, reactions. But for me, I need to understand a lot more about myself, where my difficulties lie and how to effectively work through them.
I hope you see where I’m coming from here. I needed to be open about my mental health if I wanted others to be. I want people to understand the reason why this website and many others who are trying to educate us on mental health, exist. There are professionals (soon to be on this site) to support you in finding your balance when you need it. The most important thing at anytime for you is to learn to monitor yourself so you always keep track of your mental wellbeing.
Myself and a few others will be posting on here about five times a month, discussing themes such as conflict resolution and domestic violence, coping with trauma, self care etc. In the coming weeks, I will address issues on attachment styles, stress management and this plague called masculinity. We’re not experts, just real people with real experiences. We will also be taking submissions (both anonymous and um, non-anonymous?), so please subscribe, share and follow us as we Share Experiences, Unmask Therapy and Break Stigma!
#GetPsyndUp
P.S. my neck tick is gone. Agbalumo sorbet for everybody!
