How shall we tackle social taboos; Mental disorders

[mcali]

When I'm dictator I will never allow a person like you to enter my country. Is this just yor internet persona or your real life shit

[WiglessBidaar]

I'm just a delicate flower abaayo. You will kiss my hand when I buy you a box of nacnac iyo xalwa and tell you about what the Horn was like before the infection of Wahhabism and how all the girls shimmered and sashayed in the summer like no one else.

[Alphanumeric]

Nice thread, but I think you shouldn't clump the varying conditions into a single category. Mental disorders stemming from traumatic experiences may differ from those rooted in genetics. Likewise for chemical imbalances resulting in crippling emotional states. As well as social anxieties which may not even fall into any of the aforementioned.

Anyway, I'm all for the discussion on this topic, but never will I refer or be silent when mental disorders are referred to as 'social taboos'. That defeats the purpose of discussion. If you consider them taboos, join a fascist party and advocate for the elimination of the mentally ill, challenged, emotionally distressed, etc. That's not the way to go about things.

[globetrotter2]

Nice thread, but I think you shouldn't clump the varying conditions into a single category. Mental disorders stemming from traumatic experiences may differ from those rooted in genetics. Likewise for chemical imbalances resulting in crippling emotional states. As well as social anxieties which may not even fall into any of the aforementioned.

Anyway, I'm all for the discussion on this topic, but never will I refer or be silent when mental disorders are referred to as 'social taboos'. That defeats the purpose of discussion. If you consider them taboos, join a fascist party and advocate for the elimination of the mentally ill, challenged, emotionally distressed, etc. That's not the way to go about things.

Dear Alphanumeric,
Indeed there are a variety of disorders. Nature and nurture each play their part. The main reason for the term "social taboo" is not the disease itself but how we somalis relate to it (mental disorders). We do not like speaking about or suggest a remedy.

[BlackVelvet]

I think the reason why Somalis don't particularly like to talk about it is because "qofka marku waasho" there was generally no going back. Quran and tahliil were the only weapons our ancestors had, also for an oral society we don't tend to talk much about our feelings and what is really bothering us so people never got the opportunity to fully recover or get the support to be able to manage the condition. Since there was no hope it was better to ignore it, group them all into one category and just call them crazy. However now that we have access to modern medicine and therapy there is hope and people with mental and psychological disorders can finally come out into the open and get the treatment they need. I reckon if people are given the opportunity to do something about their illnesses they wouldn't turn away from the remedy. Given of course that they are made fully aware of what exactly the drugs and therapy hope to achieve and how they will make them better.


That said it isn't just our community that suffers from discomfort when talking about this issue to the point where we prefer to ignore it completely. It wasn't long ago I was listening to a radio station in London and they were taking about how this issue is still considered a taboo. Probably just a reflection of how little we know about the human brain.

[globetrotter2]

Blackvelvet, good inputs.
Mental disorders that our community usually talk about is the visible ones. There are a number of disorders that our community does not view as an illness until it is too late.

Trauma and drug related illnesses are some examples.