Despite the blue skies today, life looked a lot darker for Christopher Banda after he lost his wife in December 2020. The 38-year-old farmer from Zomba, Malawi, was in so much emotional pain he admitted he had suicidal thoughts. Ultimately, his family took him to the local psychiatric hospital, where they treated him for depression.
"I was in a situation where the only thing I was thinking was to take my own life because it meant nothing then. I was scared to live on my own without her and it was eating me up," he tells RFI's Africa Calling correspondent Benson Kunchezera.
Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.
Some people become socially isolated for many reasons, including losing friends or a spouse, undergoing a separation or divorce, physical or mental illness, social anxiety, or even retirement.
Banda says that suicide doesn’t reflect a person’s character, but rather gives us a sense of how overwhelming their pain was.
Lessen stigma
Malawi’s Sunday Times paper reported 87 suicide deaths in the first 6 months of 2021, a 65 percent increase from the year before.
One youth organisation is advocating mental health wellness in an effort to lessen the stigma around mental health issues.
For generations, men have been pushed to hide their feelings and not admit they’re struggling, says Thomson Gutani, iMind mental health advocate in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial hub.
He says men are more likely to kill themselves.
"Men do not feel that they can trust somebody…so to avoid all that men keep holding on to the issues they are facing as a result, [they think] the solution is suicide," says Gutani.
He calls for better care for people who suffer from depression, such as establishing groups and discussing mental health challenges within the community.
The government should get more involved in treating people with mental health issues, he adds.
Malawi has only three trained psychologists for a population of 17.5 million according to iMind. Most community-based health-care providers have received little or no training in youth mental health care in either Malawi or neighboring Tanzania.
Prevention
The Malawi government is addressing the shortfalls by working with Malawi’s Ministry of Health to train more specialists in the field says Social Welfare Minister Patricia Kaliati.
Kaliati says she’s calling attention to the issue of depression and suicide by conducting awareness campaigns, and stressed that Malawians who are depressed should seek medical attention.
"We are doing everything we can to make sure cases of suicide are minimized in the country, because we are losing a lot of prominent citizens due to suicide," says Kaliati.
Depression "can be preventable if people choose to open up and share whatever is disturbing them in their minds, rather than resorting to kill themselves because they thought no one can help them," she adds.
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