The Ministry of Health in Rwanda has recently announced some of the tips that will help people avoid mental illness and how to take care of someone who has experienced that problem.
Often mental illness is caused by a combination of problems that a person has been dealing with and then it becomes an illness because he is no longer able to accept it.
The advice given by the Ministry of Health says that when a person is faced with a problem, it is better to talk about it with others, and find someone who trusts the listener and tells him/her and can help him/her out of it, so he/she feels relaxed and the person they talked to can be a counselor and help him/her.
The way a person talks about his problems and how he has faced them, helps him not to keep his sadness and makes him feel comfortable and does not reach the level of causing him illness.
Prayer is also one of the things that helps a person with a mental illness, especially if he has not reached the level of taking medication.
Dr Darius Gishoma says that mental problems in Rwanda have many causes, but the special one is the effects of the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994.
He said, “The main things that come forward are the effects of the Genocide against the Tutsis, which we continue to see to this day, and we also see it from the children who were born without them. Another common cause is family conflict. All these things when combined make some people whose mental health is not good.
According to Dr Gishoma, the latest survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2018 showed that one in five people (that is 20%) have symptoms that show that they are not well, which means they need help.
The research showed that women have higher numbers than men as men have mental problems 16% and women 23%.
Dr Gishoma says that although women are more affected by mental illness than men, men also show a high proportion of drug and alcohol abusers.
Persecution, betrayal, suspicion, deprivation of peace and tranquility, dehumanization and neglect are some of the stressors that can lead to mental illness.
Uwase Clarisse, a counselor at the Kinyinya Health Centre, says that the symptoms of a person with mental illness can be seen in different ways as they are loud, lonely, depressed, and come with wounds from being depressed because of the illness they often call epilepsy.
Uwase says that mental illness can be treated and cured because if the patient is treated early and given proper care and takes the right medication on time, he will feel better again.
For a person who has shown unusual symptoms in his life that are not related to his usual behavior, it is certain that he goes to the counselors of the crisis, to be arrested.
