Embracing Vulnerability: A Path to Healing

Here at Mindfully with Tumisha , we believe that every step forward , no matter how small , is a victory . So join this crucial fight for life , an event dedicated to raising awareness about men's health and preventing the silent epidemic of suicide . November 23 , 2024 at the Rembrandt Hotel in Keja . Follow Mindfully with Tumishe for details about registration .

Hi , mindful partners , and thank you for joining us again on mindful . In terms of today , I'm super excited .

Uh , you all know that we've been planning for a fight for life coming up in november and , um , I did promise allah and I did promise that we're going to have , uh , conversations with men up until they just truly get into it , because , of course , I'm not a man , I'm not male , so I know exactly how these things work for men .

So I have the person I have on the show today . His TV is quite scary , trust me , very scary , but we're going to try to be less afraid with that . So good , good , good morning , mr tolu . Frances , how are you today ? How do you want me to stay ? Did I call you ? Is it tolu or tolu ? Oh , my god , what . What a beautiful name .

Yeah , okay , so how are you today ?

heartbreaking that I saw and I just quite dismissive about men's mental health .

You know , when you tell a fellow guy that something is wrong with you , you know there's that tendency , if care is not taken , for them to completely dismiss it by saying , oh , let's just go out , let's just hang out , let's just grab some bottles and all of that .

And so it becomes a bit difficult for you to tell your fellow guy what you're experiencing , because sometimes we think that we have the fix to it and we just suggest what we think should be done as against providing that support , providing that direction towards getting help For the women . I don't think women are dismissive of men's mental health .

What I think the experience is yet to come to terms with the fact that you're supposed to be strong . So how come this thing got out of you ? Right ? You are , you are by default the lead , you're by default the matcher , you're by default the powerhouse . So how come ? Uh , you're supposed to know when this is coming .

So how come it got a hold of you right ? And it's no fault of that , it's very , very understanding because of societal construct , and we cannot talk about mental health of men or women without talking about the environmental and the societal constructs that exist within us .

So I think it's expedient to look at it from that angle of a human face and not a gender face .

So I had come back from school in 2013 , and then I I mean from youth service in 2013 and I was living with a psychiatrist friend and when I come back from work I just go into the room and I just greet everybody and I just go into the room and you know you won't see me again till the next day .

And so one day he blocked me as I entered into the city room . I was like , how are you ? I said I'm fine , so I'm not asking how are you physically ? I mean , how are you internally ? And then I burst into tears

. Um , so a backstory , right . I had lost my mom about eight years before then , and then my paternal grandma , my paternal grandmother who my first five years of my life with died the year after . And then , four years after the death of my paternal grandmother , I lost one of my favorite aunts in Bauchi .

They're the wonderful , beautiful physics lecturer at ATB in Bauchi , a large article at Tafaba Adewa University , I think that's what the name of the school is . And so all of that grief compounded and I changed who I was as a person , to become quiet , you know , and all of that .

And so , interestingly , between 2005 and 2011 , I had gone through a series of losses that meant so much to me . So first was my mom and the next was my paternal grandmother , and then , I think December of 2010 was when I lost my aunt , and then in 20 . Was it 2011 now ? No , I think it was same 2010 .

One of the upcoming comedians CD cd john who was a very good friend of mine and was at my house just the weekend , um , before I went back to school , you know , and then passed on just the early morning of his birthday , you know .

So all of that , yeah , so all of that compounded , you know , that sort of grief in me and you know , I just held on , not even knowing what I was experiencing , you know , and all of that . So I didn't know . So when he said , I'm not asking external , I'm asking internal , I burst into tears , I'm like I'm not fine .

And then that was the first time in my life that I was knowing that there was something called grief right . And you know , because you know , living in an hyper-religious setting not hyper-spiritual , hyper-religious setting where there is supposed to be a spiritual undertone , but it is a religious undertone that you find out that exists right . So everything is going .

But it is a religious undertone that you find out that exists right . So everything is going as it is God , as it is God . There was nothing like we need to seek help at that point in time , you know . And so it took me three years . And then I said to myself so imagine that I've held this for eight years now .

How many more people out there are actually struggling with this ? And so that began my journey to mental health advocacy . So I began to read up and then I began to talk about it and , trust me , at this time mental health conversations were not a thing in Nigeria . I can bet on that . I can say that without any sense of pride .

Probably I was the first set of persons who were publicly talking about mental health . So at that time , Instagram was my go-to right . So I was using Instagram . I had a blog that was running , I was writing you know , writing articles .

Then I would design a WordPress website for myself and then I was blogging on mental health , looking at intersection of mental health , as it's where most people uh on instagram , you know , to talk about that . I remember bringing tuesday um at that point in time and all of that .

But then I then got to and I said , look , there's a shortage of healthcare personnels . So here , people attend programs because you know how we can do lots of events and then people get ginger and motivated , but what happens afterwards ? I said no , so I decided to get trained to be able to provide help to people .

So I did psychology , did mental health , did human nutrition , life coaching , a whole lot of them . And so I wrote my first book in 2015 called Eat Fit , a nutritional blueprint for a healthy living , because I realized that there was this endemic of weight loss and I was asking myself why are people trying to lose weight ?

How did you get to that point in the first place ? And it was because of my study that I realized that , oh , there's something called eating disorders eating disorders right , so I wrote my first book in 2015 , um , addressing eating disorders and diet as it's where , based on my training from human nutrition .

And then in 2017 , I wrote a book called so in 2017 , I lost my paternal grandfather to tuberculosis . So I wrote a book in 2017 titled Beyond Blue a step-by-step guide to dealing with grief , loss and depression .

You know , and the fall of Zimbabwe and that book , you know , really hit it , because people were able to to interact with the book and they were able to understand that yes , and and it did , you know , kind of like spotlight me because people could relate that finally somebody's saying it , somebody's able to I mean mentally , you know that what we're experiencing

was grief and all of that , but that kind of like put a spotlight on grief . So I majored in grief , depression , anxiety . I would say I stumbled into relationship because I never wanted to be a relationship person . But , you see , we often forget that we are social beings and there is nothing that happens to us that does not sit on relationship .

Relationship is the foundation , whether platonic or romantic , or corporate or cordial , it sits on relationship , you know . And so people would reach out to me . They're having issues with their friends , having issues with their partners . Let's talk , leave your partner , let's talk about you Exactly . Let's talk , leave your partner , let's talk about you exactly .

And then you dig find a mental health basis or mental health crisis for why those things are happening . So my approach is deal with the person and the mental health issues . The relationship will get fixed will get fixed . So it's that relationship get fixed , that they come together or the relationship gets fixed , that they decide that it's better and go .

They're separate ways . So that's been my journey . Basically , I've written other books after then . They're on sellerco , they're on Amazon . I started a YouTube channel where I was talking to people , started creating courses on Udemy where I'm training counselors , or that everyone deserves to have a knowledge about mental health .

Not everyone will be a caregiver , but everyone deserves to have a knowledge about mental health and be able to provide some level of first aid . So there's psychological first aid , there's mental health first aid . So , yeah , I have a podcast , I have a YouTube channel , I have books . I'm active on social media Instagram .

Now I'm on TikTok , linkedin Because I believe that education is major if we're going to deal with mental health across the world . If people have knowledge , they were able to prevent a number of things or safeguard themselves from experiencing a number of things . We must change the message from healing or corrective to preventive .

We must educate people to know what to do , what to avoid , so they don't get into that . I was speaking to a group of people recently . I said look , we must understand that we need to move away from . It has happened . How do I fix it to ? I don't even want this thing to happen at all . How do I prevent it ?

So it's been an interesting journey , with the ups and downs um . I've had reasons to review journals , um two journals basically , from time to time called the primary family therapy journal and um journal of clinical psychology , um conferences , here and there .

It's been an interesting journey with its own weight , you know , because , um , when you have to speak on things like this , it's draining oh yeah so you come and speak .

Um , you have one hour to speak , but you know that you're probably after two hours because after every speaking engagement that we need to ask questions and then covid came , and covid exposed the cracks in our relationships covid did .

No one has been able to give us kind of the tools to navigate grief . And then we see it in various parts of our life , in our relationships , and I'm with you when people come to me to my table and they say , oh , I'm eating too much or I want to get this into , and then you begin to have conversations and then , voila , that's where it's coming from .

It's not really the relationship , but the , the relationship with self . So let's talk about Grefg-Urebe . When you started this journey and you started talking because , of course , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , I'm extremely sure that we were not giving proper coverage to mental health .

We were not , because I was in the media and I know that when we get conversations and we're talking and there's a lot of it was extremely dismissive . Fast forward to 2015, . End of 2014 , towards 2015, . When I got diagnosed and I started my own and I said , okay , you know what ? I'm still in the media , I know what is wrong .

Let's see how we can get people , but then I kept getting pushbacks . You know that it's too heavy . It's too heavy to talk about . It's not what you should talk about on radio . It's too heavy to talk about . And all of that , first of all , to now . Of course , we have more conversation .

Like you said , 2020 exposed us , you know , it made us understand that we were ostriches and our bomb was high in

the sky . So in the beginning , how do you want to compare your ? The beginning when you started speaking , and especially you saying that , um , the the book on green , beyond blue is what you called it , the book on grey um highlighted . Were there pushbacks and how was the response before beyond blue ?

You know , um , so I had my first degree in biochemistry and I initially wanted to study medicine . Even I was going to study medicine . I wanted to specialize in the study of cancer , because my mom died to cancer , my partner grandmother , died to cancer . So I was angry with cancer . Like , who are you ?

You discuss that you do , um , but but like , often tell people , uh , whether they believe or not , god just has a different path for us , because every attempt to get into medicine Didn't work , and I'm glad it didn't work at the end of the day In the way I wanted it to work , because I wouldn't have done psychiatry as at that time , because I didn't have

knowledge about this as at that time . So it didn't make sense To a number of persons . Like , mental health , is the white people that like mental health ? Like , I mean , it's the white people that are talking about mental health . What are you talking about ?

In Nigeria , who wants to put money , who wants to organize a program and ask to come and speak on mental health and pay Like ? What are you talking about , bro ? You know which ?

You know , he was missing the family . You know , sometimes he would call , ask me to do a video of the house he wants to see everybody , and camera phones were also not very , very much of an easy to get thing around that time . It was expensive . I remember then that I was visiting ladipop every month .

You know , go to ladipop , buy , um , buy cheap blackberry phones , take it to school , use it . When I come back on holiday , I go to ladipop , sell it , buy another one , just small , small money , you know , as a lifetime , you know , and uh , so I mean I would use that snap everybody , you know , and all of that and um .

So it was then began to see okay , so this thing is this . So it was when I started appearing on tv . You know , then you would watch some and then it's okay . Why not ? Why not do this ? Why not this ? Because in this study , you know , he started seeing psychology , started reading about psychology .

It became part of what he was doing so he could understand .

And so it's been a journey right between then , and even if I would say the journey from 2000 and 2010 to 2015 was a whole lot of push right , because I mean , I , I mean I love , I love to read , right , so for me , the human thinking is fascinating to me , um , and I would always ask the wise , you know , uh , I feel like if I don't feel us off ,

maybe to throw me into a different world entirely . You know , um , so it was . It didn't make sense to people that I mean you come and say you're mentally , that you get out for what I mean I even even applying for grants well , people that were getting grants or getting good money were those in the um sexual and reproductive health .

You know there was heavy funding for sexual and reproductive health then because of the aids um , aids coach around that time , you know . So it wasn't easy .

almost ubiquitous . Um , people are now using it as crutches as a gangst , you know comes to an average man and an average Nigerian's mind when you say mental health .

Two is the no , not level of education , level of literacy not education , not level of literacy of the person . Two is the environment the person operates right . And three , the religious belief .

So if you meet someone who is literate enough to know that something exists around me , maybe they don't have a full grasp of it they would want to listen to you , right ? If you meet someone who , if you meet someone who exists in the slum or the ghetto or the kind of work that they do , the transporters and all of that man , you are capping rubbish .

It's dependent on this to , because that's my own experience now I'm finding , you know , interacting with people , because I've had the opportunity to speak across those three sectors where I go into the villages to speak in local dialects to them on mental health , talking to bus drivers on mental health , talking in churches , religious gatherings on mental health and , of

course , talking to corporate organizations , large or small , on mental health . And I've seen that even the most educated , even some medical doctors , still have something around mental health . They feel that now , especially with Chobbe , they're full . Now I end up talking about mental health . And I agree with you and I agree with you perfectly .

So I often say that you must take them from what they know to what they don't know you can't , you can't it's like you can't take someone from from primary one to gss for what they call basic one . Now I think to yeah , I don't know what they call it . Now , right , you have to take them from what they know to what they don't know . So let me try .

Let me draw an example . That's kind of example that I used um during my tedx Oshogbo talk in 2018 . So everybody understands the term madness . Everybody knows that there is madness , even though we don't use the word madness anymore because now it's termed as derogatory .

So if you want to start a conversation with someone who is not literate enough , who is not educated enough in your mentalate enough , just ask questions around madness . You have to grab the attention of the person and then you gradually get the conversation going with the person .

But if you start by saying so there's something coming out , blah , blah , blah , blah , you will lose the fellow right , but look for something around that this person can relate to , right , and then use that as the teaching aid you know to pass your message across to the person . And I think this cuts across different fields of endeavor .

Basically , uh , because it's then important that we are able to move people from what they don't know to what they know , rather to what they don't know .

. As we want to explain bipolar . Use poles to explain . Explain from this pole to that , from that pillar to this pillar , from this wall to that wall . You know , um , you want to explain depression , how it's like that dark room .

Most times , though , you feel all gloom and all these things , that guy at the bus stop at the park doesn't understand what glue means . You know , so you can't . You say it's like , oh , I'm losing it . Everything is you know . Just make it relatable to them . And in fact , yeah , can you hear me ?

Let me bring this , yeah , that they can understand .

And , um , I was watching basharunga , I was watching the half of guy , and that's okay , yeah yeah , and then by the way , that , that gas , that gas on , that gas on .

And when I'm talking with someone , I said it on the podcast before and then I said , okay , let me go back to what Fushetan and I were at . You're right , yes , we all know that she was such . And then I see that grief is unresolved . Grief is what caused these people to tap into the dark triad .

And then just went Machiavelli and everybody you know , and Fichetor , who was married a couple of times . Then eventually she had a baby , but then the husband died and then she lost this baby while the baby was having , when her daughter was having a child . Of course , that will mess with everyone .

So these things have been around us and we have things in Yoruba that we have terms in Yoruba , abusingwi , or we have these things , which is postpartum psychosis . These things have been with us , yet we've not been talking about them . So my question to you then will be that how do we talk around this mental health stigma ?

Because you know that when people want to get married and they're trying to find out what's going on , the kind of family they want to get married to , and they say I'll be single one and everything . That wedding is not going to happen . So how do we navigate this history that has been with us as we try to change the narrative ?

So you can either choose to learn from other people's experience or choose to learn from your own experience , and I think that one of the components , or one of the things that should form one of the things that should form the component when intending couples start dating , is to ask history . You know of illnesses in their families .

You know , um , so and and because , because of lack of literacy , could have happened years before . But I mean , you know , you know those things around a big pool that we used to talk about in those days , you know , and the likes .

I mean it was purely medical , you know , but we add the spiritual intonation to it , or religious intonation to it and a lot of that . So it's important to ask some of those vital questions . Right , the person might find it offensive . It prepares you , you know , for anything that could happen .

You know , and , as I tell people that , look , if you're going to date someone , unless you are just playing around . Be open about your health status , your health history , right . For example , if you've experienced depression before . Be open to your interning partner , because you can have those low moods sometimes and your partner is wondering what did I do ?

What's my offense , you know , and it's not about her , it's not about him , you know . But because the person has the knowledge they're able to say I don't know . The person is like okay , able to serve as , because that's what love does , right . Love allows you to be that help towards that person , be that source of relief , as it were , towards the person .

So we may not be able to change other families' experience and whether the intended person's family would be willing to stick their head with the nuptials , but you can't throw away the history , right ?

I think that part of building the trust that someone would have for you is you being open about your family , is you being open about your experience with people , is you willing to share you know , with whoever it is that , look , this is my family , this is my family . How much is too much ?

Right , if it wasn't told to the fourth generation before me , there is no way my great-grandfather would know , my grandfather would know , my father would know , I would know . So imagine you meet me and , um , um , we want to get married or we want to date , and you ask him , like I don't know .

And then one day , one day , just one day , a conversation is happening by someone who knew about it from some directions ago and they're kind of like . So you didn't tell me they didn't like . But because the information is not passed down , right , they , they don't know .

But especially where they know , or where that knowledge is there , it's important to let it out . If the person decides to go ahead , fine . If the person decides not to , no matter how painful it is , it's fine . You would have saved yourself some sense of integrity and trust all right .

Of course , the statistics are crazy . We have , um , at least from the one that we know , we have one man died to suicide or by suicide every 90 minutes . It's crazy . And for every attempt , for every death , there's been 25 attempts .

And I was somewhere yesterday on a radio show and the presenter was telling me that some man just committed suicide because he heard , or he found out that his children were not his . And all of that . Let's bring it down to men .

How do we navigate this conversation with this societal conditioning that says that a man is strong and because he is strong , he should not , he doesn't have the permission to feel . I'm saying that in huge parenthesis now , you know , because that's how it comes off sometimes , that men do not have the permission to feel .

So how do we navigate it in these times ?

I remember being featured on a short documentary on mental health called man Up and unfortunately that idea is sold from generation to generation to generation right , and unless we want to deceive ourselves , it will take generations to generations to change it , it's the same thing with bullying , right , the person who is a senior now was bullied as a junior , and so

he's been waiting for when he'll become a senior to return it , and the junior that is bullying now is waiting for when he or she will become a senior to return it . So it's important that we start teaching the boys of now that it's okay for them for them to cry for them , to feel for them , to , for them to express themselves .

It's okay for them to feel the way they feel and let it out , and we need to keep educating the society not to judge and to understand that men as humans , they're as human , as females as well and the need to show care and empathy .

You know , I was sharing with a group of people over the weekend that at some point began to focus on the female gender , that we neglected the male gender , forgetting that the girls that we're paying attention to will go back to the world to meet these boys that we have neglected . And so we are .

I mean , like you know , and so I mean , like you know , the statistics that we have for suicide tells us that we have more men who complete suicide than women . We have more women who are tempted than men . Why do you think that exists ? The care , the attention that we give to the mom now to say , oh , this , this , this , this , da , da , da , da da .

There's a tendency that both mother and father will grab the child quickly and say no , it cannot happen when the boy child is like I was wrong with you . Now you should know how to , you should know how to , and all of that

. So let's begin from the home front To let that boy in nursery , that six-year-old boy boy , that three year old boy who is crying like , stop crying . Have you seen boys crying , you know ? To let them know that it's okay for them to feel .

You should not be , you should not be worried , you know you should not be worried about having effeminate people , right ? You should not worry about having effeminate guys , right . We should not worry about having effeminate guys . I mean , they're human beings , right ? The gender hasn't changed , the genitals haven't changed , the sex hasn't changed .

They are just effeminate , which is homo now . It doesn't change who they are . So let's stop all this conversation , all these talks around . Stop being like a girl . Stop being like a girl . I don't understand , you know . Is there a way that girls behave ?

No , so we must begin to have that conversation with boys from very tender age three , six to let them know that they can express themselves , that they are crying , that they feel pain doesn't make them less of a human being .

We must pass that message to them that first of all , you of a human being , we must pass that message to them that first of all , you're a human being . You have blood running through your veins , you have emotions , you have a mood . I think it's okay for you to feel the way you feel . It is how you address it that now matters .

You don't say because you are angry and it becomes violent . You don't say because you are pained and don't cry . But instead of you now crying , um , you now become resentful . You know none of that , and then change this narrative as if boys or men are the only ones who get angry . Everyone gets angry , right .

So the stereotype needs to change and begins with us . It begins from the house . I mean , you see families where the girl does something and he's beating almost to stupor , but the girl does the same thing and it's just some strokes of the cane and she's told not to do it anymore . Why ?

Because there is that already construct in your head that he has a tendency of being aggressive . He has a tendency of being violent or exercising his anger . We need to do better as a people .

It's called Laughter After Abuse and it was focused about the fact that men also get abused , and so her foundation is catering to men and ensuring that men are looked into . So there is that light that is beaming on on men's mentality of now are we there yet ?

no , because , honestly , even for mental health as a whole , we are not there yet , so we cannot be there as well for men . But organizations need to do more , pay more attention to it . I mean , on international women's day , you send them to spa , and all of that . Who says that men don't like to go to spa ?

Okay , maybe we should get some people , some get um pedicures in the hall there and let people just have fun . You know , let them be careful , because I think I think that no , not that I think I know that if the man who the boy child is properly cared for and giving tools , then that girl that you're teaching how to fight wouldn't have to fight .

You know , uh , you have to fight , you have to fight . And , um , I'm sure people are tired of me saying this because I say it on every forum . I have a 13 year old and he was talking about a boy .

I have a 17 and I have a 13 and my boy was saying to me he's in boarding school and he was narrating the story in his class that some girl was pushing at some boy and everybody was saying don't touch her , you know , she's a girl , she's a girl . And then he comes back home and says mommy , it's fine , I understand girl empowerment and all of that .

Um , everybody's teaching the girl how to fight . Who's teaching us how not to start the war ? And that was okay . I was like what do you ? Why did you say war , not like not have to fight ? Because boys and men generally can fight , but the war is on the inside . Without a war you can't fight .

Because until we get to that point and stop all the gender drama and war that we don't know who started or how it started , who would go nowhere .

Exactly Because I know I've stolen a lot of your time Before I let you go , what role do you see organizations like the one you work for and the one you're working for right now , and your own organizations and people like you and I ? What roles do you see us play in the Nigerian mental health space moving forward ?

Octopuses are doing better now . You know when your spouse gives birth as a man , they also give you some time off , you know , to go support and things like that . So I think that we're progressing gradually and every organization should play a role in making men seen .

And you see , the thing is it's not until you talk about mental health that you affect the mental health of a person . The action that you take as an organization goes a long way , you know , to show that I actually care about the mental health of the person . You know , as against , just talk about mental health . Mental health .

We don't need to talk about mental health , but just do things that makes them seen right . So let's continue to have those conversations . Let's continue to do those things that makes men feel seen right , that makes them recognized . Now we in the world of mental health , we have a workplace section .

Let's continue to do those things that makes men feel seen right , that makes them recognize . Now we in the world face of mental health , we have a workplace section , right , and one of the things we're looking at is if you're doing workplace mental health for mental health in the workplace , it won't be a deal that you're touching genders .

I love what an organization did some years back . Um , for what ? For international men's day , they had like a special gathering for their real staff , you know , took them to the office . They had this game . You know they played games , invited them to come and speak , gave them properly well curated gifts , right and it did .

oh yes , it did touch them then later in the evening took them to the cinemas to see a movie . You know they pampered them . That was an off work for them . They did it on the weekend . Yeah , on the weekend they pampered them . You know , are you providing if you have the opportunity to ?

If you're working very late at the office and you don't want to go , is there a place they can sleep ? You know , as against going through that stress of going home late , you want them to deliver . You know , can you have them deliver while not under pressure , so that productivity is still solid ?

We're still a long way from there , but I think we're getting better and as we keep amplifying our voices , it's definitely getting better .

If you have a five-minute conversation if you had a chance , you know if you could have a five-minute conversation with your younger self what's the one piece of advice you would give him about navigating life and mental health ?

I told you that his TV was impressive and I'm really , really grateful , and I hope that I see you at a Fight for Life in November , even if , don't worry , I'll get you content , I will do that .

Thank you so , so , so much , and I pray that as we continue these conversations on every forum , we will begin to raise an army of the healed and hopefully Nigeria will rise from that .