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Depression

To celebrate the world suicide prevention day, I decided to pen an article on the alarming negligence of the mental well-being of students in Kenya. The article is based on my personal experience and is highly biased.




I was in high school when I visited the school counselor after experiencing bouts of sadness for a full week for no apparent reason. I would wake up sad every morning then I would drag myself from bed to follow the school routine. I know school is boring for everyone but for no apparent reason I was miserable daily. Even spending time with friends chatting away the day and laughing at random things didn’t seem to remove my abyss of sadness that seemed to develop from nowhere. So I decided to visit the school counselor who I thought would have the answers to my problems.



Serotonin are basically happy hormone

Mrs.Luto’s (Not real name) office was probably situated at the worst place for providing counselling. It didn’t inspire anyone to spill the inner most secrets to the wonderful counselor. It was situated close to a path that was regularly used by student and I swear the students could probably hear you talking if they passed by the office. To make matters worse, the counselor was a teacher and though she had the appearance of an old grandmother who was caring and would understand your woes she was a still a teacher and I honestly felt she was going to be judgmental of what I was going to say. How would I expect her to understand that I was sad for no apparent reason?




We exchanged details and after she asked for my school details, she checked my school transcripts. I was doing well in my classes so she threw a glance at me, confirmed my details again, checked my results again and finally asked me what I wanted to talk to her about. I stared at her for a while before she exclaimed she knew something was bothering me since I was shabby. According to her (she was right) my utter lack of personal grooming from my hair to my shoes was probably due to my psychological issues. Well we started talking but she never got me to open up. Whether that was due to the fact I wasn’t ready to open up or due to the fact that she was bad at her job I don’t know but my money is on the latter.

I knew the session wasn’t going well when the session turned into a full sermon where I was taught what she considered the ignorance of most men. Apparently blood transfusion are the works of the devil and demons use them as vehicles to transfer into the unknowing souls who are stupid enough to have blood transfusions. I have no issue with religion but I if I wanted to be educated on the wise words of the almighty I would have made my way to the school chaplain. All in all, I come out of the office more depressed.





It was years later when my sister went on medication due to severe depression that I realized I was probably suffering from mild depression which also increased my risk of suffering from severe depression. The quality of the counselling services in high schools where most Kenyans spent a portion of their formative ages is in my experience wanting. Better counselling services would probably go a long way to decreasing the rate of depression in Kenya.


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