Dear SJ,
Mine is a problem that is too big for my age. I got married last year and things were going great. This year, my husband was diagnosed as mentally ill and he is admitted to a psychiatric ward. I don’t know what to do. – Stressed.
Dear ‘Stressed’,
I’m so sorry to hear that.
I’m glad you wrote in. Mental health is an aspect of life that is gaining our attention these days. Most of us are highly stressed. It is a good thing that he is diagnosed by professionals and is admitted where he can be given the proper attention and medication. Trust me, I’ve seen many people recover perfectly from mental relapse.
If he recovers, he will need your support and monitoring to take medicines if any as prescribed by the doctors.
Just as well, if he was fine all along then something happened. In our Bantu culture, a person doesn’t just wake up and become mentally ill. You and hopefully his family will have to find out what happened culturally. Yes, I mean to see a sangoma/traditional healer. You have to know whether the problem is psychological/medical or cultural. In my view, usually, it’s either one of the two issues going on.
Many times, people sit around and hope such a problem will go away. I hope you will be proactive in getting healing for him.
Dear SJ,
I’m 19 and my boyfriend is 24. The problem is he hardly ever texts me. You can see that he will be online and yet he won’t be chatting with me. He doesn’t even say “hi” or anything and then when I confront him, he tell me all sorts of sweet things, apologises and tells me he misses me. I’m not happy and I don’t know what to make of this because he does this all the time. – Unhappy.
Dear ‘Unhappy’,
He’s a prick! Sadly, it seems like he’s not interested. If he was, he would not be doing that. As a rule of thumb, if someone you are in a relationship with is not talking to you, they are most certainly talking to someone else. When he is online I can assure you he is not chatting with his mother or aunt! He is chatting with another or other women.
With those excuses and sweet talk when you confront him, he is gaslighting you. Gaslighting is when someone tries to make you seem crazy for confronting them about their bad behaviour. He is messing with you and it’s time to cut him loose. By doing this over again, he is ghosting you. Ghosting is when someone you are in a relationship vanishes. Drop the ghost Unhappy, drop it.
Sonny Jermain is an award-winning public health, maternal, sexual and reproductive health rights facilitator and a traditional psychic. This column appears Thursdays on Enthuse. Send questions to asksj@enthusemag.com or WhatsApp +263 71 387 2286. Follow @SonnyJermain on Twitter.
