Fay­ola K J Fras­er

World Men­tal Health Day, ob­served on Oc­to­ber 10 each year, is a glob­al ini­tia­tive aimed at rais­ing aware­ness about men­tal health is­sues and mo­bil­is­ing ef­forts to sup­port men­tal well-be­ing.

Es­tab­lished by the World Fed­er­a­tion for Men­tal Health in 1992, this day serves as a re­minder of the im­por­tance of men­tal health and the need for ac­ces­si­ble men­tal health care for all.

Each year, a spe­cif­ic theme is cho­sen to high­light dif­fer­ent as­pects of men­tal health, such as sui­cide pre­ven­tion, men­tal health in the work­place, or the im­pact of men­tal health on phys­i­cal health. The day is marked by var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al events, ad­vo­ca­cy cam­paigns, and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach pro­grammes, all de­signed to re­duce stig­ma and pro­mote un­der­stand­ing.

The theme for World Men­tal Health Day 2024 is “Men­tal Health at Work”. And al­though a spe­cial day has been set aside in ob­ser­vance of World Men­tal Health Day, men­tal health mat­ters every day.

This year’s theme em­pha­sis­es the cru­cial con­nec­tion be­tween men­tal health and the work­place, high­light­ing how a sup­port­ive work en­vi­ron­ment can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact men­tal well-be­ing.

With a large por­tion of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion en­gaged in work, it’s es­sen­tial to ad­dress the men­tal health chal­lenges that can arise in pro­fes­sion­al set­tings. This year’s theme en­cour­ages em­ploy­ers, gov­ern­ments, and or­gan­i­sa­tions to take proac­tive steps to cre­ate health­i­er work en­vi­ron­ments. This in­cludes im­ple­ment­ing poli­cies that pro­mote men­tal well-be­ing, pro­vid­ing ac­cess to men­tal health re­sources, and fos­ter­ing open con­ver­sa­tions about men­tal health in the work­place.

Ac­cord­ing to a pro­fes­sion­al ther­a­pist with over two decades of ex­pe­ri­ence Ne­o­la Za­ma, women’s men­tal health can of­ten suf­fer be­cause of an in­cul­cat­ed dri­ve for per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place and at home that has been in­grained in women from child­hood.

Za­ma, who holds a BSc in Psy­chol­o­gy with Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment and a Mas­ter’s in Clin­i­cal So­cial Work, ini­tial­ly start­ed her busi­ness as a one-woman pri­vate prac­tice. Af­ter many years of pro­vid­ing psy­chother­a­py for men and women across all walks of life, she has honed in on work­ing one-on-one with women specif­i­cal­ly, who are sur­vivors of re­la­tion­al pain from abuse, and women who strug­gle with trau­ma.

Ac­cord­ing to Za­ma, “girls uni­ver­sal­ly are so­cialised to be good girls, do well in school, help out at home, and per­form to the high­est lev­el in every­thing. This is why girls out­per­form boys at var­i­ous lev­els of school­ing.”

This syn­drome, called the “good girl syn­drome,” is es­sen­tial­ly a pres­sure that is put on girls from an ear­ly stage, which can cre­ate a deep well of im­per­fec­tion if they are not able to achieve lofty and some­times im­pos­si­ble goals of ex­celling in every as­pect of their lives.

Girls then be­come women who overex­tend them­selves in a va­ri­ety of ways—act­ing in more se­nior po­si­tions with­out salary in­creas­es or feel­ing pres­sured to come back to work with­out tak­ing a full ma­ter­ni­ty leave.

These acts of overex­ten­sion have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on their men­tal health. She says that “women present more with anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion, fi­bromyal­gia, and can­cer, and stud­ies show that there is a strong cor­re­la­tion be­tween women’s re­luc­tance to ex­press anger and the de­vel­op­ment of in­flam­ma­tion in the body, mak­ing them more prone to ill­ness.”

Out­side of the work­place, in in­ter­per­son­al re­la­tion­ships, Za­ma said there ex­ists an­oth­er man­i­fes­ta­tion of women’s in­abil­i­ty to say no. As a ther­a­pist who works close­ly with sur­vivors of do­mes­tic abuse or women who have been in tox­ic re­la­tion­ships, she in­di­cates that women “of­ten con­fuse chaos and thrill for ro­mance, caus­ing them to self-sac­ri­fice and be­come mar­tyrs in re­la­tion­ships.”

These women who suf­fer silent­ly through tox­ic re­la­tion­ships have not been nour­ished, tend­ed to, or taught that it’s okay to say no or ex­press anger.

This comes from a so­ci­etal gap that ex­ists in our cul­ture, where women are not taught by old­er fe­male fig­ures how to de­vel­op healthy re­la­tion­ships with men, as they are told “not to talk to boys, not have sex un­til mar­riage, and the whole con­cept of hav­ing a re­la­tion­ship with a boy is taboo un­til adult­hood when peo­ple sud­den­ly ask when you’re get­ting mar­ried.”

These ex­pec­ta­tions then con­tin­ue through­out the en­tire du­ra­tion of women’s lives, with con­stant scruti­ny and ex­pec­ta­tions on women’s per­for­mance as wives and moth­ers. How should women care for their men­tal health?

Za­ma said that re­par­ent­ing one­self was a good place to start. “A good par­ent knows if a child is tired, put them to bed; if a child is thirsty, get them wa­ter. So one of the first things women need to do is pay at­ten­tion to them­selves and their needs rather than what we are taught to do, which is pay ex­ces­sive at­ten­tion to the needs of oth­ers.”

She sug­gests that fo­cus­ing on your­self can be sim­ple by check­ing in with your­self and as­sess­ing your needs, which can in­clude not skip­ping meals, us­ing the bath­room when need­ed, tak­ing time off, and build­ing healthy habits. In the realm of car­ing for your men­tal health with­in in­ter­per­son­al re­la­tion­ships, she en­cour­ages women to lean in­to their soft­ness and ten­der­ness and seek safe spaces where they can be vul­ner­a­ble and heard, whether with fe­male friends or with a ther­a­pist.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she called for old­er women to be open and hon­est with younger women and cre­ate a cul­ture of safe­ty where wom­an­hood is not shroud­ed in mys­tery and con­fu­sion.

“When I grew up, I didn’t get a pe­ri­od talk; it just hap­pened. Now that I’m in a per­i­menopausal phase, I had no idea what was go­ing on with me be­cause my aunts and grand­moth­er nev­er talked to me about it; I just knew they got hot and sweaty and grouchy at a cer­tain age.”

Be­ing com­fort­able and open in our­selves as women means that we should all take time to know our bod­ies, un­der­stand the phas­es, and talk to young women in our cir­cles and com­mu­ni­ties about things they can ex­pect rather than gate­keep­ing the unique and chal­leng­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of wom­an­hood.

In cel­e­brat­ing Men­tal Health Day 2024, it is cru­cial to break the cy­cle of si­lence around women’s is­sues and women’s men­tal health. In ef­forts to heal women’s men­tal health, women should ac­cept that they can em­body both fe­roc­i­ty and ten­der­ness and “find joy in be­ing soft, kick­ing back, re­lax­ing, and en­joy­ing them­selves, all while look­ing for pock­ets of good­ness.”