This is my birth month and as always, I share a bit about my personal life in case I may be able to help one or two people. As I am writing about mental health this year, I will be sharing a bit about my mental health journey as a response to some of the questions I receive from people regarding why I had to move from Finance to Mental Health.
How I grew up
I grew up as an introvert and a loner. Being the last born in our family, I didn’t have many people to play with, and also I was never one to fancy many friends so I spend most of my time all by myself, either reading something or writing something. That was my way of self-expression.
As a grown-up
Unfortunately, my childhood tendencies went with me into adulthood and I found it very difficult to be around people or express my feelings to people. Even now, I am still putting hard work into healthier ways of expressing myself to others. It’s not been easy, the process has been very excruciating but I believe with time I will succeed. As we all know life happens to the best of us. We go through pain and disappointment, we go through loss and grief, and we go through discouragement, and sometimes a lot of heartache.
My introvert tendencies have made me go through most of my life’s mishappenings alone, with no one to share with or express how I really felt as I found it too draining to explain to others what I was going through. This has been so because of the person I am but also because of the few times that I have tried to share how I feel with others and they have harshly judged me or invalidated my feelings.
How I chose my profession
When I got the opportunity to choose a career, my first thought was something that could give me money quickly so I studied for an Honours Degree in Accounting and went further to pursue a Master’s Degree in Finance and Investments. I was naive enough to think that money could give me happiness and I was wrong.
Later on, as I started writing about self-development, I started implementing the lessons I was teaching others to myself. I took time to reflect on myself and find out what makes me happy and I realized that I love helping people and making a difference in people’s lives. This was not a career choice for me but a purpose. To know that somebody’s life became better because of me. I asked myself what I could give the world and my heart was struck by the pain that people go through emotionally, I realized at some point everybody needed somebody to hold their hand and walk through a difficult life event with them. Life challenges are not exclusive to race/ethnicity, age, culture, religious or spiritual affiliation, class, or status. The same as love, care, and kindness, they know no boundary.
I naturally had all these things growing up, so for me, it didn’t feel like work at all but an extension of who I was. I then remembered something that I had desperately needed through my trials and tribulations and that was just somebody to talk to so I decided to give that to the world. That’s how I became a psychologist.
My feelings regarding talking about our emotions
If I had the privilege to talk about my emotions earlier on in my life, I feel that I could have made better decisions than some of the decisions that I made. I can never overstress how people should be able to truly express their feelings. Everything that you bottle inside and choose to ignore does not go away but occupy a certain space within your psyche. It only takes some encounter to trigger it and you find yourself on an uncontrollable roller coaster of emotions so, by all means, I encourage people to use the help they have available and seek professional mental health care before it is too late.
After all this, do I still feel like it’s important?
Never a day has passed in which I have regretted or doubted my decision to answer my call of being a psychologist but rather with each passing day I realize more and more how I am on the right path to living my purpose and making a difference. I have been taking one step at a time but I have kept steady.
My wish
My desire is to see mental health prioritized as much as physical health. That mental health care can be provided at an affordable price to those who desperately need it and also that it will be available in the most remote areas of countries and communities.
I also desire to see more people open up and be able to speak up about their emotions including men. The stigma around mental health should be done away with and more people should seek help before their problems turn to more severe mental health issues.
Future Plans
I don’t know where this road will lead me or how it is going to unwind and I definitely do not know my destination but my prayer is that I will be able to touch as many lives as God allows me to.
If you need to speak to a professional counsellor, don’t forget to get in touch with Psyche and Beyond.
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