MY AFRICAN WAY OF HANDLING STRESS

"Boys don't cry, you cry like a girl and man up". This is how I saw boys raised my whole life, if am to ever have a son there is a 98% chance I will raise him that way coz its the only way I know. In my society boys/ men are not to show any sign of weakness, we believe showing emotions is a sign of weakness.

Me on the other hand being a female am expected to be emotional, yes when I was a little girl I was emotional but as I grew I realized I can't show people my emotions (the negative one). I have always gotten this questions, Do you ever get annoyed? Do you even know how to cry? 🤦🏿‍♀🤦🏿‍♀ of cause yes I do get annoyed go and ask my pillow, I am an expert at crying.

I don't show my emotions in public not because am afraid to look weak but because I am a very ugly crier, me crying is just straight up ugly, there is completely nothing cute about it. Its just all so messy and just after one minute of crying my eyes are all so red and my face swollen. I am that person with very small eyes so if my face all goes puffy, my eyes all disappear. I have seen it in the mirror many times and I agreed that side of me is not for public.

I always see everybody on TV in the western world once stressed, it takes them to food and they gain weight. I just don't understand coz in my society u can tell somebody is/was stressed by the reduction in body weight. Once I am stressed I completely loose appetite. There was a time I stayed for 5 days without eating anything completely because I was so stressed over coursework, on the fifth day I just fainted. My brothers came and took me to the hospital and he spent about UGX 180,000 roughly about USD 50 on medical bills and he told me this money would have all come to u but because u refused to eat we are leaving it at the hospital. This is a lot of money for a student with my background, because in a semester (4months) my average allowance was $35-$40 (excluding hostel fee). Loosing appetite is not my couping mechanism for handling stress, I call it collateral damage that comes with my stress. 

The idea of therapy is a very foreign concept in my society. If u go and ask any of my village mates about therapy, they completely do not know what that is even if you explain. We know counseling, I don't know if its the same as therapy but I don't think its the same because the only form of counseling that am aware of is the one churches provide majorly to married people. Most churches have counseling sessions but they target married couples and in this counseling sessions based on what I have heard there is very little sharing but a lot of listening so that's why I think its not therapy.

In my own opinion, the church tries to see the best in everybody and as a church they have a mandate to help sustain and not break marriage so I feel there is very little objectivity in church marriage counseling. Once in, the counselor already has a biased outcome in his/her mind (this marriage must work). And because of that I don't believe in marriage counseling. 

There are things that hurt me in 2014 that still gives me chills till now, the things that happened to me in 2018 still affects every little thing I do in this 2021 and I know this could have been probably handled if I were from a different society.

The idea of sharing with others what am going through is mostly limited to my siblings and we all know siblings especially my siblings will always be biased, whether am on the right or wrong they are always on my side. Before I even finish telling them the whole story, they are already full swing on hating that person🤣🤣. That's what happens when your siblings are your best friends and defender. The moment I tell them anything they automatically go into defense mode, we all need such people.

If somebody asked me to see a therapist, I think I would probably first laugh because I have never seen anybody actually helped by a therapist except in movies (only American movies). So I do not know if it actually works or not.

I don't manage my stress, I avoid/dodge it. That's my African way of managing stress. Apart from trying to pretend it didn't happen so as to wait for it to pass and crying in the middle of the night in my pillow.

Lucky Obangaber Ogweng