It’s 2019 and mental health is as important as drinking water and minding your own business.

We truly can not live our best lives if women are still carrying pain like it’s a beauty mark and men hitting they heads against the wall like they are  not created to have emotions. We need to speak more about what pinches life out of us, we need therapy, we need to say more no’s and we need to love ourselves first, in order to be the best possible person we can be to others and most importantly ourselves.


If you had told me a few years back that I will suffer from depression, severe anxiety and have panic attacks due to emotional strain, I would have probably laughed in your face and told you, I am as strong as superwoman. Well, superwomen was brought to her knees and forced to face her own trauma so she can get back control over her life. I remember sitting in the doctor’s room after I had rushed to the doctor from work as I couldn’t just hold my body, I was feeling weak, trembling and my heart beating faster – none stop, since I woke up that morning. The doctor told me I was experiencing a panic attack and after what seems like thousands of questions, diagnosed me with depression; hearing that just shattered what I thought was a solid foundation that I stood on.

Emotional  trauma has no warning when it erupts. One day you are feeling at your optimistic best and the next you are having a panic attack. All  you feel and see is darkness, without warning. It takes only one emotional draining situation to trigger everything you’ve been sweeping under the carpet.

I was ashamed at first, was so hard on myself, how could I let myself  get to this point.

There where days I just spent in bed, sleeping, couldn’t eat, couldn’t even watch anything never-mind go to work because even the thought of going outside gave me panic attacks. The desire to live has left me without notice, the thing about pain is that, it demands to be felt. Soul snatching pain, the kind that makes you beg your creator to call you home, yet so underwhelming that you keep waking up the next morning.

 

In such emotional trauma, you have two options; to fight to live again or to die. I chose life.

 

Firstly when you’re dealing with emotional trauma, it is important to surround yourself with people who love you and don’t shame your pain or tell you to snap out of it because you can’t. Secondly, speak up! I had to unload everything that had been choking me over the years, the secrets I buried, the things that I said I was okay with but wasn’t and all the pain I ignored. In the end emotional trauma is triggered by the times we pretended certain things didn’t hurt us,  the many “yeses” we gave when we really wanted to say ‘no’. And the hateful things that have been done to us when we had no voice or were powerless. Thirdly, seek help; I had to make peace with the fact that I am going through depression and I needed to seek professional help other than antidepressants, which meant going to counseling or therapy. To have a complete stranger listen to you with the only aim to bring you to your healing and help you understand the patterns in your life that has lead you there so you learn from them, make peace with them and change; it’s truly life changing. Fourthly, start over, be honest with yourself and redirect your life to what you wanted it to be, to what you want it to be and surround yourself with light. 

As a society we need to normalize emotions and demoralize hiding pain. True strength is found in being vulnerable because that requires you surrender to your trauma, facing  your shit and all the self harm you caused yourself by allowing certain things or people into your life. Face the trauma you had no choice to receive. We need to be more honest with our truth and our mental health. I have three male friends who have since started therapy after I was honest about my diagnosis and how I am dealing with it. It’s the most amazing thing to watch them take accountability for they actions, realize their toxic traits and doing the inner work to be better men. Men, that is the new sexy –  mentally healthy man. And to my fellow  ladies, you deserve to live a life that you don’t have to hide your pain, you deserve healing and a voice.

 In the end, mental health is you taking accountability for your adult self by healing your younger self. There’s no shame in that.


I am Rautia Nekandjo Nakanyala, 23 year old village girl from Uukwaluudhi Namibia. I am currently conquering dreams in the golden city, Johannesburg, South Africa. I started bearing my soul and sharing my journey with the world by  guest blogging for a writer website five years ago and later had my own blog, BeyondRautia. I have used writing as a healing weapon and a voice for the voiceless, reaching out my arms to journey with my readers. All the things we have been forbidden to speak on yet effect us, I will be sure to write about. If I am not writing, you can find me shopping or working on my clients personal image through my business PersonalizeShopperSa.

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IG: @Nekandjo_Tia or @PersonalizeShopperSa 
Twitter: Nekandjo_Tia 
FB: Nekandjo Tia Nakanyala
Email: Rautia10@gmail.com

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