It happened again last month; a young Ethiopian man took his life and left a devastated community in his wake. Two months before that, another Ethiopian killed himself and likewise left a trail of questions and grief behind him. These senseless acts of suicide are becoming altogether too normal, yet no matter how often news of tragic self-inflicted deaths greet us, when we find out the fatalities are Ethiopian, it is a jolting shock to the system.
The rise of mental illnesses is not something that is isolated to our community; as humans advances technologically, we regress further into the arms of isolation and eventual despair. Smartphones, social media and our incessant need to be connected is disconnecting us from each other. This sense of detachment has become a breeding ground for depression, anxiety and other forms of mental conditions that are severely impacting the young and old alike.
Yet, as much as sorrow, angst and mental ordeals as a whole are a human condition, there is a facet of mental illness that is more prevalent and thus more insidious within the Ethiopian community and most African nations as a whole. A culture that is grounded in saving face, making our families proud and succeeding at all cost has created a paradigm where anything less than perfect is looked upon with scorn. The unrelenting pressure to...continued...
Read full article at: https://ethiopians4cm.org/we-cannot-aff ... ny-longer/
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teodroseIII
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