During my first marriage, I was at the receiving end of being diagnosed of a number of mental disorders, not only by my Zimbabwean ex-husband but by his mother and sisters as well. This obsession of diagnosing mental illness is something that I didn’t only see in my ex-husband’s family, but I continue to see it online within the Zimbabwean community who read my articles. I tend to ask the question, why are Zimbabweans obsessed with mental illness? Why do they love to diagnose mental illness so much? If anyone doesn’t agree with them, with their way of thinking especially, they are quickly given a diagnoses of some psychological pathological mental disorder, whatever that means. The number of Zimbabwean online psychiatrists is alarming indeed.
Each time I write an article about my life and my journey, I am given a new diagnosis. Some of the mental disorders I have been given I have not even heard of, and I used to be a mental health nurse.
On Friday, Shulamite wrote her first blog, and when I posted it on my Facebook page, Zimbabweans flooded my wall with all sorts of mental diagnoses. This time I was given a “Personality Disorder.” lol.
Probably 80 % of Zimbabweans in the UK are mental health nurses. I too trained as a mental health nurse. When I came to the UK that was the culture, if you are Zimbabwean you had to train as a nurse, and most Zimbabweans for some strange reason chose mental health nursing. When you think about it, there are over half a million Zimbabweans living in the UK, and I would think most of these are mental health nurses. Mental health nursing is a trend within the Zimbabwean Diaspora community.
I think madness loves madness. I think madness attracts madness. When I see Zimbabweans online, they strive on madness. They worship people like Tatelicious for example, a man who urinates and defecates live on Facebook, they see this man as their inspiration and role model. I think the reason why most of them are mental health nurses is because as a people, something in them draws them to that profession because deep inside “madness” is part of them. It’s just strange that mental nursing is a “magnet” to them.
My first marriage was to a Zimbabwean mental health nurse. His whole family, his sisters, sister’s in law, brothers and cousins were also mental health nurses.
And boy, I suffered because of that. I was a victim of their “mental nursing.”
Each time I had an argument with my ex- husband, I was given a diagnosis of some psychological disorder. He went as far as going online to google, “symptoms of psycho-pathological disorders.” He would try so hard to convince me that I was crazy.
He went as far as going to my doctor to tell him that I was mentally deranged, and that I should be treated, but because the doctor was a normal person, he then recorded it in my GP record that I actually had a very abusive husband, way before I ever knew that I was in an abusive marriage. What husband comes to the GP to bad mouth his wife and mother of his children?
Then each time I made a friend, the first thing he would do is diagnose the friend with some mental disorder. One time he came to pick me up from a friend’s house, and as soon as we got in the car, he started talking about her body language, her lack of eye contact and how she was exhibiting some “underlying mental disorder.”
When I was a mental heath nurse, staff used to joke around that when you are a mental nurse, it’s important to separate work from your personal life. Spending way too much time with mentally unstable people will eventually affect you. They even used to say that to be a mental health nurse you have to be mad too. Personally I never liked the job, so I left after about 2 years of graduating. Maybe if I had chosen midwifery, general or pediatric nursing, something sane, I would have probably still been a nurse today.
But my ex-husband was not even as bad as his sisters and mother, they were even worse with this whole mental illness diagnosing. The biggest abuse I ever suffered in the Zimbabwean community was being told everyday that I was crazy. It was so bad in my first marriage I almost believed it. I went as far as to confess my “madness” to my ex-husband, I even confessed my “madness” to Walter Masocha so he could cast the demons out.
When I finally stood up to them at an Agape Church Service, they quickly gave me a mental diagnosis and called 999 for me to be sectioned. The paramedics came and where shocked by what they saw, the whole church, mostly Zimbabwean mental health nurses, literally stood in a line to tell the paramedics that “I was mental and they were mental health nurses so they had already assessed me on a professional level.” Well, I remember being so scared that day, I almost passed out in shock, I literally saw black and I thought I was going to faint, or even die. I had never felt my heart beat so fast, but the God of Mary-Tamar fought for me against Zimbabwean mental nurses that day and the paramedics felt so sorry for me, they told the “Zim mental health nurses” that what they had done was way out of order.
That was the last day I realized I had to flee from that abusive marriage and Zimbabwean community. And when the paramedics looked at me and said, “You are not mad sweetheart, you are not crazy okay, you are just being treated very badly, you need to get out of this and keep your children safe.” I hugged the woman who said those words to me, and I took those words and they became my motto. I whispered to myself over and over, “I am not mad, I am just a woman.” Those words helped me to be the woman I am today.
But what I know is my ex-husband is actually a reflection of Zimbabwe as a country. When I broke up with my mental health obsessed ex-husband, I didn’t know that I was now about to face a whole country who were actually worse than the fool I was married to, Zimbabweans. I have never seen a people so obsessed with diagnosing people with mental illness. I don’t know how many times I have been diagnosed by the Zimbabwean community. They know all the mental disorders and their categories and everything. Each time I write an article, to them it’s a sign that I should be in hospital, lol.
Even my own family, mother and sister have also diagnosed me, for them they say it’s a spiritual mental illness. They say I have ancestral spirits on me and all sorts of curses follow me because I love to “write nonsense” lol.
My Ghanaian Family have brought out the best in me
On this journey, my King has helped me literally laugh my head off at all these mental diagnoses I get from Zimbabweans, we always actually joke about it. My Ghanaian family have been so amazing to me, they think I am super intelligent and I have brought nothing but good tidings to their son and family. When I met Boaz and his Ghanaian family, I finally saw myself the way God sees me.
Anyway, on a serious note, if only all these Zimbabwean online psychiatrists and spiritual gurus would at least take their expertise to their country, where it’s actually needed, you would think Zimbabwe would be somewhere. If anything the whole dysfunctional country needs a proper mental health assessment, starting with their president who shocked the world by giving compensation to white farmers. The curses of that land could not be louder. I have never seen a country so barbaric, yet out of it comes a people so obsessed with mental illness. Proper oxymoron.
When I show my husband the “mental assessment comments” on me and all the “diagnosis” I am normally given by Zimbabweans, he always says “These people though, why do they love madness and mad talk like that. If they can’t understand anything it automatically goes to a mental assessment.”
I have my own theories about Zimbabwean’s obsession with mental illness, but I will still end with the question, “Why are most Zimbabweans obsessed with mental illness and diagnosing it? “
Is it because the country is infested with madness? I will leave Zimbabweans to ponder and answer that one for themselves, surely they should be able to at least assess themselves and give their country a proper mental diagnosis it deserves.
The Genesis Of The Revelation
Mary-Tamar was Jean
