Touring My Mind: Recent Episodes
Onyango Otieno
I talk about mental health in Africa, social justice, poetry, patriarchy & masculinity.
I'm here to speak out the pain of our minds. The shame that forced us into silence. The complexities of patriarchy & African transgenerational trauma. The first step is to talk. Stories, music, poems, community gatherings, support groups. Come out. Say something. #MentalHealth
Childhood traumas affect how you relate to others both in your childhood and adulthood until your wounds heal. In this episode I share my experiences growing up exploring in relationships and the difficulties of intimacy. Things started making sense to me after going through trauma healing. I wish this for you too. 😊
Children who have undergone trauma often appear as fearful, anxious, depressed, angry, hostile and aggressive. They may also engage in unhealthy sexual behaviour, feel isolated and stigmatized, exhibit low self esteem, find difficulty in trusting others and in extreme cases, abuse substances. How do we address the structural violence that causes trauma? How are mental health and social justice related?
300 Million people suffer from depression globally according to the World Health Organization. Majority of them are women. 800,000 people die by suicide annually, but majority of them are men. In this episode Onyango Otieno discusses the gender paradox in suicide. If we lived in a world men experienced the adversities and injustices women face for their gender, would things be different? He also examines the correlation between patriarchy & mental health.
Few men in Kenya understand the origin of the word 'feminism'. With rising cases of male suicide, femicide, misogyny and sexual violence, we have to begin getting more curious about the African man's worldviews and the place he finds himself in the 21st Century. Women's groups continue to demand for women's rights across the continent causing a huge backlash with patriarchy. What is patriarchy? Who created it and how has it affected men's lives? Why is it so easy for men to blame women for their own misgivings? What's going on?