Mental Illness: Misconception of Mental Health

How is it possible to be crazy by talking with yourself? I mean, Africans! You are that blind? I see this as a process of self-realization and self-actualisation. By talking with yourself, you build your confidence of expression and comfortability. Things scare you a little less than they should because, your reflection seems like an audience of a billion. It stares at you like the audience, but corrects you for a better physical interaction than physical.

 As I was growing, my mum would beat me while I was having house chores, talking and laughing with myself. She would say, "Wérè lo n ma da soro," (translation: only a mad person talks to himself.) I honestly was scared. I thought I was GROWING mad. I thought when I grew, I was going to be wearing torn clothes, car tyres slanting over my shoulders, with muddy, flaky hair, wandering the streets. But it never happened, as I was still talking to myself. I got to realise that talking alone was a therapy, and every human should apply it into their daily activities. That it would reduce the extent at which people go mad. Truth be told, I think that 98% of those who are mad were going through some hard time, and they always waited for people to come around before they talked, or they didn't at all. That is to say, majority of mad people were introverted, and most of the talking they do while they wander could have been what they could have said to themselves positively and move on. But they didn't. I am not holding them at fault for what happens to them, but I feel self-therapy could have saved them.

 On a daily basis, if I align the hectic horror I pass through, I could have made the choice of running mad, but I am able to help myself. I talk to myself. I think it's a reflection of myself that I see. The beautiful reflection that I can lie to and feel comfortable with. I find solitude with it. It knows everything anyone doesn't, and that is an achievement for me.

 My mental health matters, and I can do everything at my reach to make it normal. If I walk on your street, laughing and talking alone, know this, it is not that I am mad, it is just that I am trying to refine myself from my problems and move on. Thank you.