April 7th is World Health Day, a global health awareness day celebrated every year under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as other related organizations.
From its inception at the First Health Assembly in 1948 and since taking effect in 1950, the celebration has aimed to create awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization. This year’s theme is ‘healthy beginnings, hopeful futures’ and it focuses on improving the health and survival of newborns and mothers.
However, since I am not a mother (yet?), I am choosing to mark World Health Day 2025 in a way that is authentic and relevant to who I am. To know (of) me is to know that other than Taylor Swift and books, I am also deeply passionate about mental health. So how fortuitous it is that WHD 2025 falls on a Monday, because Mental Health Monday.
For this month’s Mental Health Monday post, I want to briefly touch on a conversation I had on December 16, 2024 with my doctor who also doubles as an Executive Coach. Dr. Zena Onsongo (hereon referred to as Dr. Z) has been my GP since I did my annual wellness checkup with her in January 2018. She is based at Santé-Reva Group Ltd and is the only doctor I would get a diagnosis from and not seek a second opinion. That is a monumental thing for me to say and is highly indicative of the trust I have in Dr. Z. I trust her so much that when she sends me to specialists (as she is a GP), I come back to her with the specialist’s diagnosis/way forward and consult with her before making any decisions. I was not always this mistrustful of doctors, but my mum’s battle with breast cancer changed that.
Before my mum was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2012, she had had a lump in her breast for two years. She had seen a doctor at Aga Khan Hospital about it and this “doctor” said the lump was like a bump on the road and convinced her she had nothing to worry about. That was the exact simile he used. Like a bump on the road. How wrong he was because for two years my mum lived with that lump that was misdiagnosed as harmless, yet it was slowly metastasising in her body. Death was bubbling under the surface, waiting until it was too late to make its presence known. That colossal fuck up turned my mum and I into advocates for second opinions because doctors are not gods; they are human and they make mistakes.
As mentioned, I have been doing my annual wellness checkups with Dr. Z since January 2018 and last year was no exception. I had my laboratory tests done on October 31st and went for my physical examination and review of the lab results on November 18th. On paper I was doing great as my labs were mostly good, with only three results being flagged for being either too low or too high, but at a non-threatening level that did not need any medical intervention from Dr. Z. We also went through my body composition results which had improved in every way since the previous year’s wellness checkup. Notably, I had lost 5 kgs, my body fat had reduced by 5% and my metabolic age dropped by 13 years from 37 to 24 (I am a Gen Z y’all 😅).
However, while my physical health was good, my mental and emotional health was the lowest it had been in years (and unbeknownst to me at the time it was only going to get lower). The stark contrast between my physical health and my mental & emotional one was the embodiment of 2024 being both the best and worst year of my life. My weight loss was not entirely deliberate as I was being consumed by astronomical levels of anxiety that, coupled with the copious amounts of alcohol I was drinking, made it easy for me to go a day or two or three without eating. With time, what started off as all-consuming anxiety devolved into depression and during my review with Dr. Z I unloaded on her everything I was going through, telling her over and over and over again that I was tired of being alive, and she listened with so much compassion and empathy. For the second time in my life I was put on medication for my mental health as she prescribed for me antianxiety meds as well as antidepressants. I was to take the medication nightly – the antianxiety meds for 10 days and the antidepressants for 30 days – and not consume any alcohol during that period, before coming back for a review one month later. I took the medication as prescribed, but also drank the alcohol as not prescribed.
I went to see her again on December 16th and surprised her, not for the better, as I was worse than when I had seen her on November 18th. I had lost four kgs in that one month and was no longer on the meds she had given me as I was on a different type of antidepressants that had been prescribed by a different doctor. My main reason for going to see her was not for a review, but because I needed her to extend my sick leave that I was put on by the different doctor who prescribed for me the different antidepressants. The doctor only gave me seven days off but the condition of my return to the office, as mandated by the HR of my organisation, was that I could only come back with a doctor’s note declaring me fit to work. Seeing as the week commencing December 16th was the last working week of the year, I made the decision to request for further time off rather than being declared fit to work. In any case I was not fit to return to work, so an extension of my sick leave was the only option.
Similar to my visit on November 18th, Dr. Z listened to me with compassion and empathy as I detailed why I was even worse than when I saw her a month ago. I spoke for 15 – 20 minutes as I had so much to say about the many ways my life was burning to the ground, with me as both the victim and the arsonist. Dr. Z listened without interrupting until I was finished with my monologue and when I was done this is what she had to say:
“So here’s the thing. I have this friend who says that my secret armour is my ability to tell the truth and distill it in a way that does not sugarcoat it. He tells me that my truths are often not easy to hear, but they are necessary truths that no one else in his life might have the courage to say to him. Or they might say it, but not with the insight and wisdom that I do. I am telling you this because what I am about to say might be difficult to hear, but just know it comes from a good place.”
And let me tell you dear reader, she really let me have it. She spoke for approximately 90 minutes (for real) and what she had to say to me can be distilled into four main components:
- Attention
Dr. Z let me know in no uncertain terms that what she could glean quite clearly from everything I had to say is that I was screaming, crying, throwing up (my words) for attention. She said that I had spent the year desperately seeking attention from the people closest to me and, failing to get it, started to look for it in other people by creating a shitload of drama in and around myself. I was like my beloved Taylor Swift at The Eras Tour, but instead of performing a career-retrospective show recounting all of my artistic eras, I was showboating to irrelevant and unnecessary people, with my antics drawing more and more people into the stadium to watch my drama unfold. She likened my antics to those of a two year old throwing a tantrum, and the more my cries for attention were ignored, the louder and more pathetic my tantrums became.
2. Belonging
Dr. Z asked me to think about where I belong because, given my desperate cries for attention, it was quite evident that I did not feel like I belong anywhere. She asked me to do some soul-searching on who my tribe is – do I have one? And if I do not, why not?
3. Consequences
I mentioned this briefly in my Word Of The Year: Self-love post when I wrote that it is high fucking time I master the skill of consequences. We all know what consequences are, and we all know that choices have consequences, but what I learnt that day from Dr. Z is that being discerning about consequences is a skill that can be learned.
4. Depth
This had to do with depth of experiences and regarding this Dr. Z said that at my big age I should be more into the depth of experiences as opposed to experiences in and of themselves. She was adamant that I cannot, and should not, be the kind of person who gets excited by an open bar because at this stage of my life there is no drink that is out of my reach. Not even pricey bespoke, designer cocktails at any of the many high-end bars in the city. She made it clear that I have been there and done that with sooo many things in life, I should now be chasing deeper experiences (like hot air balloon rides) and sharing those experiences, where possible, with the people I belong with.
She ended the session by challenging me to prioritise myself this year and to show up for those in my life, something I expounded on in my Self-love post.
As I conclude this month’s Mental Health Monday post I am aware that I have likely left you with more questions than answers. But that is why towards the beginning of today’s post I wrote that I am briefly touching on the conversation I had with my doctor for World Health Day 2025. I have put up five (including this one) blog posts so far this year and in all of them I have shared how 2024 was both the best and worst year of my life. It is impossible to share everything that led me to 2024’s rock bottom in a single post but I promise that by the time I tell my 2024 story in its entirety, you will have all the answers I am willing to give and Dr. Z’s ABCDs will make more sense.
Lwile the Leo 