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 … Continue reading Mental Health Monday: Attention. Belonging. Consequences. Depth.
Category: Mental Health
I am a WIP on the road to recovery from PTSD.
I also have OCD, and every now and then my Anxiety threatens to overwhelm me.
My mental illnesses do not make me any less human/worthy/awesome than my mentally fit counterparts. I want anyone struggling with their mental health to know it is okay not to be okay. That there is nothing to be ashamed about in asking for help. That in fact there is great strength in the vulnerability, courage and honesty it takes to accept that you need help and to go ahead and ask for it.
Through this category I intend to do everything in my power to destigmatise conversations around mental health because every mind matters.
Mental Health Monday: The Woman In The Mirror
I do not know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way in 2024 I stopped seeing myself in the woman in the mirror. The About Me section on the blog, which I wrote in August 2018 before launching Lwile the Leo on the last day of Leo season, reads: In very many ways … Continue reading Mental Health Monday: The Woman In The Mirror
Mental Health Monday: I Am Fine
Raise your hand if you have ever been asked how you are and you responded with “fine” even though you were anything but. Yeah. Me too. I started writing today's post on January 24th at 3 a.m. as I could not sleep. Normally that would not be something to write home about— after all, in … Continue reading Mental Health Monday: I Am Fine
Lost
It is one thing to lose people you love. It is another to lose yourself. That is a greater loss.Donna Goddard, Waldmeer Lost is the last post in the trilogy chronicling my unintentional absence from Lwile the Leo for 729 days. After introducing the trilogy with AWOL, I put up the first of the three … Continue reading Lost
Crashing Down
I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive. I came across that quote in January 2021 when I was reading Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman and, macabre as it is, I … Continue reading Crashing Down
Cracks
The expression hindsight is 20/20 is a cliché with good reason. Retrospectively, I can see clearly that the cracks in the happiness I finally found in 2019 (after chasing it my whole damn life) started to show in 2020 before it all came crashing down in 2021. 2019 was the best year of my life … Continue reading Cracks
AWOL
Adjective (military): absent without official leave but without intent to desert. Two years ago I went absent without official leave from Lwile the Leo. On May 4, 2021 at 13.31 hours I put up my usual Mental Health Awareness Month post before handing over to the guest post writers. And unbeknownst to me and you … Continue reading AWOL
Mental Health Awareness Month – DawnMercy
Through my mental health journey, I’ve grown to learn that it loses its aspect of privacy and individuality just cause of what and who it ropes in along the way. In my case, my ongoing journey has roped in a few people, some were strangers who turned into family and others were family right from … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – DawnMercy
Mental Health Awareness Month – Calm Wildness
I have been struggling to write this story because I would be the girl who occasionally has suicide ideations and has ever attempted suicide. This story would give me the label, and everyone would say how brave I am for telling it. Then they will turn and treat me like a broken vessel or an … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – Calm Wildness
Mental Health Awareness Month – Soraya
My upbringing is what you would consider a typical Nairobi middle-class one; I went to good schools, participated in sports and clubs, was considered a good student all through my academic life into university, got a job and settled into “grown up life”. I had done all the things and checked all the boxes, but … Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Month – Soraya
Lwile the Leo 