There’s a day I gave a certain lady a lift. Do you know that I spent the entire day with her coz before 15 minutes she was crying about her marriage problems. She was so stressed and bitter. Her mental state wasn’t good at all. So I canceled my plans to listen to her. Siku mzima from 8am to 5pm. After the talk she looked relieved and happy. Talking really helps. Don’t bottle things until you get to bursting point. Pay a therapist some are as little as 2k or 3k. Talk. Bcz what I have realized is that married women don’t tell each other their problems bcz it’s like they are in the same boat of suffering and cruelty from their husbands. However if you pay abit of attention you realize they are carrying alot of wounds and disappointments. They are broken and they can’t go anywhere. A woman can talk for 8 hours non stop about her marriage problems. Just imagine. And they always see single people as having no problems. In any case I don’t have problems I can talk about for 8hrs straight. Why not see a professional instead of drinking in excess and then doing the worst. People need to normalise going for counselling with professionals.
As for so called family and friends. Help your troubled kin. Don’t just gossip about them but actually help them. Don’t wait until someone is dead to start crying yet when they were alive you never helped them. Kenyans let’s be keen on stress management. Me right now I’m going for counseling bcz of handshake manenos. Hehehehehe. Electricity prices are high. Now handshake. Surely how much pressure can one woman take surely. Please I need counseling somebody. Don’t wait for me to overdose with coffee. Just comfort me now before it’s too late. Hehehehehe.
Psychological help is needed in great quantity. Talking to family and friends doesn’t help much because, you confide in someone, they run and gossip. So people tend to keep to themselves. And the usual advice is rudi kwa bwanako. And lack of a venting mechanism( play a sport, engage in a hobby, etc) means people build up enormous amounts of stress.
Have you ever just taken a Monday and Tuesday off work. When you get there Wednesday, you feel refreshed. Unlike a regular Monday.
That lady was just trying to get the attention of her husband. Unfortunately it went the other way. Very useless guy if you ask me. A Kenyan can kill you for his favorite politician, but can’t rescue his wife from temporary insanity.
I have a recently divorced friend of mine. She called me telling me wameachana na bwana yake and now she wants me to listen to her problems this Saturday. I will definitely be there for her.
In Kenya there’s alot of stigma in going to get professional help or taking antidepressants or mental health medication.
Personally I have a way of dealing with toxic people who I have to interact with and can’t easily get rid of. Like workmates. I usually shut down emotionally. Many women do not have this skill. That is a huge part of the problem. You can completely dissociate from your body and mind when you are around a toxic person.
I can’t speak about marriage bcz I have no personal experience but in relationships once I begin to feel unhappy I start to slowly distance myself from you and I gradually withdraw until I no longer feel separation anxiety and usually I will take up something new and interesting to focus on intensely , if I can date other people I will.
As you keep doing it, it gets easier and you do it faster or in a shorter time the next time it happens. For example say your partner likes to go out to party all night and you are getting angry and frustrated by it bcz you call him and he says he’s coming and then you get more and more angry waiting up for him. What you can do is, that you cook and eat, go to bed early. Let him let himself in at whatever time he comes but he should not expect you to wake up, warm his food and have sex with him bcz he wanted to enjoy his night outdoors and you decided to enjoy yours indoors so no one should interfere with the others choice. You stay out beyond a certain time, I don’t keep calling you, I let you stay out as long as you want to but you also let me enjoy my sleep for the whole night bcz I didn’t cut short your night, you shouldn’t cut short my sleep. Choices. Consequences. No emotion. No drama.
I don’t try to control you with emotions. If you want to cheat, then cheat but if I find out, I will not have sex with you anymore bcz AIDS is real. Not bcz you are my husband and as such you should be faithful to me. I will calmly explain to you how your choice to cheat is endangering my life and I need to be healthy for my kids. If you want to be a man hoe then be one. It’s your body, your penis, your health but you are not going to take me down with you. I won’t cheat on you to get even. If I cheat it will be bcz I’m using that relationship to help leave you. If you start smoking, I can’t stop you but I will ask you not to smoke in the house bcz I don’t want your bad habits to give me cancer.
The other thing is accepting people the way they are, like don’t try to change someone using manipulation or emotional blackmail. It’s either you can live with their problems or you can’t. If you can’t then you can’t and it has nothing to do with love any more than a parent with a delinquent child who takes them to approved school affect the love they have for their child. There’s how you feel about someone and then there’s real life practicalities. If I am a Christian and you are a moslem, am I OK with my child become a moslem. If its not OK, then I can’t get kids with you bcz even though I love you, it’s not very pragmatic. So I can’t hate you for being who you are or having the problems you have bcz that’s beyond my control.
The problem I see with women is that they think that they can change someone by loving them . If you love me, change for me. If you struggle to change things about yourself that you don’t like, how practical is it to expect another person to change for you?
Of course our limbic brain does not allow that kind of reasoning especially when the relationship is new and hot. The important thing is to be able to shut down the limbic brain in the shortest time possible and the least amount of damage to you. To get better at going beyond the present euphoria and intoxication of rapid escalation of intimacy to the reality of how the relationship will pan out in the end. Begin with the end in mind and practice delayed gratification and do not do anything stupid like taking out a huge loan for them bcz you are in love with them. Alot of people get manipulated to overcommit themselves at this stage when their guard is down. Know your limits and enforce them. If you ask someone to stop doing something that’s unacceptable to you and they keep doing it, be true to yourself and leave them. Without drama. You just block them and move on. Cut your losses. Don’t keep investing in something that isn’t giving you the returns you want. Take the energy invested in the person and put it into other things. Bcz it’s wasted on that person. And don’t be mad at them bcz people can’t give you what they don’t have. You went out on a limb bcz you were attracted to them but after the novelty wears off, it’s back to reality. Pronto.
