SILENT BATTLES

Jabulani Tsambo AKA HHP

We are skeptical about pain we don’t physically see. We are doubting Thomases that only believe after seeing a visible scar.    

The death of South African Hip Hop artist, Jabulani Tsambo, whose stage name was HHP has broken the hearts of many South Africans and people from other parts of the world whose lives he touched. HHP was on record for disclosing that he had attempted to die by his own hand thrice in 2015. When he disclosed that, not many people took him seriously. As with most depression cases, people thought that he was attention-seeking or just exaggerating. In fact, one radio DJ came under fire for asking on air, “Why would someone that famous want to commit suicide?” The fire was not necessary. It was a question on many people’s minds. HHP was a delight to listen to when he spoke.  I’d actually sit down and listen to him. He appeared to be happy and very much in touch with himself and one would think he had it all – talent, respect in the industry, a huge fan base, and maybe enough money to keep him comfortable. Getting a breakthrough in the entertainment industry is not easy for many, but he was up there being counted among the best. There was just this aura of positivity and someone who was comfortable in his own skin about him. He appeared to be working his way out of the woods, but I guess the darkness that engulfed him eventually overcame the light.  In light of what has happened now, can it be concluded that all that was just a farce? Was he really positive one moment and then the darkness would engulf him the next?

The question comes back again, why would someone like that want to die and not enjoy life? Why would someone like that not count his many blessings? There are many paupers on the streets, people living wretched lives yet they don’t take themselves out, why would someone who seemingly had it all want to end it all? Those are the questions many would ask. I used to ask that question too, but I’m slowly trying to learn what I can about depression and how this horrible, horrible condition afflicts people and takes the joy out of life. This post by a writer who suffers from depression, Stirling Gardner helped me put things into perspective a whole lot more on the subject. It is not just ‘losers’ or poor people that take their own lives. Famous and seemingly well-to-do people also do. They have their own serious issues to deal with, regardless of outwardly looking like everything is honky dory. Think of America comedian Robin Williams, wildly popular musician Avicii, renowned artist Vincent van Gogh, HHP’s compatriots pioneering cardiologist Professor Bongani Mayosi, actress Shoki Mokgapa, actor Christopher Kubheka, and many others. What this means is, even your strong friends or those that seem to have it together also need looking out for.My fear, though, with big stars taking their own lives is that it brings so much disillusionment to the ordinary person suffering from depression. It could make one feel, "If people like HHP could not cope, there is absolutely no hope for someone like me." Yet HHP was just a human being like the rest. After getting off the stage, he would go back home to face his own demons and struggles.

Many a time we have thrown that word around  as if it is something very light, like, Oh my goodness! Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have broken up! Now I'm seriously depressed." That is not depression. It is quite a heavy subject, especially on the souls of those it afflicts, more so because it has no visible tell-tale signs. If you have a broken arm, people will drive you around, help with carrying your groceries, and make the right sounds to make you feel they care and they see your pain. It is a different ball game when it is something inside your head that is broken. People can’t see it. When it does show up, it usually manifests in very negative ways that probably further distances people from the sufferer.

I believe the black community needs a lot of assistance in understanding depression and its grave, excuse the pun, consequences. I was one of those people that thought depressed people must just make an effort to save their own lives, not allow themselves to sink. They could just take a walk, go and watch a movie, or listen to their favourite music, and feel better. Now I know better. A severely depressed person can't even bring himself get out of bed, let alone put one foot in front of the other to take a walk. There isn’t even a word for depression in most African languages, including my own, Shona. Any disease of the mind is just described as madness. It doesn’t matter if it’s autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression or anything in-between. If your brain is not functioning as it should, you’re definitely mad. The result is a huge stigma attached to all those with diseases of the mind, and many just clam up to avoid getting labelled. Also with the poverty levels in most black African communities, it only makes sense to go for medical attention when you are suffering from physical pain of some sort – headache, diarrhoea, high blood pressure, and the like. People are just walking around with no diagnoses, oblivious to the fact that they are depressed and in desperate need of medical attention. We need help explaining how to tell when your mind is hurting, because it does. What are the symptoms, where do you go for help? There is a big gap when it comes to addressing mental illnesses. 

 It is a phenomenon that intrigues and terrifies me. It hurts families, and people believe people who commit suicide are selfish. Experts say the signs are usually there, but most people do not see them for what they are. It’s just usually seen as acting out, until it’s too late. An example is that of the late Rhodes University student, Khensani Maseko, who committed suicide after allegedly getting raped by her boyfriend. She posted her birth and death dates, as well as other tell-tale signs that she was not coping psychologically on Twitter. People only started paying serious attention after she had already died.

Images Khensani Maseko posted on her Instagram before taking her own life

It really is time for that serious conversation, as black people, about how the mind, like any other body parts, also gets sick. When that happens, it needs to be treated and support is needed for people struggling internally. It is not a shameful thing when your mind fails to cope with life’s stressors. It’s not a laughable matter. It is a very serious issue that can cost lives when it goes untreated. It is costing lives, many, many lives, and one life lost to suicide is one life too many. Some suicides can definitely be avoided. 

I have written about suicide and how it is viewed in the African context, as well as mental health issues in general. Please visit the links below.

• The lonely world we live in, and being dark clouds in other people's lives
• Understanding mental illness in the African context
• Discussion on high suicide rate in Swaziland
• Appalling treatment of mentally ill people in Swaziland
• Silence is not Always Golden
• "It's My Life" are just songs Bon Jovi and Dr Alban sang, not a mantra to live by

Bad till operators

About 2 weeks ago I attended the Service Excellence Awards at a local hotel.  The MC spoke about how every  person on the premises, from the security guard at the gate right to the office cleaner, has a role a role to play in customer retention. 

Everyday we are confronted by bad customer services by people who should actually be bending over backwards to treat us well so that we stay faithful to their brands. 

I wonder how much training is devoted to till operators in retail outlets. Close to my  house is Bhunu Mall, where Shoprite and other shops such as Clicks, Milady's, Woolworths and others are located. I'd pick it over nearer standalone shops because there's ample parking. Manzini is congested and one has a torrid time trying to secure parking,  which is something I have no patience with. Shoprite till operators are among the worst I've seen. When customers arrive at their till points, they mostly don't even greet them. They proceed to ringing your items and throwing them disrespectfully out of the way. On a recent visit, a till operator and a packer were having a very loud conversation about something and laughed their heads off. Customers, including myself, would arrive at the till and no-one would even look at them. The two just continued yapping away, and the only time the till operator acknowledged a customer was when she stretched her hand for the money. That's all she cared about. 

If I weren't the cheapskate that I am, I doubt I'd ever set foot in Shoprite. Their prices are usually great even though their staff isn't. I guess every rose had its thorns. Pick 'n Pay staff at The Hub and at Riverstone are very warm and helpful .

The one that took the cake, however, was a Moneni Spar till operator whose path I crossed this week. The supermarket had a special on Ingrams body creams, and I've liked the Ingrams brand a lot for many years. I hadn't visited this particular shop for many months and actually felt bad because it had been my favourite before the road construction around the shop started. It was like coming back home when i got into the store, until I met this till operator. She had a very sour look about her, one that made me feel quite tense and short of apologising for disturbing her day by my presence in the shop.  I honestly felt like a fly in her milk.

I'd picked 3 varieties of Ingrams body creams, and only one indicated the reduced price. The others were E13 more expensive than the flyer advertised. She said, "Only this one is working. The other ones are not on special." I told her that couldn't be possible because the advert said 'assorted', not just one type. She just glared at me as if to say, "Make a decision.  Are you going to take these creams at this price or you're going to leave them?" I  didn't want those options; I wanted the creams at the discounted price, so I just stood there perplexed at her rude attitude. I asked, "Can't you ask someone about this?" Another glare, and she dragged herself off the ottoman she was sitting on and dragged her feet towards the manager's desk. No hurry in Africa! The problem was promptly fixed and all the creams priced correctly. I gave her my bank card, she inserted it into the terminal the looked at me sourly and nodded towards the terminal to indicate I should insert my PIN. I did and went straight to the manager to complain. The manager said she would sort her out, and I hope she does. I know people have issues, but that's no excuse to treat other people badly, especially if you're in the retail industry where every customer that comes is there to ensure you get a salary at the end of the month. The manager apologised profusely for the till operator's behaviour, but I don't see myself going back there. That one will spit in my face for telling on her!

How do you tell a younger child about her sibling's autism?

It has been a long hiatus. I’m even ashamed to start explaining or finding excuses. Life was happening, as it sometimes does. My life has been congested with both the good and the bad, but my blog is always on my mind. I feel like a bad mom that has neglected her child, but all is well that ends well. I’m back! I have so many issues floating around in my head and will do my utmost best to transfer them from the head to here. I just need to create time to do that. I think my major problem is that I overthink things, to a point where I overthink them to death, literally. They eventually just disappear off the radar because I’m not putting them down on paper or on laptop rather. Some of the things are those that need some research to be done so that I’m more confident about them. But the issue I’m writing about today is a no-brainer to me. It doesn’t need research because I live it every day. It’s called autism. Even if I have lived with this condition under my roof for the past 12 years, going on 13, I’ll never be an expert because new challenges keep presenting themselves. I’ll never have things figured out at any point.

My regular readers would have read about other posts I have written about autism and how it affects my life. In some of them I was rational, and in others I was just lashing out, depending on my frame of mind at those times. If you haven’t read them before, please find them below:

 Know the autism red flags

A mom shares her autism story

Autism: A mother's tale

Autism Awareness 

 

Be Autism Aware in 2017 

 

Happy 10th Birthday Victor!!

 

Happy Birthday Victor!!

 

 

 

I also have a separate blog where I write about disability issues. Most of them were published in The Observer on Sunday sometime back when I used to write a column for them, and some of them will have copies on this blog. Do visit it. It might open your eyes some to the issues that parents whose children have special needs go through daily – their challenges, fears, and small triumphs. Today I had an issue that moved me, or pierced my heart.

Broken Heart Emoji

There was a newspaper with the broken heart emoji. My 4-year-old, who is fairly mature for her age, pointed at it and said, “It’s a broken heart. It means no-one loves him.” I have no idea why she thought the broken heart belonged to a man. I took the opportunity to talk to her about love and asked who she loved. She said she loved her friends Seka, Khanyi, and Summer. Then I asked if she knew anyone who loved her, and she said Khanyi and Seka loved her. Her dad said, “Mummy, Daddy, and Victor love you too.” She said, “No. Not Victor. He’s always running away from me.” He does move away from her a lot when she tries to play with him or sit too close to him.

Victor has autism and sometimes dislikes physical contact, unless if it’s initiated by him. Just yesterday we went to Spur for lunch and he didn’t want to sit next to me. He ended up sitting at the very corner of the seat with one bum to be as far away from me as possible. We went to the movies recently to watch Johnnie English Strikes Again on his request and, as is the norm, were allocated seats. Upon getting to our seats, he didn’t want to sit next to any of us, so he skipped one seat and took the next one. He just didn’t get that it belonged to someone else, regardless of how much I tried to explain. Then this boy came and said, “That’s my seat,” and Victor said, “No!” He was determined not to budge until I told him security would throw him out.

Getting back to today’s situation, or Rudairo’s interpretation of Victor’s poor social skills, I had no idea that was how she felt about it. There have been moments when I’ve seen her cry because her brother was running away from her or refused to join her in a game she wanted to play. My reaction has always been, “Leave him alone. You can’t force people to play with you if they don’t want to!” I realised today that that might not have been the best way to handle the issue. We need to have a proper conversation with Rudairo and explain to her that her brother is different. I have no clue why, but I’m crying now 😭. How do you even start explaining autism to a 4-year-old sibling of a child with autism? Where do you start? It’s not any easier explaining it to adults that think your child is a spoilt brat when he has a meltdown, or that he is dumb because he fails to understand what should be very simple concepts like being aware of dangerous situation such as crossing the road with caution, or understand that the order of things can be changed. There is not much, if any, support for the autism community in Swaziland, and I know there are other families struggling with issues that a little support would have assisted with. Today the father tried, dismally, to explain to Rudairo that Victor does not run away because he doesn’t love her. I say dismally because I doubt that Rudairo is any wiser (just like the rest of us) about the reasons why big brother doesn’t want to have his space invaded. Here is how the conversation went:

            Dad: Victor doesn’t run away because he doesn’t love you. He loves you.

            Rudairo: So why does he run away?

            Dad: He runs away because that’s how God made him?

            Rudairo: Did God make Victor run away?

            Dad: (No answer)

I then swooped in like Mother Hen and said, “Victor, do you hear what your sister is saying? She says you run away from her because you don’t love her,” whereupon Victor said, “Yes!” with a giggle. I asked Rudairo to go and hug her brother, and told Victor to tell his sister he loved her, and he did. She said, “I love you too!” Cute, huh? But he will run away from her again tomorrow. And we will still not know how to explain that to his 4-year-old sibling.

Daddies' girls and mummies' boys

I have been quiet for too long and am even embarrassed to be back. There are so many things happening in my life, good thingsJ, that I’m struggling to keep my head above water. I shall be writing all about these things, but need a little more research and a little more time to put them together. What got me to write at this very moment is my nagging cousin. She follows this blog (I’m grateful that she does), and is frustrated at my long hiatus. Trust me cousin, it frustrated me too!

The topic for today was motivated by a conversation I just had with some friends regarding children and how sometimes they tend to favour one parent over the other. When I was a child, well I’m still my parents’ child so let me say as a younger child, I can’t say I really favoured one parent over the other. I, however, somehow chose one parent over the other depending on what I wanted from them. If I wanted a good conversation, I’d go to my father who has amazing story-telling skills. I hope he can still write his first book at close to 69 years of age. If I wanted money, I’d go to my mother. She didn’t tell too many stories because she was busy thinking about making money or just being practical with her crafts. I even helped her with her crafts, and that’s one of the things that bonded us. When I look back at my childhood, I remember conversations I had with my father, and things I did with my mother. I think Rudairo will craft too because she always asks me to teach her. I’ll post my crafts here someday soon.

Back to the events that led to this post. I allowed my 4-year-old daughter to buy a can of Coca Cola (coke), against my better judgment. We never buy soft drinks for home because my children have enough sugar in their system to last them a lifetime; they don’t need to add more. Since it’s a weekend, coupled with the fact that she hasn’t had a soft drink since Christmas, I indulged her.  She slept all afternoon, and when she woke up around 5pm, she wanted to drink her coke. I told her she could only drink it tomorrow because supper was almost ready. Around 8 she drank her coke. Because she was high on the coke, she couldn’t go to sleep, even though her system was telling her it’s past bed time. I made coffee to help me stay awake and do some work. I used my cup (everyone has their own cup here). My daughter said, “Mum, you must never use daddy’s cup. You should always use your own.” I don’t know why she had to say that because I was using mine anyway. I said, “I’ll use your daddy’s cup if I want to.” Immediately the floodgates opened. She wailed loudly and continued remonstrating   about how I shouldn’t use her dad’s cup. When she got tired of crying, she went to sleep.  At some point tonight I had to snap at her after she cut my conversation with her dad short saying, “Mom, you need to be quiet when I’m talking to dad!” The audacity! If I had said that to my mom, she would have slapped that smart mouth.

As a small baby of about 6 months, she would come to me for milk, cuddles and to dance to Trace Urban beats. When the father came home, she suddenly became this chatterbox she never was in the absence of her dad. She would blabber away for several minutes without stopping until I started to feel sorry for her, thinking gosh her little lungs must be struggling with that long speech.

I was chatting to some friends about how my 12-year-old son is more attached to me rather than his dad. It was during that conversation that I began to appreciate just how affectionate he is. When I’m in the kitchen cooking, he comes to sit there and keep me company. Because he has autism, he struggles to come up with interesting topics for discussion, but he will be present, repeating the same stories he has told me before and rerunning plans for his April, August and December holidays for the umpteenth time. Even when I’m in the bathroom, he sits just outside the door, or he’ll go to the window outside so that we can continue our conversations. When I was pregnant with the sister, I had severe morning sickness and would throw up every morning without fail. As soon as I woke up, I’d go and sit in the bathroom until the bout was over. Victor would sit with me without ever getting revolted by the throwing up business. The father would quickly make himself scarce to avoid even hearing me vomit. Victor would even look in the bowl and say, “Mummy there’s a green vegetable that just came out.”

Rudairo loves trinkets, she is a very girly girl. Each time I buy her something, the first thing she says after the thank yous is, "Daddy is going to be so happy for me."

When I have to travel for some time, my son gets quite miserable while my daughter really couldn’t care less. She only starts to cry when I actually depart, but Victor worries as soon as he hears I shall leave at some point. I thought daughters were supposed to be mums’ best friends. That hasn’t been witnessed here! She has her moments when she’s extremely affectionate to me, but that’s usually when the dad isn’t around or when she just feels girls should do things together. I’m quite fascinated by that. I’m particularly thrilled when she goes to the bathroom for Number 2. She always shouts, “Daddy, come and wipe me!” that always somehow happens during meal times. The dad, at those moments, doesn’t look so proud to be the chosen one. And at those moments, my cheeks hurt from smiling.  But when she has a nightmare or needs food, she calls me. So essentially I’m the beast of burden as far as she is concerned.

I’m sure if one went to my parents, they would separately have things to say about how I related with them as a small child, maybe even now. One day someone repeated slander about me, and the first person I thought of calling was my father. Maybe my daughter takes after me after all.

So what do you think your parents would say, or would have said (if they are no longer with us)? How do you feel you related with them as a kid?