SPEAKER_03 0:16

Hi everybody, welcome back to the Be Nice Show. This is Sarah. I'm so pleased to be back. Today we're talking about breaking the silence, mental health in men. Why are we talking about men? Well, there's so many reasons, as we shall find out. But what we found is that mental health in men is a topic that goes unnoticed but impacts countless lives. In today's society, there is a pressing need to address the mental well-being of men. The stigma surrounding mental health has created a culture where many suffer in silence, afraid to speak or to share their struggles. In this episode, I've got a lovely lady. She is not new to the show. She's been here previously. And we're going to shed a light on the unique challenges faced by men and explore the importance of prioritizing mental health, especially in some cultural settings. We will delve into the societal pressures, the gender expectations, stereotypes that contribute to the alarming rates of mental health issues among men. So kick back, take a kappa or a nice drink or whatever you fancy as we break down the barriers and provide insights, strategies, and resources to help men navigate their mental health journey. And I would like to invite our guest today to help us do that. That is Musawa Justin Fever Chigozi, who is on the call with us. Welcome to the show, Justin.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night to everybody who is listening.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Well, so happy to have you back, Justin. The previous episode we did, we talked about mental health in minority groups. And obviously, the responses we got from our audience was overwhelming. Many did relate to the topics we discussed. However, in the recent past, especially during or after the lockdowns and everything, I have personally come across a few men who have struggled or are struggling with mental health. And as it turns out during my preparation for this particular podcast, initially I was thinking of talking about mental health again on the next level. But it appeared to me that we probably need to niche it down to men because they were the hardest to break into, they were the hardest to share their challenges, and they were the hardest to talk about their stuff. But before we start that, Justin, I would like us to give a little background of who you are. Obviously, you've introduced yourself previously, but you are a mental health expert. That's how I package you as would you tell us a little bit more about yourself? And recently I saw you went to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the late queen.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

And I wrote a little bit about you as proud, so proud to even know you, you know. So tell us a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I'm humbled to be called a mental health expert. So my background is mental health psychiatry. I've been a mental health for the last 21 years. I'm now termed as a mental health consultant or nurse consultant, and I'm doing my PhD in mental health. I have a charity called MBS for mental health, and it's for culture awareness in ethnic minority groups, people that we used to call BEM. Some people call them people of color, some people call them diverse groups. So we reach out in the diaspora and talk about mental health and well-being. And as Sarah mentioned, that's the charity that actually took me to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, because uh we were nominated for the good work that we do in Men'side and the Northwest, and we won the Queen's Platinum Award. So we were deadly receiving it. And last March we actually received the Community Impact Award for Manside, and we did, you know, receive it, you know, proudly we were happy to have that as well. So thank you everyone who supports our charity. I work in the National Health Service. My role is quite different. I'm a culture-sensitive lead in mental health, and I'm also doing my PhD in mental health. Thank you, Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Oh, wow, thank you so much. We're definitely speaking to the right person. Congratulations on those awards. Obviously, this goes to show the amount of work you do in our communities, which doesn't go unnoticed. So well done on that. So today we're going to talk about mental health in men. And I don't know if this is something that you come across very often, but what I've uh discovered is the stigma around that. But before you even delve into that, some people may not even be aware that the person they are with or the person they know is struggling with mental health issues. So I wanted us to first of all look at the early signs of mental health, like what should someone look out for to be able to go, like, okay, maybe someone is struggling, maybe I need to step in, or even if it's say that person themselves to realize that, okay, I've got an issue. What are the early signs of mental health, Justin?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Oh, thanks. Thanks, Sarah. I think what I could do is to actually do a little intro to show the community out there and everybody out there that this is a massive thing for men, mental health and well-being, Sarah. And before I dig into how you can identify signs of mental illness in a man, it's interesting that you chose this topic because the recent statistics actually shows that in the little country, Britain, that we have, and I can compare it to a country that I know very well, it's a similar size to Uganda. In Britain itself, we had completed suicide of nearly 6,000 people. But out of this, 75% of these completed suicide were actually men. Wow. So the statistics show that women we can try, but we don't normally complete because we are very good at talking about our emotions and crying out for help. But what that breaks it down into as well, Sarah, is that three times most of these three times of completed suicide, these men are likely to be of protective characteristics. So that could be somebody from an ethnic minority group, somebody from a marginalized group, someone from a certain background. That does not say that our white colleagues do not commit suicide. They obviously do, but it's it even digs deeper into breaking those into protective characteristics. When you mention about how do we know that the male, you're you know, you're around your uncle, your dad, your nephew, your boyfriend, your brother could be having mental health problems. Sarah, this is a difficult thing to even identify as a lay person because a man has been psychologically positioned in society to be a protector, a provider. They are a rock to fall back on. So, in a way, they have been created in the society not to show their emotions, not to feel human. So it's very difficult to see a man crying. It's very difficult a man to say to a fellow man, do you know what? I'm a bit depressed, I'm suffering domestic violence, I'm not happy in this environment. You're supposed to be able to create a solution as a man. You're supposed to deal with it. So it will be very difficult for a colleague to even identify those things. But some of the things that I can touch on that you could look deep and see are things like irritability. So somebody comes home and they're quite irritable all the time. You look at the stimulus around the house and you think, nothing is going on. Why are they like this? You start to kind of put that aside. It doesn't mean that you straight away think, oh my goodness, they could have mental health problems. Sleep pattern. Somebody probably does not go to bed until two in the morning, and when they go to sleep, they're up by four in the morning. Sleep is a very important part of our psychological, the whole pathology of life. You've got things like mood swings, someone who comes home or is in work and something very, very small ticks them off. Something very small. And it could be as much as somebody using their pen. And that person just literally gets aggressive and angry about things. There's things about what we call adrenaline drive, risk taking people who just risk take. And unfortunately, some of this can involve things like reckless sexual behavior, reckless drug use, harmful use of alcohol, where somebody just goes to a pub and drinks until they're drunk, legless. Picking up, substituting new habits for different ones all the time can also show that that person is not psychologically stable. Lack of focus, where people change things all the time, can also show that that person is not psychologically stable. Normally in men, suicidal attempts either start when they are teenagers, during puberty, or during what we call the the is it called like that critical moment in life where somebody's supposed to achieve. When somebody is around, you know, 40 to 50 years, you're supposed to show their sense of achievement. They're supposed to feel you know valued in the community. They have to have a certain position in the community. Many times, a good job, married, doing really well with children. And a lot of times, when people don't have that sense of security and value in the community, they start to behave in these behaviors that I've said because they are looking for satisfaction. And sometimes that might not be achieved. Those are some of the few things that you could look out for. I think in in UK as well, we see things like people working extra hours, just you know, they they just want to keep going.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Because they do not have that sense of fulfillment in the environment they are in or psychologically. Those are the few things that I can mention at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

You could look at this is very, very, very helpful to say the least, very helpful. And of course, I'm thinking if somebody knows someone who is like you should be able to pick up at least a few of these things and then start observing those people. So you talked about men, society has conditioned men not to talk about sensitive issues, not to break down to and cry, not to talk about their failures. And somewhat I feel like we also, women, because we know how to deal with these things, maybe we can create a space for those men to be able to open up to us, whether it's a brother, whether it's a lover, a husband, or a friend, to once they know that they have this person, they can just one person is better than having none. And uh once maybe we start seeing these patterns, then we can sort of start creating that space for that person to show them that we're not going to judge them for their failures, we're not going to judge them for anything. Then perhaps they can start opening up to us. I mean, it's just the thoughts. Of course, this has been very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And uh what I've discovered, it's an amazing thought that you have said because that's what we call the psychological safety. Um when somebody actually finds psychological safety in you, they feel comfortable to come and speak to you about anything at all. Because when they lay themselves bare to you, you have not belittered them, you have kept them safe in their litter environment. You've walked into their world. It's a bit like an autistic child. They must feel psychologically safe with you to actually jump into your world because you've jumped into their world. And our men are just so much like that. If I work with mental health in ethnic minority community here and I go to families to speak to people, but a lot of the times the young boys that I speak to sometimes will pick up the phone and say, Musao, I need to speak to you, but you can't discuss this with my mother or my dad. And my feedback is if it puts you at risk, call a family member or somebody else, then I will break that confidentiality. So if you say to me, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna commit seaside, I've got, you know, a hundred packets of paracetamol, and I'm gonna do this one this way, I might break that confidentiality, but then wing you in to put some protective factors. So people must feel safe in your arms, in your heart to discuss this. It's common with us in communities where people don't want to go to certain professionals because they know if they speak to you about something, they'll hear it in gossip somewhere else. So they won't come to you. But it's about providing that psychological safety. You could be a wife at home, you could be a brother at home, you could be a sister at home. Allow your husband to trust you that if they lay themselves bare, they are not going to feel manless if you know where I'm coming from. Yes, yes, they are going to feel supported through that journey. And that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Beautiful. Well, I didn't even know. Yeah, so this is very helpful, very, very helpful. And uh, what I'm thinking of is going forward, and again, I would like to share an example. As I was preparing for this, I wanted to ask men to ask men what they struggle with the most. And guess what? They wouldn't open up. I went into a group where there's like over 100 men, most of them being doctors, and none of them wanted to speak until when one they actually ignored it for a while, and then one person came out and said one thing that he's afraid to share. He didn't say he, he said they are afraid to share their emotions because that's what they've been told to never cry, never break down, so they never talk to anyone about things. And once that person opened up, other people started now giving their feedback, their not experiences, but their their fears, so to speak. And you could tell they were sharing them in small bits and bulbs. But these are people who actually are professional doctors, right? So it just goes to show that they one, they didn't trust me, and two, they were not going to share in a group what they struggle with. But then again, I'm pretty sure that if somebody actually took this person and creed and made them safe, they would feel uh comfortable to talk about this. So I'm thinking now, once I've established something that, okay, my friend, my partner, my lover is struggling with this, and of course, I'm I'm I'm thinking I'm not in a position to tell them what it is, because for obvious reasons, uh, there's the denial. I'm thinking most people are going to deny that they have a mental health issue or the stigma around it, you know. So, how do I encourage them? How do I get them to get help? Or where do I sort of support them to look for the initial help? What is the first step that one should do?

SPEAKER_01 16:52

The first step is creating a safe environment. So that person could be your partner. It's very much to do like how we do it in work as mental health nurses. I don't know, Sarah, how many times I've sat with people in an assessment room or sat with a family that I'm trying to do family therapy with in silence for a full hour. Wow. During COVID, I'll give you an example. I remember I traveled to London to see a family, and I sat with the wife and husband for an hour, and nobody said a word. And I was still there. What that tells you is silence is non-verbal communication. But the fact that you've not showed any frustration to walk away shows that I am here. I am here to help you. So this person could be your brother, this person could be your partner. You might visit them now and again and they will shout to you, back off, there is nothing wrong with me, because they will say there's nothing wrong with them. Sit there. Non-verbal communication, be open. Sometimes we sit with people and we forget what our body language says. You sit there, you your arms are crossed, your legs are crossed, you're all closed. Sit in a very open manner and show them that you're there. Create that environment. I'm safe. You are safe. Start by highlighting because I always say to people, Sarah, it's about noticing one or two things, one or three things that I've noticed, I've mentioned, but also noticing the time frame that they take. So it could be a sleep pattern, and you could say to them, for the last six months, you're not going to bed until three, but waking up at five, what's going on? And you just pause and keep quiet and wait for response. Or might not respond immediately. Give them time, give them time to psychologically trust you, and when they do, they'll open up. Saying that, that's a time where somebody is mild, mild, you know, probably has mild depression or has not gone into full-blown severe depression. Because we could be talking somebody who's not leaving bed, somebody who's not attending to their personal hygiene, they are not eating well, there is visible loss of weight, they are extremely irritable. Where are those signs at extreme side of things? I've always said to people that everyone in this country has a general practitioner who is their GP. That's your first point of contact if you can't trust anybody. That's your first point of contact. You, as a person, you could actually turn up to the GP and say, I'm concerned about my brother's health. They're not going to like it, they'll feel upset, but at least you'll be assured of a comprehensive assessment of their mental health and physical health. There are so many causes of mental illness, Sarah. It's not straightforward, but many a times it's organic causes, hormonal changes, poor nutrition, dehydration, a lot of things. And somebody could be behaving in a certain way because they're actually dehydrated or they have low sodium levels, they're confused. A lot of things could be happening, and all they need is a blood test from the GP to check their thyroid levels, check their sodium levels, check a lot of things to check if there's an infection. And somebody could turn out and say, actually, the causes of your confusion or delirium is because you've got a UTI. And that gets treated, and everything will be okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:50

At one point, you did tap on um levels, and uh, interesting enough, I was going to ask you, is there different levels? And of course, that is going to be assessed by a profession, I guess. But um, if say I have someone looking after or someone, a friend, what would I look at and go, like, okay, like what type, how many levels are there? Like you talked of mild and severe levels of depression. I have personally seen a few people, like a handful of people who have gone, both men and women who suffer and they they draw curtains, they'll stay asleep. I've seen that level of uh mental health or mental illness where they don't want to talk to anyone. Like you would call them, they just wouldn't pick like for a week, and then out of the blue, they'll send you a message and go like, I'm okay. And you know they're not okay, you know. And personally, from personal experience, in such cases, I would go, like, yeah, that's fine. Could we meet for a coffee? They'll go, like, I don't feel well maybe next week. And most times I always say, Well, we don't know if you feel well next week, so why don't we meet today, anyways? You haven't been, you know. So I found that, but then. How do I pick that? Okay, this is severe and this is mild, this is concerning, that I have to make a phone call to somewhere where I've done this again before, where I've had to call on behalf of someone and give them their details, their address and everything. And somebody has turned up to check on them. But what are the signs that someone could look out for, like someone who has a loved one who is concerned about a loved one, to know that this is now severe and I need to do something on their behalf.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So every time I'm doing assessment in SARA, I tap in into people who have something we call relation security with that person. Relation security comprises the length of time you know somebody, you will know their behavior, their attitude towards things, and who they are. It's a bit like somebody turning around and saying, I know Sarah very well for the last five years. Those are the people you want it to. As professionals, we do information gathering. And if somebody doesn't refer to me and says, Musawa Justin, there's somebody presenting this and this one. My first point of contact is the person who has a relation security with that person to give me details about what's happening. But saying that, there's also something we call seasonal depression or reactive depression. So you have somebody, probably a man, we're talking about man, who has just probably lost their parent or wife or something like that. He's going through a difficult time that season. So some of his behavior might be different from what you know, but it's the length of time in which he goes through that behavior that you should worry about. Seasonal depression, we have a lot of people who get low mood during winter because it's dark very, very quickly, and you wake, you know, you go to work when it's dark. So there's a problem with light. When there's lack of light, your serotonin levels are quite low. So people will be very unhappy during winter. There's something we know about women before their periods or during pre-menopause stages, their mood can change very, very quickly. So it's about knowing Justina and how she is when she says, I'll be okay. But if that I'll be okay turns into aggressive behavior, then screaming down the phone and not wanting to speak to you, if that turns into you seeing that person underweight, you know they are not eating properly, they're not looking after themselves when you see them. If that turns into drawing the curtains and you never see a light in their house, those are quite extreme behavior. If they drink and that turns into them, you know, drinking necessarily drink, if they have children, if you start seeing their children missing school and neglected, then you start to tap into professional help here, because that is going into extremes.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Oh, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

And you've talked about obviously tapping into the mental or the experts who would help. And beyond that, I was wondering what is the longest, like if somebody can somebody suffer for like years and years and years despite medication, despite help, and not feel better or get better.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Of course, Sarah, we do have a chronic diagnosis. A chronic diagnosis will mean that it's a bit like being diabetic. So you've got that diagnosis for life. And that chronic diagnosis comes a lot if there is a family history of mental illness with multifactorial things that play into life. So if somebody comes from a family with a mental illness, they're already predispossess to that illness anyway, with other things that happen: puberty, poverty, you know, lack of employment, racism, all those things build up, and that person could have a chronic diagnosis of mental illness. Knowing that if that person is treated, we have early interventions in mental health, crisis resolution teams. If that person is treated very, very quickly, that means that they can actually be on a very low dose of medication for some time. I've seen people on medication for about three to four years. That medication is then reduced to a maintenance dose where they have a baby dose to just maintain their serotonin levels or to just maintain their chemical balance in the brain. And if that person is treated for a certain period of time, sometimes they can get off medication. The dangerous part of mental illness is that when somebody has a chronic mental illness or diagnosis. So, for example, something like paranoid schizophrenia, something like bipolar affective disorder, when you get the first episode and you get treated, you're likely to go into a remission phase, a bit like how people who have cancer can go into a remission. When somebody goes into a remission, they stop medication a lot of time thinking they are okay, they are cured. And then they could be okay for about a year or six months to a year, and then relapse. But when they relapse, they relapse really, really badly that they have severe symptoms compared to the first symptoms. So the advice is yes, sometimes people can be diagnosed with a lifelong mental illness. If you're diagnosed with a lifelong mental illness, the idea is you must take your medication as prescribed to maintain an optimal life balance or lifestyle. I know actually an example of somebody, Sarah, who has been on medication for life. He's married, he has two children, he has a job, and you know, he's he goes back now and again into education but does a lot of mental health work. But, you know, he's managed to live that life by being on medication. I've had people telling me about side effects of medication. Be open and report the side effects to professionals. Because again, there's treatment for those side effects, or that medication then can be changed to give you medication that works really well with your body. But if you've got a chronic diagnosis, please do take that medication. We have seasonal diagnoses, reactive diagnoses. In most cases, Sarah, people are not treated medically, or we don't use a pharmacological approach for those sorts of diagnosis. We use psychological therapy. So for things like bereavement, divorce, loss, RTS, somebody's had a road traffic accident or something like that. We use a lot of therapies before we prescribe medication. So don't be scared to go out and mention the word mental illness or depression to somebody, because it doesn't always mean that you're going to be on medication for life. Sometimes professionals could recognize that your sleep pattern is really poor and we need to get you back into a routine. And your GP could prescribe sleeping tablets for about three to six months. Sometimes that's a long time, or they could say six weeks, then review it. All they want to do is to get you back into a proper sleep pattern, something we call sleep hygiene, because we don't realize how great sleep is. There's a team of professionals here in Liverpool that I laugh with because they call themselves team no sleep because they work nights. And I laugh and I say to them, Do you know what? You need to work backwards to be able to pay for that sleep. Because all it's gonna do in the long run, it's gonna destroy your psychological makeup of things. And this is when we end up with frontalobe disorders and dementia and all sorts of things in life in the long run.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yeah. Oh wow, wow, this is very, very helpful, Justin. So helpful. And you talked about managing uh with medication and managing with therapy and all that. And I was wondering if somebody, say, for example, is on long-term medication or maybe on a higher dose, but somewhat would like to reduce that dose for obvious reasons. Is there things they can do outside of the medication, like things they can do to manage, first of all, to manage their mental health beyond medication, like to keep afloat, and then perhaps then look at long-term managing it with lower doses. What can someone do typically away from medication on top of the medication, rather? What other things could they do?

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Absolutely. There's a lot of things people can do, Sarah. And mental illness is not just treated with medication. We have nice guidelines. The beauty of nice guidelines, they tell you how to manage crisis. So people are on big doses of medication, normally doing the acute when they are really acute and in crisis, you want to treat that. There's a lot of things that come with it. There's aggression, there's poor sleep, there's poor appetite, there's all those things that you want to treat as a doctor or as a nurse consultant. And in many cases, within two to six months for many people, first episode, there are people who stay a year. Once that acuity is managed and treated, the nice guidelines allow us to titrate that medication to a maintenance dose. There's something we call mental health beyond medication. This involves your eating habits. By the way, mental health has a lot to do with what you eat because you are what you eat. Some of us we don't like to eat regularly, or we are in jobs that do not allow us to eat regularly. But what that then means that your sugar levels irregularly drop really low when you're hungry, and then when you have a time to eat, then they pick up. So you have a massive drop in your sugar levels and then a massive up all the time. Some people are in work and they decide to eat a chocolate bar that is a massive boost in your sugar levels, then they drop again. So your sugar levels are irregular, and that impacts your temper as well. You find some people don't drink enough water. So dehydration is a massive cause of mental illness. So when we talk mental health beyond medication, we talk about hydration, eating the right foods, eating health fats, people talk about eating things like omega-3 oils, olive oil, rep seed oils, nuts, things like that, oily fish, avocado, eating a balanced diet. And a balanced diet, a lot of people think about eating meat, chicken, and all that kind of thing. But when you see a plate of in a balanced diet, you have a lot of fruits in your meals, you have a lot of vegetables, you have a lot of things that help to treat your gut because your gut is your gastro area as well. People who have a lot of gas all the time, and it also impacts your mood and how you do things. So eating, I mean, acids is a good thing. Avoiding caffeine stuff, avoiding things like I see young people drinking energy drinks. I normally laugh at them when they drink that drink called monster. If something is called monster, why would you want to put it in your system? Harmful use of alcohol, you need to avoid, especially when you're on medication, try and avoid alcohol. Try and avoid using illicit substances, heroin, cocaine, cannabis, vitamins, spices, all those things. Just keep them out of your remit, avoid them totally, and try to live a health life beyond medication. And a lot of people who eat well and do plenty of exercises. Plenty of exercises. You release, you know, the thing about exercises is that you release tension, you get new energy all the time. There's a new energy boost all the time. But it also motivates you and gives you a sense of achievement. It improves your appetite. But importantly, it's fun as well to do things that are fun. But also, what we don't think about, lastly, Sarah, we are gifted with NHS in the UK. Every person is registered by a GP has funding for something we call annual health checks. But when you do your audits, I used to work in CCJ a long time ago. There's 20% of people go for their annual health check. We call it MOT. But drop into your GP once a year, even if you don't get sick ever, drop in and say, Can I have an MOT? That will include your liver function test, your FBC accounts, your everything will be thrown in there just to check how your organic you are working organically. And that is just enough to keep you within the remit of living a health life. Mental health medication has its side effects in terms of cardio, in terms of cardiovascular issues, increased risk of diabetes and things like that. But when you're on it and you do your annual health checks, those things will be noticed very quickly and then they'll be managed so that they don't impact your lifestyle. So I think those are some of the things you can do in terms of mental health beyond medication. And people normally reduce it to literally about 20%. Somebody who started a hundred percent medication dose on the BNF will reduce it to taking, for example, we have olanzapin medication. People literally start from about 10 megs of medication. It's a very good tablet, 10 to 20. But by the time they remain on a maintenance dose, they're on 2.5, which is like a baby dose.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

And it's very similar to somebody who has insulin to go to work every day, having high blood pressure medication to go to work every day. You have to have psychological medication. That's not a problem. It's normalizing it, Sarah.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Yeah, yeah. I agree. This is so very helpful, Justin. And as we conclude, you talked about working, you do work with, you have an organization that helps people, uh, cultural sensitivity and all that. Can you tell us a little bit more about your organization and how one could get in touch with you if they chose to? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

It's a long story, Sarah. So I came to UK as a teenager. I basically finished my A levels, and my mom told me you're going to university in UK. Excitement was within me, but I didn't know anybody in UK. So when I arrived in UK, what I didn't notice is that all my attachments from primary school to senior six, I had left them in Uganda, and now I was starting a new life in City University of London to do my mental health nursing. It was difficult. But what that did to me, Sarah, it allowed me to deal with it negatively. So the behavior was very much around clubbing, drinking, having fun, which I called having fun, non-directive behavior in a way. But what I missed was my friends, my parents, that sense of family, that sense of comfort, and those friends that I had made from primary school. So I had what I called a culture shock in a way. So I did my training and graduated in 2003 and then started working. And what I noticed was a lot of young people who were coming from Africa and joining the UK, they were culturally shocked about everything that was happening. But also the first generation, the older people who lived here didn't know how to deal with being in this country. There was a lot of racism, a lot of discrimination, a lot of things that we found a default position to accept, but they affected us psychologically. But what was also difficult is that I never heard my parents talk about mental illness. So the patients that we had on the ward then, my first job was forensic services. So this will be prisoners and you know people coming through via the criminal route. I found that a lot of people of my color, black people, came via forensic services. And I wondered what happened at the beginning in terms of all interventions and preventing all this from happening. So they came in with a crime. Sometimes it would be murder, sometimes it would be all sorts of things. And I thought, we need to be talking about this. And even when you met them to talk about their index offense, they found it very difficult, like what you said about the other male that you met. They didn't want to talk about it. They are very avoidant. And I thought, you know what? We can start talking about these things. The organization that I worked with then was in London, East London Trust. They were very interested in what I mentioned. And actually, they started something. We started something when I was there. It's still ongoing. It's a link between East London and Buttabika. But when I moved to Liverpool, I continued with that work. So I joined with the Ugandan community of Liverpool. I used to visit people's families to talk about things. There's a lot of issues with autism, mental illness, learning disabilities, behavioral issues in terms of ADHD, like I said, cultural sensitivity, maladaptive behavior when a child has just come to Britain and all that. And parents struggled to deal with those things. But also, parents had limited time with their children because they work long hours. So I started visiting families, and this is how I actually started and realized there is an actual need. Some families that I visited have up to about four children or three children. So I then started having mental health awareness months. So I would create a full week during halftime of mental health awareness sessions to talk to young people about mental illness. The police in here, in Manzasai Police, got interested in community connections with us. They got on board, so we worked with them. There's an organization called Freebie. We work with them. So it all started like visiting people and trying to check on them. It became bigger during COVID because it was lockdown, and we used to do phone calls. And that's when I became Musao Justin because everyone just called me Musao Musao, or the kids call me anti-mosao or anti-mental health. So yeah, we don't have a referral pathway. Uh, we have a website which is cph at mindbodyandsoul.org.uk. If you go on there, you know, you could look at some of the things that we do. My phone number, Sarah, you know it, I share it all the time. That's 078-40819456. And people reach out to me in anywhere that you want. We've got email contacts that you know you can reach out to. I think we are info at cph, mindbodyandsoul.org.uk. I have a job in NHS, so I tend to do these during weekends and bank holidays. Our Mondays, Friday, nights, five. I'm also going in unit this time for my PhD. So sometimes I'm not as visible as possible, but we have volunteers in the organization who have been trained to support, but we also sign post people to organizations that can help where we cannot help. So that's where we are at at the moment. We do some work in Uganda as well, in terms of working in with schools. Schools are a big thing at the moment in Uganda. In terms of substance abuse, we are beginning to see suicide in schools. I think the youngest child who committed suicide recently was 10 years old in a boarding school. So it's becoming prevalent in Uganda as well that these things need to be talked about. So we're linking with schools. And we do sessions with schools. We have two therapists who work in Uganda at the moment who are trained and they get referrals that we help with. One is Dr. Paul Walulia. So he does some work with young people and does a lot of TV shows to educate the community about mental health and well-being. So that's where we are as a charity.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

I love what you're doing, Musawa Justin. I really appreciate what you do in the community, both here and in Uganda. And especially given that you work with this or you deal with this at a grassroot level, grass level before it even escalates to this being problematic. So this is a beautiful thing you're doing. And for anyone listening, if you want to reach out, even if you just type in Mosawa Justin in Google, you'll find her. It's very, very easy to connect with her. She has a YouTube channel and uh she does a lot of educative work there. And the website is uh CPH Mind Body and Soul. Is it dot co.uk?org.uk.org.uk and you can reach out to me as well or wherever you listen this from, you can reach out and I'll be glad to connect you with Musawa Justin. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you so much, Musao Justin, for sharing your beautiful work with us and for what you do in the community as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

Any fine words? No, thank you for having me. I think I always say to people that when you think about health, think mental health. Because there is no health without mental health. Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Thank you. And everyone listening, thank you so much. Until next time, be nice.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Thank you for tuning in to the latest episode of the Be Nice Show. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Store, Spotify for the latest show. Or visit www.sterabenice.co.uk forward slash podcast. Stay tuned for the next episode. Be nice.