In Zenia, a Novella of Triumph over shadows, Sedami deepens study of mental health

Book: Zenia, A Novella of Triumph Over shadows
Author: Segunoke Temiloluwa Sedami
Publisher: International Publishers Limited
Year: 2023

Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world that humans live in.

Research findings show that mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mental health is more than the absence of mental disorders. It exists on a complex continuum, which is experienced differently from one person to the next, with varying degrees of difficulty and distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes.

“Mental health conditions include mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities as well as other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in functioning, or risk of self-harm. People with mental health conditions are more likely to experience lower levels of mental well-being, but this is not always or necessarily the case,” the organisation says.

It adds that throughout human lives, multiple individual, social and structural determinants may combine to protect or undermine mental health and shift position on the mental health continuum.

“Individual psychological and biological factors such as emotional skills, substance use and genetics can make people more vulnerable to mental health problems. Exposure to unfavourable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental circumstances – including poverty, violence, inequality and environmental deprivation – also increases people’s risk of experiencing mental health conditions.”

In Zenia, A Novella of Triumph Over shadows, the author, a graduate of Biochemistry, takes the reader through the life of Lola. Her family is the eye of the camera through which all the events are seen. However, a chain of unfortunate events, every member of the family is left dead, except Lola, who must now comprehend this mysterious event.

In a series of events and using different characters, the author interrogates mental health. The author creates an awareness of this condition. She looks at Schizophrenia as a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, extremely disordered thinking, and behaviour that impairs daily activities.

For the author, “children in different homes are abused, degraded, and subjected to all manner of horror if they don’t fit society’s idea of normal. Ignorance and blind religion have eaten deep into Nigeria’s society and is responsible for most of our problems today. Child marriage, terrorism, so-called prophets, and oracles that are able to cure mad people or make people rich in heartbeat. In some cases, people know the truth but find it expedient to believe a lie. So, they cling to it.”

In the over 96 pages, the author deepens societal knowledge of mental health. She says, “it was easy to tell my story now. I moved abroad with my uncle to receive treatment at a specialist psychiatric hospital, after playing him the recording of Aunty Jade’s crime, he took my aunt and his thieving lawyer to court. However, for the sake of my cousins he left out the part about murder, so they wouldn’t lose their mother to death penalty or life imprisonment. They went to stay with relatives on their dad’s side until everything was resolved. Uncle Murewa promised to sponsor their education. Kate gave me her parents’ phone number and I tried to call to keep in touch. Mr. Femi was greatly rewarded for his help too. A year and half has gone by without me seeing Zenia. I have kept to my medication, and I feel better. My hair has grown back, and I don’t look bald anymore. The scars inflicted on both my heart and body, however, seemed to follow me everywhere I go, andI only found freedom when I created a forum to talk.” Sedami is the founder of African Network for Genetics Governance, Engineering and Education.