Ike Anya recalls the first case of post-partum depression he treated in Nigeria:
In spite of our psychiatry lectures and placements, the hours spent in the wards and outpatient clinics at the psychiatric hospital in Enugu, many of my classmates, myself included, still look at depression as a largely Western illness. The few cases that we have seen in the clinics in Nigeria have been mostly among the relatively affluent, and so we imagine that it is a luxury for those who can afford to ignore their more pressing immediate problems – what to eat and how to keep a roof over their heads – to indulge in afflictions of the mood.
And so I probe a little more, asking more questions, trying to disprove the evidence of my own eyes. How, I wonder, can a young woman who has grown up in this harsh environment, waking up early to fetch water, cook, clean, farm till late in the day, be suffering from depression?
The Dish 