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In the world currently we have what I call unknowing mental downers now who are these people? These are the people that are unaware of your mental, physical or psychological well-being but they criticise you for how you look, how you behave and even blame you for being a mess, not being up to par or psychologically capable of handling your life, business, school or life's social activities. These people exists as our friends, bosses, classmates, family friends and even colleagues and associates. I remember When the late Chadwick Boseman uploaded a picture on Instagram shortly before his death he looked entirely different from the guy how acted black panther and he was looking emaciated and slim and people began wagging their tongues and criticising the actor for how he looked.

Boseman was fighting Cancer but then kept it a close secret. For him to have kept it a secret was because he was a fighter, it could have been easier for him to speak out and have the sympathy of people and then no one would be surprised with how he looked. But then sometimes when you look at the world we have what we call the unknowing mental downers everywhere they fail to read through your struggles or laud your strength as you hold on to life. They do not see your pain because you haven't been vocal with how much you're going through in life and at the first chance they get they slander you for making ethical mistakes, they fail to promote you because you haven't been 100% efficient they look at your life and they see is weakness they fail to see that strength that has taken you thus far.

Now one of the reason why I call them "unknowing" is because they chose not to see through your pain and fail to completely miss out on how their assertions or criticism hurts you. They're judgemental based on what they see. The human body is just a cocoon that hides what we truly are. Some people go through abuse on daily basis but covers the scars with their clothes and smiles, some people have health conditions that makes them show incompleteness, makes them fail to realise their total potential. But these unknowing mental downers do not see through the mist. Some of the people we see everyday are suffering in silence and then they appear for work, show up for community services and sometimes they get harsh criticism for looking unkempt, being unsteady and looking different from how they used to be.

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One thing is that when people are suffering but choose to keep quiet about it that's showcasing mental strength of the highest order. It's Often difficult to hide pain and move on with life this is because no matter how we hide our pain and what we're going through, it often reflects in our cognitive abilities, it reflects in our physical appearances and in our mental abilities to handle the strenuousness of life and this is how mental downers have the opportunities to criticize us. No matter how strong we are. The more we try to keep out people from seeing our wounds and scars the more we are exposing ourselves to tongue lashing, backbiting, criticism and harsh assertions or remarks. It's often easier to tell people what we're going through but then when we don't we are having two burdens; one keeping up appearances and trying to be at lot usual or regular best.

Nevertheless our pain is like our shadows we can't hide it, we often pray and hope that sometimes people see through our struggles rather than us telling them we want them to see our coping skills and abilities to hold on but because they mostly chose to be blind they'll rather chose to see the manifestation of our pain rather than our perseverance to curtail, bear or hold these pain. These are the people i call "unknowing mental downers". These people are the reasons why we have high rates of sucide, their inability to understand the circumstances that sorrounds the incompleteness of people is why it becomes difficult for a person passing through problems to see the need to persevere and live on.

In essence we might even be psychological downers without knowing it that's why we should try to see through the strength of people, we have to ask "inner questions", we need to get people to tell us why they've been below par, when we suddenly see changes in people it could be life changing experience like cancer, accidents, mental health issues, rape, serious health challenges, abuse and not drugs or whatever the assertions or opinion might be. It's essential to rid the world of fellow inflicted suffering and this is where we must deem it necessary or impertinent for us to change.

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My name is Joseph Ikechukwu, I'm a young Nigerian Psychologist and this is my first post here

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Originally on my blog here