The Thursday Tribune Series
Every Thursday, the Asido Foundation shares fresh perspectives, educational insights, and reflections on mental health through a nationally syndicated column in the Nigerian Tribune. Explore our archive of articles that shape conversations and challenge stigma.
Showing 1 - 10 of 224 articles
Mental Health Challenges of “That Time of the Month” for Women
April 23, 2026
Tola is a 29-year-old banker in Lagos. For most of the month, she is calm, efficient, and well-liked at work. But about a week before her period, everything changes. She becomes intensely irritable. Small things like a delayed email or traffic can trigger disproportionate anger. She snaps at her colleagues, avoids calls from friends, and withdraws from her fiancé. Last month, she almost resigned from her job after a disagreement with her Manager. Three days later, after her period started, she couldn’t understand why she had reacted so strongly. She felt embarrassed and ashamed, apologizing repeatedly to everyone she had hurt. This pattern has repeated itself for years. Tola has been told she is “overreacting,” “too emotional,” or simply being difficult. She has tried to “be stronger,” to pray more, to ignore it, but every month, the same overwhelming emotional storm returns.
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Caregiver Burnout: Protecting Your Mental Health While Caring for Others
April 15, 2026
Aunty Beatrice has been caring for her aged mother with dementia for four years, after they realised that she could no longer live alone. She also works part-time (from home now, after being fired from her office job for too many absences), manages her own household, cares for her teenage children, and somehow finds time to be the family member everyone calls when they need something.
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Menopause and Mental Health: The Transition Nobody Prepares You For
April 9, 2026
Hajia Laraba is 51 years old. For the past two years, she's been crying at random moments, while cooking, and in the middle of work meetings. She forgets words in mid-sentence, names of people she's known for years, and where she placed her phone five minutes ago. She wakes at 3 AM drenched in sweat, heart racing with inexplicable panic. Some days, she's so angry she wants to scream at everyone. Other days she feels empty, like she's disappearing. She has been moody. Her family thinks she’s losing it and might be under spiritual attack by jinns.
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Understanding Bipolar Disorder
April 2, 2026
Femi has started and lost two businesses due to untreated bipolar disorder. During manic episodes, he would start ambitious new ventures, work long hours, make deals without proper vetting, and believe he is destined for greatness. When his depressive episodes start, he would stay in bed for weeks, contemplate suicide, stop picking up calls or responding to messages and eventually lose the business he had started. This has become a recurring cycle for him. His family members assumed he was simply irresponsible, as he seemed to be talking normally and they didn’t see anything amiss other than his ‘bad behaviour and laziness”.
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International Women’s Day: Self-care for a Nigerian Woman
March 19, 2026
Bisi wakes at 4 AM to prepare breakfast for her husband and three children. She gets everyone ready, drops the kids at school, rushes to her office job where she works until 5 PM, picks up the children, supervises homework, cooks dinner, cleans the kitchen, helps her mother-in-law with her medication, responds to family WhatsApp messages asking for money, prays, and collapses into bed at midnight. On weekends, she does market runs, cooks for the week ahead and stores in the deep freezer, does laundry, attends church, visits family, and handles everyone's needs.
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Running a Business and Your Mental Health
March 12, 2026
Ayomide is a fashion designer in Osogbo who has been experiencing erratic NEPA supply. The increase in fuel prices has reduced his profits as he must use the generator to meet customers’ demands. The harsh economy has resulted in fewer people sewing clothes. He has not yet paid the rent of his shop and still owed money for clothing materials he bought on credit. He was recently arrested by the police after he couldn’t deliver a customer’s clothes on time for an event because there was no light and he didn’t have money to fuel the generator. He is extremely frustrated with the situation of business, despite working very hard and being skillful as a tailor. He now has panic attacks every time his phone rings for fear it might be a creditor.
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Not a Trend: Suicide and Self-harm as Critical Health Issues
March 5, 2026
Recently, on social media, there is a trend of bleach products being used for personal harm purposes. People are making fake designs of the product in different flavours for consumption. Many people are even advertising the use of the product for suicide purposes. This trend, rooted in stigma, makes mockery of mental health distress and a dire situation. It is extremely sad that it is happening in the week for Self-Injury/Harm Awareness. Instead of spreading awareness and educating people against self-harm, this trend is unfortunately encouraging through ridiculous skits and antics on social media. The use of chemical substances for self-harm is not new but this trend of using suicide as a prank is new and dangerous.
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Mental Health in a Fragmented World: Global Challenges and Individual Realities
February 26, 2026
Ayomide is a 45-year-old man living in Nigeria who was recently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The symptoms began when he was kidnapped for two days while travelling in a public transport vehicle. The time he spent in captivity was some of the most devastating hours of his life. He has become hypervigilant and is now scared of public transportation. The anxiety and PTSD has significantly negatively impacted his quality of life and he struggles to interact with strangers.
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The Future of Mental Health in Nigeria: Innovations, Community, Inclusion, and Collaboration
February 19, 2026
According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people globally live with a mental health condition. Mental disorders make up 10% of the global burden of disease. Mental illness, suicide, and drug abuse continue to increase globally, with a higher level of increase in youthful countries like Nigeria. In Nigeria, over 50 million Nigerians are at risk of developing a mental health condition. Despite this increasing burden of mental illness in Nigeria, only 3% of the total health budget is allocated to mental health, and this amount is often not disbursed. Many people living with mental illness continue to hide, are chained, or face stigmatization due to ignorance and lack of access to mental healthcare.
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Safe Internet Use and Emotional Wellbeing
February 12, 2026
Akinade has been scrolling on his phone for the past few hours. During this time, he burnt his food and forgot to take in his laundry before the rain started. When his roommate asked him how his day had been, he couldn’t reply because he had spent most of the day watching aimless videos on the internet. He reflects about his recent struggles with internet use and his inability to control his use and knows he is in trouble. But he shakes it off and tells himself it is not such a big deal.
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