Shrouded in a murky atmosphere of negligence, mental illnesses walk hand in hand with a word Egyptians are quite intimate with: stigma. In fact, Egyptians are extremely terrorized by psychological sicknesses to the extent that AlAbbasiya’s Mental Health Hospital served as the perfect setting to one of Egypt’s best-selling horror novels, Alfil Alazraq (The Blue Elephant) by Ahmed Mourad. The roots of the stigmatization are embedded so deeply into our society that digging them out is almost a utopian dream. We may binge watch 13 Reasons Why and use the phrase “enta etganent? (Have you gone mad?)” on a daily basis, but we are in no way educated enough about mental health issues and their dangers. Frankly, it seems like illnesses such as schizophrenia and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are mostly utilized to create layered, captivating fictional characters that are worthy of an audience’s attention. But with the fictionalization of our minds’ vulnerabilities, are we subconsciously forgetting that mental illnesses aren’t fictional at all? And why is the term mentally ill associated with an irrational fear amongst numerous Egyptians? With ignorance prevailing in Egyptian society, the fear and negligence…
Egypt’s Favorite F Word Is Fear: The Art of Shying Away from Mental Health Awareness
May 29, 2018
