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By Simeon Mpamugoh
Konyere Adiele-Uzoma is the Chief Executive Officer of AZU-ERI Mental Health Advocacy Foundation. A UK-based Barrister-at-Law and a doctorate degree holder in Peace and Conflict Resolution, Adiele-Uzoma has remained a passionate voice in mental health advocacy.
In this e-interview, she speaks on the roots of her advocacy journey, with particular emphasis on narcissism as a personality disorder, its subtle manifestations, and the far-reaching impact toxic relationships have on families and society at large.
How did the zeal for mental health advocacy develop?
I have, quite frankly, always been interested in mental health from a very early age. Personally, it was a subject of intriguing fascination particularly as l was curious to understand why people’s behavioural patterns were so uniquely different. I was about 16 years old when l was introduced to the subject of “Nature or Nurture”, in an Anthropology class at the university. I was studying English at the time before l switched to Law. That lecture was so open sided in the sense that we were discharged to research and return with our written opinions on the topic. My founded conclusion was that “we are who we are based on the way we are raised”.
I have been through different disciplines in my lifetime. I have practised law, been a marketing officer, ran a clothing business before going back to work in the judiciary. All of those vocations hugely exposed me to a wide variety of characters. It also caused me to coil into reflection to ask myself the most basic culminated reflective question; “Who am I?”.
In all honesty, it is the quest to know why we are what we are and wanting to create awareness about the impact of raising a child in toxicity, that led me to be interested in the subject of mental health.
What personal or family experiences led to the setting up of the NGO?
My first recollection of being thrown into deep sorrow was when l lost my father. I had just turned 25 and had a whole life that I had envisaged and modelled solely around him. He was the first man in my life and a worthy one who taught me everything that l have built on today and so, his passing shattered and traumatised me. My mental health suffered. Then it was my sister and mother. They passed away within 20 months of each other, causing me incredible grief. At the time, mental health outreaches were hardly available.
By the time of my sister’s passing in 2011, there had been moderate comparisons and studies which directly linked stress to one of the causes of cancer. Back in the day, linking stress to cancer was simply not what many people were audaciously prepared to accept. As a matter of fact, at the time, people were more consumed with not voicing out their relatives cause of death as being cancer because of the stigma that was associated with the disease. More recent studies have definitively confirmed that there is a very strong link between most major life-changing diseases to stress.
Last year, one of my closest friends of over 23 years passed away, with her lips almost firmly sealed with the secrets she took away to her beneath current abode. I would later discover that she went through enormous stress in her personal life, just like my late sister did.
What l am strenuously trying to portray is that the gravity of the impact of living in toxicity, does cause stress which can lead to terminal diseases. I look back now and recognise that l was only operating from a totally uninformed perspective of the actual impacts and consequences of residing within a toxic setting. I also now know that it is the acceptance of the bleakness of a situation that leads to what psychologists call “trauma bonding”. Trauma bonding essentially means being so conditioned to toxicity that one’s brain is actually forced to normalise the addiction of the trauma that comes with it.
Azu-Eri is committed to creating awareness of the importance of choosing oneself over stress which essentially means choosing “mind over matter”. We recognize that there needs to be an in-depth radicalisation of the subject of mental health in order to empower a generation of victims of abuse to speak out.
You have been a frontline advocate of nurturing a society with the awareness of narcissism, as you believe that education will lessen a population of nascists. What are the dangers of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), with regards to their impact on a family, leadership and society in general?
It is, indeed, inherently important to first understand that by creating and spreading awareness of the mental health illness of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), one is standing up to the cultural, religious and societal norms that are so intricately entwined and designed to systematically deny the existence of the impact of abuse. The denial is of such depth that even victims choose not to recognise their own abuse or the negative impact that it has on their daily behavioural patterns. Research has shown that most abusers, in our society, are all products of toxic nurturing, thus creating a revolving impact.
One of the impacts of being raised in extreme neglecting and abusive settings is the palpable high risk of developing Narcissism. Narcissism, at its core, destroys not just the lives of its sufferers but also the lives of people, especially the lives of those closest to them i.e their romantic partners and/or children. Many people have asked me what narcissism is. Although not the question that you have asked, l believe it is only right to give a concise insight into what it is in order to understand the essence of Azu-Eri’s campaign to break the causation of narcissism.
I must say that it is not what the average most intelligent member of society thinks it is. Most people really do think that it simply means “being arrogant and too full of oneself”, but it is not. There are two types of narcissism which is known as the “overt” and the “covert” but for the benefit of space, l would be focusing on the explanation of narcissism, as a whole.
Narcissism is scientifically known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is a form of mental illness that is caused by the extreme abuse or neglect of a child by its primary caregiver. Primary caregivers, in this context, include parents. Extreme abuse forces a child to emotionally escape into retreat, as a coping mechanism to endure cruelty. Abuse, in this context, includes physical, emotional and verbal abuse. Narcissism destroys a child’s primary sense of trust, safety, and above all, self. This, in turn, creates an incompetence to form emotional or empathetic connections with anyone, throughout their lifetime. NPD sufferers are essentially victims of childhood trauma and its accompanying traits worsen over a sustained period of time.
There are nine negative character traits of NPD, one of which is their inability to have feelings towards others and even themselves. They are also completely desensitised humans and are compellingly incapable of feeling any sense of pain or remorse for the absolute anguish they inflict on people. Whilst all narcissists lack empathy, emotion and emotional intelligence, it is important to recognise that their actions are primarily based on the way they have perceived life and subsequently trained their brains to respond to this perception. In other words, it is the sustained trauma that they had to endure in childhood that re-created them into this grotesque version of themselves that society is now forced to live with.
At the epicentre of narcissism is a compulsive need to control. We need to remember that these are individuals who were powerless as children and were, therefore, incapable of controlling or opposing their abuse. The resultant effect, in adulthood, is an obsessive need to control, having once never been able to be in control of their own fate.
My NGO is truly most focused on the issue of dealing with the root causes of narcissism and ridding our society of it. This is, principally, because of the heartbreak and pain that narcissists leave in their trails. As narcissism is caused by the toxic choices of caregivers, there needs to be an awareness of the impact of those choices.
The effect of trauma on a child’s brain is scientifically irreversible and this is why Azu-Eri is persuasively passionate and committed to ensuring that education becomes key in preventing the development of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in our children. Through campaigns and workshops, Azu-Eri breathes to break the causation by equipping parents and caregivers with healthier options of parenting so that children will never be raised in conditions that would ever make them question their own self-worth as human beings.
An absolute compelling state of worthlessness is exactly what narcissism creates in its sufferers and it is sad to note that nothing is ever capable of erasing this ingrained feeling. The nature of the Illness comes with reinforced cords of an extreme sense of low self-esteem, inability to emotionally connect or trust anyone, a constant fear of abandonment and an extreme desire to control and inflict pain on anyone. Ultimately, it is the society closest to them that suffers the brunt and wrath of the atrocities of their behaviour. NPD is, indeed, the reason why Azu-Eri exists; to attack the root causes of the illness and routing parents to healthier parenting patterns.
On a final note, what are the core values of the NGO?
We have a lot of them. But the major one is: discovering self worth. Our foundation is set up for everyone, inclusive of young men and women, girls, boys and adults to discover their self worth. We empower people to put them in a better position where they can take the mission and vision for the organisation to new level, and to be main advocate in their own domain so as to change the cultural bias. We value working with people who speak out against abuse. We know that men are traditionally made to believe that speaking out is feminine, which is why they suffer most when it comes to mental health. And they have the highest cases of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and suicides.
