This TED Talk features mental health advocate, Satawa Wafula, recorded live at Ted Navrobi Idea Search 2017.

I have a confession. I have been in an affair since I was 17 years old. I wish I could talk about

butterflies in my stomach or maps I drew on the ground when I think about this affair, but I cannot.

I wish I could talk about sweet words spoken or gifts that I received from this affair, but I cannot.

All I can tell you about is the aftermath. About days I spent constantly asking,

why, why, why me?

I remember how it all began.

I was in my final year of high school,

and my class had just won in the spot.

So we were singing and dancing and hugging each other.

I went and took a shower, then I went for dinner.

And when I sat down to it, my teeth started chattering.

And so I couldn't put the spoon in my mouth. And I rushed to the

nurse's office. And because I couldn't talk, I just pointed at my mouth. And she didn't know what

was happening. So she told me to lie down. And it worked. After a few minutes, the chattering stopped,

and I was about to dash out.

And she told me, she insisted that I go up to the dormitories to sleep.

Here I was in my final year of high school, just a few months from doing my end of high school exams,

and a few days from doing a set of exams

we call here in Kenya MOOCs, which are somehow meant to gauge how prepared one is for the final

exams. There is no way I was going to sleep and let a set of exams mock me. I went to class, sat down, took my Kenyan history notes,

and there I was down Kenyan coastal town with the great Makate Lili Wamenza, the Grima woman

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