Stella Damasus Reveals How the Loss of Her First Husband, Jaiye Aboderin, Took It’s Toll On Her Mental Health

Actress Stella Damasus in an Instagram live chat yesterday, reveal how the death of her first husband Jaiye Aboderin, took it’s toll on her mental health.

According to Damasus, who is now happily married to movie director and actress, Doris Simeon’s ex husband, Daniel Ademinokan, she was 26 years old at the time and was very broke. She was later chased out of their rented apartment in Lekki.

With two children to cater for, she said she was forced to resume work some months after the death of her hubby and what she got in return was the media putting her down.

Read below…

“I went through my own share of depression but what saved me and how did I get out of it?: It was God and the Bible that I held onto my chest.

My mother looked at me and said, “No matter how long I stay with and pet you and tell you sorry; the only comfort that you can have in your spirit and in your soul that will take over your spiritual and mental is to hold on to your Bible. Hold on to God and He in the spirit will comfort you.

I held my Bible like this (placing hands on her chest) and I was going to church. I thank God for the friends that were very close to me, that stayed with me through. Thank God for Benna, Thank God for Kate Henshaw. Thank God for my children.

Thank God for my sisters. My sisters took it in turn to stay in my house for months. You know why? They were worried…What if this girl decides to do something to herself because the pain is too much.

What if this girl decides to do something to herself because even though she’s going through this, the media are just bashing and doing their own.

People are saying their own…This is happening, I was BROKE! We have just invested all our money in a business that he was doing. Because he was travelling to South Africa and Back. I WAS BROKE!! With Two Children at 26, living in a rented house in Lekki.

I was kicked out of my home. I had to find another house. I had to move my two children. I had to look for a way to pay their school fees.

Not up to a year after the demise of her hubby, Stella resumed work in order to cater for her children’s needs. Quoting how people slammed, she continued;

”And when I started trying to work to take care of my children, I was bashed again.”

”She didn’t even mourn up to a YEAR. She didn’t even mourn, she didn’t even cry enough she started working again” as if anybody was feeding my children.

But nobody knew what it took from me to be inside my home alone and wondering “God what is this”… Why did you take him? And why are people saying this? Why are they doing this? Don’t they understand how painful it is? Coming out became a problem, going out and speaking to anyone became a problem.

But you know what, in all of that…I valued my life because God gave me the life and He has not ended it. I looked at my children, I valued my children. I said I can’t leave my children.
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I looked at my parents, I looked at my siblings. I said, “For nothing else for the fact that I have a family who have my back and I friends- VERY FEW FRIENDS! Who will say, you know what, “I go stay your side.”

My Bible put me through. But we didn’t know at that time that there’s something called “Grace Counselling”. Or there is something called a therapist. Because when you say you are going to see a therapist or a psychologist in Naija, it means, ahh you don dey craze”, “Oh Yabaleft, “Oh mentally unstable.

It is not what it is. We need to be mentally healthy. The earlier we stopped putting stigma to all these things the better because this is crap. This is Crap. Let’s stop saying, Mental case is not in the African race.

People abuse drugs and sleep meds even entertainers just to sleep or calm themselves. At a time their body gets used to it and they want to increase their dosage and knowing that their doctors will say no, they increase it by themselves. It’s not good. I do mental check up.

And I no dey shame to talk am. I sit with people and talk about my mood and how I’m feeling to make sure that I’m okay. Before person go craze you no go know.

Let’s stop doing ‘It’s not in the African setting’, as if mental health choose Race. You think say na only Oyibo mental health dey affect. You have got another thing coming.”

Stella lost her first husband and father of his two children in 2004. After his demise, she married one Emeka Nzeribe in 2009, but the marriage crashed after 9 months due to domestic violence.