ON my way to one of my final examinations yesterday, I was met with the message that one of my cousins had committed suicide in Trinidad. He was 29-years-old when he died. For almost his entire life he had struggled with things darker than himself. I did not know him that well. If my memory serves me right, I believe I met him maybe only four times in my life. What I did know well however, was his story. He was someone who for most of his life was considered ‘troubled.’ No one could understand how he can go from normalcy at one point into severe depression and bouts of erraticism the next.

One time, he was admitted to the Berbice Psychiatric Hospital. I had heard many things then that I did not quite understand. A few family members and friends were angry he was in there, not because of the condition of the place or even because of its lack of proper treatment. They were concerned about how it looked. He was a smart young black man who should not be having those kinds of problems. As if mental illness is concerned about the shade and potential of its victims.

I asked my cousin whether anyone knew why he had killed himself and whether he had still been troubling from depression. She was unsure, but said that, “he always used to run off.” Stigma concerning mental illness is very prevalent in Guyana because, as a superstitious people, mental illness is often seen as not illness in of itself, but rather, symptoms of witchcraft or ‘demons.’

Mental illness was not a strange occurrence in the family and he also dabbled in hard drugs. It was when he started experimenting with cocaine that his issues seemed to be further exacerbated. Because now, he was not only mentally ill, he also had to face the stigma that came towards him because of his drug addiction.
This death has caused me to consider my own mental health. Since my brief but crippling experience with a depression that left me feeling suicidal for many days, I’ve worried about it. I no longer feel suicidal, but there are dark days and often, all it takes is a couple of dark days.
The general air of flurry to help curb mental illness and stop suicide that was present just a year ago seems to have gone once again. I’m not surprised, just disappointed that our attention to this issue only comes around in cycles. There are of course many Non-Governmental Organizations doing tremendous work across the country, but if the Government is serious about addressing mental health, they need to stop with the sporadic treatment of suicide and actually have sustained dialogue and initiatives.

The truth is, we may never be able to eradicate suicide. It is a complex issue and even if one does everything right, mental illness is an incredibly hard thing to live with and persons will invariably fall through the cracks. This does not mean we should be weary of trying because often, people are crying out for help.
We need to work on the attitudes we have towards the mentally ill and suicides. Too often I hear phrases concerning mental illness such as, “that is white people stupidness.”

When and where did we buy into the theory that mental illness was only a Caucasian problem? We have a similar thing here too when it comes to race. Suicide is painted as the Indian’s way out of life and I have seen surprise on the faces of many when they were told that ‘black’ people had killed themselves. Fear of the unknown is understandable, but that fear should never cause you to castigate or abandon someone in need of your help to save them from themselves.